The Belgrade plotters did not lay down their arms and, together with their agent in our Party, the traitor Koçi Xoxe, continued the re-organization of their plot against new Albania in other forms, new forms[5]. Their intention was to turn Albania into a seventh Republic of Yugoslavia.
At a time when our country had been devasted and laid waste and needed to be completely rebuilt, when our people were without food and shelter but with high morale, when our people and army, weapons in hand, kept vigilant guard against the plots of reaction organized by the Anglo-U.S. military missions who threatened Albania with a new invasion, when a large part of the Albanian partisan army had crossed the border and had gone to the aid of the Yugoslav brothers, fighting side by side with them and together liberating Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosova and Metohia and Macedonia, the Belgrade plotters hatched up schemes to enslave Albania.
But our Party offered heroic resistance to these secret agents who posed as communists. When the Belgrade Trotskyites realized that they had lost their case, that our Party was smashing their plots, they played their last card, namely, to invade Albania with their army, to crush all resistance, to arrest the leaders of the Party of Labor of Albania
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and of the Albanian State and to proclaim Albania a seventh Republic of Yugoslavia. Our Party defeated this diabolic scheme of theirs also. Joseph Stalin's aid and intervention at these moments was decisive for our Party and for the freedom of the Albanian people. Precisely at this time the Information Bureau exposed the Tito clique. Stalin and the Soviet Union saved the Albanian people for the second time.
The Information Bureau brought about the defeat of the conspiracies of the Tito clique, not only in Albania but also in other countries of People's Democracy. Posing as communists, the renegade and agent of imperialism, Tito, and his gang, tried to alienate the countries of People's Democracy in the Balkans and Central Europe from the friendship and wartime alliance with the Soviet Union, to destroy the communist and workers' parties of our countries and to turn our States into reserves of Anglo-American imperialism.
Who was there who did not know about and see in action the hostile schemes of imperialism and its loyal servitor Tito? Everybody knew, everybody learned, and all unanimously approved the correct decisions of the Information Bureau. Everyone without exception approved the Resolutions of the Information Bureau which, in our opinion, were and still are correct.
Those who did not want to see and understand these acts of this criminal gang had a second chance to do so in the Hungarian counter-revolution and in the unceasing plots against Albania. The wolf
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may change his coat but he remains a wolf. Tito and his gang may resort to trickery, may try to disguise themselves, but they are traitors, criminals and agents of imperialism. They are the murderers of the heroic Yugoslav internationalist communists and thus they will remain and thus they will act until they are wiped out.
The Party of Labor of Albania considers the decisions taken against Tito's renegade group by the Information Bureau not as decisions taken by comrade Stalin personally but as decisions taken by all the parties that made up the Information Bureau. And not only by these parties alone but also by the communist and workers' parties which did not take part in the Information Bureau. Since this was a matter that concerned all the communist and workers' parties, it also concerned the Party of Labor of Albania which, having received and studied a copy of the letter comrades Stalin and Molotov had written to the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party, endorsed in full both the letter and the decisions of the Information Bureau.
Why then was the <<change of attitude>> towards the Yugoslav revisionists, adopted by comrade Khrushchev and the Central Committee of the Soviet Union in 1955, not made an issue for consultation in the normal way with the other communist and workers' parties, but was conceived and carried out so hastily and in a unilateral way? This was a matter that concerned us all. The Yugoslav revisionists had either opposed Marxism-Leninism
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and the communist and workers' parties of the world or they had not; either they were wrong, or we, not only Stalin, had erred against them. It was not up to comrade Khrushchev to settle this affair at his own discretion. But in fact, that is what he did and this change of attitude in the relations with the Yugoslav revisionists is connected with his visit to Belgrade. This was a bomb shell to the Party of Labor of Albania which immediately opposed it categorically. Before comrade Khrushchev set out for Belgrade in May 1955, the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in which it expressed the opposition of our Party to his going to Belgrade, stressing that the Yugoslav issue could not be settled in a unilateral way but that a meeting of the Information Bureau should be called to which it asked that the Party of Labor of Albania also should be invited. It is there that this matter should have been settled after a correct and lengthy discussion.
Of course, formally we had no right to decide whether comrade Khrushchev should or should not go to Belgrade, and we backed down on this, but in essence we were right, and time has confirmed that the Yugoslav issue should not be settled in this precipitate way.
The slogan of <<overriding interests>> was launched, the second Resolution of the Information' Bureau was speedily revoked, the <<epoch of reconciliation>> with <<the Yugoslav comrades>> began, the
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conspirators, wherever they were, were re-examined and re-habilitated and <<the Yugoslav comrades>> came off unscathed, strutted like peacocks trumpeted abroad that their <<just cause>> had triumphed, that the <<criminal Stalin>> had trumped up all these things and a situation was created under which whoever refused to take this course was dubbed as a <<Stalinist>> who should be done away with.
Our Party refused to take such a conciliatory and opportunist course. It stood fast on correct Marxist-Leninist ideological grounds, fighting the Yugoslav revisionists ideologically and politically. The Party of Labor of Albania remained unshaken in its views that the Titoite group were traitors, renegades, Trotskyites, subversionists and agents of the U.S. imperialists, that the Party of Labor of Albania had not been mistaken about them.
The Party of Labor of Albania remained unshaken in its view that comrade Stalin had not erred in this matter, that, by pursuing their treacherous line, the revisionists had attempted to enslave Albania and, through hatching up a number of international plots with the Anglo-American imperialists, they had tried to plunge Albania into international conflicts.
On the other hand, the Party of Labor of Albania was in favor of establishing state relations of good neighborliness, trade and cultural relations with the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia provided that the norms of peaceful co-existence between states of different regimes were observed,
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because as far as the Party of Labor of Albania is concerned, Titoite Yugoslavia has not been, is not, and will never be a socialist country so long as it is headed by a group of renegades and agents of imperialism.
No open or disguised attempt will make the Party of Labor of Albania turn from this correct stand. It was futile for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to try to persuade us through comrade Suslov to eliminate the question of Koçi Xoxe from the Report submitted at our 3rd Congress in May 1956, for that would mean negating our struggle and our principled stand.
In Albania, the Titoite saw struck a nail, or, as Tito says, <<Albania was a thorn in his flesh>> and, of course, the treacherous Titoite group continued their battle against the Party of Labor of Albania, thinking that they were exposing us by dubbing us <<Stalinists>>.
The Belgrade group did not confine their fight against us to propaganda alone but they continued their espionage, subversion, plots, dispatching armed bands into our country more intensively than in 1948. These are all facts. But the tragedy is that, while the Party of Labor of Albania mounted guard against the bitter and repeated attacks by the Yugoslav revisionists, its unshaken, principled, Marxist-Leninist stand was in opposition to the conciliatory stand of the Soviet leaders and of certain other communist and workers' parties towards the Yugoslav revisionists.
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Then it was loudly proclaimed and written that <<Yugoslavia is a socialist country and this is a fact>>, that <<the Yugoslav communists possess a great experience and great merits>>, that <<the Yugoslav experience deserves greater interest and more attentive study>>, that <<the period of disputes and misunderstandings is not due to Yugoslavia>> and that <<great injustice had been done to it>>, and so on and so forth. This, of course, gave heart to Tito's clique who thought they had won everything except that there was still that <<thorn in their flesh>>, which they thought of isolating and then liquidating. But not only could our Party not be isolated, much less liquidated, but time proved that the views of our Party were correct.
Much pressure has been exerted on our Party over this stand. The Albanian leaders were considered <<hot-blooded>> and <<stubborn>>, <<exaggerating>> matters with Yugoslavia, unjustly harassing the Yugoslavs, etc. The attack against our Party in this direction has been led by Comrade Khrushchev.
So far, I have mentioned in brief what the Yugoslav revisionists have done against our country during and after the war, after 1948, but I will dwell a little also on the events prior to the Hungarian counter-revolution which is the work of Yugoslav agents. The treacherous Belgrade group began to organize a counter-revolution in Albania also. Had our Party made the mistake of joining in the <<conciliation waltz>> with the Yugoslav revisionists as Khrushchev preached after 1955, then the people's democracy in Albania would have gone down
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the drain. We, Albanians, would not have been here in this hall but would have been still fighting in our mountains.
Firmly united by steel-like bonds, our Party and people kept their eyes wide open and discovered and unmasked Tito's spies in our Central Committee who worked in collusion with the Yugoslav Legation in Tirana. Tito sent word to these traitors, saying that they had precipitated things, that they should have waited for his orders. These spies and traitors also wrote to comrade Khrushchev to intervene against the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania. These are documented facts. Tito's intention was to coordinate the counter-revolution in Albania with that of Hungary.
Our 3rd Congress was to be held following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Yugoslav agents thought that the time had come to overthrow the <<obstinate Stalinist Albanian leadership>> and organized a plot which was discovered and crushed at the Party Conference of Tirana in April 1956. The plotters received the stern punishment they deserved.
Tito's other dangerous agents, Dali Ndreu and Liri Gega, received orders from Tito to flee to Yugoslavia for <<they were in danger and because activities against the Party of Labor were to be organized from Yugoslav territory>>. Our Party was fully aware of Tito's activity and secret orders. It was wide awake and caught the traitors right on the border when they were trying to flee. The traitors
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were brought to court and were executed. All the Yugoslav agents who were preparing the counter-revolution in Albania were detected and wiped out. To our amazement comrade Khrushchev came out against us in defense of these traitors and Yugoslav agents. He accused us of having shot the Yugoslav agent, the traitress Liri Gega, allegedly <<when she was pregnant, a thing which had not happened even at the time of the Czar, and this had made a bad impression on world opinion>>. These were slanders trumped up by the Yugoslavs in whom comrade Khrushchev had more faith than in us. We of course denied all these insinuations made by comrade Khrushchev.
But comrade Khrushchev's incorrect, unprincipled and hostile stand towards our Party and its leadership did not stop there. The other Yugoslav agent and traitor to the Party of Labor of Albania and to the Albanian people, Panajot Plaku, fled to Yugoslavia and placed himself in the service of the Yugoslavs. He organized the hostile broadcasts from the socalled <<Socialist Albania>> radio station. This traitor wrote to bandit Tito and comrade Khrushchev asking the latter to use his authority to eliminate the leadership of Albania headed by Enver Hoxha under the pretext that we were <<anti-Marxists and Stalinists>>. Far from being indignant at the letter of this traitor, comrade Khrushchev expressed the opinion that Panajot Plaku could return to Albania on condition that we do nothing to him, or he could find political asylum in the Soviet Union. We felt as if the walls of the Kremlin had
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dropped on our heads, for we could never imagine that the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union could go so far as to support Tito's agents and traitors to our Party against our Party and our people.
But the culmination of our principled opposition over the Yugoslav issue with comrade Khrushchev was reached when, faced with our principled persistence in the exposure of the Belgrade Titoite agents, he was so enraged that, during the official talks between the two delegations in April 1957, said to us angrily: <<We suspend the negotiations. We come to terms with you. You are seeking to lead us to Stalin's ways>>.
We were disgusted at such an unfriendly stand taken by comrade Khrushchev who intended to break off the talks, which would mean an aggravation of relations with the Albanian Party and State over the question of the traitors to Marxism-Leninism, the Tito group. We could never have agreed on this matter, but we, who had been accused of being hot-blooded, kept calm, for we were convinced that we were in the right, and not comrade Khrushchev, that the line we were pursuing was the correct one, and not that of comrade Khrushchev, that our line would be confirmed again by experience, as it has been confirmed many times over.
In our opinion, the counter-revolution in Hun gary was mainly the work of the Titoites. In Tito and the Belgrade renegades, the U.S. imperialists
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had their best weapon to destroy the people's democracy in Hungary.
After comrade Khrushchev's visit to Belgrade in 1955, no more was said about Tito's undermining activity. The counter-revolution in Hungary did not break out unexpectedly. It was prepared for, we might say, quite openly, and it would be futile for any one to try to convince us that this counter-revolution was prepared in great secrecy. This counter-revolution was prepared by the agents of the Tito gang in collusion with the traitor Imre Nagy, in collusion with the Hungarian fascists and all of them acted openly under the direction of the Americans.
The scheme of the Titoites, who were the leaders, was for Hungary to be detached from our socialist camp, to be turned into a second Yugoslavia, be linked in alliance with NATO through Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey, to receive aid from the U.S.A. and, together with Yugoslavia and under the direction of the imperialists, to continue the struggle against the socialist camp.
The counter-revolutionaries worked openly in Hungary. But how is it that their activities attracted no attention? We cannot understand how it is possible for Tito and Horthy's bands to work so freely in a fraternal country of People's Democracy like Hungary where the party was in power and the weapons of dictatorship were in its hands, where the Soviet army was present.
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We think that the stand taken by comrade Khrushchev and the other Soviet comrades towards Hungary was not clear, because the greatly mistaken views which they held about the Belgrade gang did not allow them to see the situation correctly.
The Soviet comrades trusted Imre Nagy, Tito's man. We do not say this for nothing or without good grounds. Before the counter-revolution broke out and when things were boiling up at the <<Petöfi Club>>, I happened to pass through Moscow, and in conversation with Comrade Suslov told him what I had seen on my way through Budapest. I told him, too, that Imre Nagy was deserting and was organizing a counter-revolution at the <<Petöfi Club>>. Comrade Suslov categorically opposed my view, and in order to prove to me that Imre Nagy was a good man, pulled out of his drawer Imre Nagy's fresh <<self-criticism>>. Nevertheless, I told Comrade Suslov that Imre Nagy was a traitor.
We wonder and pose the legitimate question: Why do Comrade Khrushchev and Soviet comrades pay frequent visits to Brioni to talk with the renegade Tito about the Hungarian events? If the Soviet comrades were cognizant of the fact that the Titoites were preparing for a counter-revolution in a country of our camp, is it permissible for the leaders of the Soviet Union to go and talk with an enemy who organizes plots and counter-revolutions in socialist countries?
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As a communist Party, as a state of People's Democracy, as a member of the Warsaw Treaty and of the socialist camp, we are justified in asking Comrade Khrushchev and the Soviet comrades why so many meetings with Tito at Brioni in 1956, with this traitor to Marxism-Leninism, and not a single meeting with our countries, not a single meeting of the members of the Warsaw Treaty? When will the members of this Warsaw Treaty meet, if not when one of our countries is in danger?
Whether to intervene or not to intervene with arms in Hungary is, we think, not within the competence of one person alone; seeing that we have set up the Warsaw Treaty, we should decide jointly, because otherwise it is of no use to speak of alliance, of the collective spirit and collaboration among the parties. The Hungarian counter-revolution cost to our camp blood, it cost Hungary and the Soviet Union blood.
Why was this bloodshed permitted and no steps taken to prevent it? We are of the opinion that no preliminary steps could be taken so long as Comrade Khrushchev and the Soviet comrades placed their trust in the organizer of the Hungarian counter-revolution, the traitor Tito, so long as they set so little value on the absolutely necessary regular meetings with their friends and allies, so long as they considered their unilateral decisions on matters that concern us all as the only correct ones, and so long as they attached no importance whatsoever to collective work and collective decisions.
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The Party of Labor of Albania is not at all clear about this matter, how things developed and what decisions were taken. At a time when the Titoites are conducting taIks at Brioni with the Soviet comrades, on the one hand, and feverishly organizing counter-revolutions in Hungary and Albania, on the other, the Soviet comrades make not the slightest effort to inform our leadership, at least as a matter of form since we are allies, on what is happening or on what measures they in tend to take. But this is not a case of formality. The Soviet comrades know only too well what the Belgrade gang thought of Albania and what intentions they cherished. In reality, not only is this stand of the Soviet comrades to be condemned but it is also incomprehensible.
Hungary was a great lesson for us, for what was done, and for the drama that was played on the stage and behind the scenes there. We believed that the Hungarian counter-revolution was more than enough to show the betrayal of Tito and his gang. We know that many documents are kept locked away and are not brought to light, documents that expose the barbarous activity of Tito's group in the Hungarian events. Why this should happen we do not understand. What interests are hidden behind these documents which are not brought to light but are kept under lock and key? To condemn Stalin after his death, the most trifling items were searched out, while the documents that expose a vile traitor like Tito are locked away in a drawer.
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But even after the Hungarian counter-revolution, the political and ideological fight against the Titoite gang, instead of becoming more intense, as Marxism-Leninism demands, was played down, leading to reconciliation, smiles, contacts, moderation and almost to kisses. In fact, thanks to this opportunist attitude, the Titoites got out of this predicament.
The Party of Labor of Albania was opposed to the line followed by Comrade Khrushchev and the other comrades towards the Yugoslav revisionists. Our Party's battle against the revisionists continued with even more fury. Many friends and comrades, particularly the Soviet and Bulgarian comrades, being unable to attack our correct line, ridiculed us, smiled, and with their friendly contacts with the Titoites, isolated our people everywhere.
We had hoped that, after the 7th Titoite Congress, even the blind, let alone the Marxists, would see with whom they were dealing and what they should do. Unfortunately, things did not turn out that way. Not long after the 7th Titoite Congress, the exposure of revisionism was toned down. The Soviet theoretical publications spoke of every kind of revisionism, even of revisionism in Honolulu, but had very little to say about Yugoslav revisionism. This is like saying: <<don't see the wolf before your eyes but look for its tracks>>. Slogans were launched: <<Don't speak any more of Tito and his gang, for that will fan their vanity>>, <<don't speak any more of Tito and his group, for that would harm
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the Yugoslav people>>, <<don't speak of the Titoite renegades, for Tito makes use of what we say to mobilize the Yugoslav peoples against our camp>>, etc. Many parties adopted these slogans while our Party did not, and we think we acted correctly.
Such a situation was created that the press of friendly countries accepted articles from Albanian writers only provided they made no mention of the Yugoslav revisionists. Everywhere in the countries of People's Democracy, except in Czechoslovakia where, in general, the Czechoslovak comrades assessed our activities correctly, our Ambassadors were isolated in a round about way, because the diplomats of friendly countries preferred to converse with the Titoite diplomats while they hated our diplomats and did not want even to set eyes on them.
And things went so far that Comrade Khrushchev made his coming to Albania in May 1959 at the head of the Soviet Party and Government Delegation conditional on the Yugoslav issue. The first thing Comrade Khrushchev said at the beginning of talks in Tirana was to inform everybody at the meeting that he would not talk against the Yugoslav revisionists, a thing which no one could compel him to do, but a statement of this kind was intended to show quite openly that he disagreed with the Party of Labor of Albania on this issue.
We respected the wishes of the guest during the whole time he stayed in Albania, regardless of the fact that the Titoite press was highly elated and did not fail to write that Khrushchev had shut
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the mouths of the Albanians. This, in fact, responded to reality, but Comrade Khrushchev was very far from persuading us on this matter and the Titoites learned that quite clearly, because after our guest's departure from our country, the Party of Labor of Albania felt no longer bound by the conditions put upon us by our guest and continued on its own Marxist-Leninist way.
In his talks with Vukmanovich Tempo, among others, Comrade Khrushchev has compared our stand, as far as its tone is concerned, with that of the Yugoslavs and has said that he did not agree with the tone of the Albanians. We consider that Comrade Khrushchev's statement to Vukmanovich Tempo, to this enemy of Marxism-Leninism, of the socialist camp and of Albania, is erroneous and should be condemned. We hold that one should get what he deserves and we, on our part, disagree with Comrade Khrushchev's conciliary tone towards the revisionists, for our people say one should speak in a harsh tone to the enemy and with honeyed tongue to the beloved.
Some comrades hold the erroneous idea that we maintain this attitude towards the Titoites because, they claim, we are allegedly eager to hold the banner of the fight against revisionism or because we view this problem from a narrow angle, from a purely national angle, therefore, they claim, we have embarked, if not altogether on a <<chauvinist course>>, at least on that of <<narrow nationalism>>. The Party of Labor of Albania has viewed and views the question of Yugoslav revisionism through
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the prism of Marxism-Leninism, it has viewed, views, and fights it as the main danger to the international communist movement, as a danger to the unity of the socialist camp.
But while being internationalists we are communist of a specific country, of Albania. We, Albanian communists, would not be called communists if we failed to defend consistently and with determination the freedom of our sacred country from the plots and diversionist attacks of Tito's revisionist clique which are aimed at the invasion of Albania, a fact which is already known to everyone. Can it be permissible for us Albanian communists to let Albania become the prey of Tito, of the U.S. imperialists, of the Greeks or of the Italians. No, never!
Some others advise us not to speak against the Yugoslavs, saying <<why are you afraid ? You are defended by the Soviet Union?>> We have told these comrades and tell them again that we are afraid neither of the Yugoslav Trotskyites nor of any one else. We have said and say it again that the Soviet Union has defended, defends and will defend us, but we are Marxist-Leninists and not for one moment should we diminish the struggle against the revisionists and imperialists until we wipe them out of existence. Because if the Soviet Union is to defend you, you must first defend yourself.
The Yugoslavs accuse us of allegedly being chauvinists, of interfering in their internal affairs, and of demanding a rectification of the Albanian
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Yugoslav borders. A number of our friends think and imply that we Albanian communists swim in such waters. We tell our friends who think thus that they are grossly mistaken. We are not chauvinists, we have neither demanded nor demand rectification of boundaries. But what we demand and will continually demand from the Titoites, and we will expose them to the end for this, is that they give up perpetrating the crime of genocide against the Albanian minority in Kosova and Metohia, that they give up the white terror against the Albanians of Kosova, that they give up driving the Albanians from their native soil and deporting them 'en masse' to Turkey. We demand that the rights of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia should be recognized according to the Constitution of the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Is this chauvinist or Marxist?
This is our attitude on these matters. But if the Titoites speak of peaceful coexistence, of peace, of good neighborly relations and, on the other hand, organize plots, an army of mercenaries and fascists in Yugoslavia for the purpose of attacking our boundaries and of chopping up socialist Albania, and sharing it with the Greek monarcho-fascists, then, we are convinced that not only the Albanians in new Albania but also the one million Albanians living under Tito's bondage will rise arms in hand to stay the hand of the criminal. And this is Marxist and, if anything happens, this is what will be done. The Party of Labor of Albania does not
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permit any one to play at politics with the rights of the Albanian people.
We do not interfere in the internal affairs of others but when, as a result of the slackening of the fight against Yugoslav revisionism, things go so far that there is published in a friendly country like Bulgaria a map of the Balkans in which Albania is included within the boundaries of Federal Yugoslavia, we cannot keep silent. We are told that this happened due to a technical error of an employee, but why had this not happened before?
But this is not an isolated case. At a meeting in Sremska Mitrovitsa, the bandit Rankovich attacked Albania as usual and called it <<a hell where barbed wire and the boots of frontier guards reign supreme>> claiming that the democracy of the Italian neofascists was more advanced than ours.
Rankovich's words would be of no significance to us, but these words were listened to with the greatest serenity by the Soviet and Bulgarian Ambassadors to Belgrade who attended this meeting, without their making the slightest protest. We protested in a comradely way over this to the Central Committees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Bulgarian Communist Party.
In his letter of reply to the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, comrade Zhivkov dared to reject our protest and call the speech of the bandit Rankovich a positive one. We could never have imagined that the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party
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could describe as positive the speech of a bandit like Rankovich who so grossly insults socialist Albania, likening it to hell. We no only reject with contempt this impermissible insult by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party but we are dead certain that the Bulgarian Communist Party and the heroic Bulgarian people would be utterly revolted if they came to hear of this. Things will not go any too well if we allow such gross mistakes towards one another.
We can never, never agree with Comrade Khrushchev and we protested to him at the time, over the talks he had with Sophocles Venizelos in connection with the Greek minority in Albania. Comrade Khrushchev is well aware that the borders of Albania are inviolable and sacred and that anyone who touches them is an aggressor. The Albanian people will fight to the last drop of their blood if any one touches their borders. Comrade Khrushchev was gravely mistaken when he told Venizelos that he had seen Greek and Albanians working together as brothers in Korsa. In Korsa, there is no Greek minority whatsoever, but there is the age-old covetousness of the Greeks for the Korsa district as for all Albania. There is a very small Greek minority in Gjirokastra. Comrade Khrushchev knows that they enjoy all the rights, use their own language, have their own churches and schools in addition to all the rights that the other Albanian citizens enjoy.
The ambitions of the Greeks, among them those
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of Sophocles Venizelos, the son of Eleftherios Venizelos who murdered Albanians and put whole districts of southern Albanian to the torch, the frenzied Greek chauvinist and father of the idea of Great Greece, aimed at cutting up Albania and annexing it under the slogan of autonomy, are very well known: Comrade Khrushchev is well aware of the attitude of the Party of Labor of Albania, of the Albanian Government and people on this question. Then, to fail to give Sophocles the answer he deserves, to permit the arousing of hopes and illusions and to say that he will transmit to the Albanian comrades the desires of a British agent, a chauvinist, this is unacceptable to us and deserves condemnation.
Comrade Khrushchev, we have given our reply to Sophocles Venizelos and we believe you have learned of this through the press. We are not opposed to your politicizing with Sophocles Venizelos but refrain from politicizing with our boundaries and our rights, for we have not allowed nor will we allow such a thing. And it is not as nationalists but as internationalists that we do this.
Some may consider these things I am telling you as out of place, as statements inappropriate to the level of this meeting. It would not have been hard for me to have put together a speech in an allegedly theoretical tone, to have spoken in generalizations and quotations, to have submitted a report in general terms in order to please you and pass my turn.
But to the Party of Labor of Albania it seems
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that this is not the occasion. What I have said may appear to some as attacks, but these are criticisms which have pursued their proper course, which have been made before, when and where necessary within Leninist norms. But seeing that one error follows another, it would be a mistake to keep silent because attitudes, deeds and practice confirm, enrich and create theory.
How quickly the Bucharest Conference was organized and how quickly the Chinese Communist Party was condemned for <<dogmatism>>! But why has a Conference to condemn revisionism not been organized at the same speed?
Has revisionism been totally exposed as the Soviet comrades claim? No, in no way whatsoever! Revisionism has been and continues to be the principal danger, Yugoslav revisionism has not been liquidated and the way we are dealing with it is leaving it a clear field for all forms of action.
And can it be said that there are no disturbing manifestations of modern revisionism in other parties? Anyone who says <<no>> is closing his eyes to this danger, and one fine day we will wake to see that unexpected things have happened to us. We are Marxists and should analyze our work just as Lenin did and taught us to do. He was not afraid of mistakes, he looked them in the eye and corrected them. This is the way the Bolshevik Party was tempered and this is the way our parties have been tempered.
But what is happening in the ranks of our parties? What is happening in our camp since the
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20th Congress? Comrade Suslov may feel optimistic, and he expressed this feeling at the October Committee meeting when he reproached the delegate of the Party of Labor of Albania, Hysni Kapo, with pessimism in observing events. We, Albanian Communists, have not been pessimistic even at the blackest moments of the history of our party and people and never will be, but we will always be realists.
Much has been said about our unity. This is essential, and we should fight to strengthen and temper it. But the fact is that on many important issues of principle we have no unity.
The Party of Labor of Albania is of the opinion that things should be re-examined in the light of a Marxist-Leninist analysis and errors should be corrected. Let us take the question of the criticism of Stalin and his work. Our Party, as a Marxist-Leninist one, is fully aware that the cult of the individual is an alien and dangerous manifestation for the parties and for the communist movement itself. Marxist parties should not only not permit the development of the cult of the individual which hampers the activity of the masses, negates their role, is at variance with the development of the life of the party and with the laws that govern it, but should also fight with might and main to uproot it when it begins to appear or has already appeared in a specific country. Looking at it from this angle, we fully agree that the cult of the individual, Stalin, should be criticized as a dangerous
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manifestation in the life of the party. But in our opinion, the 20th Congress and, especially, Comrade Khrushchev's secret report did not put the question of Comrade Stalin correctly in an objective Marxist-Leninist way.
Stalin was severely and unjustly condemned on this question by Comrade Khrushchev and the 20th Congress. Comrade Stalin and his work does not belong to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet people alone, but to us all. Just as Comrade Khrushchev said in Bucharest that the differences are not between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party but between the Chinese Communist Party and international communism, just as it pleases him to say that the decisions of the 20th and 21st Congresses were adopted by all the communist and workers' parties in the same way, he should also be magnanimous and consistent in passing judgment on Stalin's work so that the communist and workers' parties of the world could adopt it with a clear conscience.
There cannot be two yardsticks nor two measures of weight for this matter. Then, why was Comrade Stalin condemned at the 20th Congress without prior consultation with the other communist and workers' parties of the world? Why was this <<anathema>> pronounced upon Stalin all of a sudden to the communist and workers' parties of the world and why did many sister parties learn of it only when the imperialist press published Comrade Khrushchev's secret report far and wide?
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The condemnation of Comrade Stalin was imposed on the communist and progressive world by Comrade Khrushchev. What could our parties do under these circumstances, when unexpectedly, using the great authority of the Soviet Union, he imposed a matter of this kind on our bloc?
The Party of Labor of Albania found itself in a great dilemma. It was not convinced and will never be convinced on the question of condemning Comrade Stalin in that way and in those forms that Comrade Khrushchev did it. Our Party adopted, in general, the formula of the 20th Congress on this matter but, nevertheless, it dit not stick to the limitations set by the Congress nor did it yield to the blackmail and intimidation from outside our country.
The Party of Labor of Albania maintained a realistic stand on the question of Stalin. It was correct and grateful towards this glorious Marxist against whom, while he was alive, there was no one among us <<brave enough>> to come out and criticize, but when he was dead a great deal of mud was thrown, creating in this way an intolerable situation in which a whole glorious epoch of the Soviet Union when the first socialist State in the world was set up, when the Soviet Union waxed strong, successfully defeated the imperialist plots, crushed the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and the kulaks as a class, when the construction of heavy industry and collectivization triumphed, in a word, when the Soviet Union became a colossal
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power succeeding in building socialism, when it fought the Second World War with legendary heroism and defeated fascism, liberated our peoples, when a powerful socialist camp was set up, and so on and so forth -- all this glorious epoch of the Soviet Union is left without a helmsman, without a leader.
The Party of Labor of Albania thinks that it is no right, normal or Marxist, to blot out Stalin's name and great work from all this epoch, as it is actually being done. We should all defend the good and immortal work of Stalin. He who does not defend it is an opportunist and a coward.
As a person and as the leader of the Bolshevik Communist Party, after Lenin's death Comrade Stalin was, at the same time, the most prominent leader of international communism helping in a very positive way and with great authority in consolidating and promoting the victories of communism throughout the world. All of Comrade Stalin's theoretical works are a fiery testimony of his loyalty to his teacher of genius, to great Lenin and Leninism.
Stalin fought for the rights of the working class and the working people in the whole world, he fought to the end with great consistency for the freedom of the peoples of our countries of People's Democracy.
Viewing things from this angle alone, Stalin belongs to the entire communist world and not to the Soviet communists alone, he belongs to all the
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workers of the world and not to the Soviet workers alone.
Had Comrade Khrushchev and the Soviet comrades viewed this matter in this spirit, the gross mistakes that were made would have been avoided. But they viewed the question of Stalin very simply and only from the internal aspect of the Soviet Union. But, in the opinion of the Party of Labor of Albania, even from this aspect, they viewed it in a one-sided way, seeing only his mistakes, almost completely putting aside his great activity, his major contribution to the strengthening of the Soviet Union, to the tempering of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to the building of the economy of the Soviet Union, of its industry, its kolkhozian agriculture, to his leading the Soviet people to their great victory over German fascism.
Did Stalin make mistakes? Of course he did. In so long a period filled with heroism, trials, struggle, triumphs, it is inevitable not only for Joseph Stalin personally but also for the leadership as a collective body to make mistakes. Which is the party and who is the leader that can claim to have made no mistakes in their work? When the existing leadership of the Soviet Union is criticized, the comrades of the Soviet leadership advise us to look ahead and let bygones be bygones, they tell us to avoid polemics, but when it comes to Stalin, they not only did not look ahead but they turned right round, completely backward, in order to track down only the weak spots in Stalin's work.
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The cult of the individual of Stalin should, of course be overcome. But can it be said, as it has been claimed, that Stalin himself was the sponsor of this cult of the individual? The cult of the individual should be overthrown without fail, but was it necessary and was it right to go to such lengths as to point the finger at any one who mentioned Stalin's name, to look askance at any one who used a quotation from Stalin with great speed and zeal? Certain persons smashed statues raised to Stalin and changed the names of cities that had been named after him. But why go any further? At Bucharest, turning to the Chinese comrades, Comrade Khrushchev said: <<You are catching on to a dead horse>>, <<Come and get his bones, if you wish!>> These references were to Stalin.
The Party of Labor of Albania solemnly declares that it is opposed to these acts and to these assessments of the work and person of Joseph Stalin.
Soviet comrades, why were these questions raised in this manner and in such a distorted form, while possibilities existed for both Stalin's mistakes and those of the leadership to be treated properly, to be corrected, without creating such a shock in the hearts of the communists of the world, which only the sense of discipline and the authority of the Soviet Union prevented from bursting out?
Comrade Mikoyan has said that we dared not criticize Comrade Stalin when he was alive for he would have cut off our heads. We are sure that
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Comrade Khrushchev will not cut off our heads if we criticize him aright.
After the 20th Congress, the events we know took place in Poland, the counter-revolution broke out in Hungary, attacks began on the Soviet system, disturbances were aroused in many communist and workers' parties of the world and finally this that has occured.
We pose the question: Why did these things occur in the international communist movement, in the ranks of our camp, after the 20th Congress? Or do these things happen because the leadership of the Party of Labor of Albania is sectarian, dogmatic and pessimistic?
A thing of this kind should be of extraordinary concern for us and we should look for the source of and cure this malady. But, certainly, this sickness can not be cured by patting the renegade Tito on the back nor by putting in the Statement that modern revisionism has been completely done away with, as the Soviet comrades claim.
The authority of Leninism has been and is decisive. It should be established in such a way as to purge erroneous views everywhere and in radical way. There is no other way out for us communists. If there are things that must and should be said outright, just as they are, this should be done now, at this Conference, before it is too late. Communists, we think, should go to bed with a clear conscience, they should strive to consolidate their unity but without keeping back their reser-
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vations, without nurturing feelings of favoritism and hatred. A communist says openly what he feels in his heart and matters will be judged correctly.
There may be people who will not be pleased with what our small Party is saying. Our small Party may be isolated, our country may be subjected to economic pressure in order to prove, allegedly, to our people that their leadership is no good, our Party may be and is being attacked, Michael Suslov equates the Party of Labor of Albania with the bourgeois parties and likens its leaders to Kerensky. But this does not intimidate us. We have learned some lessons. Rankovich has not said worse things about the Party of Labor of Albania, Tito has called us Goebels, but again, we are Leninists and they are Trotskyites, traitors, lackeys and agents of imperialism.
I wish to emphasize that the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian people have shown in practice how much they love, how much they respect and how loyal they stand to the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and that when the Party of Labor of Albania criticizes the wrong doings of certain Soviet leaders, that does not mean that our views and our attitude have changed. We, Albanians, take the courage as Marxists to criticize these comrades not because we hate them but because we think highly of them and because we love above everything else the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet people.
This is how we love the Soviet Union, the
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Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet leadership. With our Marxist severity we tell them in a comradely way, we open our hearts, we tell them frankly what we think. Hypocrites we have never been nor will ever be.
In spite of the severity we show, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union will hold us dear, regardless of errors we may make, but the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the other communist and workers' parties of the world will not accuse us of lacking sincerity, of talking behind their backs or of swearing allegiance to a hundred banners.
In conclusion. I wish to say a few words about the draft-Statement submitted to us by the Editorial Commission. Our Delegation took cognizance of this draft and scrutinized it carefully. In the new draft-Statement many amendments have been made to the first variant submitted by the Soviet delegation which was taken as a basis of the work of the said Commission. With the amendments made to it, the new draft-Statement has been considerably improved, many important ideas have been stressed, a number of theses have been formulated more correctly and the overwhelming majority of the allusions against the Chinese Communist Party have been rejected.
At the meeting of this Commission, the Delegation of our Party offered many suggestions which were partially adopted. Although our Delegation was not in agreement that certain important matters of principle should remain in the drafted do-
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cument, it gave its consent that this document should be submitted to this meeting, reserving its right to express once again its views on all the issues on which it disagreed. Above all, we think that those five issues which remain uncoordinated, should be settled so that we may draw up a document which has the unanimous approval of all.
We think that it is essential to make clear in the Statement the idea of Lenin expressed recently by Comrade Maurice Thorez as well as by Comrade Suslov in his speech at the meeting of the Editorial Commission, that there can be an absolute guarantee of the prohibition of war only when socialism has triumphed throughout the world or, at least, in a number of other great imperialist countries. At the same time, that paragraph which refers to factionist or group activity in the international communist movement should be deleted since this, as we have pointed out also at the meeting of the Commission, does not help consolidate unity, on the contrary, it undermines it. We are also in favor of deleting the words refering to the overcoming of the dangerous consequences of the cult of the individual or else, of adding the phrase <<which occurred in a number of parties>>, a thing which corresponds better to the reality.
I do not want to take the time of this meeting over this question and other opinions which we have on the draft-Statement. Our Delegation will make its concrete remarks when the draft-Statement itself is under discussion.
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We will do well and it will be salutary if we take the courage at this conference to look our mistakes in the face and treat the wounds, wherever they may be, but which are threatening to become aggravated and dangerous. We do not consider it an offense when comrades criticize us justly and on facts, but we will never, never, accept that without any facts, they may call us <<dogmatic>>, <<sectarian>>, <<narrow nationalists>> simply because we fight with persistence against modern revisionism and, especially, against Yugoslav revisionism. If anyone considers our struggle against revisionism as dogmatic or sectarian, we say to him, <<Take off your revisionist spectacles and you will see more clearly!>>
The Party of Labor of Albania thinks that this Conference will remain an historic one, for it wilI be a Conference in the tradition of the Leninist Conferences which the Bolshevik Party had organized in order to expose and root right out distorted views, in order to strengthen and steel the unity of our international communist and workers' movement on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. Our Party of Labor will continue to strive with determination to strengthen our unity, our fraternal bonds, the joint activity of our communist and workers' parties, for this is the guarantee of the triumph of the cause of peace and socialism. The unity of the socialist camp headed by the Soviet Union, the unity of the international communist and workers' movement with the glorious Commu-
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nist Party of the Soviet Union at the center, is the most sacred thing which our Party will guard as the apple of its eye and will strengthen more and more with each passing day.
(Reproduced from <<Important Documents of
the Party of Labor of Albania >>, Vol. III ).
NOTES
[1] In December 1959, N. Khrushchev, Head of the Soviet Government, who preferred to settle the important international issues only through talks with the chiefs of imperialism, made arrangements through diplomatic channels to call a top level conference with the participation of the Heads of the Governments of the USSR, USA, Britain and France. This conference was to be held in May 1960, but it was not held because of the sabotage of the U.S. imperialists and the vacillating adventurist stand of N. Khrushchev.
[p. 19]
[2] Through this proposal and the notes the Soviet Government addressed on May 25, 1959 to the Governments of Albania, Bulgaria, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Britain and the USA, the creation was sought of a zone free of nuclear weapons and missiles in the Balkans and the Adriatic region.
[p. 28]
[3] The reference here is to the documents approved by the meeting of the representatives of the Communist and Workers' Parties which was held in Moscow in November 1957.
[p. 30]
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[4] In its letter on June 2, 1960, the CC of the CPSU proposed to call a meeting of the representatives of the Communist and Workers' Parties of the socialist camp towards the end of June in order
<<to exchange views on the problems of the present international situation and to map out a further commonline>>. But on June 7, 1960, the CC of the CPSU, in another letter, expressed the opinion that this meeting should not be held in June but at a date to be set by a preliminary gathering of the representatives of the Communist and Workers' Parties of the socialist countries at the time of the 3rd Congress of the Rumanian Workers Party in Bucharest.
[p. 38]
[5] At the 2nd Plenum of the CC of the CPA held in Berat in June 1944, the delegate of the CC of the Yugoslav Communist Party hatched up a plot behind the scenes against the Communist Party of Albania with the participation of the anti-Party elements Sejfulla Maleshova, Koçi Xoxe and Pandi Kristo. The main objective of this conspiracy was to overthrow the Party leadership headed by Comrade Enver Hoxha and to replace it with a new pro-Yugoslav leadership.
This objective failed to materialize because of the opposition offered by most of the members of the CC of the Communist Party of Albania.
[p. 69]