[Part 5 -- Chapters IX and X]
THE <<NAIM FRASHERI>> PUBLISHING HOUSE
TIRANA, 1982
|
C O N T E N T S | ||
|
IX | ||
|
OUR FINAL BREACH WITH TITO AND THE TITO- |
| |
|
|
THE PUBLIC DENUNCIATION OF TITOISM . . . . . . . | |
|
The public denunciation of Titoism * On the relations of the CPA with the CPSU and the parties of the other countries until 1948 * An incognito journey to Rumania in connection with Tito's betrayal. A meeting with Andrey Vyshinsky. The meeting with Vyshinsky and Dej. Irrefutable arguments of the CPA on Tito's traitorous activity. Vyshinsky: <<The Bolshevik Party approves the correct activity and struggle of the CPA in defence of Marxism-Leninism.>> A visit to Bucharest. Back home * Desperate manoeuvres of Koçi Xoxe and company to escape exposure and rendering account * Profound analyses in our Political Bureau. Kristo Themelko and Pandi Kristo testify * The 10th and 11th Plenums of the CC of the CPA. <<The line of the CPA has been correct. It has been attacked but has not wavered, has been threatened but has not been damaged>> * The historic 1st Congress of the CPA. Koçi Xoxe and Pandi Kristo in the dock * The end of our relations with Tito and the Titoites. |
| |
|
IX | ||
|
IN OPEN STRUGGLE WITH THE TITOITES . . . . . . . . |
567-633 | |
|
|
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST TITOITES -- AN HISTO- | |
|
The struggle against Titoism -- an historical imperative * Our first clash with the Khruschevites over the <<Yugoslav question>> * On the Tito-Rankovic <<democracy>> * The Belgrade leadership throws into action the anti-Albanian scum, criminals and saboteurs * Khrushchevite betrayal assisting the Titoite betrayal. Smashing the Titoite-Khrushchevite plot at the Party Conference of Tirana (April 1956) * Mehmet Shehu -- a multiple agent of the imperialist-revisionist secret services * Mehmet Shehu's juggling from the Berat Plenum (November 1944) to the 1st Congress of the CPA (November 1948) * The year 1960. Mehmet Shehu together with Tito, Randolph Churchill and Fultz on the transatlantic liner <<Queen Elizabeth>>. Whom was this servant of many bosses to please and whom to displease? * In the 70's. The Western and the Titoite secret agencies order Mehmet Shehu into action. Three conspirators' groups foiled * Demonstrations in Kosova force the UDB to sacrifice the card on which they had <<placed great hopes>> in Albania. Why did Mehmet Shehu commit suicide? * The hope on terrorist bands * Socialist Albania has been and remains a granite rock. | ||
page 499
page 500
leadership and the whole of our Party. The defeat of the plotters of Belgrade was at the same time a total defeat for their agents who had operated for years, sometimes openly, sometimes in secrecy, within our Party. The time had come for a final settling of accounts with both groups.
It is interesting to observe a permanent characteristic of Titoites: while in <<normal>>, <<quiet>> periods they are wily, past masters of manoeuvres with a thousand and one disguises, tricks and plots, completely the opposite occurs when their trickery is revealed. They completely lose their heads. On such occasions they are seized by utter confusion and loss of reason, their chauvinist fury and megalomania make them lose all sense, they become utterly brutal and allow themselves actions and stands which simply discredit them and expose them even more thoroughly. This is what occurred with them in 1948, and again in 1981 and in 1982.
When they saw that they had <<lost>> Albania, quite without cause or reason, they recalled their ambassador, the Albanian-speaking Titoite Josip Djerdja, to Belgrade at the beginning of June.
Meanwhile, they sent us an official invitation to the 5th Congress of their party, although, before they sent us the invitation, they were quite clear that our reply would be a curt <<No>>.
page 501
Apparently, Tito wanted us to hear with our own ears directly from him, Tempo and others the base accusations and insinuations which they were to make publicly in Belgrade against our Party. But the stench of their slanders reached us. At the congress Tito presented the absurd claim <<about the role of Miladin Popovic and Dusan Mugosa in the formation of the CPA>>, while Tempo, to win promotion and satisfaction in public, vested himself with the merits of the <<critic>> and <<guide>> of our Party and our war in the years 1943-1944!
It was clear to us why this was done.
Tito was making another attempt to <<forestall the evil>>. He knew that sooner or later we would raise our voice and publicly bring out all the evils which he had tried to inflict (and did inflict) on our Party and country. Our facts and arguments would tear him to shreds. This being the case, he threw the first stone to find an excuse and to <<defend>> himself on the grounds that <<the Albanians attack us because we said something about them at the congress>>!
However, these <<new>> manoeuvres would neither nonplus us nor make us hang our heads. On the contrary, we were to raise our voice even more sternly and with greater adherence to principle against his filthy allegations. It was our turn to have our say. The time had come for the public denunciation of Tito and Titoism.
Meanwhile, we had received the second and third letters of the CC of the CPSU to the Yugoslav leadership (one dated May 4, the other dated May 28) and the Resolution of the Information Bureau of June 1948, in which, after correct Marxist-Leninist analyses, the anti-Marxist deviation of the revisionist leadership in Belgrade was publicly denounced. The leadership and our whole Party, like the entire Albanian people, expressed immediate and unanimous solidarity with these important documents and at the proper moment we openly and publicly expressed our stands and decisions in regard to the Belgrade traitors. In particular, the 9th Plenum of the CC of the CPA, which met from June 27-30, 1948, dwelt on the analyses of the letters of the Bolshevik Party and the
page 502
Resolution of the Information Bureau, and all the comrades, in complete unanimity, expressed their solidarity with the denunciation and exposure which was being made of the CC of the CPY for its distortion of Marxism-Leninism, for its slipping into Trotskyism, national chauvinism, etc. During the same days we decided to denounce and reject all the enslaving treaties which had been signed with Yugoslavia, and in particular, all the accords that had to do with the notorious Economic Convention. Our People's Assembly, which took these decisions, left in force only the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Aid signed in July 1946. Our public announcement about these important decisions was received with joy and enthusiasm by the whole people. In particular, the communiqué of the CC of the CPA about our unanimous solidarity with the letters of the Bolshevik Party and the Resolution of the Information Bureau, which was published on July 1, 1948, aroused great enthusiasm and made a profound impression inside and outside of Albania.
I shall say something more, later, about how these documents were received and analysed in our Party, but here I want to point out something else.
On account of our immediate expression of solidarity with the letters of the Bolshevik Party and the Resolution of the Information Bureau, Tito and company made the accusation that we <<had fallen under the influence of the Soviets>>, while others, including some comrades of the communist parties of that time, together with their great joy, also expressed. . . their great surprise! We could not agree with either of these two kinds of reactions towards our lawful and natural stand, because neither of them expressed the truth. On the contrary, they were insulting and disparaging estimations of our Party. Why?
In regard to Tito's accusation about our <<falling under the influence of the Soviets>>, for us Albanian communists this was quite absurd and ridiculous. Indeed, in our case there could be no talk of any sort of interference by the CPSU, but rather the opposite.
page 503
The stand of the CPSU towards our Party in those years had been correct, reasonable, extremely cautious, indeed cautious to the point of a certain <<neglect>>. With the exception of the unforgettable days when we went to Moscow in the summer of 1947 and met the great Stalin, with the exception of the warm, fraternal and internationalist welcome which he accorded us, the wise words and advice he gave us, it must be admitted that on other occasions, up until the spring of 1948, we did not feel the word and the hand of the CPSU towards our Party and our problems to the due extent, or as we expected. Here I am referring to direct aid on cardinal questions of the life and the central line of the Party, and especially in regard to our relations with the CP of Yugoslavia.
Making a detailed analysis in the light of all the important events that occurred during these decades, we can say that from the end of the Second World War the Soviets did not display any interest in Albania, did not know many things, either about the history of our people through the centuries or about our National Liberation War. Even though about the end of our people's National Liberation War a Soviet military mission headed by Major Ivanov came to our country, as I said earlier, Ivanov was not able to see and understand the majesty and depth of the war of our people and our Party. He did nothing but transmit gossip gathered here and there and eventually, at the time of the backstage plot of Berat, he became a good ally and collaborator of Velimir Stojnic.
Such a fact does not indicate simply the lack of capacity of this Soviet Major, who had come from Greece with one companion, with a radio on his back, to make contact with the Albanian partisans, but, in the first place, it implies a lack of proper interest in our war on the part of the Soviet leadership. As can be judged, it was interested in and very well informed about the Yugoslav National Liberation War, and must have had more faith in this at a time when it had no confidence in the Greek National Liberation War,
page 504
while we never came within its reckoning at all. It did not know us in the least and defended us only because it had to adhere to principles! Apparently, the Titoites gave them very little information about us and in the way it pleased them, and the Soviet leadership must have arrived at the practical conclusion: <<Let the Yugoslavs deal with the Albanian partisans.>> This idea prevailed even after Liberation, to the extent that Molotov personally said, <<We give Albania economic aid through Yugoslavia.>> And since the <<Yugoslav aid>> was nothing at all, we can conclude that the Soviet aid did not exist up until the moment when our relations with Titoite Yugoslavia were broken off. Until then the Soviets had ignored Tito's undermining work against our country and Party and done nothing to restrain the Yugoslavs who were operating against us, apart from the direct intervention of Stalin when I sought his opinion to repulse the dispatch of the Yugoslav division to Albania.
Up until this time, our relations with the Soviet Union and the CPSU were realized mainly through the Soviet embassy. From our point of view, the employees of this embassy were good people, but they, for their part, were only <<employees>> who never said a word, let alone act without permission from Moscow. They themselves had no initiative and we could hold no serious discussion with them. When I say serious, I am referring to important questions of principle, as for example, many unjust stands which we saw on the part of the Yugoslavs. They shied away from these conversations as the wolf shies away from the fire. Why? They had to receive orders from Moscow! They could not take any step without orders from Moscow, like the real chinovniki * they were. They were ready to listen to us when we told them anything and to transmit to us the answer we sought. In general, this is how ideological and political questions were dealt with between us and the people of the Soviet embassy. However, as much as they did, we, for our
page 504
part considered it great assistance and everything they told us we considered as coming from Moscow, from the Soviet leadership, from Stalin! It was a different matter with the Soviet advisers who helped us in the sectors of the economy and culture. They helped us greatly, gave us advice and concrete aid, discussed problems with us and our specialists, because they knew they were helping a socialist country, a party and a people that loved them. They did not have the complexes of diplomats, or the fear about their <<careers>> or the spirit of bureaucrats and chinovniki.
Of course, this made an impression on us, and we mulled it over in our minds, but proceeding from the highest and indisputable regard in which we held the glorious Party of Lenin and Stalin, we never formed reservations or the slightest shred of discontent towards it. On the contrary, we justified this stand of the CPSU with a series of arguments and reasons which were not wrong in principle, either then or now.
During those years, our relations with the other sister parties of the countries of people's democracy were even weaker, if not totally non-existent. We never considered this situation correct or acceptable, although we were convinced that this would not go on for long and we worked to create direct links with the other sister parties, in the first place, with the CPSU. Our persistence about sending a top-level delegation to Moscow (which was realized in July 1947), to Bulgaria (in December 1947), etc. was precisely a well-considered and weighed-up step on our part, which speaks about our concern to create the most extensive bilateral and multilateral links with the sister communist and workers' parties and the fraternal countries of people's democracy. If, however, up till the spring of 1947 we had not been able to achieve anything more, the fault for this was by no means ours. The main and deliberate culprit for this was the leadership of Belgrade, headed by Tito. As has been fully proved, they tried to keep us under their wing, isolated from the sister communist parties, from the Soviet Union and the
page 506
other socialist countries, with the idea that we were only <<an appendage of the CPY>>, at the most, a part of what they subsequently called <<the League of Communists of Yugoslavia>>. Taking advantage of the slight experience of the CPA in its relations with the sister parties, and exploiting the request we made in 1942 that they intervene on our behalf with the Comintern, Tito and company turned our request into a kind of <<mandate>> which they used for years on end in the most villainous and anti-Marxist way.
We do not have detailed documents about how Tito and company dealt with the problem of our Party with the sister parties in the years 1944-1947, but about one thing we are convinced: the Belgrade leaders with cunning and evil intent had cast a shadow of doubt, to a greater or lesser extent, over the ability of the CPA to be a separate independent party capable of determining its own line, of applying this line and leading the Albanian people with mastery and adherence to principle on the road of socialism. That is, the Yugoslavs had created the absurd and alien idea that it was they that kept us going, and fed us, that the existence or non-existence of the Communist Party of Albania depended on them! To what extent this dirty, false propaganda had become implanted in the other parties is another matter, but the fact is that Tito and his emissaries had developed this propaganda to a system. There is no need, nor is this the place to go into detailed arguments, but I shall mention only two or three instances. In 1946 the Information Bureau of the communist parties of Europe was created with the participation of 9 parties, including all the parties of the then socialist countries, as well as the CP of France and that of Italy. Only one party of a socialist country of Europe was left out: the Communist Party of Albania! I do not wish to express any sort of dissatisfaction over why our Party was not included in this important forum, but the fact that only one communist party of a socialist country was left out made one suspect that there was something wrong about this. Whether this came about from the lack of knowledge
page 507
or misinformation from others -- this problem will be explained with the passage of time. Our conviction is that the black hand of the Titoite agency was hidden in this. They did not want the CPA to be acknowledged in the international communist movement as a separate party, as the party of a sovereign country, of a valiant and unyielding people, because otherwise, their plans and the underhand work they were doing for the annexation of Albania as the 7th Republic of the Yugoslav state would have come to nothing!
The very fact that in this whole period from 1945 to the spring of 1947 we were not aware of any initiative, let alone visible efforts, on the part of the sister parties to establish sound permanent links with our Party, for consultations, exchanges of opinions and experience, is another argument which speaks about the shadow which the Yugoslav Trotskyites had cast over the prestige of our Party as a whole. Likewise, it is a fact that among a number of leaders of several sister parties, Tito and company had created, if not the opinion, at least the suspicion that the CPA was a creation subject to the line of the CPY! This was a very unpleasant observation for us. I well remember when one of our comrades, who had just returned from a festival (organized in Czechoslovakia, if I am not mistaken), came to me with tears in his eyes and told me:
<<Our national flag was the only one missing from among those of the participating countries!>>
<<And what did you do about it?>> I asked him. <<Did you ask your hosts why?>>
<<Yes!>> the comrade told me. <<We told them about it and they were nonplussed and embarrased and, while begging our pardon, replied: 'We thought that the flag of Yugoslavia represented Albania too.'>>!
I cannot forget, also, the letters of many of our students and specialists who were being trained in the former people's democracies, letters in which they spoke with indignation about occasions when the ministers or the authorities of one or the other country, before their eyes, <<sought the permis-
page 508
sion>> of the Yugoslav ambassador to establish trade relations. . . directly with Albania!
We never bore grudges against our friends over this, nevertheless, the truth remains the truth, whether bitter or sweet! Precisely in the fact that Tito's anti-Albanian plot had not failed to have an effect, to a greater or lesser extent, lies the explanation also for the <<surprise>> and <<joy>> of a number of leaders of the sister parties at that time when. . . unexpectedly (!) they learned of the sound, valiant and courageous Marxist-Leninist stand of the CPA against the Yugoslav revisionists! Quite openly, without any embarrassment they asked themselves, one another and even us:
<<How is it possible that the CPA takes such a resolute and principled stand?! How is it possible that you denounce and expose the leadership of the CPY?!>>
In this case, however, not they, but we had the justified right to be astonished at their <<astonishment>>. Not they, but we had the justified right to ask them:
<<Why this astonishment on your part, comrades?! Why these opinions about a communist party?!>>
We had the right to ask them these questions because, as is known, genuine Marxist-Leninists never evaluate and must not evaluate sister parties on the basis of what <<others>>, <<third parties>>, <<intermediaries>>, say about them. Even less should this occur when nobody had authorized or charged such <<intermediaries>> to play this role or, even worse, when this role was placed in error upon such evil intermediaries as the Titoite leaders were.
Nevertheless, now that matter had turned out well, we had the legitimate right to be proud, because even in such difficult and complex conditions, not only internally, but also externally, we were able to emerge successful, even alone were able to get over the difficult paths, traps and plots wisely, through adherence to Marxist-Leninist principles.
Hence, while doing battle alone with the revisionist leadership of the CPY, we arrived at the same opinions and conclusions as the sister parties, without any knowledge that
page 508
others, in the first place, the Bolshevik Party, headed by the great Stalin, were engaged in the same struggle.
This was and remains a great and incontestable merit of our Party, a source of honour and pride for us!
After these moments, the hand of the sister parties was quickly extended to us and we seized their hand in friendship, because we had been waiting for and expecting this for years. We considered this not only a duty, but also a legitimate right.
Now, shoulder to shoulder with the sister parties and, first of all, with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, we would work and fight better for the progress of socialism in our country, for the further strengthening of the prestige and authority of our Party and our country in the international arena.
Now, shoulder to shoulder with the sister parties we would make our contribution more vigorously to a more profound knowledge, to the exposure and condemnation of Titoite revisionism to its very roots. Because of the special conditions of our relations with the Titoite leadership over those 6-7 years, this was a field in which we felt we had much to tell them land to prove.
Throughout the whole communist and workers' movement and public opinion world-wide, in the summer of 1948 it became known that Tito and his associates had betrayed Marxism-Leninism and the socialist camp. The contradictions between us and the Yugoslav Titoites in this period were so great that they could easily develop into dangerous conflicts. The Soviets, being well-acquainted with Tito over a
page 510
whole period, and thinking that we were geographically isolated from them and surrounded by enemy states, wanted to discuss as intimately and directly as possible with us about the measures which we should take in this situation. Likewise, they felt it necessary to hear what we had to say and our opinions directly and in detail about the long conflict we had had with the Yugoslav leadership. This would assist the further analysis which the Information Bureau was to make of the anti-Marxist stands and line of the chiefs of Belgrade.
Precisely for these reasons, in the summer of 1948 a meeting was organized in Bucharest in which Vyshinsky, Gheorghiu-Dej and I took part.
With the greatest pleasure I accepted the invitation to go to Bucharest which the Soviet ambassador Chuvakin brought me. Dimitri Stepanovich Chuvakin, the first ambassador of the USSR to Albania, was a straight-forward man with whom we had generally got along well, although, as I said above, the range of problems which we discussed left something to be desired. I spoke to Chuvakin in French, a language which he, too, understood and spoke. I have very rarely met Soviet leaders who spoke French, as those who knew the language did not speak it because they did not want to speak it. Why? They reserved the right to listen when one spoke and gain time to think about their reply while the interpreter was completing the translation in Russian. Or perhaps for precise diplomatic behaviour. But even if the latter were the reason, it seems to me that such a thing should not have existed amongst us. Many times I have met Molotov and Gromyko and talked with them, I in French, whereas they, always, in Russian and never in French. They knew French, but certainly for the reasons I mentioned, they did not speak it.
One morning we set out for Bucharest by Soviet aircraft. We were to travel through Yugoslav airspace, although we had become enemies with them. A hero of the Soviet Union flew the aircraft. The Soviets had sent this pilot to get me, because he knew the route over which the
page 511
aircraft was to pass and there was greater security for me, if the Yugoslav secret service were to learn of my journey. Only Chuvakin and I were on board the aircraft. We were not obliged to stop in Belgrade, indeed at that time the aircraft was not allowed to fly via Belgrade at all, but left it to the north. Not only this, but later, for a period of several years, when the relations between the Titoites and the Soviet Union and our socialist states were very tense (until Khrushchev came to power), the Yugoslavs did not allow the regular aircraft of the Soviet line to fly over their territory. Thus, to spend eight days travelling by Soviet cargo ships, which were not big and tossed one about a great deal, to Odessa and another two days from Odessa to Moscow by train, or more rarely by aircraft, was a minimum for us.
On this trip the weather was fine and sunny, with no clouds and from the aircraft we saw the land of Yugoslavia with the plains which were never to be collectivized, the land unsystemized, as ours was in the first years of Liberation, and as the land of Rumania over which we flew was.
At the airport of Bucharest we were met by Dej, Anna Pauker, the Soviet ambassador and some other comrades. As far as I remember, we still did not have an embassy in Bucharest, nor the Rumanians in Albania. The formalities had not been completed and the relations between our countries of people's democracy in the first period of Liberation were still not fully subject to diplomatic rules, but continued in an informal way. In our country everything was in order, the people's power had been established on sound constitutional foundations, while in Rumania no. It took Rumania some time to liquidate the monarchy and King Michael, the powerful capitalist relations which still existed, the remnants of Antonescu's fascist <<Iron Guard>>, which were still active at the time of my stay at Bucharest, etc. The decisive factor in the liberation of Rumania and the liquidation of these dangerous remnants was the Soviet army. All the rest was just tales and boasting of Gheorghiu-Dej, as I shall relate
page 512
later in connection with the talks I had with him during my stay there.
We embraced with Dej, Anna Pauker and the other comrades. My first impression when I met Gheorghiu-Dej at the airport was good, not only because I had heard good things said about him by the Soviets, but also because he had a reputation as a veteran communist who had <<suffered>> in the dungeons of Doftana. Later we learned an incident from his life. During the time he was imprisoned in Doftana an earthquake struck Bucharest[1], and guards and prisoners, ordinary and political, ran away in fright. Only Gheorghiu-Dej did not budge from the prison and when the gendarmes returned and found him inside they asked him in astonishment: <<You did not run away?>> <<No,>> replied Dej, <<I respect the law.>>
Dej was a tall man, with black eyes, black brows and hair, well dressed and cheerful, who gave the impression of a perifani as we say in Gjirokastra about those people who are vigorous and energetic and speak with a sort of pride in themselves, self-satisfied with what they say and do. Anna Pauker was a woman of a quieter nature than Dej, although she seemed energetic, too. She was a big, heavy-featured woman who looked as if she had suffered more in prison than Dej, her hair was gray and cut short as they say à la garçonne.
I got into a big Soviet ZIS car together with Dej. The others got into cars, too. When I was to enter the car the driver opened the door for me and I did not notice that it was an armoured car. I saw this when I got out and opened the door from inside. Never before had I had the occasion to see such a thing, although I had read in newspapers and books that such cars were used by kings and dictators to protect themselves from attempts on their lives, and by gangsters to protect themselves from the attacks of the police. Once in the car, it seemed to me I was not in a car, but in
page 513
a real arsenal: both on my side and Dej's side we had a German twenty-round automatic pistol, each with two spare magazines, under our feet we each held another German twenty-round pistol with spare magazines and, of course, the guard and the driver had the same.
I said to Dej as a joke:
<<We can fight for 20 days with these weapons, it seems as though we were in the house of Oso Kuka,>>[1] and I quickly explained who Oso Kuka was. But to myself I said, <<Whatever they say about Oso Kuka the fact is that he fought like a man and did not surrender.>> My impression was not good, not because Dej had thought about taking measures for defence, but because those measures were excessive. They showed either that the Rumanian comrades were as frightened as rabbits, or that the situation in their country was by no means as calm as they tried to make out.
When I commented on the <<arsenal>> Dej replied:
<<We must be vigilant!>>
<<Of course, we must be vigilant,>> I said to myself, <<but not let the enemy terrify us. We must terrify him and make him tremble.>> As far as I could see the enemy in Rumania had not been dealt with firmly as in our country.
On the way from the airport to Bucharest, Dej said to me:
<<We are not going into the city, but will turn off to a house on the plain outside Bucharest, where we have taken measures for you to stay since you are incognito and Vyshinsky has not yet arrived. We expect him tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, at the latest. There where we're going,>> continued Dej, <<is a very reliable family, an old base where I have stayed before Liberation. The son of the house is a communist and his mother is a very dear old lady who
page 514
keeps her mouth shut. You will be very well looked after there.>>
<<It has not the slightest importance for me,>> I told him. <<I shall be quite all right wherever you have decided I shall stay.>>
Nevertheless, these things surprised me and I asked myself the question: <<Is the situation so bad for them in the city that they cannot take me to some apartment there? Either they are so insecure that are unable to protect me, whom nobody knows, or is it that they want to keep the meeting strictly secret?>> However, these latter ideas did not convince me.
We arrived at the house. It was a peasant home amid the fields, small but pleasant, both inside and out. It was surrounded with trees and flowers. At the door mother and son welcomed us. They were both very handsome, the mother above sixty years old and the son in his forties. We went inside where everything was clean, the walls painted white, a well-furnished house in Rumanian style. Dej told my hosts that I was a very close friend of his and would be their guest for a very short time, etc. They were happy and replied to Dej in their own language which I understood a little from its similarity to Italian and French. When Dej was about to leave, Chuvakin also asked me to excuse him, saying that he had to go to the Soviet embassy to discuss with the ambassador what had to be done and that he would come back to inform me.
Thus, I was left alone with my hosts and the French interpreter whom Dej left me.
After lunching together with our hosts I went to take a rest. Everything in this village home was clean, quiet and attractive. This helped me overcome my boredom from remaining alone and would allow me, in the quiet of the night, to classify the materials and opinions which I would present in the meeting with Vyshinsky and Dej. During lunch and in the afternoon, after my rest, I took the opportunity to talk with my hosts and to learn about the situation in the country
page 515
to the extent that they knew it and were able to answer my questions.
<<The situation is not yet completely clear,>> said the mother, <<but we are masters of it. We drove out the king and liberated the country thanks to Stalin's Red Army. Another advantage from this was that the country was not burnt and devastated except for a few things; our industry is running. Our country is fertile, but from now on it will become more fertile and more prosperous. To tell you the truth,>> continued the old lady, <<the economy is still not in the hands of our state, the capitalists are still very much alive, the big and medium merchants have their property, exploit it freely and live well, even though our state levies taxes on them.
<<When I have the opportunity to meet Dej,>> continued the old lady, <<I ask him, 'What are you doing? Are you still leaving these capitalists and the wealthy of the land who sucked our blood, who were supporters of the Germans and of Codreanu[1] and the Conducator * (Antonescu)[2] who sent our boys to burn Russia and be killed there?'
'Be patient,' Dej replies, 'everything will come in its own time.'>>
In this way I passed a part of the time until the evening of the following day when Dej came to take me to Bucharest; My hosts and I parted like good friends. The old lady kissed me, gave me a gift of a small wooden vase which she had made herself during the winter and said to me:
<<Come back again, don't forget us!>>
Even now, after so many years I have not forgotten these good simple people of the Rumanian countryside, whose names I do not know, because they did not tell me and I did not ask, since I observed the incognito <<rules>> which Dej had laid down.
In the car, Dej told me that Vyshinsky would come the
page 516
following day and that Chuvakin and I were to stay in the former king's palace.
<<This is like the characters from the Grimm brothers'[1] fairy tales, going from the peasant's cottage to the king's palace!>> I told Dej. <<Please, don't take me there. I don't like such places. I prefer to stay in an apartment in the middle of the city, amongst the people, because no one knows me and there is no danger for me.>>
<<No,>> said Dej. <<You will stay there, because we were embarrassed yesterday, leaving you outside the city, and then that is where the meeting will be held. All the facilities are there.>>
I repeated my protest and told him:
<<For me it was a great honour to stay with that simple pleasant family and you have no reason to be embarrassed.>>
However, I had to go, like it or not.
We arrived at one of the <<famous>> palaces of the Rumanian kings. This was not one of the major palaces. It was a building of considerable size with long colonnaded corridors. It was encircled with walls and had a number of small plots of grass, amongst which flowers appeared here and there, as though planted by some hand that knew nothing about this work. They took us to some bare rooms which could not be called either large or small; to reach the bathroom you had to go out through the corridor. Clearly, the palace was neglected, especially the upper rooms. Not only did the building get little sunshine, but it had no electric light or water. On the lower floor there were some rooms in rather better order, which had apparently been given more attention because Vyshinsky was to come there for the meeting.
During the day we had nothing to do. We asked Dej if we could go out and see Bucharest. He agreed and proposed that we made an excursion to the city and returned to the Central Committee.
<<There,>> said Dej, <<you will meet a comrade of our
page 517
Political Bureau, one of our best comrades, Kishinevsky. Kishinevsky is a Soviet citizen from Bukovina. He fought in Rumania and helped us and after liberation I asked Stalin to allow Kishinevsky to give up his Soviet citizenship and take Rumanian citizenship and let us keep him in Rumania,>> Dej told me. <<Stalin agreed and that's what was done.>>
Passing through the streets of Bucharest, from the speed of the car and from being obliged to listen to what Dej's interpreter said, of course, I was not able to see much, however, from what I saw, the streets seemed clean, with trees and gardens, with no apparent ruins or war damage; with many well-stocked shops, the windows full of goods. And as always occurred when I was far from the Homeland, here, too, my mind went to my own country which was burned and devastated by the war; when I saw the shops of Bucharest full of goods, I thought of the empty shops of our cities, but never fell into despair. <<We shall have everything, too; we shall make them ourselves, new and beautiful. We are proud that we fought the enemies heroically and won our freedom by shedding blood and did not wait for anyone to give it to us.>>
When we arrived at the premises of the Central Committee, Dej, without knocking, opened a door and led me into a room. Writing at a small table in one corner of the room was a person who stood up, came towards us, held out his hand and introduced himself. This was Kishinevsky. He was a small man with a thin face and body, and with dark glasses which, when he removed them, revealed two bright intelligent eyes. It was difficult for him to find space in the room to place some chairs for us, not because the room was small, but because it was filled with countless big packages, piled on the floor like the bricks which trucks unload in front of buildings under construction. The packages contained banknotes. I said to Dej with a laugh:
<<I am continuing to experience the marvels of fairy tales. Now, I seem to be in Ali Baba's cave and not in the premises of the Central Committee.>>
page 518
Dej explained that they had removed the notes from the bank because there they were not safe, might be stolen by the employees who, as he said, were the old ones and uncontrolled. Hence, despite their boasting, insecurity continued in this country, although Kishinevsky did not fail to tell us about the <<heroism>> of the Rumanian communists and the party which was <<strong>> and well organized. As for the <<great heroism>> of Dej, he would tell us about this himself in the evening after dinner.
After we had dinner with Dej in our new <<residence>>, amongst other things he told us how they had forced King Michael to abdicate. I knew that this king was one of the worst and most bankrupt in Europe. He was the son of Carol II, who was nothing but a king of scandals, an oppressor of the people, pro-Italian and pro-German. There was nothing Rumanian about him, either by birth or in the uniform he wore. All he had was the support of the Rumanian fascists and big landowners and one of his main courtesans, Lupescu.
His son, Michael, was completely like his father and the people's expression <<Like father, like son>> fitted him to a T. However, this carnival king did what he did and received the highest Soviet wartime order, the Order of Victory, which, at that time, Eisenhower and Tito were the only other foreigners to hold. Tito, at least had fought at that time, and the Yugoslav partisans were outstanding in the fighting. But what did the Rumanians do? They put the Ukraine, Odessa and other Soviet cities to the torch, together with the Hitlerites. And what was Michael doing at this time? Amusing himself in his palaces.
This was impermissible opportunism on the part of the Soviets. It should never have crossed their mind to award this worthless creature even the smallest medal, let alone the Order of Victory. Was he given the order because he did not resist the attack of the Red Army? What could the scum do? Raise his hands in surrender, just as he did. Is that why he was awarded the Order of Victory, because he raised his hands? This was too much to swallow.
page 519
I mentioned these thoughts, which were hammering away in my head, to Vyshinsky while conversing with him after the meeting, when he told us how Michael had received him in audience, how Vyshinsky had gone dressed in a <<tail coat>>, how the king had decorated him and Vyshinsky, in front of the king, had taken the medal and stuck it, on the. . . tail of his coat.
After lunch, in the small garden of ex-King Michael's palace, while talking about his <<struggle>> against this king, Dej related to us the history of how he and Petru Groza, at that time prime minister, prepared his abdication and the overthrow of the Rumanian monarchy.
He told us that the king still had a part of the army, commanded by generals loyal to him. He resided in his royal palace in Bucharest together with the queen mother, and a string of courtesans. The palace was guarded by soldiers and senior officers loyal to him.
<<Although he had no power in his hands,>> said Dej, <<still he was a major obstacle for us, because we had to adhere to the rules of the Constitution in connection with him, as well as to the provisions of the agreement which had been signed with the Soviets. However, in the end we took everything into account and decided to impose abdication on him. First, I discussed the matter with Groza who agreed, except that he was in favour of avoiding any aggravation of the situation, wanting to do the thing 'gently'. I drafted the text of his abdication,>> Dej told us, <<Groza made some formal alterations and he as prime minister and I as secretary of the Rumanian Communist Party sought an audience with the king, who granted it.
<<Groza and I went by car to the palace. It was surround ed by officers in brilliant uniforms. We went inside and climbed the stairs which were lined with senior officers, their leather belts pulled tight, emblazoned with epaulets and decorations and the brilliantine on their hair gleaming in the light of the chandeliers of the palace. They were haughty and looked at us with glowering faces, but were obliged to
page 520
respect us because they knew that we held power. We climbed the stairs with solemn mien and Groza carried the briefcase containing the document.
<<A general, the king's adjutant,>> continued Dej, <<ushered us into a waiting-room, asked us to wait, then, after a short time, took us into the throne-room, as they called it. The king was not there, but the queen mother rose to her feet and welcomed us. Groza kissed her hand, but not I,>> said Dej. <<We began to converse about the rain and the sunshine until the king, whose chair was placed higher than his mother's and, of course, higher than ours, deigned to come. The king's mother was an old whore,>> said Dej, <<but she was cunning, she knew how to manoeuvre.
<<Michael came in and gave us his hand. He was like a perfumed calf, who snorted like a bull when he spoke. Groza began the conversation in a round-about way. This was intolerable to me,>> said Dej, <<but what could I do about it? At last, Groza got round to the theme and dropped 'the bomb-shell'. Michael listened and when Groza had finished he said bluntly: 'I have no intention of abdicating. I am king by the will of the people and only the people have the right to dethrone me,' etc., etc. The queen mother listened and nodded to her son, approving his decision.
<<Groza began his 'politicking' again, but the 'bull' snorted and refused. His mother proposed we take a short break for the two sides to reflect. We did this and met again, and again the same arguments. Michael's mother, in her cunning way, tried to impose some concessions on us to postpone this unexpected thing for a while. We did not agree, but neither did they agree and after asking our permission, the king went outside. We racked our brains about why he went out, and we had reasons for this, because he had telephoned the guard, ordering them to arrest us as we left, and his forces, which were surrounding the palace and in the city, were to stage a putsch. However, we had foreseen this,>> said Dej <<and had established an encirclement of the encirclement.
page 521
<<When the king returned to the chamber, I signalled to Groza to present him the document for his signature. Then, I began to speak,>> said Dej, <<and in a stern tone I told him that he had to sign the document, for otherwise we would overthrow him by force.
<<'You must have no illusions, must issue no orders,' I stressed to the king,>> said Dej. <<'Anything you may attempt will be in vain, since we have taken all measures around the palace and the troops loyal to you.'
<<He turned and twisted, but in the end he sat down and signed the abdication. Thus, the monarchy came to an end. The king, like a wounded bull, went out again, no doubt, to cancel the order he had given, and when we were leaving the palace on the stairs we saw those same officers, only no longer haughty, but in despair. Some were sitting on the steps, some had unbuttoned their uniforms and some were holding their heads in their hands. We passed through them,>> said Dej, <<with our heads high and the document in the briefcase.>>
<<A brilliant victory over a bankrupt king,>> I said to myself when Dej proudly uttered these words. But he still hadn't finished with the history of the king and reaction.
<<We reached agreement with him about the day of his departure from Rumania,>> continued Dej, <<and we permitted him to take what he wanted of his personal property and some people who served him, including two or three of his mistresses. Before he left, he asked to go to the Sinaia Palace to get some personal property. We permitted this. There he had collected a number of gold watches from which he took the gold cases and the rubies. We sent him by train outside our borders, accompanied by our guards. He and his suite did not speak while on Rumanian territory, but when the train passed into foreign territory, in the presence of our guards, he began to abuse us, our regime, the guards, etc. But there,>> said Dej, <<there was nothing we could do to him.>>
<<You should have done it when he was inside,>> I told him, <<but you let the 'bird' escape from your hands.>>
<<But we left nothing undone against him and react on>>
page 522
said Dej boastfully, <<we forced him to abdicate and depart defeated and disgraced (!). We have dealt roundly with reaction, too; reaction was arrogant, but we behaved arrogantly with it. Even when they were still powerful we challenged them. I myself with one guard,>> boasted Dej, <<went into all the cafes where they gathered and sat down with a pistol in my belt in order to let them know: 'We, the communists, are masters of the country and not you'.>>
While listening to Dej, I made a comparison between us and them. Oh, how far we were removed from them! There the class struggle had still not begun. The story of King Michael, which Dej related to us at such length, showed the situation clearly. But we were to see this for ourselves even better and more concretely when we walked through some streets of Bucharest.
I said good night to Dej, and Chuvakin and I went up to the rooms allocated to us, because the next day Vyshinsky was to come and the meeting would commence.
My bed-room communicated with another room through a door. I opened it to make sure what was on the other side. It was a big room, completely empty, except for a table in one corner, on which lay a big luxurious book. I went to the table and turned over the pages of this book with a cover that looked like gold. It was a royal album! The whole dynasty of Rumanian kings, queens and princes was in it. I put the album under my arm and knocked on Chuvakin's door.
<<I've brought you a book,>> I told him, <<because you may not have anything to read to put you to sleep. Dej's king took the watches but he forgot this. Look through it and give it to Dej tomorrow to send by post to Michael, because he needs it, while it wouldn't serve us even for toilet paper, since it's not suitable.>> Chuvakin and I had a good laugh. The history of the king of Rumania was closed together with the album. One day later the history of the ascension of another new king, King Tito of Yugoslavia, would begin.
The following day Vyshinsky was to come from Moscow. The name and personality of Vyshinsky was great and well
page 523
known to all of us on account of the important role he had played as state prosecutor in the Moscow trials against Trotskyites, Bukharinites, rightists and other traitors of the Soviet Union. During the war I had got hold of a French translation of the account of the Moscow trials and had had the opportunity to study the evil activity and treachery of these sworn enemies of communism. Their guilt and secret collaboration with the foreign enemies of the Soviet Union was brought out clearly and completely exposed there. Everything was convincing. And the claims of foreign enemies that the admissions had been allegedly extorted from the criminals by torture were slanders. Our struggle against local enemies, the trials which were held in our country after the war against enemies of the people, the struggle which our Party had waged against Trotskyite elements further reinforced our belief in the justness of the merciless fight which the state in the Soviet Union had undertaken against these criminals.
When they held power, the foreign and internal enemies of our peoples employed the most inhuman forms and methods. But naturally the foreign enemies will defend their friends within our countries, while our duty has been and still is to suppress the enemies of the people and to give them no possibility to operate against the constructive work of the people.
This the Soviet state did through the Moscow trials. In these trials Andrey Vyshinsky, outstanding jurist and Marxist-Leninist, played an important role. He displayed skill, acumen, wisdom, courage and determination in this important task. Through his acumen and strong logic, on the basis of a profound dialectical Marxist-Leninist analysis, he uncovered all the obscure angles of problems, the intrigues and plans of the enemies who stood in the dock, as well as of the external enemies who pulled the strings of this terrible and dangerous agency. And it was precisely this unerring method of unravelling matters which astonished the external enemies and their espionage agencies about how their secret plans were discovered and compelled them to slander and
page 524
propagate that everything, every statement, every admission by the accused had been extorted by means of torture, drugs,>> etc.
We had gathered in one of the rooms of the palace, where we were staying, waiting for Vyshinsky. At last he came. I was excited because I was meeting him for the first time. (When I went to Moscow in July 1947, Vyshinsky was not in the Soviet Union.) He was just as I had heard, a vigorous man, not very tall, with horn-rimmed glasses and bright black eyes that took in everything. He was wearing a blue suit. Vyshinsky shook hands with all of us in turn and when he came to me, apparently as I was the only one he had not met before, he guessed who I was, because he gave me his hand and asked me in Russian:
<<How is your health, Comrade Enver Hoxha?>>
<<Harasho! [*]>> I replied.
Meanwhile Chuvakin intervened and said:
<<Comrade Enver speaks French well.>> Then Vyshinsky started to speak to me in French and I could speak more freely.
We began the meeting which Dej opened with a short speech. He welcomed us to Bucharest and gave the floor to Vyshinsky.
He greeted us warmly and also transmitted the greetings of Stalin and other comrades of the Political Bureau of the CC of the CPSU (b).
<<The object of this meeting,>> said Vyshinsky in general outline, <<is to exchange our experience and reveal our joint knowledge about the betrayal of the Yugoslav Titoites, about their undermining activity against our countries, parties and socialism, and to define the method of combatting and unmasking their deviation which is dangerous for communism in general and for the Yugoslav Communist Party and socialism in Yugoslavia in particular.>>
In the course of the analysis he made of the secret and
page 525
open activity of Tito's renegade group, Vyshinsky explained to us in detail the theoretical and political content of the letters of the Bolshevik Party to the CPY and the Resolution of the meeting of the Information Bureau on this important question. Our parties were acquainted with these documents which we had studied in detail and on which we had taken decisions, fully endorsing them.
With his penetrating style, with arguments and the amazing clarity characteristic of him, Vyshinsky, as the true bolshevik prosecutor that he was, made their content even clearer to us. This time we did not have the accused before us in the dock, but the fact is that their trial was being held and it was a fair trial, based on sound arguments, an historic trial the justice of which was to be completely confirmed by the passage of time.
Vyshinsky demonstrated to us with convincing historical facts that the political activity of Tito's renegade group was not something fortuitous and spontaneous. Despite their false appearance the views of Tito and his main associates were not those of formed Marxists. They posed as Marxists, as if they were in solidarity with the Soviet Union and Stalin, and in this way deceived the peoples of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav communists. However, during the war, on many occasions they showed obvious signs of a pronounced megalomania, bourgeois nationalist tendencies and an incorrect concept of the war of the Soviet Union and the aid which this war gave all the peoples, especially the peoples of Yugoslavia.
<<The Bolshevik Party,>> continued Vyshinsky in essence, <<had sufficient experience to detect such tendencies, but did not consider them incurable. At that period the main issue was the war against the German nazis. And we understood that in the face of countless difficulties during the war, actions which were ill-considered and sometimes unclear would occur, but we thought that experience, the war and the passage of time would clear them up. Of course, with the victory,>> he stressed, <<our relations with the Yugoslavs would be closer and everything would be cleared up in a comradely way, even
page 526
though the Yugoslav leadership had created doubts in our relations. And this is what occurred. After the victory over Hitlerite Germany, the closest fraternal relations were established between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and important decisions were taken to give economic, military and political aid in the international arena to Yugoslavia, which we considered one of our most faithful political and ideological allies. There were no clouds apparent in the sky of our relations. The clouds were gathered one after the other by the Tito group when the political, economic, ideological and military construction of the PFR of Yugoslavia began. At that time the bourgeois nationalist and anti-Soviet tendencies of the renegade group of Tito became clearer.>>
Vyshinsky went on to demonstrate to us how the Yugoslav renegade leaders attacked and distorted the basic, universal principles of Marxism-Leninism and disguised these deviations on the grounds that they were allegedly applying the Marxist-Leninist principles <<in the concrete post-war conditions>> of Yugoslavia.
<<The question was not that everything should have been copied as it is in the Soviet Union,>> Vyshinsky told us, <<but they took this as a basis to attack the principles, to deviate from them. This, of course, was bound to lead to discussions, as it did, and in the end to differences between us.
<<We defended the principles,>> continued Vyshinsky, <<they violated them more and more openly and grasped at the smallest things with which they tried to prove that our country was allegedly interfering in their internal affairs, that the Soviet Union was allegedly not assisting them economically as much as it should, and that we were allegedly not properly backing their political and territorial demands in the international arena. Of course, there was no foundation for any of these charges and we rejected them with facts and great patience. However, neither the principles nor the facts made any impression on them. The Yugoslav renegades proceeded towards an ideological and political line contrary to ours, they had set out on the rails of anti-Marxism. This compelled the
page 527
CPSU (b) to write the first letter and the subsequent ones to the CC of the CPY which we sent them some time ago. Our aim was that the Yugoslav Communist Party must be saved from catastrophe, should abandon the wrong course on which Tito was setting it and Yugoslavia should build socialism, avoiding the re-establishment of capitalism, towards which it was heading. The course which the Bolshevik Party adopted was the most comradely, Marxist-Leninist course in accordance with the rules, but the renegades rejected it.
<<The question of Yugoslavia is an internal question of the peoples of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav communists,>> continued Vyshinsky, <<and we have not meddled and will not meddle in their internal affairs. We have no right to interfere, but it is our duty to ensure the political and ideological exposure of the activity of this clique which is fighting against Marxism-Leninism and serves world capitalism. Already,>> continued Vyshinsky, <<in the international arena and the internal plane the Titoites present themselves as open enemies of the Soviet Union and their activities in this direction will increase, not only against us, but also against all the countries of people's democracy and the socialist camp. Their activity is identical with the activities of the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and agents of world capital whom we have unmasked in our trials.
<<The unmasking of the enemy has very great importance,>> stressed Vyshinsky. <<The Soviet peoples had to be convinced of the treacherous activity of the Trotskyites, the Bukharinites and the rightists, therefore we placed importance on this and managed to achieve that our enemies themselves brought out the smallest details which are frequently important because they explain major questions. The truth which proved their treachery emerged naked before our courts and our peoples. This had decisive importance. This is the important thing to achieve,>> said Vyshinsky. <<After this the number of years to which the enemy is sentenced has secondary importance. The people must approve this sentence, must be convinced. This is what we must do with Tito's
page 528
renegade group, too. This group is in power and will defend itself. It will also commit all sorts of provocations against our socialist states, but we must be prudent, vigilant and must not fall for their provocations!>> he concluded.
In his speech Dej, amongst other things, pointed out the great danger of this agency of criminals and murderers; made an interpretation of the joint decisions which they had taken in the Information Bureau, told of the arrogance of the Yugoslav <<comrades>> at this meeting against the French and Italian communist parties, etc. Amongst other things, he mentioned some episodes from his first official visit to Yugoslavia, and his first meeting with Tito.
<<Tito behaved with us in a disdainful way and this he showed from the first meetings,>> said Dej, <<He wanted to underrate our National Liberation War, received us with great pomp in order to overawe us with his uniforms, his decorations, the rings on his fingers and his palaces. Seeing such a situation,>> said Dej, <<I 'took my courage in both hands' and said to Tito in conversation: 'Both you and I are workers and communists. Let us speak simply and directly about the problems which worry us,' etc. And he pretended to agree,>> continued Dej, <<but the luxurious life of a megalomaniacal anti-Marxist and bourgeois that he lived had become a living reality and he could not break away from that way of life. Matters had gone so far,>> said Dej, <<that Tito took me and the foreign minister of Rumania (who was a bourgeois and was removed and condemned later) to visit his stable. Tito, dressed in a black uniform with high boots and his chest covered with decorations, led the way. When we approached the horse-boxes,>> pointed out Dej, <<he shouted to one of his officers secer-secer and the officer brought a great dish of sugar into which Tito thrust his fist and gave it to the horses to eat from his hand.
<<When we parted from Tito and left that place,>> continued Dej, <<in the car my foreign minister said to me in confidence: 'Comrade Dej, Dimitrov is a communist and a fine man, but with Tito one could go to the end in com-
page 529
munism.' That is the price the bourgeois put on Tito,>> concluded Dej.
I, too, took the floor. I had a lot to say about the Titoites. In our relations with the traitor group of Belgrade there were loads of facts and data which proved their betrayal of Marxism-Leninism and the openly state capitalist and colonialist tendencies in the relations which they tried to establish in our country.
I pointed out to the comrades, amongst other things, that our contacts and relations with the Yugoslavs, which began during the National Liberation War, at first through political and party channels, later, especially from the end of the War onwards, were developed in all directions, taking into account the circumstances which were created by our common war against the same enemy and the formation of our states of people's democracy. I presented the participation of our National Liberation Partisan Army in the war for the liberation of Yugoslavia correctly and objectively, as an honourable, correct and undeniable act, which had a truly liberation character, but always remained an aid, alongside the Yugoslav National Liberation Army which for its party fought heroically. This must not be denied or underrated, irrespective of the fact that the Tito group betrayed the blood shed by this heroic army which bore the brunt in the liberation of the peoples of Yugoslavia.
After telling them about the true role of Miladin Popovic and Dusan Mugosa with theoretical and practical arguments, I refuted the absurd anti-Marxist claim that allegedly the Yugoslavs had created our Party, that allegedly they had <<kindled the fire of our national liberation war>>.
Of course these anti-Marxist, nationalist views of <<domination>> had cropped up amongst them during the war. But they assumed provocative proportions especially on the eve of Liberation and after Liberation.
<<I must point out,>> I told the comrades, <<that our contacts with the Yugoslavs during the war were rare, and moreover, when we managed to meet (and I told them about
page 530
the meetings with Vukmanovic-Tempo and Blazo Jovanovic), we had differences over principles with them on many issues, since even at that time the Yugoslav tendencies to consider and use our Party as an appendage of their party, and Albania as a province of Yugoslavia were already apparent. Of course the smoke from these anti-Marxist views emerged a little later.
<<We, for our part, have always considered our war in unity with that of the peoples of Yugoslavia. This was a major duty of ours as Marxist-Leninists, not only because we were fighting for liberation against the same enemy, but also because through the militant friendship between our two peoples we sought whole-heartedly to wipe out forever those feelings which the circumstances of past periods, such as the partitioning of Albania, the leaving of Kosova to Serbia, the ceaseless terror and countless intrigues of the Serbs against our country had created.
<<We, for our part, did everything we could, while the Yugoslavs at every stage of the development of this false friendship on their part hatched up plots and back-stage conspiracies for the domination of Albania immediately after the war.>>
With arguments I outlined to Vyshinsky and the other comrades the preparation of the putsch at the Berat Plenum, which failed, the countless efforts at the beginning of Liberation to discredit the leadership of our Party and our line on the war, by creating their agency within our leadership with Koçi Xoxe, whom they supported with all their might and set the task of seizing power and operating and applying the <<line>> of the Yugoslav Titoites in our country. I explained to the comrades the essence of this Yugoslav line, which squarely proved that the Yugoslav leadership was anti-Marxist, bourgeois, nationalist, chauvinist, anti-Soviet and anti-Albanian. I went on to inform them about the Yugoslavs' hostile activity in our country in every field, one by one, demonstrating this with many arguments backed by concrete facts which were indisputable and not in the least equivocal.
page 531
<<On ideological matters and on the organization of our Party,>> I told the comrades, <<during the war, but especially after the war, the Titoites tried with all their means to impose the organizational forms of their party on us and to divert us from the Marxist-Leninist line on the structure of the party and its correct thought and action. They did everything in their power to keep us isolated from the experience of the Bolshevik Party, with which we acquainted ourselves through the documents of that party which came into our hands and from the opinions we exchanged with the Soviet diplomats, because,>> I told Vyshinsky, <<we still had not established direct relations with the CC of the CPSU in order to exchange party experience. This came about not through any fault or lack of desire on our part, but, in general, this was the reality. Despite this lack, our Party did not budge from this orientation. The Yugoslavs, who considered this very harmful and dangerous for their diabolical plan, and finding it impossible at that time to conduct an open propaganda against the Marxist-Leninist principles which guided our Party, against close principled ideological and organizational links with the Bolshevik Party, undertook their assault against the correct general line of our Party. Koçi Xoxe, as the leader of the anti-party group, became a complete supporter of the Yugoslav Titoites. He was inflated by them with ultra-leftist and Trotskyite terms, was called 'the proletarian conscience' of our Party, hence 'the most trusted, loyal and proletarian leader of the Party'. With these activities the Yugoslav Titoites and the Titoite group of Koçi Xoxe wanted to create the belief that now our Party was on 'the true Marxist-Leninist rails', not only because it was led by 'proletarian elements', but also because it was inspired by the CPY. Through this group and Koçi Xoxe, who at Berat, on the insistence of the Yugoslavs, assumed the function of the organizational secretary of the Party, as well as that of the minister of internal affairs a grave situation was created in our Party and in our state.>>
I went on to tell the comrades: <<As well as all the other
page 532
parts, we read carefully also those parts of the letters of the Bolshevik Party in which the Yugoslav anti-Marxist practices of the organizational secretary of the party also being minister of internal affairs, the keeping of the Party in a semi-illegal situation, etc. were criticized. These alien practices and forms were imposed on us, too, by the Yugoslav leadership, and in the analyses that we are making, new grave facts are emerging about the dangerous consequences which these practices have brought in our Party and state. Very soon this situation will come to an end, just as every shred of the influence which Tito and his supporters in our ranks have managed to impose on us is coming to an end. We have fought ceaselessly against all these deviations by the Yugoslav Titoites and their secret agency in our Party,>> I continued, <<but understandably, to the extent we were able, because we had to rely solely on our own reasoned judgments and our conviction that we were on the right course. What we knew of Marxism-Leninism, we defended fanatically, and we have never abandoned the experience of the CP of the Soviet Union.>>
In a round-about way I let Vyshinsky know that we had not been given direct aid from the CPSU and also alluded to other problems, that the Soviet comrades with whom we had direct contact, whom we informed about everything, listened to us, assisted us in those fields in which they were specialists, but never expressed any opinion in reference to our contradictions with the Yugoslavs. In our presence they posed as neutral on these questions and we did not know what they reported to Moscow.
<<Another matter which confused us to some extent,>> I pointed out, <<was that for a long time our suspicions about the hostile actions of the Yugoslavs did not extend to the top, to Tito, and the whole of their leadership. In this direction it must be admitted that we were not given any information about whether the sister parties had ever drawn the attention of the Yugoslav leadership to its incorrect stands. Indeed, this situation continued right to recent weeks or
page 533
months, when the letters of the Bolshevik Party, which criticized the Yugoslav leadership, reached us. Before these letters the only signal that things were not going well,>> I told them, <<was given us when we informed Comrade Stalin about the question of the Yugoslav division which Tito wanted to deploy on our territory. We had opposed Tito's demand and when the Soviet reply reached us, we were convinced that we had acted correctly.>>
<<Stalin personally criticized Tito for this impermissible act which he wanted to commit against you,>> said Vyshinsky.
<<This rejoices us immensely,>> I told Vyshinsky, <<but through the Soviet embassy I was told only that Stalin agreed with our opinions and not with those of Tito and that was all. However, I think that I and the comrades of our leadership could and should have been told something more, should have been told why Tito did these things.
<<A similar thing occurred,>> I pointed out to the comrades, <<over another question, that of the so-called 'Balkan Federation' or 'Confederation', allegedly proposed and settled between Tito and Dimitrov, about which we were never given any information.
<<To this very day,>> I continued, <<we cannot say precisely what this thing was, how it came about, and approval from us was neither sought nor received. Only at the beginning of this year we learned at one moment that the Moscow news paper 'Pravda' criticized this 'idea' of Dimitrov's and he replied to Stalin and 'Pravda' that they were right, that in the existing conditions the idea of a 'Balkan Federation' was impossible and incorrect.>>
While pointing out that behind the efforts for a <<Balkan Federation>> lurked the chauvinist aims of the Tito clique to dominate the Balkans, I outlined to the comrades the anti-Marxist chauvinist policy pursued by the Belgrade leadership towards Kosova and the other Albanian regions in Yugoslavia, both during and after the war.
After speaking about our correct principled stand towards this painful problem of our nation, I went on to tell the
page 534
comrades about the pressure exerted on us by the Yugoslavs and Koçi Xoxe to accept the union of Albania with Yugoslavia and about our categorical opposition to this proposal.
<<However,>> I emphasized again, <<on these capital problems of such importance for the fate of our Homeland and people we acted on our own initiative. With our unshakeable conviction we heroically defended the freedom and independence of our Homeland,>> and I let Vyshinsky know that at these important moments we were not assisted as much as we should have been, that is, we found ourselves alone.
I remember that at this point Vyshinsky interrupted me and said:
<<People are tempered in struggle!>>
I went on to tell them about our army, how we created it, and what <<aid>> the Yugoslavs gave us for this, and dwelt at somewhat greater length on the Yugoslavs' <<economic aid>>.
<<The culmination of this chauvinist, colonialist and annexationist policy of the Yugoslav revisionists against our country,>> I told them, <<was the treaties on 'the planned joint economy', 'the joint companies', 'the parity of the currencies', etc., etc.>>
I told the comrades at the meeting about all these diabolical mechanisms and aims of the Yugoslav anti-Marxists, about our resistance and struggle against them, and finally about our triumph and the defeat of the conspiratorial work of Tito and company.
My speech at the meeting, which was fairly lengthy, and all those facts which I presented to them very clearly confirmed the treachery of the Titoites and the correctness of the views of Stalin expressed in the letters sent to the CPY. On the other hand, those facts testified to the correct struggle of our Party for the defence of the interests of our Homeland, of internationalism, of friendship with the Soviet Union and to our loyalty to Stalin. In the meeting I made it quite clear to the comrades present that during this struggle our Party had very frequently found itself alone, and therefore, needed
page 535
to be and should have been helped to a greater extent, more openly and with greater trust.
As soon as I had finished, we took a break, after which Vyshinsky gave the conclusions of the meeting. He described that meeting as very positive, necessary and valuable.
<<We learned many things which will help us,>> he said in essence, <<in the continuation of the struggle for the exposure of this clique of renegades.>>
Vyshinsky went on to say among other things:
<<The clear presentation of matters, supported by facts on the part of Comrade Enver Hoxha made very clear to us a series of base actions of the Yugoslav anti-Marxists and the facts and events which were brought forward at this meeting, prove that the things the Yugoslavs have done towards the Communist Party of Albania and the People's Republic of Albania are conscious actions against socialism and our common ideology.
<<We are not mistaken in the estimation we have made of the activity of these renegades and draw conclusions that this is a protracted political and ideological struggle. The Bolshevik Party,>> said Vyshinsky, <<approves the correct actions and persistent struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism by the Communist Party of Albania, its Central Committee and Comrade Enver Hoxha. We must bear in mind,>> he continued, <<that this clique will go even further in its hostile actions against our socialist camp. The Titoites will commit many provocations of all kinds, in order to justify themselves and put the blame on us. They will commit these provocations to deceive opinion inside and outside Yugoslavia and to justify their policy of betrayal and links with the capitalist states.
<<This requires that we must always be vigilant, must safeguard and strengthen our Marxist-Leninist unity, love for and loyalty to Stalin,>> stressed Vyshinsky. <<We are not afraid of these dregs of our society who are doomed to disappear into the rubbish bin of history. We must make the relations between our parties and socialist states even
page 536
stronger and must help one another more. I stress,>> said Vyshinsky finally, <<that it is our duty as friends, as comrades, and as internationalists to help the PR of Albania more, so that it makes up for the time lost, improves its economic situation, and we must not forget, either, that now it is completely encircled by enemy states. The sister Republic of Albania is a worthy member of our powerful socialist camp, therefore, it never should feel itself isolated, and will never be isolated either politically, economically, ideologically or militarily. This is the instruction of Comrade Stalin.
<<In regard to our future stand towards the leadership in Belgrade,>> concluded Vyshinsky, <<we must display great care and through mature and principled stands bring about that any attempt or provocation of Tito's fails, and avoid giving him the possibility on any occasion to accuse us of stands and actions alien to our socialist ideology and policy. In the direction of Albania, in particular, Tito's provocations may be greater and more severe, because, as Comrade Enver said, apart from other things, between the two countries there is still the unsolved problem of Kosova and other Albanian regions in Yugoslavia. From there Tito can hatch up all sorts of traps, therefore, through vigilance and maturity we must ensure that he is thwarted in such manoeuvres, as he has been up till now.>>
Later, during my second and third visit to the Soviet Union[1], the great Stalin personally was to express his concern for vigilance and care in regard to any provocation of the Titoites especially in connection with Kosova.
In one of the unforgettable conversations with him, after I told him about our protracted battle with the leadership of Belgrade, and about many problems, including that of Kosova, amongst other things I said:
<<Without ever interfering in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia, we, for our part, will never cease supporting the rights of our brothers of the same blood in Yugoslavia, will
page 537
raise our voice against the terror and the policy of extermination which the Tito-Rankovic clique[1] pursues towards them.>>
Stalin listened to me attentively and, when I had finished, said:
<<In the future, too, as Marxist-Leninists, we must attack the anti-Marxist actions and views of Tito and the Yugoslav leadership, but I stress that we must not in any way interfere in their internal affairs. This would not be Marxist. The Yugoslav communists and the peoples of Yugoslavia must see to this matter, it is up to them to solve the problems of their present and future. This is the context in which I see the problem of Kosova and the other Albanian population living on their own lands in Yugoslavia. We must not leave the Titoite enemy any way to make the accusation that we are allegedly waging our struggle to break up the Yugoslav Federation. This is a delicate matter and must be treated with very great care. . .>>[2]
But let us return to the meeting with Vyshinsky and Dej in Bucharest, which, as I said, began and ended with success.
I was very satisfied, first, because matters were made clear to us, but also because of the good assessment which Vyshinsky made of the work of our Party.
After dinner at which toasts were drunk, Vyshinsky, who was very intelligent and with great humour, cracked many jokes. When we embraced on parting, he said to me:
<<Au revoir in Moscow!>> (In fact, I met Vyshinsky later in Moscow on two or three occasions, when I went officially or for holidays to the Soviet Union.)
I retain very good memories and have a special admiration for his great intelligence and acumen, for his Bolshevik determination and loyalty to the great Stalin. He loved Albania, interested himself in our situation, and always asked me about it whenever we met. At one dinner which he gave
page 538
for our official delegation, he created a very intimate and happy atmosphere. Many comrades of the Political Bureau of the CPSU, headed by Molotov, were present, and amidst the rejoicing, the comrades of our embassy brought me a telegram with the happy news about the birth of my first child and that mother and son were very well. Of course, we drank a bit that night and one could do nothing else with the Soviet comrades who liked to drink. They told Vyshinsky about the birth of my son and he immediately approached me, shook my hand and congratulated me saying: <<My heartfelt congratulations on the son that is born. May he have a long life!>> On the following day they told Stalin, too, at an unforgettable reception which he organized for us, about the birth of my son.[1]
Another time when I had a meeting with Vyshinsky to talk about the international situation and the stands which our delegations would take in the UNO on various problems, during the talk he offered me a drink saying:
<<I know that you do drink a little because I noticed it at the reception.>>
I replied that I did not like to drink at all, that I only smoked, but I had drunk a bit at that reception, because I had had so much to rejoice over. I noticed that he did not insist, as the other Soviet comrades did, that I should drink, but he himself did not drink, either.
<<It's not the habit of the Russians to clink glasses with <<borzhom *,>> said Vyshinsky. <<I am a Russian, but I have diabetes, and liquor is banned for me.>>
<<You stick to the rules as you do in everything,>> I said, <<but I wish you good health and a very long life.>>
Later, when I heard of Vyshinsky's death, I was very grieved. I shall never forget this great Stalinist statesman who, not only as a prosecutor, not only as a jurist, but also as a diplomat proved himself to be of a very high calibre.
page 539
His speeches at the UNO as Foreign Minister and representative of the Soviet Union are landmarks in the history of international relations. His speeches are masterpieces of defence of the Stalinist line and merciless political and ideological exposure of the imperialist policy with exemplary and powerful Marxist-Leninist logic. Vyshinsky was a brilliant debator. The enemies trembled at his words, because he was right, because he brought up countless facts, and facts are stubborn. He knew how to use his facts and documents with rare mastery, because he was a Bolshevik, a loyal pupil of Lenin and Stalin. But let us return to the meeting in Bucharest and say <<farewell>> to Dej.
The day after the meeting, Chuvakin and I asked Dej for permission to go to visit the city of Bucharest by car and on foot. Dej agreed to our proposal with pleasure. Apparently, the <<illegality>> of my visit had been lifted. After breakfast we climbed into cars and set out on the excursion. We drove all round Bucharest, stopped on the edge of some very beautiful lakes, of which there were many in Bucharest, surrounded with trees and flowers. Around one of them stood beautiful villas, residences, and another royal palace. The Rumanian bourgeoisie oppressed the people and enjoyed a prosperous life, amusing itself at the expense of the blood of this people. Rumania was a wealthy country, exported grain, while the people did not have bread to eat. Rumania had resources of oil and was noted for the famous Ploest oilfield, but this wealth belonged to the Rumanian bourgeoisie and foreign oil companies.
In the past Rumania had highly developed trade with the various capitalist countries, and the many-sided relations with these countries, the influence of capitalism and the capitalist way of life had introduced political and moral degeneration to this country. Corruption, bribery, cabarets, transactions, prevailed here. Even merchants of Albanian origin, especially from Korça, had established themselves in Rumania. Some of them had become relatively wealthy. Families from Korça had emigrated to find work or because of
page 540
the persecution by the Greeks. This small colony of Albanians, which was very active, with patriotic and militant sentiments for the cause of the liberation of Albania, became one of the most fiery centres for the national cause, from which emerged many outstanding men like Viktor Eftimiu and others, who were progressive and with rare talents.
The Rumanians called Bucharest <<the little Paris>>. I had read Paul Morand's[1] book about Bucharest. As I said above, when you looked at the city, you formed the impression that it had never seen the war, as if it had not been hit by the smallest bomb during the Second World War. There was no damage, no ruins to be seen. But what of our poverty-stricken cities! They had been bombed and devastated by the Italians, the Germans, and even by the British <<allies>>. It seemed that here in Bucharest the Germans had done no fighting at all, but had just raised their hands in the air.
When we came to the most beautiful and busiest street of Bucharest, where business was brisk, we got off the cars and walked. A member of the Central Committee and five or six security men accompanied us.
What there was to see! The shops were full of strikingly luxurious goods; every shop contained such goods of a particular speciality such as marten and fox, and all kinds of other luxurious furs; there were shops full of luxurious shoes, marvellous porcelain ware, fabrics, ready-made clothes, book shops. All the showcases were aglow with luxury and sensational advertisments. It seemed as if you were not in a city which had just emerged from the war, but in Champs Elysées of pre-war Paris. And all the shops were still the property of the Rumanian bourgeoisie, were in its hands, it made the law in commerce. Chuvakin and I looked at the shopwindows with curiosity and astonishment. As always I thought of the empty shops in Tirana, while Chuvakin thought of those in Moscow which certainly were not full of goods like these. We asked the Rumanian comrade who accompanied us:
page 541
<<Do these shops belong to the state?>>
<<No, they have not been nationalized yet,>> he replied. <<But, please, let us go into one of the shops and have a look inside.>>
He begged us to go inside whenever we stopped to look in a window, but we did not fulfil his desire. Later we understood what the Rumanian comrade had on his mind. He had received an order from Dej that we were to choose what we wanted in the shops we entered and he was not to allow us to pay. These things were to be gifts for us from the CC of the WP of Rumania. In the end we went into one shop which the comrade told us was partly owned by the state. It was a big luxurious shop. We went in, of course, to have a look, to please the Rumanian comrade, who was wearing himself out begging us, and not to buy. We noticed that he took the manager of the shop aside and certainly gave him the order to serve us. Then, he and the salesman did their best to press many things on us, but we did not accept all they offered us. I chose a paper knife, a pair of office scissors to open books and a leather compendium for my desk. Chuvakin, too, chose much the same things. We fulfilled the Rumanian comrade's desire!
When we came out of the shop we went into a big cafe and sat down to rest. There were many people there, strikingly well-dressed. They looked us over curiously from the corner of their eyes; they did not know us, but certainly recognized the security men who accompanied us. This was one of those cafes which Dej told us were frequented by the bourgeoisie, where he <<with his revolver in his belt and surrounded by security men went to provoke them within their own lairs>>.
He went and <<provoked>> them in cafes, indeed! But what harm did such a thing do them when they had the economy, the market, their wealth in their hands? This scandalized me and I wondered: What sort of communists are they? What sort of socialism is this?
Only a few years later they were to show completely what their worth was -- Dej, this <<stern fighter>> against Tito,
page 542
was the first to become the defender and the supporter of Tito as soon as Khrushchev turned over the page.
When we returned to the Palace for the farewell dinner with the Rumanian comrades (because the next day we were to return to the Homeland), in the course of conversation I spoke about the very good impressions we had of Rumania, of the people, the individuals, but I also spoke about our experience and I expressed my astonishment in the form of a question:
<<Why do you not expropriate the bourgeoisie, but allow them to exploit the people?>> Dej explained to me that <<everything will be done in its own time, because the situation here is different from that in your country,>> and other such theories.
The following day we parted from Dej and Anna Pauker and the other Rumanian comrades who saw us off at the airport.
New battles were awaiting us. With the experience of a struggle over many years, with the things that we learned and were made clear to us at this meeting, we had to carry the struggle against the Trotskyite deviation of Tito and against his agents in our ranks through to the end.
page 543
of the CC of the CPSU to the Titoite leadership! This was in our interest, because the majority of the leadership of the Party and the Party itself (when it was told) would truly express whole-hearted solidarity with Stalin's first letter (and with the others), but it would not be good at all for our Party if even three or four voices were to be raised against this general stand.
However, linked with this first positive consequence, the second consequence was to come, and this would be extremely negative for our work: being obliged to express <<solidarity>> with the letters of the CC of the CPSU and with all the Marxist-Leninist analyses which we would develop in the light of our events, Koçi Xoxe and his gang would try to camouflage themselves, to cover their tracks, to present themselves, at the most, as <<mistaken>>, as <<influenced>>, and not as they were in fact -- recruited agents of Titoite revisionism.
In no way, however, could we allow the evil to go on existing in the sound body of our Party. It had to be uncovered, eradicated and rejected, not only because of the great damage it had brought us in the past, but also for the sake of the future. If we were to show ourselves liberal, blind, or soft with it, then in the future, as soon as the conditions were created, this evil would try to regain its lost positions and to overthrow the Party.
Thus, began that long process of work, profound analyses and discussion which took up the whole period from April-May to November of 1948. During this period an intensive struggle was waged, meetings and debates went on ceaselessly for whole days and nights. Frequently, when it was obvious that the situation was becoming clear, suddenly new facts and arguments would be brought out, which impelled us to begin the analyses all over again. It was not easy to unmask the enemies in the leadership of the Party all at once. They had been through the Tito-Rankovic <<school>> and their direct participation in the plot had made them masters of duplicity and deception.
The arch-agent, Koçi Xoxe, in particular, would try to
page 544
twist and manoeuvre in a thousand and one ways to save, if not all, at least as much as he could, of his black past.
When he read the letters, after a phase in which he was dumbfounded and hesitant, when he realized that matters would be gone into deeply, he changed his tactic, began to be <<astonished>> and <<angry>> about the things which Tito and company had put upon us!
He had become like a wild beast stunned after the first and sudden blow which his masters had received, although he himself had still not been attacked, and indeed at first we never even said a word to him about his part in the Mafia. The great shock which he suffered at those moments his stunned confusion, were further great proof for us that we had to do with one of the most dangerous enemies. Precisely when he expected to seize complete power, when he thought that no serious obstacle was left in front of him, that is, precisely at the moment when he expected to receive the crown, like a bolt from the blue he received a sudden and devastating blow which finally swept from his hands everything he had dreamed of and prepared for openly and secretly for a long time. On such occasions enemy elements and conspirators at first fall into a real state of shock and paralysis, while little by little they recover themselves and do everything in their power to clutch at a straw, to save themselves from drowning in the filthy mire in which they have immersed themselves.
This was occurring also with Xoxe, the <<hero>> of the 8th Plenum, who changed his tactic and expressed <<solidarity>> with the letters of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but who tried to manoeuvre, suggested that we should limit ourselves simply to solidarity with them and unanimously <<approve>> only what was said in the letters. However, I did not allow him to deceive himself with vain hopes.
<<Stalin's letters are a great help to us,>> I told him quietly but sternly. <<We shall study the problems which are raised there, but the main thing that we must do is to examine them in the light of our own affairs, our relations, our wounds in
page 545
the light of these problems, because the wounds from the blows which Tito and company dealt us are still open on our backs. Don't forget what sort of situation we were in,>> I stressed deliberately. <<If any minor opposition were raised to some Yugoslav technician, let alone describing them as enemies, immediately someone in the Bureau would say, 'We must look into this question because it is anti-Yugoslavism.' Is that not so?!>>
<<Yes, yes, that's how far things had gone!>> he said in a meek voice and I saw the expression of his face change.
<<All these things that have occurred during these last 4 or 5 years in our Party and in the leadership,>> I told him, <<show that we have had not only pressure and blackmail from the Tito clique, but also responses, indeed strong responses to that blackmail.>>
<<I don't say, I don't say that we have not opposed them when the occasion arose, but we have not described them as enemies and traitors as they are. The letters of the Bolshevik Party. . . opened our eyes. . ., we must look into the problem, must look into it more extensively,>> he said, <<because there are things which will be of great value to the Bolshevik Party and the Cominform!>>
<<Yes!>> I cut him short. <<They certainly will be of value to them, but in the first place they will be of value to us, to our Party, to the road we have followed, to the clashes we have had, to the good things and the mistakes, to the past, the present and the future. And we have many things to re-examine, to say, to analyse and decide. Everything which has been violated and distorted by the Yugoslavs, under the influence of the Yugoslavs or in agreement with the Yugoslavs, must be restored to order, the causes must be found, the roots distinguished and the evil must be forcibly eradicated and rejected with determination.
<<One thing is more than clear,>> I pointed out to him looking at him hard, <<they have not worked alone in their anti-Albanian operation. Long ago they created their bases
page 546
of secret supporters within our ranks. We must bear this well in mind in the analyses we are going to begin.
He scowled and began to stutter.
<<That is right, mistakes have been made,>> he said after a moment in which he pulled himself together. <<We must look into these matters thoroughly, thoroughly,>> he continued with his eyes on the ground. <<We have been infected a bit with this evil, but. . . from the great trust we had in those dogs. We trusted them as if there were no one like them. Here we made a mistake, and I agree that we must look into it, as a party and as a leadership.>>
<<We are going to look into it,>> I told him, <<in the Party and in the leadership, but never confusing the Party or even the whole of its leadership with what you call the infection! The infected must come out and tell us why. It is they who must render account and if they don't we shall demand it from them in the way the accounting is required. We don't confuse either the Party or its leadership with them.>>
These <<free>> conversations with Koçi Xoxe had great importance and I conducted them cautiously, because we were on the eve of the opening of the discussion and analyses in the Political Bureau. As I have described above, the Political Bureau, especially after the 8th Plenum, virtually did not function as a top organ of the Party. The Koçi Xoxe wing predominated in it, and this might now constitute a danger of confusion or wrong orientation, especially at the first moments. Hence, it had importance that Xoxe himself should come out <<in solidarity>> with the letters of the Bolshevik Party, irrespective of the sinister aims which would be hidden behind this <<solidarity>>. Pandi Kristo, Kristo Themelko, Nesti Kerenxhi and so on would follow their master and then the tangle would begin to come apart itself. Even those who saw the danger to themselves in this new turn of events could not come out against the general opinion. They were bound to express their solidarity with the letters, as they did, would twist and turn to get off as lightly as possible and to
page 547
throw the main blame on the others, but in the end, on the basis of all the rules of democracy re-established in the Party, their dirty linen would be uncovered, bit by bit.
Right from the opening of the analyses in the Bureau, I considered it necessary that the spirit of the discussion should be orientated in the most correct way.
<<Our Party,>> I said to the comrades, <<is one of those parties which can and must testify strongly and with many arguments to the existence of grave deviations and mistakes in the CC of the CP of Yugoslavia. I personally, and I believe you, too, fell deeply that the principled criticisms of the Bolshevik Party are correct and, although those criticisms are not aimed at us, I think that we must thoroughly examine and analyse our work to its foundations. We must be conscious that the Trotskyites of Belgrade, headed by Tito, have tried to peddle to us many of those mistakes and distortions that the Bolshevik Party pointed out and to impose them on us. The fact is that the Yugoslav leadership has tried to introduce military methods in the leadership of our Party, to split the leadership, to peddle to us forms of opportunism which were intended to weaken the Party and our People's Republic, to peddle to us organizational forms which suppressed the internal democracy of the Party, which strangled criticism and self-criticism, etc. It went as far as plans for military occupation, that is, to impose itself on us by military force. True, these anti-Marxist views have not become established in our Party but some of them, especially of an organizational character, have been imposed on us to one extent or another. We have no reason to hide these things, but on the contrary, must acknowledge them honestly, we must determine precisely to what extent they have penetrated and struggle to eliminate them immediately, along with the external factors and, especially the internal factors, which have made their penetration possible.
<<This,>> I told the comrades, <<must be one of the directions of our analyses. However,>> I continued, <<we cannot allow matters to rest at that. The harmful and anti-Albanian activity
page 548
of the Yugoslav leaders has been exercised against us for years on end in other fields and with numerous anti-Marxist forms and methods which, understandably, the Bolshevik Party perhaps has not known and does not know. In our analyses we must weigh everything up on the balance of Marxism-Leninism. The time has come for the truth to be brought to light, for many things to be re-examined from the beginning and for justice to be restored wherever it has been violated. We have no reason to be afraid of such analyses, no reason to be afraid of criticism or self-criticism. From all these things the Party will emerge a thousand times stronger and healthier and our sacred cause will be carried forward with greater confidence.>>
The meetings of the Political Bureau devoted to this problem in April, May and June 1948 were developed in this way, in the spirit of solidarity with the letters of the Bolshevik Party, as well as by bringing out numerous facts and arguments about the anti-Marxist and anti-Albanian activities of the chiefs in Belgrade against our Party and country.
As a result of this, after the 9th Plenum of the CC of the CPA when we openly denounced the anti-Marxist leadership of Belgrade, we were completely prepared to reply at the proper time and with the proper force to the campaign of slanders and denigration which Tito and company launched against us.
But this first phase of our general attack against Titoite revisionism prepared all the conditions to advance further in the final exposure and unmasking of the agents of Belgrade within our own ranks.
As I said, after they expressed their <<solidarity>> en bloc with the letters of the Bolshevik Party, willy-nilly, these agents were involved in all the analyses which we made. The total defeat they had suffered, their fear of the disclosure of the truth which they were hiding, their efforts to cover their tracks, automatically made Koçi Xoxe and company perform a <<service>> to our future, right from the first phase of the attack: they brought to light many facts and arguments which
page 549
provided even better confirmation of the interference and hostile pressure of Tito and his emissaries against our Party and country. These facts were extremely grave and we could not have known all of them earlier, because only the agents of Belgrade had knowledge of them. Now, in the context of <<reflecting>>, of <<assessing the past in a new light>>, they tried, sometimes for purposes of skilful camouflage and sometimes purely from their confusion and fear, to make themselves out <<anti-Titoites>>! To hear them competing to <<uncover the background of Titoism>> you would think that you could hardly find <<more devoted anti-Titoites>>! What a pity that such men <<remembered>> so late <<to look straight at the truth>>!
They might well have been branded with their true names right at the start, but in the first phase it was better to let them express themselves freely! In this phase let them spread the grave burden of responsibility for the unpardonable mistakes and distortions over <<everyone>>! For the time being, the main thing was to bring out clearly this responsibility, to present to everybody the whole baggage of the Titoite filth, to convince everybody with the maximum number of arguments about what a dangerous and menacing phase the hostile activity of the chiefs of Belgrade against us had reached!
Precisely this wise and cautious work which we did in the Political Bureau during April, May and June brought about that the 9th Plenum of the CC of the CPA took place in a lofty party spirit and the unity of thought and deed of our whole Central Committee was outstanding there. This same spirit characterized the whole Party and people when they were informed about the denunciation and unmasking of the chiefs in Belgrade through the communiqué of the CC of the CPA on July 1, 1948.
Our struggle against Titoism, against its pressure and influence within our ranks, advanced to a new phase. The mass of facts which were pouring in from all sides still had its own importance, but the main thing now was that the
page 550
conspiratorial elements should be finally uncovered and exposed and should render account for the crimes they had committed against the Party and the people.
In July I presented the problem quite openly:
<<The immediate solidarity and enthusiasm with which the Party and our people have welcomed the communique of the Central Committee, the universal indignation against the intense and unrestrained anti-Albanian activity of the chiefs of Belgrade must be evaluated correctly and thoroughly. In regard to us they demonstrate two truths in particular: first, that as a result of the activity, blackmail and pressure of the Yugoslavs, mistakes and distortions have been permitted amongst us, too, and second, these mistakes and distortions which have been permitted are by no means the responsibility of the whole Party or its whole leadership. The general enthusiasm which has burst out and the indignation which is being displayed towards the evil activity of Tito and company cannot be explained otherwise. The time has come, comrades, to dwell concretely on the responsibilities of each of us. It would be unpardonable to lay the burden of the responsibility for the mistakes on the backs of all.>>
Understandably this was the most delicate and difficult phase of uncovering and cleaning up the evil. True, the conspirators were confused and on the defensive, but they would continue to defend themselves, to hide their tracks and would try to mislead us.
At first, as a result of arguments and facts which I, Hysni Kapo, Gogo Nushi and, up to a point, also Bedri Spahiu and Tuk Jakova presented against Koçi Xoxe, Pandi Kristo and Kristo Themelko, they, with their backs to the wall, were forced to admit only one mistake.
<<We have been 'more heavily influenced',>> said Pandi Kristo, <<but we did not know that the Yugoslav leaders were enemies.>>
We presented new facts and arguments (they had to do with the whole mass of problems that I described above), but the three still stuck to their story:
page 551
<<That we were influenced easily and more than the others, this we admit,>> spluttered Xoxe. <<Indeed, we admit that we did not go very deeply into the things that the Yugoslavs taught us, but we did not do this deliberately. We made a mistake and that's all there is to it.>>
But the moment came when the block was split. After a series of hesitations and vacillations, Kristo Themelko was convinced that it was in vain to hide the truth. He testified quite openly in the Political Bureau that his activity and that of the other <<influenced persons>> was not a question of <<influence>>, but a work of a secret agency carried out systematically, organized and directed from Belgrade or by Savo Zlatic, Josip Djerdja, Kupresanin, Sergentic and others in Tirana.
In particular, his testimony that all the tales he had told us a few months before (about <<the federal union>>, <<the coming of the division>>, etc.) were not his own but came from the Yugoslavs, was very valuable for the further deepening of the analyses in the Political Bureau.
Amongst other things, Themelko testified: <<Tito himself, in the presence of Tempo and Koca Popovic, told me: 'Go and present this to Enver Hoxha as yours and persist till you convince him.'>>
Like it or not, the others, too, especially Nesti Kerenxhi and Xhoxhi Blushi, began to talk, while Koçi Xoxe and Pandi Kristo as the <<deans>> of the conspirators, continued (of course to their own disadvantage, because the Party had everything clear) to bluff and refuse to bring out everything.
Now, however, everything was ripe to raise the matter in the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party.
First, on September 6-7 the 10th Plenum of the CC of the CPA was held and there, after discussion, it was decided to call the 1st Congress of the CPA on November 1, 1948. We discussed and adopted the agenda for the Congress, the method of organization of party conferences in the districts, the method of election of delegates to the Congress, etc.
All these things had importance, not only because we were
page 552
going to such an historic event as the Congress of the Party for the first time, but also because, from the organizational aspect, the Yugoslavs had imposed anti-democratic forms and methods on us in the past.
Now these would come to an end once and for all and the very method of the organization, preparation and development of the Congress would constitute the re-establishment of the practice of all the internal norms and rules of the Party. After we had also discussed the draft of the new Constitution of the Party, I closed the 10th Plenum by pointing out to the comrades:
<<Time does not wait. We must mobilize ourselves to put into practice the directives and orientations of this Plenum within a few days. We must immediately transmit the orientations to the committees of the Party in the regions, to guide and engage all the comrades in the work for the preparation of conferences and after this we shall meet again. We have a great and difficult task ahead of us: apart from the formulation and discussion of plans for the economic-cultural development, we shall analyse in detail the whole history of our relations with the Trotskyites of Belgrade and their anti-Marxist activity against us, as well as the way in which we have responded to this activity during the 6-7 years that we have been in contact with them.>>
This analysis was carried out with complete success and adherence to Marxist-Leninist principles at the 11th Plenum of the CC of the CPA, which was held from September 13-24, 1948.
In the report which I presented to the Plenum on behalf of the Political Bureau, I made a profound and detailed analysis of the whole history of our relations with the CPY and the Yugoslav state, of the political and organizational line of our Party especially since the Berat Plenum (November 1944), disclosed the causes of the mistakes observed amongst us and defined the measures for the change which was dictated by the new circumstances.
It would not be of value to dwell here on the ideas, facts
page 553
and conclusions presented in that report, because I would be repeating in one way or another all that I have written above. I want only to stress certain moments from the Plenum.
Above all, the sound Marxist-Leninist spirit which characterized the proceedings of the Plenum from beginning to end has remained indelible in my memory. For the first time after so many years (I can say since the 1st National Conference of the CPA in March 1943), the comrades got up and spoke freely, with maturity and great preoccupation about the acute problems which had been put forward for discussion. They spoke without partiality, without imposition and without hesitation before anyone and about everything. The solidarity of all the comrades with the report which I presented was expressed not simply in words, but with many arguments and facts which each of them brought from his own experience.
Both in the report and in the many contributions to the discussion (there were comrades who, by their own desire, spoke two or three times), the anti-Marxist activity of the Yugoslav leadership, its feverish efforts to lead us up a blind alley and to subjugate us, its ugly plot to gobble up Albania, were brought out even more clearly. Linking all these things with everything that was said in the letters of the Bolshevik Party and the Resolution of the Information Bureau, the Plenum rightly came to the conclusion that in the line of the leadership of the Yugoslav Party we had to do with an anti-Marxist line which was being concretized as a dangerous current within the international communist movement.
<<It is the merit of the Bolshevik Party and the great Stalin, but also of our Party,>> said one of the comrades, <<that they discovered and forcefully opposed this dangerous line. If it had been left in peace and not attacked, it would have brought grave and painful consequences to the socialist camp.>>
In the course of the debate, another comrade, although he attacked the Titoite deviation, expressed the opinion that
page 554
the betrayal by the Yugoslav leaders <<will weaken the communist movement and the socialist camp, because we are left with one communist party and one socialist country less!>>
Hysni Kapo took the floor and in his wise and concrete contribution, full of valuable arguments and generalizations, opposed the previous speaker:
<<It is not true at all that the communist movement and the socialist camp will be weakened by the betrayal which the Yugoslav leaders are committing!>> stressed Hysni among other things. <<On the contrary, the exposure of the betrayal, the proper denunciation and condemnation which it has received will make us stronger, more compact and more determined to forge ahead. It is not the number of participating parties and countries that constitute the strength of the communist movement and the socialist camp, but the quality of these parties and countries, their determination to apply and defend Marxism-Leninism.>>[1]
A very large part of those 10-12 days of discussion and debate was occupied by analysis of the line pursued by our Party. Both the report and the discussion rightly stressed and proved that regardless of the interference, pressure and blackmail by the Titoites, the political line of the CPA had always remained correct and consistent. This line, it was said, had been attacked but had not wavered, had been threatened but had not been damaged.
<<Certain individual distortions which have appeared,>> the Plenum stressed, <<are not the result of our line. They have been dictated to us and imposed by force and cunning in specific circumstances by the emissaries of the Yugoslav leadership. However, these occasional imposed distortions, as for example the 8th Plenum of the CC of the CPA, can never represent or sully the correct political line pursued and defended by our Party. It is an important fact,>> it was stressed, <<that even the grave distortions of the 8th Plenum
page 555
never became established and implanted in our Party. We rejected them indignantly and now we are putting the seal on the condemnation they warranted.>>
Matters were more difficult and more complicated in regard to the organizational line of the Party. Here, both the pressure and interference from outside and the scale of their penetration had been greater and on this account such violations had been permitted that the organizational line of the Party in general had been turned into an incorrect line. The 2nd and the 8th Plenums of the CC of the CPA had played a major negative role in this dangerous change. The analysis which was made of these two Plenums brought to light numerous new facts and arguments which proved not only the leading role which Tito's emissaries had played in the organization of them, but also the conspiratorial anti-party work of the secret agency headed by the organizational secretary, Koçi Xoxe with his henchmen.
Along with the incontestable facts and arguments which Comrades Gogo Nushi, Manush Myftiu, Haki Toska, Petro Papi and others brought up at the Plenum, a special role in throwing light on the plot at Berat and the 8th Plenum was played by those elements who had been implicated with the Yugoslavs, but still disguised themselves as if they were <<remote from the secret agency>> and <<unsullied>>. Notable among these elements were Naxhije Dume, Nesti Kerenxhi, Pëllumb Dishnica, etc.
<<Even before the Berat Plenum was held,>> declared Naxhije Dume, <<I knew what was being done, knew that the attack on and elimination of the Commander were being prepared, and also knew the new comrades who were to be put into the Bureau. Nako told me all these things.>> Naxhije went on at length and the truth is that through her <<zeal>> she brought out facts which even much later were valuable for the exposure and unmasking of conspirators who still remained in the ranks of the Party. Amongst other things, Naxhije Dume was the first to reveal Nako's statement, <<If the Commander is not convinced, the pistol will convince him.>>
page 556
<<Nako told me this. I was together with Pandi when he told me,>> she testified.
Pandi Kristo who had collapsed like a heap of cow-dung in a rain storm finally <<remembered>> and testified:
<<Nako said this. Koçi and I were there when he said it. Velimir Stojnic was present, too. They led me up a blind alley.>>
The tangle was coming apart ever more clearly. In particular, the testimony of Pandi, which he made mostly from the fear which had gripped him as well as the generally frank and sound self-criticism of Kristo Themelko, brought about that even <<General Xoxe>> was <<shaken>>. Now his threatening mien and any sign of megalomania had dropped away from him. He was like a plucked rooster.
<<I have been more influenced by the Yugoslavs, because I put great trust in them. This is my undoing,>> he stressed, when he was put with his back to the wall, and sat down.
The comrades produced new, ever more powerful arguments. He was compelled to make further admissions:
<<I, for my part. . . have said that Albania cannot exist without Yugoslavia. I have said this, because this was fixed in my mind. I considered that Yugoslavia and Albania were in the camp headed by the Soviet Union, but Albania not shoulder to shoulder with, but under the wing of Yugoslavia. This was the influence of Tito's work. Then came the question of complete union, but how this union was to be brought about was not clear to me. I thought and repeated 'federation and confederation', but today it emerges clearly that they wanted Albania as a seventh republic.>>
<<But you, how did you want it personally?!>> someone asked the <<General>> sarcastically.
His voice failed him.
<<Eventually,>> he said, <<I told you I made a great mistake, but I could not see it existing independently. Under the wing of Yugoslavia, yes! Tito and Rankovic influenced me greatly.>>
Koçi Xoxe was even more disarmed when his <<aides>> Nesti Kerenxhi, a certain Vaskë Koleci (now we can say a
page 557
certain Vaskë, but at that time he was a big man, deputy minister of internal affairs who wanted to wreak havoc upon us) and others, in order to save their own skins, brought to light monstrous activities carried out behind the backs of the Party and its leadership. However, it must be said that at first they did not bring out these monstrosities themselves, on their own <<initiative>>. No, they were compelled to <<confess>> when the truth about them came out clearly. As far as I remember, Comrade Adil Çarçani was speaking and with wisdom combined with indignation, was criticizing the anti-party <<instructions>> which came to the districts from the <<organizational secretary of the Party>> Koçi Xoxe. Amongst others Adil brought up this fact:
<<When I was secretary in the regional committee of Shkodra, not only did we receive 'directives' which openly violated democracy in the Party, but once Zoi Themeli, sent by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, came to me and said, 'I have orders to control the party committee'. 'What do you mean control it?' I asked him. 'You are from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, what have you to do with the committee!' Zoi told me: 'This is the rule. Is it for nothing that the organizational secretary is also minister of Internal Affairs at the same time?' And he persisted, going on to say, 'This is a clear-cut order of the General himself and the Central Committee'.>>
Right after this, Nesti Kerenxhi and Vaskë Koleci got up and admitted with their own mouths things which it had never crossed my mind could occur within our Party:
<<Matters had gone so far,>> they said, <<that in order to admit or expel a comrade from the Party, permission had first to be received from the security organs; the party documents of all those expelled were kept in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In every basic organization of the Party there had to be a comrade of the security organs who should be elected to the bureau, indeed, should be secretary or vice secretary; likewise, in the party committees and in the bureaus of committees there had to be a 'representative' of the security organs,>> and so on and so forth.
page 558
<<How is it possible that these things have occurred without the knowledge of the Political Bureau, or at least without informing me, as General Secretary of the Party?>> I asked Koçi Xoxe there and then.
<<I had the idea that you knew about it,>> he mumbled, <<I did not think up these rules myself. The comrades. . ., that is, the Yugoslav enemies, issued, them to us. That's how they act in their Party and I. . ., as I told the Plenum, was greatly influenced by them.>>
At this point, Vaskë Koleci in order to emerge as <<unimplicated>> in the evil work, decided to deal his <<General>> a heavy blow:
<<The Yugoslavs gave them to you, but you yourself wanted those things,>> he said to Xoxe. <<Last year you ordered us to work out 'the regulations on operations and control', which we sent to all branches of our ministry and it seems to me that those regulations outdid all.>>
<<What were those 'regulations'?>> I asked him.
<<The organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were set the task of keeping every communist and cadre throughout the country under surveillance and control!>> replied Vaskë readily, convinced that with this <<testimony>> he had saved his skin.
<<What's this you are telling us? And was it sent?!>> I asked in shocked surprise.
<<Not for surveillance!>> Xoxi wanted to <<soften>> it somewhat. <<We instructed the comrades of the security service to interest themselves in the lives of the comrades, their problems, their personal and family worries. This was the aim we had, not surveillance.>>
A bitter laugh burst out in the hall.
<<'Interest' in secrecy means surveillance!>> Vaskë snarled at him. <<Then, what did we do with the reports which came to us? Did we solve anyone's personal problems? No, we filled their personal files!>>
It is of no value to dwell any further on the endless anti-party atrocities of Koçi Xoxe and company acting as a secret agency. The Plenum dealt with them for whole days
page 559
(the Political Bureau for some months before) and, moreover, after the 11th Plenum, when its conclusions and decisions were discussed in the Party and among the people, even more facts about the bitter truth came to light.
The important thing is that from all these analyses which were protracted and wearying, but principled and profound, all the anti-party and anti-Albanian activity of these rotten elements, who for years on end had been thrown into action to destroy the Party and the freedom and independence of the Homeland, was brought to light. The whole Party and people were convinced about the evil deed the conspirators had wanted to accomplish and this was the most important thing in our analyses. As for their punishment, this was now a simple matter.
Thus, these agents of the Yugoslavs were finished and eliminated from our ranks. The distortions which had resulted from their secret and open activity were finished, too.
The 11th Plenum decided to legalize the Party completely and immediately. It described the fact that the program of the Party had been hidden under the program of the Democratic Front as a grave mistake which had to be corrected immediately, condemned and annulled as anti-party and anti-Marxist most of the decisions of the Berat Plenum and all the decisions of the 8th Plenum of the CC of the CPA, and suspended all sanctions and co-options which, as I said, had been made on an anti-democratic road, under pressure of the Yugoslav leadership and its secret agents, Koçi Xoxe and company.
The main one among those rehabilitated by the 11th Plenum of the CC of the CPA was Nako Spiru. The decision on his rehabilitation was taken because, as I explained above, the 11th Plenum rejected all the <<accusations>> the Yugoslav leadership had levelled on us such as that over the so-called <<anti-Yugoslav line in the leadership of the CPA>>, or that which described Nako as <<an agent of imperialism>>, on account of being ungrounded and made for anti-Albanian and anti-Marxist aims. With facts totally lacking, we had no reason to give credibility to this accusation which was made by
page 560
people who were themselves agents of imperialism. As for the <<faults>> of Nako in the economy, he, as I have explained, was not to blame for them, indeed, he was unjustly accused by the Yugoslavs as the author of a so-called autarkic five-year plan. We all were the authors of this plan, which in fact was bold, but not at all <<unrealistic>> or <<autarkic>>. Likewise in the decision regarding Nako Spiru's rehabilitation we were especially influenced by the fact that in the conditions existing at that time we did not know many of his stands, mistakes and secret actions, especially since the Berat Plenum. Above all, we did not know at that time that Nako had become a secret agent of the Yugoslav leadership and that, later, in his sordid gamble for power, especially in his rivalry with Koçi Xoxe, when he saw himself abandoned by the Yugoslavs, had linked himself up (always as a secret agent) with the Soviets. These latter links we did not know, and we could not imagine that he was capable of such actions. We could only see that he defended the Soviet views, spoke well of the Soviet Union and, because of the very positive opinion which we ourselves had of the Soviet Union, we could appreciate these stands of Nako Spiru only positively. Similarly, the fact that he, especially in the years 1946 and 1947, drew closer to me and to the sound part of our leadership, had an influence on the decision we took. So, what we knew at that time, seen in its close connection with all the circumstances and conditions of that period, influenced the decision the 11th Plenum of the CC of the CPA took regarding Nako Spiru's rehabilitation.
The 11th Plenum of the CC of the CPA also took all measures for the re-establishment of the internal democracy of the Party and, especially, for the preparation of the Constitution of the Party as quickly as possible, etc., etc.
A little after the 11th Plenum of the CC of the CPA, the historic 1st Congress of our glorious Party was summoned in November 1948.
The political report, which I had prepared for the Congress in the course of all the endless and important work of that period and, especially in the conditions when we still had
page 561
Xoxe and his supporters in our way, demanded a great deal of time and effort. At that time we still had not organized the apparatus of the Party and the original of the report is in the archives of the CC just as I wrote it directly on my small-letter typewriter. As is known, it is a very voluminous report which took me about 15 hours to read to the Congress over two days divided into four sessions. However, I must say that the extremely tiring work, with many difficulties and <<unknown quantities>> in the preparation of it, gave me a special satisfaction and pleasure that have remained indelible in my memory.
Through this report, serious efforts were made for the first time at a scientific presentation, as correct and accurate as possible, of a whole historical period of our people, especially from the beginning of the 20's of this century onwards. I considered this extension <<beyond the historical bounds>> of the life of our Party (that is before November 8, 1941) essential, proceeding from the basic premise of materialistic dialectics that nothing emerges in a vacuum, that every phenomenon, every event, has its own history, its own causes, roots and conditions, in the first place internal ones, of birth and development. This had occurred with our Communist Party, too. The analysis which I made of the period from the 20's to November 8, 1941 comprised, you might say, the prehistory of our Party and proved incontestably that the economic, social, political, historical and other conditions and forces in the Albania of this period were the decisive factors which led to the formation of the CPA, and not at all the factors about which the renegades of Belgrade were prattling, who quite openly and shamelessly attributed to themselves the role of the <<founders>> of our Party!
After this historical survey, the report analysed in detail all the activity of the Party from the time of its formation, correctly evaluated all the great victories achieved during and after the war, that is, in all those stages through which our Party and country had passed during those last seven years, discussed the circumstances and discovered the causes of the
page 562
mistakes which had appeared in the implementation of the line of the Party and defined the main tasks and orientations on the basis of which our glorious Party would lead the country.
The lofty party spirit that pervaded the report, which the Political Bureau of the Central Committee approved unanimously, orientated the delegates correctly in their contributions to the discussion.
Thus for 15 days on end, from November 8-22, the finest representatives of our Party, elected in the most democratic forms at the regional conferences of the Party, through their correct and courageous statements and opinions, made the 1st Congress of the Party one of the most outstanding historic events, not only of the Party, but of the whole history of our people.
Amongst other things, the analysis of our relations with the CPY and the Yugoslav state occupied an important place in the Congress. There, for the first time, we openly denounced and unmasked all the hostile activity of Tito and company. The facts, arguments and conclusions which the Congress presented on this problem were unshakeable and devastating for the renegades of Belgrade. It was proved even more clearly that all the mistakes and distortions observed, especially in the organizational line of our Party, had their main source in the leadership of the CP of Yugoslavia. It had done everything in its power to impose alien, anti-Marxist views and practices on us, both because it was wrong theoretically (in essence its whole line was wrong and revisionist) and because it proceeded from aims that were purely conspiratorial, chauvinist and pragmatic towards our Party and country. Likewise, in the most democratic and just way, the Congress also decided the fate of Koçi Xoxe and company. Despite the great exposure which we had made of them at the 11th Plenum and in the meetings of party activists in the regions and in the government departments and the preliminary measures which we had taken, we still allowed them to take part in and speak at the Congress. Of course, for the Central Committee and the Political Bureau everything in connection
page 563
with them was clear, but it was important that now the Congress of the Party itself should express to the end and put its seal on its opinions and judgments about them. While I was reading that part of the report which dealt with the conscious work of Koçi Xoxe, Pandi Kristo and others as secret agents, voices from the hall cried:
<<Throw the enemies of the Party and people out of our ranks!>>
This spirit pervaded the whole Party and the people who followed the Congress with great interest. Thousands of letters and telegrams came into us from the organizations of the Party and other organizations and institutions in the districts; thousands of working people, men, women, and youth, communists or not, were gathered in the streets outside when we entered or left the Congress hall. They shouted the one slogan: <<Long live the Party! Down with the enemies!>> One event which has remained deeply impressed in my memory was when we were met by the mothers of martyrs -- the mothers of those who would have certainly been delegates to this Congress, -- who encircled me and, headed by the courageous mother of Mihal Duri, with their clenched fists raised, instructed us, or I might even say, <<demanded>> of us, in the name of the blood which their sons had shed, that we stand firm, hold high the banner of the Party, defend the people's state power, and finished with the cry: <<Down with the enemies!>>
The many mature contributions of the delegates showed the agents of Belgrade in their true colours. Confronted with overwhelming facts and arguments, Koçi Xoxe and Pandi Kristo tried to manoeuvre even in the Congress. Koçi Xoxe, for example, was obliged to admit with his own mouth that at Berat I opposed the line of the Party and the General Secretary>>, that <<our work there was done behind the back of the Party>>, etc., but Xoxe tried to justify himself by saying, <<we did all these things because we did not understand we were making mistakes>>, <<we did them unconsciously>>,
page 564
<<Stojnic led us up a blind alley>>[1]. Xoxe had <<constructed>> his whole <<self-criticism>> (or it had been prepared for him) in this spirit: he admitted that he had done a thousand and one evil things, but after every fact he stressed: <<I did it unwittingly>>, <<I did not know that I was acting against the Party and the people>>, <<the Yugoslavs blinded me>>.
The delegates rejected and totally exposed this manoeuvre, too. With facts and arguments it was proved that everything had been done with full consciousness, according to a scenario prepared and approved in Belgrade.[2] At the Congress the delegates demanded insistently that Koçi Xoxe and company should answer for their anti-Albanian activity as secret agents, no longer to the Party, but to the organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Thus, the 1st Congress of the Party further deepened and finally put the seal on the change which the 11th Plenum of the CC of the CPA had marked. The Party was equipped with a correct Marxist-Leninist general line. The Congress once again attacked as incorrect and harmful the former practice imposed by the Yugoslavs of keeping the Party in a semi-legal situation and once and for all consecrated the irreplaceable leading role of our Party in the whole life of our country. For the establishment of complete democracy in the Party and in the whole life of the country, for the assimilation and implementation of the Marxist-Leninist principles and norms which govern the internal life of the Party, the Con-
page 565
stitution of the Party, which the Congress endorsed, was to play an important role.
When we discussed each paragraph of the Constitution in the Congress the comrades with concern and maturity made the comparison between many harmful practices and stands of the past and the Marxist truth that was expressed in the Constitution. Automatically our knowledge of the renegades of Belgrade and their agents in our ranks became more profound. The Congress affirmed once again the correct conclusion that in the leadership of the CP of Yugoslavia we had to do not merely with an anti-Albanian, nationalist and chauvinist leadership, but above all with an agency of imperialism, with a clique of conscious renegades, who were struggling to revise the theory and practice of socialism and the revolution in all fields. The endless stream of facts which has never dried up, as well as our further analyses for the political and ideological unmasking of Yugoslav revisionism, have proved and are still proving how correct and far-sighted was the conclusion which the 1st Congress of the CPA arrived at about the renegades of Belgrade.
After the 1st Congress of the Party, in the light of the new facts which came out, the Party and the people rightly demanded that the chiefs of the plot should be handed over to the people's justice, to be judged for high treason to the Homeland, the Party and socialism.[1] Before the court, the agents of Belgrade through their own mouths testified that they had been trained and guided by Tito and his emissaries in everything they had done. We published their testimony in the press so that the people would read it, but also as a crushing blow to Tito over what he had done in the past and as a warning about the future.
page 566
Of course, as far as we were concerned, every kind of link with Tito and the Titoite party came to an end. The bitter past with them remained a valuable lesson for the future, because we knew we would never agree to have any direct or indirect first-hand contact with them, but the struggle against their anti-Marxist views and stands and against their uninterrupted anti-Albanian activity would never cease.
We would continue this struggle, too, adhering to Marxist-Leninist principle, to carry it consistently through to the end, through to victory.
page 567
page 568
has not been interrupted for one moment. Amongst other causes and factors there are two main ones which made this struggle vitally necessary for us:
First, our Party regards Titoism as one of the most dangerous variants of modern revisionism, and for this reason we consider and will consider our involvement in the struggle for its political and ideological exposure and defeat a right and duty of the first order.
Second, during this whole period the anti-Albanian activity of the Belgrade leadership has never ceased and for this reason our Party and state have had to wage a stern tooth-and-nail struggle against it in order to uncover, attack and smash the aims and continuous conspiratorial activities of Belgrade.
Although there is no need to go into concrete details about how this struggle has been waged (it has been analysed in detail in all the theoretical documents of the Party), I want to point out some of its most important aspects and moments.
page 569
them the directive that, while maintaining certain <<socialist>> appearances, they should serve as a means of diversion for the destruction of others.
Tito and company accepted this mission in full consciousness and turned the Yugoslav party and state into an agency of imperialism. Faced with this evil, our communist parties could not and should never remain indifferent. In particular, it was urgently necessary that the parties of the then socialist countries should not rest on their laurels and think foolishly, that, since they were in power and since the Yugoslav leadership had been denounced and remained isolated, it no longer presented any danger. No, the relentless class struggle, the struggle for the application and defence of the purity of Marxism-Leninism, for the tempering of every communist and the entire Party with the revolutionary ideology, was a necessity sine qua non for every party in order to prevent what had happened in Yugoslavia from being repeated anywhere else.
Conscious of all these things, in 1948 our Party (although relatively young and without the necessary experience in the field of theory) was among the first to array itself in the open political and ideological struggle against Yugoslav revisionism. Along with other communist parties, members or non-members of the Information Bureau, our Party made its contribution to the uncovering and further unmasking of this revisionist current, of the social class roots and causes which made its birth possible and of the damage which it brought, both to the party, state and people of Yugoslavia and to the international communist and workers' movement.
For their part, Tito and company, enraged by the defeat which they had suffered and by the exposure which was continually bringing them out in their true colours, launched, together with the struggle for the dissemination of the revisionist theories, an unscrupulous campaign of slanders and accusations against the CP of the Soviet Union and J. V. Stalin, against the Information Bureau and also against our Party. Driven with their backs to the wall by the courageous
page 570
and well-proved words of our Party, they could only scream that the Party of Labour of Albania had allegedly broken with them and was attacking them, since it preferred to subjugate itself to a bigger party (!), the CPSU, and that allegedly we were acting as Moscow and the Cominform <<told>> us and <<dictated>> to us!
Aware that we could expect nothing else from the traitors in Belgrade, we paid no heed to this filthy accusation. Hence we continued our work and, understandably, we considered it our great good fortune that in this fierce clash between Marxism-Leninism and modern revisionism we stood shoulder to shoulder with the CPSU, led by the glorious Stalin, and with the other communist parties of the then socialist countries and the capitalist countries.
The general solidarity in the struggle against the renegades of Belgrade (at that period, in appearance at least, this solidarity seemed complete) gave us heart and courage, and in the course of this struggle we prepared ourselves better and tempered ourselves further for the future battles.
But only a few years later our Party was to be faced with a real test in regard to the accusation trumpeted so loudly by the chiefs in Belgrade about the motives from which we proceeded in the struggle against them. This was a grave and bitter test which we, for our part, had not and never would have wanted. The fact is, however, that we were faced with it: after the death of J. V. Stalin, the Khrushchevite team, which seized power, initially toned down and very soon completely extinguished its struggle against Yugoslav revisionism. According to the logic of the Titoite accusation, we, too, should automatically have changed our tune, since <<this is what Moscow did>>. But to the astonishment of Tito (and of course of Khrushchev, too) we continued our former course: no concessions to, no sign of conciliation with, the Yugoslav revisionists.
We acted in this way because we were more than convinced about the betrayal of the Yugoslav leadership, because we saw that it was completely committed to the course of
page 571
revising the whole theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism. Moreover, in the period from 1948 to 1954, Tito, Kardelj and others had proclaimed and were consistently applying theories and forms of organization in the Yugoslav party and state which quite openly testified to their complete abandonment and distortion of the principles of Marxism-Leninism (to this period belong such <<acts>> of the Titoites as changing the name of the party from <<Communist Party>> to <<League of Communists>>; the transformation of this <<League>> into a kind of educational-propaganda Association; their adoption of <<American democracy>> as the model for the structure of the political system in Yugoslavia; the proclamation of the so-called self-administrative socialism which is nothing but a disguise for the capitalist order; their preaching of the withering away of the state in socialism, their denial of the Marxist-Leninist thesis about the need of the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat during the whole period of transition from capitalism to communism, etc., etc).
Precisely at the time that these things were occurring, that is, when with his actions Tito was openly proclaiming that he was a dyed-in-the-wool renegade and revisionist, Khrushchev strove to <<make clear to us>> that Tito was allegedly a <<Marxist>>, indeed <<an outstanding Marxist>>, that <<socialism>> was being built in Yugoslavia, and that the blame for what had occurred in 1948, should not be laid on Tito and company, but on the Cominform and Stalin!
We did not agree with such a view and assessment of things and, therefore, we acted not in the way that Moscow <<transmitted>>, but as Marxism-Leninism taught us.
In his evil work in regard to the stand towards the Belgrade clique, as in every other field, however, Khrushchev did not concentrate solely on setting a <<personal example>>. Soon the moment came when, through categorical orders and dictate, Moscow demanded that we should cease our principled struggle and bend the knee to and kiss Tito. We indignantly rejected these orders and dictates, and refused to act against the truth in any instance. Indeed, as I have
page 572
explained in detail in my book of memoirs <<The Khrushchevites>>, for us the stand towards the renegades of Belgrade became one of the touchstones to see what were the new leaders who took power in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin, and what were the leaders of other parties who changed course immediately after the emergence of Khrushchevite revisionism.[1] Events developed swiftly and the two sides, the Khrushchevites and the Titoites, in collaboration and unity, concocted plans and began their activity to alter the situation in the international communist and workers' movement, and especially in the countries of people's democracy, in favour of the revisionist aims of Khrushchev and the agent of imperialism, Tito. Regrettably, this feverish anti-Marxist activity yielded its bitter fruits in the parties of other countries. It was proved that not we, but the other parties, had climbed on the band-wagon when they, too, <<launched>> the attack against Tito and company in 1948, along with the Bolshevik Communist Party. That same Dej who at one time had boasted of his <<valiant deeds>> with a pistol in his belt against a king fallen from power, that same Dej who delivered reports in the Cominform on the unmasking of the Yugoslav revisionist leadership, was one of the first to rush to Tito to beg his forgiveness. The same thing was done by the Poles, who amongst other things, took the old Titoite, the notorious Wladyslaw Gomulka out of prison and placed him directly in the post of General Secretary of the UWP of Poland in order to set Poland as quickly as possible on the tragic course of complete chaos; the Hungarians, the Bulgarians, of course, and all the others in turn did the same thing. Thus, the conclusion of our Party was very quickly confirmed that, if revisionism is not combated relentlessly and with full force, the Yugoslav phenomenon would occur with the others, just as it did.
However, I am speaking about our course. We con-
page 573
tinued the struggle against the renegades in Belgrade, mercilessly attacked their hostile views and stands on every occasion, publicly exposed them and never hesitated, from fear of anyone. Meanwhile, we were subjected to the unrelenting pressures and machinations of Tito and Khrushchev. Just as they had done in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, etc., they tried to rehabilitate their group of agents, Koçi Xoxe and company in Albania, too. Both the Yugoslav leadership and the Soviet leadership (officially through Suslov) demanded the rehabilitation of Koçi Xoxe, that is, that we should return to the Berat Plenum of the CC of the CPA, admit the so-called <<mistakes>> of our Party in line and in our relations with the Yugoslavs, a demand which, as I pointed out earlier, cannot be claimed to have been made in 1944 without the knowledge of the chief of the Soviet mission in Albania Major Ivanov, the close friend of the notorious Colonel Velimir Stojnic. However, all these efforts failed. Our Party of Labour remained unshaken in its earlier view that the Titoite group had been and still was a group of traitors, renegades, Trotskyites, subversionists and a secret agency of the Americans, and that neither our Party, the Cominform, nor Stalin had been wrong about them. We repeated this view to Khrushchev and his lackeys many times: through letters and in official meetings we presented endless arguments from the <<theoretical>> works and practical deeds of the Yugoslav renegades, but the truth fell on deaf ears. Thus, we were convinced that the revisionist gangrene had spread through the head and body of the CC of the CPSU and the leaderships of other parties. Even though we saw we were alone in this struggle, still we did not retreat.
Once the phase of the <<touchstone>> was over, that is, once we were convinced where Khrushchev and the Khrushchevites stood in regard to the Titoites, we decided to take another major step in the struggle against modern revisionism. The fact is that over a period of several years, especially from the beginning of 1956 to the middle of 1960, we used the <<open door>> of the struggle against the Titoite traitors to
page 574
attack the new betrayal which had emerged in the arena and was growing stronger from day to day, the Khrushchevite betrayal.
As I have had occasion to stress at other times, this was a clever and far-sighted tactic of our Party which we employed with great success. Anyone who carefully examines all the documents of our Party during this period will understand that as early as 1954, 1955, and especially after 1955, we were engaged in struggle against the Khrushchevite betrayal which was developing at top speed alongside the Titoite betrayal, and not just in 1960 and 1961 when we came out openly and publicly against the Khrushchevites. However, since the conditions had not matured and the moment had not arrived to come out openly and publicly against Khrushchev and the Khrushchevites by name, at that period, we attacked and exposed their revisionist views and stands by linking them in the press and in public with the revisionists of Belgrade and the anti-Marxist activity of Tito, Kardelj, etc. This does not mean that we were attacking Tito and his henchmen over something for which they were not responsible. Tito was as much a Khrushchevite as Khrushchev, just as Khrushchev was as much a Titoite as Tito. The two variants were branches of the one trunk -- modern revisionism, they were both dangerous, hostile currents and deserved exposure and the powerful attack. As I said, however, besides getting what he deserved, Tito was used by us also in the role of <<the Turk's head>>, or more precisely, Khrushchev's head.
The two sides saw where our attack was aimed, so they further strengthened their collaboration and what Khrushchev could not say against us for tactical reasons and because of public opinion Tito proclaimed very well. Amongst others, Tito's notorious speech at Pula in November 1956 is well known. There Tito not only made an unrestrained anti-Marxist attack on the theory and practice of the socialist order, but also directly condemned <<the cult of Enver Hoxha>> and called for the overthrow of the leadership of our Party.
page 575
Undoubtedly, with this anti-Albanian attack and the open call for the overthrow of our leadership Tito expressed not only his own desire, but also the desire of the Soviet leadership. It is not accidental that just a few days before this notorious speech, Krylov, the Soviet ambassador in Tirana, came to me and demanded insistently, on the instructions of the Soviet leadership, that we <<do not reply harshly to Tito, because tempers will become heated and our work will be ruined>>. We gave Khrushchev and Tito our answer immediately: we denounced and condemned Tito's ultra-revisionist speech with all our batteries, unconcerned whether Tito <<would lose his temper>> or Khrushchev's <<work would be ruined>>. In fact our clear-cut principled stands were ruining Khrushchev's work. When the Soviet revisionists saw that they had failed in Hungary and elsewhere and that the situation in the communist movement and the socialist camp was slipping from their control, they retreated a little from their subversive struggle and collaboration with Tito, because through his actions and <<theories>> he was not only exposing the revisionist mire in which they were wallowing, but was also trying to take the Khrushchevite current under his wing and to manoeuvre it in accord with his own interests and those of his imperialist patrons. At those moments Khrushchev was temporarily obliged to support the stands of the Party of Labour of Albania, published our articles in the Soviet press, was obliged to accept our resolute stand against Titoism as an agency of imperialism in the 1957 Meeting of the Communist and Workers' Parties, and this was included in the Declaration of the Meeting, etc. But, as I have said at other times, this was only a temporary retreat by Khrushchev. In essence he was opposed to the principled struggle which we waged against Titoism to the extent that, in one of the confrontations which I had with him and Suslov over the stand towards Yugoslav revisionism, Khrushchev was so irritated that he said to me angrily: <<Where do you want to lead us, to Stalin's road?!>>
page 576
Step by step, our principled contradictions with the Soviet leadership were building up, heading for the confrontation at Bucharest.
As is known, in 1960 we came out openly against the Khrushchevite betrayal, too, and after this we intensified our principled struggle against it, just as we had done against the Titoite current from 1948 onwards. At this period it seemed as though the CP of China was engaged shoulder to shoulder with us in this struggle against both of these currents of modern revisionism. In this period, too, there were people who said that we had entered into this struggle because this is what Beijing was doing (!), this was dictated to us by Mao Zedong, and this time these voices came not only from Belgrade, but also from Moscow! Such base accusations merely made us smile and we went on with our work. We were already well aware that such things were not said because the accusers did not know the Party of Labour of Albania well. No, these were the howls of a wolf which, even when mortally wounded, tries to threaten and frighten its prey. The Titoite and Khrushchevite revisionists were trying to obscure the truth with smoke and fog, to inflict what damage they could on the image of our Party.
Time was soon to prove once again that we had committed ourselves to the struggle against revisionism proceeding, not from the dictate of Beijing or Mao Zedong, but as always, from the supreme dictate of Marxism-Leninism. On the orders and in favour of our guiding ideology, that is, in defence of the theory and practice of the revolution from the attacks which the modern revisionists were making on it, our heroic Party had waged, was waging and would continue to wage its own principled struggle. The day came when Mao Zedong ceased the struggle against Yugoslav revisionism, but we continued it as before. It must be said that this time, too, through the <<open door>> of the struggle against Yugoslav and Soviet revisionism we had the opportunity to attack the views and distortions which the Communist Party of China
page 577
and its deranged leader Mao Zedong were making of Marxism-Leninism. However, as I have proved at length in a series of materials, especially in <<Reflections on China>>, the cause of the betrayal of the CP of China does not lie either in Mao's dotage in his old age or the senility of other old men in Beijing. No, they had been revisionists, indeed pure revisionists, since their youth, but had adopted their allegedly principled, Marxist-Leninist phrases at particular periods (especially so in 1960) in order to conceal behind them long range, counter-revolutionary, anti-Marxist aims and plans. When finally they were convinced that their <<Marxist>> manoeuvres were not leading them where they intended, they threw off the mantle of <<Marxist-Leninists>> and emerged as they were in reality -- inveterate Titoites, Eurocommunists and Khrushchevites. Events developed rapidly and when the leadership of Beijing fell on its knees before the renegade of Belgrade we not only did not do as Mao and Zhou Enlai did and as they dictated to us, but on the contrary we did not hesitate to rise immediately to attack this other variant of modern revisionism -- the Chinese variant, Mao Zedong thought!
These and other arguments prove completely that in the struggle against the renegades of Belgrade, just as against all other revisionist currents, we did not proceed from any external factor, that we never acted blindly or following the band-wagon, and that we were not influenced by anyone. So, convinced from the outset that we were waging a just struggle, conscious that we were performing our duty as a Marxist-Leninist party, we pressed on with this struggle, turning this whole process not only into one of the most glorious chapters in the history of our Party, but also into a great school of revolutionary training and tempering, into an unprecedented university for thorough knowledge and assimiliation of Marxism-Leninism.
There was one moment when Khrushchev, unable to shut our mouths in the open and principled struggle we were wag-
page 578
ing against Yugoslav revisionism, made the accusation that we were acting in this way, because allegedly we wanted to appear as <<the standard-bearers>> of the struggle against modern revisionism, that is, allegedly to emerge as better than the others. In essence, this dirty accusation also clearly expressed the whole burden of hostile megalomaniacal, anti-Marxist views of the accuser himself. It had never been our intention and we had not involved ourselves in this struggle in order to <<show off>>, to emerge as better than the others, or to put the others under command or dictate. No, with the struggle against Yugoslav revisionism we were simply doing our duty, and which was equally incumbent on any genuine Marxist-Leninist party. And when the others abandoned this sacred duty, were we supposed to abandon it, too, and keep silent to avoid giving the <<opportunity>> to others to accuse us of wanting to be the <<standard-bearers>> and of megalomania?! Had our Party acted in that way this would have been an unpardonable sin. At no time did we fall into that abyss into which the Khrushchevites and, later, the Maoists wanted to push us. Thus, we continued the struggle against Titoism from no motive other than to perform one of the fundamental tasks which faced and faces every party.
Here, however, there is an indisputable truth which must be brought out unhesitatingly: in regard to the things that have occurred in the international communist and workers' movement in the last three or four decades (especially after the Khrushchevite betrayal) the great historic merit belongs to the Party of Labour of Albania that of all the parties in power it is the only one which not only was not deceived and never at any moment ceased the struggle against Yugoslav revisionism, but also made a profound and all round analysis of Titoism or, more accurately, carried out a thorough autopsy on it.
Proud of the contribution which we have made to the exposure of this variant of revisionism, and convinced and conscious of the necessity for intensifying the struggle against
page 579
it, we shall continue on this course in the future, too, shoulder to shoulder with the other Marxist-Leninist parties. We have not reconciled ourselves and never will reconcile ourselves to Titoism and all the other variants of modern revisionism. Our only <<contact>> with them is through the political and ideological struggle which we will continue until they are completely and finally routed and destroyed.
We would be vigilant and with our fist clenched at every moment, because, although it had suffered heavy blows, the Titoite agency in Albania would not cease working for the future and for long-term plans and variants. In this context, in a thousand and one ways, Tito and company would do everything in their power to regain their lost positions, to create conditions and the terrain in order to penetrate amongst us and destroy us. They could never reconcile themselves to the fact that Albania had <<escaped>> from their hands, could never sleep easily when they saw that a party, which they had wanted to turn into a blind tool, but which to their regret had constantly attacked them and their old pan-Slav dreams and in the end had smashed them, was working and leading in Albania. Hence, as long as
page 580
they remained in power, the Titoites would be real and dangerous enemies of our Party and country.
It did not take months or years for the Titoites themselves to prove the truth of this. On the contrary, when we still had not denounced them publicly, in order to <<forestall the evil>> they launched a whole campaign of slanders and accusations against our Party and its leadership, and immediately after the 1st Congress of our Party, Belgrade's anti-Albanian campaign assumed unprecedented proportions and intensity. The newspapers, radio stations, pamphlets and publishing houses, all the means of Titoite propaganda were activized in this dirty campaign, pouring out monstrosities against us. Amongst other things, at that time they accused us of being <<violators of democracy>> in the party and among the people (!), of killing <<communists>> and <<honest patriots>> (!), and later went on to the accusation that we were turning Albania into a <<barracks surrounded by barbed wire>> where everything was trampled under the <<military jackboot>>, etc., etc.
According to this alarm for propaganda which thundered from Belgrade one would have thought that havoc was being wrought in Albania, but when it came to providing facts and arguments <<the defenders of democracy>> in Belgrade found themselves in a deplorable position: they were able to mention only one name, that of Koçi Xoxe!
But who were these <<ideal defenders>> of <<pure democracy>> who, simply because our organs of the dictatorship had condemned to death only one sworn enemy and agent, Koçi Xoxe, arrived at the <<horrified>> conclusion that we were <<murderers>> and <<violators of democracy>>?!
Here I shall not mention the mass murders, eliminations and exterminations which the Titoite army and the organs of the UDB perpetrated during the period 1945-1948 on the orders of Tito-Rankovic and company, under the pretext of the struggle to <<clean up ustase and cetnici elements>>, <<criminal bands>>, <<remnants of the old regime>>, etc., nor shall I mention the black terror which they unleashed at this period (especially from the end of 1944 right through 1945)
page 581
upon the people of Kosova and the Albanian population living on their own territories in Montenegro and Macedonia, under the pretext of the struggle against <<Ballist gangs>>, <<nationalists>>, <<great Albanians>>, etc. For comparison, however, I shall dwell a little on how <<the Titoite democracy>> acted and how our democracy acted in 1948 towards the respective opponents and enemies.
As I related in detail above, the whole picture of the treacherous work of the gang of Koçi Xoxe, Pandi Kristo and others as agents in the service of the Yugoslavs became more than clear to us especially in the early months of 1948. However, although they were not accused simply of having alien views, but especially of high treason towards the Party and the country, we allowed Koçi Xoxe, Pandi Kristo and company to take part in all the meetings of the Political Bureau, in the 9th, 10th and 11th Plenums of the CC of the Party, in the meetings of party activists which were held later and even in the 1st Congress of the CPA. Not only did we allow them to take part, but we also gave them the right to speak as often as they considered necessary.
What special type of <<democracy>> did Tito and Rankovic in Yugoslavia offer all those thousands of elements of the CPY who expressed solidarity with the letters of the CC of the CPSU and the Resolution of the Cominform?! They were clapped in handcuffs as soon as they began to open their mouths! And when hundreds of others simply demanded that what was written in the letters of the CC of the CPSU should be discussed in the party, that is, when they had not yet expressed themselves either for or against, the Titoite <<democracy>> arrested them, threw them into prison and killed them in secret. So, while we analysed the criminal work of the Koçi Xoxe gang for five to six months on end in the Party (where the traitors themselves were present), the Titoites did not allow their opponents to speak even in a single meeting of the organization of which they were members! Out of the whole network of anti-state agents that we discovered we handed over to the court only 4-5 persons, while the Tito
page 582
clique filled the prisons with thousands and thousands of people who were simply ideological opponents! And after all this Tito and company had the temerity to accuse us of being <<violators of democracy>>!
Of the four or five elements whom we handed over to the courts for punishment at the end of 1948, in fact, only one, Koçi Xoxe, was sentenced to death as a sworn traitor to the Party and state, as chief of the gang which had done everything in its power to put Albania in thrall to Yugoslavia! The 3 or 4 others were sentenced to 5-20 years imprisonment according to the degree of their culpability and the stand they adopted when they were caught red handed in the plot. In Yugoslavia, however, the Titoites killed the bulk of those thousands of Yugoslav communists who were thrown in prison as supporters of the Cominform or they simply disappeared leaving to trace. Nevertheless, they had the temerity to accuse us of being <<murderers>>!
The notorious concentration camps like Goli Otok, a kind of Mathausen in the conditions of <<Yugoslav socialism>>, were set up not in Albania, but in Yugoslavia. It was not our communists and patriots who were incarcerated, maimed, and wiped out in them, but Yugoslavs, including hundreds of thousands of Albanians from Kosova and others who lived on their own lands in Montenegro and Macedonia. That is, we did not fill Albania with Goli Otoks, but the Belgrade leadership filled Yugoslavia with such notorious camps. And they had the temerity to accuse us of turning Albania into <<a barracks dominated by the military jackboot>>!
That, then, is what the <<Titoite democracy>> was, that is what the <<advocates of Christian charity>>, Tito and Rankovic, wee, who perpetrated the most monstrous crimes against the party and peoples of Yugoslavia without a tremor, while they were <<horrified>>, because we had condemned to death one sworn enemy of our and their obedient agent! It is the same <<Rankovic democracy>> which has been wreaking havoc in Yugoslavia for 35 years on end, the same <<Titoite democracy>> which recently unleashed the black
page 583
hundreds and thousands of Rankovices, Lubicices, Stambolices, and Herlevices against the peaceful demonstrations of the people of Kosova demanding respect for and implementation of their constitutional rights.
However, since 1948 Tito, as the rabid anti-Albanian he was, could not and did not content himself simply with propaganda attacks against us.
Just like the reactionary governments of Western countries, the Titoite leadership set up on Yugoslav territory whole camps in which criminals and other agents, enemies of the new socialist order in Albania, were assembled, trained and prepared to infiltrate into our territory for sabotage and subversion. Thus, the time came when instead of the earlier <<party>> and state emissaries, Tito and his henchmen began to send us dozens of bandits, criminals, thieves and other reprobates who had fled from Albania together with the occupiers in 1944 or afterwards, on account of the crimes they had committed and the hostility they nurtured towards the new order of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In collaboration with the foreign imperialist and chauvinist agencies, especially those of the neighbouring countries, the renegades of Belgrade collected up the anti-Albanian scum of agents, political and ordinary criminals and fugitives wherever they were and brought them to Yugoslavia to prepare them as mercenary forces against the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian socialist state. Naturally, we were to receive these bandit <<guests>> from Yugoslavia as bandits and criminals are received -- with the trap set.
These sinister forces constituted, you might say, the <<external echelon>> which the Yugoslav leadership was to throw in against us, as it did. At the same time, the Yugoslavs did not overlook the <<internal echelon>>, either. In this were included not only those elements long recruited by the UDB, whom we had still not discovered, but all the remnants of the old order which we had overthrown. All these elements were predisposed to prick up their ears and accept the orientations and signals which came from Belgrade. This is under-
page 584
standable: the overthrown classes, the traitors, the discontented elements, enemies of the people's state power, all those who could not endure the justice of the Party and our people's state power, had pinned all their hopes on external support. And if up till 1948 they had pinned their hopes on the Americans and the British, now it was no trouble to add another ally and new patron. They were bound to try, just as they did, to activize themselves, to enter into contact with and operate in the Titoite's network, too.
In time, however, they, too, were uncovered and attacked. The hopes of Tito and company about arousing discontent, panic, despair, confusion and disorder in Albania were not justifying themselves. One after the other, all the gangsters and wreckers and the secret agents who were thrown into action in our country during this period fell into our hands, like rats in a trap.[1]
Still we did not go to sleep. Time was to show that the Yugoslav leadership, either with <<its own forces>> or in secret agreement with the imperialist secret agencies, kept other <<pawns in reserve>> to bring into action at the moments which appeared most opportune and when their interests required. As to who these <<pawns in reserve>> were, this would be brought to light by the progress of our revolution. The main thing is that we remained permanently vigilant, aware that we would not be left to pursue our course in peace, because, apart from anything else, our many enemies would never allow us to work and live in peace.
In this way the initial phase of Tito's efforts to change the situation in Albania through wreckers and secret agents came to an end. Nothing shook our socialist fortress, its foundations were unshakeable. Step by step, along with the advance in
page 585
all fields of life, along with the cleaning out of imperialist, Titoite and imperialist-Titoite gangs and networks of secret agents, we became stronger and more determined on our course.
About the beginning of the 50's it was seen clearly that Tito could achieve nothing against us through the methods of wreckers, secret agents and the old anti-Albanian and anti-socialist scum. However, precisely when his hopes of overturning the situation in Albania were fading, another renegade, Nikita Khrushchev, came to the aid of Tito, like a <<gift from God>>.
The Khrushchevite betrayal, one of the greatest traumas the international communist and workers' movement has ever suffered, gave Tito new possibilities and means and, together with them, great hopes of changing the situation in Albania. Now his old chauvinist greed to gobble up Albania was to be combined with two other fundamental factors: with the hatred of the renegades of Belgrade for socialism which was being built in Albania, and second, with the desire to avenge themselves for the repeated blows and exposures which our Party and people had been inflicting on them for years on end.
The Titoites did not wait long before they launched their first attack on us through Tuk Jakova. It was by no means an accident that precisely when Tito and Khrushchev were putting their fiddles in tune, a month or two before Khrushchev went to Belgrade to kiss Tito, Tuk Jakova got up and repeated the hostile thesis of the Yugoslavs that allegedly they had created the Communist Party of Albania (!) and that the <<merit>> for all the victories achieved during the Anti-fascist National Liberation War belonged to them(!).
I have already dealt in detail with what this <<thesis>> is and why it was raised. Here I want to point out something else: Tuk Jakova was one of the participants in the Founding Meeting of the CPA in November 1941 and, during the years of the war up till 1955, like all of us, he, too, had heard this thesis many times and had not accepted it, but on the contrary had opposed it strongly. Then, how did it come about that he changed his mind and spat in his own face in April
page 586
1955?! Undoubtedly, Çalamani (Dusan Mugosa) who, according to the code-word of the UDB, remembered and did not forget>> his recruits, signalled Tuk to go into action. Tuk's other <<theses>> were all those which the Khrushchevite team were peddling wholesale in their preparation of the terrain for the 20th Congress of the CPSU: the dying out of the class struggle, re-examination of the line pursued by the Party, especially the rehabilitation of those enemies who had been condemned for opportunism and Trotskyism; the changing of the composition of the CC of the party and the bringing of condemned elements into the leadership, etc., etc.
Our Party immediately dealt powerful, merciless blow at the <<theses>> and aims of Tuk and those who had dished them up to him. Only one person, Bedri Spahiu, long known as an opportunist, a megalomaniac, and a partisan of the thesis of the dying out of the class struggle, etc., associated himself with Tuk Jakova. In condemning these two capitulationist and anti-party elements, the Plenum of the CC of the PLA held in June 1955, not only expressed the determination of the PLA not to fall into that mire in which the other parties of the then socialist countries had begun to sink, but, at the same time, gave Tito and company a good lesson. The Titoites first attempt against us in the period when the Khrushchevite epidemic had broken out was foiled. Despite this bitter outcome, however, the Yugoslav leadership did not lose hope and did not spare its efforts to make new attempts at interference and subversion in Albania.
These were precisely the moments when the sensational and disgraceful reconciliation of Tito and Khrushchev was being brought to fruition in Belgrade at the end of May and the beginning of June 1955. Our clear-cut opposition to the notorious action is well known.
As soon as Khrushchev informed us at the last minute that he was going to Belgrade in person to make peace with Tito, to beg his <<pardon>> for <<the mistakes committed against him>> in 1948-and in 1949 (!) and to publish in the press the <<decision>> (which Khrushchev himself had taken) about annull-
page 587
ing the resolutions of the Cominform, we wrote a strong letter to Khrushchev in which we expressed our disaproval of these actions and especially of his annulling the resolutions of the Cominform.[1] In several meetings which I had those days with the Soviet ambassador in Tirana Levichkin, I presented the Soviet leadership with a wide range of powerful arguments in support of our correct stand on this question. However, the Tito-Khrushchev accord came about. A few days after this act of treachery, on June 17, 1955, with the measures which our Plenum of the Central Committee took against Tuk Jakova and Bedri Spahiu, we gave Tito and Khrushchev direct and indirect warning that we would not reconcile ourselves to their plans, but on the contrary would mercilessly attack any attempt of theirs or their agents to subjugate us. However, it must be said that, although we never on any occasion accepted the line which Moscow dictated to us, but on the contrary opposed it, we could not remain <<unaffected>>, as you might say, outside the waves which it stirred up. Both Khrushchev and Tito were to work, some times in unity, sometimes separately, in order to give it the maximum striking force, that is, to create a situation which would lead towards the <<submission>> of Albania.
Among the more serious events during this process, the Party Conference of Tirana in April 1956 must be mentioned.
page 588
In the context of the first phase of the open emergence of Khrushchevite revisionism it undoubtedly constitutes the main attempt of Tito and Khrushchev to overturn the situation in Albania. Held very shortly after the ill-famed 20th Congress of the CPSU, the Tirana Conference of April 1956, from the ideological stand-point, was a reflection of that congress and the revisionist platform which it codified, while from the organizational stand-point it was simply a plot hatched up by the Titoite leadership through the Yugoslav embassy and, as it turned out later, in collaboration with the Soviet embassy, too.
It is a recognized fact that especially after the 20th Congress of February 1956, Khrushchev, in collusion with Tito, did everything in his power to overturn the situation in all the countries of people's democracy. As I wrote above, one of the first measures which Khrushchev took was the rehabilitation of those condemned in the time of the Cominform, bringing them into the leaderships of the parties and countries of people's democracy. Rajk in Hungary, Gomulka in Poland and Kostov in Bulgaria were all rehabilitated one after the other, the so-called <<movement for democratization>>, for <<the re-examination of decisions taken under the influence of Stalin and the Cominform,>> etc. was launched. In many countries the <<new line>> of reconciliation with the former enemies,<<peaceful coexistence>> with imperialism, etc., were made law. None of the other erstwhile people's democracies of Europe, nor Mao Zedong's China, lagged behind in this headlong gallop.
Tito watched this process with satisfaction and did everything possible to give it new impulses and develop it in his own interest. Hoping that the time had come for him to take up the banner, he declared more than once that the <<blame>> for all that had occurred lay in the socialist order itself and, consequently, the <<dogmatic>>, <<Stalinist>> socialism must be overturned and the Yugoslav order of <<vital>>, <<human self-administration>> must be established.
Many were deceived by or enthusiastically welcomed all
page 589
this betrayal which was now codified and became an official ideology. Only our Party and country remained unshaken on the former line. This could not fail to infuriate the preachers of modern revisionism, Tito and Khrushchev. When they saw that what was happening in the other countries was not happening here, they decided to pursue their old course -- that of plots. In this direction Tito was a master.
The Tirana Conference was precisely a part of the Tito Khrushchev plot to overturn th~e situation in our country. I say a part, because-their plan, or their plot, was much more wide-ranging and of much greater proportions. At the Tirana Conference only the first step was to be taken, th~e feeling of the pulse, the preparation of the terrain, and later it would be carried further, especially at the 3rd Congress of the PLA which was to be held and did take place a little after the Tirana Conference.[1]
In fact, what occurred at the Tirana Conference?
Initially, in Tirana and throughout the whole country the meetings of the party organizations had been held, meetings which were characterized by the political, ideological and organizational maturity of the whole Party, by the love which the communists nurtured for the Party, for its leadership and its line, by their determination to carry forward and defend this line. resolutely, etc. At these meetings the delegates to the Party Conference of Tirana were elected, too. Up to this point, then, as I said, everything proceeded quite normally. The organization of the Party in Tirana, as the organizations of the Party throughout the country, once again confirmed its maturity and the correctness of the general line of the Party. Precisely when the delegates had been elected and were preparing themselves for the Conference, the Yugoslav embassy in Tirana was ordered to launch into urgent action the secret agents prepared long before, discontented elements, etc. The reason for this haste of Belgrade is easily understood:
page 590
the revisionist theses and decisions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU had just been published and the Yugoslav leadership judged that time must not be lost. In their view, a rapid, secret and intensive action in Albania might disturb and completely confuse the situation, otherwise <<the Stalinist leadership of Enver Hoxha>> could not be shaken. They started to spin the threads of the plot.
Under the pretext of <<acquainting>> people with and <<popularizing>> the decisions and theses of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which the whole world was propagating noisily, the agents of the Yugoslavs and other elements condemned by the Party, instructed by the Yugoslav embassy, began secretly to indoctrinate the delegates elected to the Conference. Indeed, a <<legal>> course was followed: taking advantage the love which our Party had cultivated for the CPSU, many delegates were <<instructed>> to demand from the organizations which had elected them that there should be a further <<discussion>>, following the example of the <<Soviet sister party>>, to ensure that <<complaints>> and <<criticism>>, which would be in conformity with <<the new spirit>>, were made against the leadership of our Party; that the communists were called on to tell <<everything>> <<about the present and the past>>; that efforts were made allegedly to <<correct the mistakes and distortions>> under the disguise of <<democracy>>, <<listening to the voice of the masses>>, <<bringing the voice of the base to the Conference>>, etc., etc.
From the first day of the Conference, and especially in the first sessions of the second day, this <<spirit of criticism>> was very obvious, indeed the accusations very quickly advanced so far that the situation was becoming grave and disturbing even to the secret organizers of the plot.
Precisely in the middle of the second-day of the Conference, quite unexpectedly Nexhmije arrived in Vlora. I had been about a week in Vlora on holiday, although in fact I was working, preparing the report for the 3rd Congress of the Party which was to be held in May that year. Nexhmije told me that that day (I remember clearly it was Sunday, April 15) Mehmet
page 591
Shehu and Beqir Balluku had summoned her, and Mehmet Shehu had told her that <<the situation in the Conference is serious>>, <<they are demanding the rehabilitation of Koçi Xoxe, Tuk Jakova and Bedri Spahiu>>, calling for <<links with Tito and the Yugoslav party>>, etc. <<I am telling you these things,>> Mehmet Shehu had concluded, <<so that you go to Vlora to inform Comrade Enver and we think that it is necessary that he personally should come to the Conference.>>
Later I shall explain why Mehmet Shehu gave this in formation, why he saw it <<necessary>> that I should go to the Conference and what was his true role in this plot. Here I want to point out that even without Mehmet Shehu's <<request>>, after what Nexhmije told me, I could not have stayed a moment longer in Vlora. I ordered my car and two hours later was back in Tirana.
I immediately summoned Mehmet Shehu and Beqir Balluku (who officially was the delegate of the Central Committee to the Conference, but in fact, as was proved later, he was the <<delegate>> of the Yugoslav secret service). Hysni Kapo was present at this meeting, too. I demanded from Beqir Balluku especially that he informed me in detail about what was being done and said at the Conference and, alternately flushing red and turning pale, he began:
<<Yesterday, as soon as Fiqret Shehu finished delivering the report, they bombarded us with questions. The questions are. . . hard, shattering: 'Why is the Central Committee not acting quickly and extensively to popularize the 20th Congress of the Soviet party?'; 'Are we going to adopt its theses and decisions as the sister parties have done?!'; 'Does the Central Committee think that the decisions taken against Koçi Xoxe, Tuk Jakova, Bedri Spahiu and others should be re-examined in the light of the 20th Congress?'; 'Why has the publication in the press of articles and materials of the sister parties, which have been written in the spirit of the 20th Congress, been banned by the Central Committee of the Party?'; 'Why has the leadership of our Party not condemned Stalin's cult of the individual, as the others have done, and are there
page 592
manifestations of it amongst us?'; 'How does the leadership of our Party judge the Yugoslav question?'; 'Why are we not linking ourselves with the CPY like the others? . . .'>>
After mentioning a number of other such questions (the formulation of them may have been different, but in essence they are identical with these I mentioned above), Balluku concluded:
<<These were the questions which were raised yesterday and the contributions of the delegates are developing in this spirit.>>
<<Did all the delegates ask such questions, and did they all speak in this spirit?!>> I asked him there and then.
Balluku was silent for a moment, red-faced, and looked at Mehmet Shehu, but since Shehu sat like a mummy, he cleared his throat and replied:
<<No! Only some comrades spoke about these problems and in this spirit, however, they are setting the tone for the Conference.>>
<<And did you give the proper reply to these questions and accusations raised against the Party and its line?>>
<<Yes, I gave it, but as it turns out, the problem has reached a serious stage. They are continuing to raise these questions. Therefore, Comrade Mehmet Shehu and I thought we should inform you and ask you to go to the Conference yourself to reply to them. . .>>
<<That is clear!>> I interrupted Beqir Balluku. <<You did well to inform me and ask me to come back. We shall go immediately to the Conference and not we, but those elements who are trying to put a spoke in the wheel and to distort our correct line, should be afraid of the confrontation. But before we go there I have something I must say to you.
<<First, from what I heard from you, it is clear that we are facing a hostile attack which, undoubtedly, is not only inspired, but also organized. How and by whom we shall find out, indeed very quickly, but my opinion is that the Yugoslavs have had not only a finger but a whole arm in this pie. We shall look at this, too. However, I am of the opinion that
page 593
you, Beqir Balluku, as the delegate of the Central Committee of the Party, should not have allowed the situation to reach this point. You know the line of the Party and our stand on all those problems which a few 'bold spirits' are now raising, seeking their 're-examination', is more than clear. We have discussed all those problems and taken collective decisions on them at the proper time and I am not aware that any of you is unclear about them, let alone opposed to them.>>
<<That is so!>> put in Mehmet Shehu in a low voice. <<We have been in agreement and said so.>>
<<Then, why was it necessary for me to come to cope with the situation and to give the answer to questions which you know very well?!>> I asked Mehmet Shehu and Beqir Balluku. <<From every stand-point, this is not only incorrect, but also impermissible for main leaders of a party. All of us must defend the things which all of us have settled and decided. Nevertheless,>> I continued, <<the main thing now is to deal with the existing situation and, since you considered it in order that I should do this work, I will certainly do it.
<<The second thing I wanted to say to you is about the tactic which must be pursued. I think I should act in this way: I shall ask for the floor immediately and quietly, without attacking the accusers for the time being, I shall make the delegates clear about the essence of the truth in connection with the questions and base accusations which have been raised. I shall explain what the stand of our Party has been and is on those problems, how we have acted, and from what positions the accusations are raised and where they lead to, if they are allowed to become established. I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of the delegates are sound elements loyal to the Party and, if any of them are confused, matters will soon be made clear to them. In regard to those 'bold spirits' who want a revisioning, I shall deal with them concretely in the second phase when the delegates have been made clear about the truth. I shall demand that each of these elements explain to the Conference from what positions he raises these filthy accusations, on whose behalf he
page 594
is speaking and who has inspired him. I am convinced that, confronted with the truth, they will be exposed and discredited.>>
So, in the afternoon of April 15, I went to the Tirana Conference and followed the tactic which I outlined above I must say that as soon as I entered the Conference hall I was surrounded by an atmosphere which gave me even greater confidence and strength: as soon as they saw me the delegates rose to their feet and burst into applause and cheers for the Party and its Central Committee. Excitement and joy began to appear in their faces. It was clear, the comrades were being freed from an anxiety which had disturbed and worried them for nearly two days on end. I was even more convinced of the truth of this as soon as I began to speak. The explanation in a comradely spirit which I began to make of the problems, the arguments which I raised to prove the correctness of the general line pursued by the Party, very quickly electrified the hall. Time after time the delegates shouted from the body of the hall:
<<That is the truth! Long live the Party!>>
Only a few individuals were out of tune with this general spirit: when all the delegates rose to their feet they were obliged to stand up with the majority, but they did not applaud or cheer. Of course, we did not want their applause even if it cost us nothing. They had to be gripped firmly in the vice, to admit through their own mouths that in all the things they had raised they proceeded from hostile anti-Albanian and anti-party positions, that they had carried out the orders and <<directives>> of the Trotskyite Yugoslav leadership, and for all this evil work they would have to render account. On the following day, April 16, in particular, I had to deal especially with these elements. As I said, the phase of quietly clearing up the problems in principle had ended with success. Now it was the time for the devastating attack on the plotters and their tools at the Conference. I called on one of them by name and demanded that he <<explain>> to us there and then what had impelled him in the accusations which he made!
page 595
At first he began with a show of <<boldness>>, but then began to mumble that he had brought forward <<the opinion of his basic organization>>.
<<Leave your basic organization out of this!>> I told him. <<First of all, explain to us what you were doing in the car of the Yugoslav embassy on such and such a date, where you went and what instructions you received?!>>
An excited ripple ran through the hall.
<<It was a mistake,>> the tool of the Yugoslavs dared to <<defend>> himself. <<I thought it was an Albanian car.>>
<<Let us assume that at first you made a mistake,>> I continued with his <<logic>>, <<but when you got in and heard them speaking Serbian, did Serbian sound to you like Albanian?!>>
The whole of the hall burst into laughter. The agent of the Yugoslavs was deathly pale. He did not know what straw to cling to and what to say. We continued in this way with two or three others who, up till yesterday, had shown themselves <<unrestrained>> and <<very bold>> but were now left completely isolated and discredited.
After this there was virtually no further need for me to intervene. The delegates began to speak and, with the maturity, courage and the spirit of criticism and self-criticism which have always characterized our communists, ensured that the proceedings of the Party Conference of Tirana were carried through to the end with complete success.
The attempt to turn it into the first action to overthrow the sound leadership of the PLA and change the situation in Albania was nipped in the bud.
During the Conference, and especially after it, we made a dispassionate analysis of what had occurred and, as I said, on the basis of an endless series of facts we arrived at the conclusion that everything had been organized by the Titoite leadership through the Yugoslav embassy in Tirana. Likewise, as early as those days we arrived at the correct conclusion that it was the revisionist platform of the 20th Congress of the CPSU which had inspired and encouraged both the Yugo-
page 596
slav leadership and its agents within our ranks to undertake this hostile attempt.
After the group of conspirators at the Tirana Conference was routed, some of its participants were expelled from the Party and some others, those who turned out to be in contact with the Yugoslav embassy (because at that time we had no facts about the Soviet embassy) were handed over to the court.
At that time, however, because of the level of our knowledge, we did not manage to discover and attack the most powerful implement of foreign agencies who, on this occasion, set in action by the Yugoslav UDB, secretly played the main role in the plot hatched up. This was Mehmet Shehu. The facts which had to do with his stand at the Conference did not permit us to arrive at any conclusion other than the ones we did. Now, from analysis of earlier and later events, especially of the facts which we discovered after his suicide on December 18, 1981, the Party has arrived at precise and completely proven conclusions.
However, before I speak about the role and conspiratorial aims of Mehmet Shehu and his enemy group at the Tirana Conference in 1956 and after it, up till the moment when he killed himself, I consider it necessary to go back to the past to show who Mehmet Shehu really was, where he came from and whom he served.
From the investigations following the suicide of Mehmet Shehu and from the documents in the possession of the Party, it results that Mehmet Shehu was an agent recruited by the Americans from the time he attended Fultz's school in Tirana. On Fultz's orders, Mehmet Shehu went to study in a military school in Italy, on the orders of the American secret service he was sent to Spain to penetrate into the ranks of the International Brigades. The aim of the American secret service was to provide its agent with the <<aura>> of an <<internationalist fighter>> so he could be used for long-term aims in Albania later.
After the defeat of the anti-fascist war in Spain, Mehmet Shehu went to a refugee camp in France where he stayed
page 597
for three years, at a time when many of his comrades escaped from it. In the camp he was recruited as an agent of the British Intelligence Service also. He was taken out of the camp by an officer of the German Gestapo and one of the Italian SIM, passed through Italy, where he was held two months, and was then handed over in Durrës to the Albanian notorious spy in the pay of the Italian secret service Man Kukaleshi, who released him after 20 days, and Mehmet Shehu went to Mallakastra and linked up with the organization of our Party there.
During the National Liberation War, Mehmet Shehu and his wife Fiqret Sanxhaktari were recruited as agents of the Yugoslavs, too, by Dusan Mugosa. Mugosa began his work with Mehmet Shehu in Vlora in the spring and summer of 1943 and intensified it even more when the pair of them <<arranged>> that they should be together in the 1st Shock Brigade which we formed in August of that year. While in the brigade Mugosa capped his work neatly. He recruited Fiqret Sanxhaktari and arranged her betrothal to Mehmet Shehu for the aims of his secret activity. Like every foreign secret agency, the Titoite agency, which was emerging and taking form <<in the flames of the war>>, operated with its recruits for short-term and long-term aims: in the short term, immediately, Mugosa demanded and urged his agent Mehmet Shehu to commit the maximum number of sectarian acts with the aim that later, when necessary, the Yugoslavs could use this sectarianism, which they implanted and encouraged themselves, to accuse the leadership of our Party of <<sectarianism>>, just as they did (as I said above, this was consummated at Berat in November 1944). At the same time, in the context of <<collaboration with the allies>>, the Titoite secret agency learned a great deal from the experience of the Intelligence Service. Apart from what I said above, it also took into account that it might suffer defeat in Albania, therefore, it prepared Mehmet and Fiqret Shehu as agents for difficult times in the future. To this end, the former was given the secret pseudonym MISH (Mehmet Ismail Shehu),
page 598
and the latter the pseudonym FISARI (Fiqret Sanxhaktari).
From the written documents of Mehmet Shehu, which have now been found, it is proved that he was a member of the Berat plot, together with Koçi Xoxe and Nako Spiru, irrespective of the fact that he was not at Berat in November 1 944.
Thus, in a letter addressed to the Central Committee of the Party [to Koçi Xoxe] in December 1944, Mehmet Shehu attacks the line of the Party as <<sectarian>> and <<localist>> describes its sound leadership as a <<clique within the Party>>. And in order to leave no doubt as to whom he was referring, Mehmet Shehu, enthusiastic over the anti-party turn at Berat, writes with his own hand that <<if the Party. . . had not made the turn which it is making we would certainly be heading for disaster.>>[1]
Naturally Mehmet Shehu, as a recruited agent of the Yugoslavs, would take an anti-party stand and unite with the plotters. At the same time, through this letter of solidarity he found the opportunity to express his personal discontent with the leadership of the Party and, especially with me, and to demand from Koçi Xoxe and those who directed Koçi Xoxe a reward for the services which he had rendered and was rendering.
During the war, too, Mehmet Shehu had displayed signs of discontent, because at the 1st National Conference of the Communist Party of Albania at Labinot in March 1943 he was elected only a candidate member of the Central Committee and at Përmet, at the Anti-fascist National Liberation Congress in May 1944, he was not promoted to general, like several others whom he scorned.
Mehmet Shehu wanted the mistakes which he had made and continued to make by violating the line of the Party and failing to carry out the orders of the General Staff, over which he had been criticized several times, to be forgotten,
page 599
and now it is quite clear that he did not do all this without a purpose. So he had used terror in the villages through which the 1st Brigade passed to discredit the Party and the partisan forces, elevated to a legend the <<incursion>> of two battalions of the 1st Brigade to rescue the General Staff from the German-Ballist encirclement, although he not only did not rescue it (because the Staff broke through the encirclement with its own forces), but Mehmet Shehu deliberately lost two weeks, in place of two days, taking the forces of the Brigade over a number of dangerous paths, thus, causing many brave fighters of this Brigade to lay down their lives heroically.
During the war Mehmet Shehu opposed the order of the General Staff for the 1st Division to cross the Shkumbin River and move to the north. This opposition of Mehmet Shehu's was not something accidental. It was in accord with the Anglo-American plan to prevent the movement of formations of the ANLA from the south to Central and Northern Albania and with the great pressure which the Anglo-American Mediterranean Command exerted on the General Command of our Army to stop the movement of the Division to the north[1], and prevent any attack on the forces of Abaz Kupi, describing this movement and the vigorous development of our fighting actions as <<interference in its strategic plans>>. However, our Party and the General Staff had their own strategic plans for the liberation of the whole of Albania as quickly as possible. Our categorical order for the immediate movement of the 1st Division to the north resulted in foiling the Anglo-American plan and the services of Mehmet Shehu towards his patrons.
Hence, Mehmet Shehu came to Albania and fought not as a communist and partisan, but as a mercenary sent by the Anglo-Americans to serve their plans for the future of Albania.[2] After his suicide, a program written by his own hand
page 600
in 1942, at the time when he came to Albania, was found in his safe. This was nothing but a bourgeois-democratic program which made no mention at all of socialism and the communist party, but of many parties, just as the Anglo-American missions and the reactionary groups which supported them tried to bring about in the period immediately after Liberation. We are now in possession of documents which fully prove that Mehmet Shehu was an agent of the Intelligence Service, too. In these documents figure his name and some coded pseudonyms such as BAB-008, etc. From them it emerges that Mehmet Shehu had even received money for his services and the centre instructed to leave him at peace, which meant that he was one of those potential agents that are left, in the language of spying agencies, <<dormant>> so as to be used when needed.[1]
page 601
Thus, this hidden agent of the American secret service, later trained by the Intelligence Service in the refugee camps of former volunteers from the International Brigades in France to sabotage the National Liberation War in Albania, linked, as I wrote above, during the war with the Yugoslav OZNA (UDB), could not but go further down the road of betrayal: immediately after Liberation, on the orders of his boss, Fultz, who at that time was official representative of the American mission in Tirana, he was not long in infiltrating into the Soviet secret service. We are now in possession of a letter which Mehmet Shehu sent Major Ivanov immediately after Liberation, couched in so many vilifying terms against the line of the Party and full of hatred for the sound cadres who defended this line, especially against the General Secretary Enver Hoxha, Hysni Kapo and others. This proves that Mehmet Shehu, apart from his links as a secret agent of the Yugoslavs, had also established links with a greater power, with the secret service of the Soviet Union. This is what, among other things, he wrote to the Major of the Soviet secret service, Ivanov, chief of the Soviet military mission in Tirana:
<<. . . I feel it my duty to tell you my opinion about the things which I see and express what I think. I know very well that this action of mine on this occasion is contrary to the rules of the organizational line of our Party, but having confidence in you. . . I take the responsibility of referring directly to you.>>[1]
The letter in the form of a report to Ivanov goes on to make an all-round attack on the line of the Party, which led the National Liberation War and triumphed. He attacks the historic periods and events from the past struggle of the Party, such as the Conference of Peza, the Congress of Përmet, and the 1st National Conference of the Party, and is in complete conformity with the anti-Marxist and anti-Albanian views of Velimir Stojnic and Koçi Xoxe. Like Velimir Stojnic, Mehmet Shehu, too, describes Enver Hoxha and the
page 602
other comrades as <<a CLIQUE>>[1] which must be purged, going further than the decisions which were taken at Berat. <<In order to make the change,>> writes Mehmet Shehu, <<a total revolution in our Party is required>> (implying a total purge).
While describing Tito as <<a head of INTERNATIONAL value>> and in order to fulfil his personal ambition which he could not achieve during his struggle full of vacillations and sectarian and anarchist mistakes, Mehmet Shehu closes his letter to Major Ivanov with certain <<conclusions>> and appeals written in capital letters.
<<Amongst us, Albanian communists,>> he writes, <<there is no one as capable as Tito in Yugoslavia. . . In order to help us to advance well, it is necessary that we have direct and immediate aid from the CI [Communist International] or the CPY [Communist Party of Yugoslavia][2] and this is needed quickly because the situation has given rise to very important problems.>> (After Mehmet Shehu's suicide, in his safe was found a note in his own hand about his having written a letter to Ivanov.)
In this context it is easy to understand the acrobatic twists and contradictory stands of Mehmet Shehu during the National Liberation War and after Liberation, before and after the 8th and 11th Plenums of the Central Committee (in 1948), sometimes defending the Yugoslav theses, sometimes opposing them under the protection of Soviet military advisers.
At the 8th Plenum Nako Spiru was denounced and condemned as an enemy by the Yugoslavs and Koçi Xoxe, while, as I wrote above, Mehmet Shehu was described as <<anti-Yugoslav>> and the <<attacks>> and <<pressure>> of Tito's delegates and Koçi Xoxe to remove him from the army were stepped up. However, these same <<critics>> from Belgrade, indeed, in Tito's name, insisted that Mehmet Shehu should not be completely eliminated, but on the contrary, should be given the
page 603
portfolio of a ministry(!). He was appointed minister of communications, that is, a member of the government.[1]
After the letters of the CPSU(B) to the CC of the CPY, after the 11th Plenum of the CC of our Party, Mehmet Shehu adapted himself to the line of the Party, defending the Soviet Union and Stalin and <<exposing>> Tito and his clique as agents of imperialism, as our whole Party did. Despite the thundering of Mehmet Shehu against the Tito clique, Belgrade remained silent. The Yugoslav UDB, in collaboration with the American CIA and the British Intelligence Service, did not denounce him, because he was their potential agent infiltrated into the Soviet secret service, the trust of which he enjoyed.
Following the death of Stalin, the team that came to
page 604
power condemned Beria, the chief of the Soviet KGB, for many violations of the law. We asked Mehmet Shehu to examine whether mistakes had also been made in the organs of our Ministry of Internal Affairs of which he was the head. Mehmet Shehu was afraid that his links with the Soviet KGB or with the Western secret agencies had been discovered and he might suffer the same fate as Beria. He went to the Soviet ambassador Levichkin, whom he assured of his loyalty to the new Khrushchevite team that had come to power, and sought Soviet protection, because, according to his statements, <<Enver Hoxha regards me with suspicion>> and he was very disturbed about this. Levichkin advised Mehmet Shehu to come to me and make his position clear, while ensuring him that he, Levichkin, would protect him. Levichkin personally came to me, told me of Mehmet Shehu's worries and that he had advised him to come to me. Mehmet Shehu did not come for two or three weeks. At a subsequent meeting, Levichkin asked me:
<<Have you talked with Mehmet Shehu?>>
<<He has not sought any meeting with me,>> I replied.
<<Perhaps you should summon him,>> said Levichkin.
<<By no means!>> I said. <<I have no reason to summon him. On the contrary, he must come to me himself and make a thorough self-criticism. It is true, we are friends with you, but I consider it a very grave mistake that he went to talk with you about a problem which has to do with us, without first talking to me, as General Secretary of the Party.>>
Levichkin was alarmed and <<ordered>> Mehmet Shehu to come to me. First he sent Fiqret Shehu to feel my pulse. She came to enquire what was wrong with Mehmet Shehu, who was <<extremely worried>> (as if she herself knew nothing!).
<<We have no problem with him,>> I replied, <<so you had better ask him whether he has something against us!>>
In this way Mehmet Shehu was reassured that we had not made any discovery and had no suspicions about him. On Levichkin's urging too he came to me, made a self-criticism and also made a self-criticism in the Political Bureau and in the Plenum of the Central Committee, saying that he had made a
page 605
serious mistake in going to the Soviet ambassador to complain about the General Secretary of the Central Committee without discussing the matter with him and without raising the problem in the leadership of the Party.
Later, something else occurred which greatly alarmed and worried Mehmet Shehu: Sokrat Bufi, a party cadre who was studying in Moscow at that time, sent the Central Committee a letter in which, amongst other things, he said: <<Mehmet Shehu is a provocateur. . .>> Mehmet Shehu was furious about this and demanded insistently in the Secretariat and in the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and several times to me personally that Sokrat Bufi should be arrested and condemned. We did not accept his proposal, because to condemn him simply for the fact that he had made a criticism of a party cadre would be contrary to the norms of the Party. Since Sokrat Bufi was appointed vice-chairman of the Executive Committee of a district, the doubts of Mehmet Shehu that we had discovered some of his sins were further aroused and he continued to live and work in feverish anxiety.
The coming to power of Khrushchev and the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which brought reconciliation between the Soviet revisionists and the Titoites, found Mehmet Shehu still in this state of anxiety.
After the abortive attempt through Tuk Jakova and Bedri Spahiu to change the situation in Albania, the foreign secret agencies considered that Mehmet Shehu, too, should be brought into action. I say the foreign secret agencies, because at those moments the aims of the Soviets and the Titoites, as well as of the imperialists, with American imperialism at the head, for the disruption and destruction of the socialist countries by means of the <<Khrushchev line>>, were all in accord. Subsequently, of course, after the sound leadership of the Party and state had been replaced with a revisionist team, the foreign secret agencies would commence their usual fights, each of them striving to take Albania under its own wing.
Hence, Mehmet Shehu was ordered by the Soviets and the Yugoslavs (but with the approval of the British and
page 606
American agencies) to go into action with all his group in order to achieve in Albania what had been or was being achieved in the other former countries of people's democracy. Precisely at this point begins the implication of Mehmet Shehu in the Party Conference of Tirana, where the task of first secretary of the Party Committee of the district was performed by his wife and long-term agent of the Yugoslavs, Fiqret Shehu. By chance (but also through the secret machinations of Mehmet Shehu) the other agent of his group, Beqir Balluku, was appointed the delegate of the CC of the Party to the Conference. In regard to the others, the <<claque>> of the group of plotters, the need did not arise for MISH, FISARI or Balluku to be involved in their orientation. No, the chiefs of the plot, especially Mehmet Shehu, had to operate in secrecy, far behind the scenes, so they could escape in any unexpected eventuality. The employees of the Yugoslav embassy and their henchmen long known and condemned by our Party, such as Liri Gega, Dali Ndreu, Hulusi Spahiu and others, were to deal directly with the <<claque>> as they did.
On this occasion, the duty of the chiefs of the plot initially was to create for elements from the floor, concealed under the mandate of <<delegates>>, conditions and possibilities to vent all their spleen and give the tone to the Conference. Only when they were assured that everything was proceeding normally could other more obvious and decisive steps be taken. Beqir Balluku and Fiqret Shehu accomplished this secret task. The fact is that from the first day of the Conference they created all the possibilities for the enemy elements to pour out all the filth of their anti-party questions and, when the time came for discussion, through their <<inactivity>>, allegedly because <<they were taken by surprise and dumbfounded>> and were <<incapable>> of <<explaining>> things to the enemies, they arranged that enemy elements were given the floor one after the other, and this brought about that the first phase of the plot proceeded as they had envisaged and planned behind the scenes.
Precisely when the anti-party discussions at the Confe-
page 607
rence blazed up, Mehmet Shehu and Beqir Balluku <<considered it in order>> to demand that I go to the Conference. Why? They had two main aims for this urgent demand which they made:
First, to place me personally directly under the main anti-party attack, to raise the tempers higher and, if I were faced with an irresistible attack or retreated, then Mehmet Shehu would manoeuvre in the troubled waters that would be created to disrupt the situation further, to take the lead and, coming out openly, carry through to the end the scenario prepared by his patrons.
Second, Mehmet Shehu had also taken account of the possible failure of the plot, indeed, even he was afraid when he saw the reins were slipping from his hands. Not knowing that their leader was Mehmet Shehu himself, the enemy elements, <<the claque>>, did not spare their attacks on him and his wife, since they identified them with the sound leadership. In such a case he considered it in order that I should come, do battle myself, and if he saw that the plot had failed, then he would act as was his custom: would come out <<beside me>>, would launch the <<attack>> against minor elements, the pawns in the game, and no doubt, against Tito, too, and as before, would wait in gloom and anxiety for more appropriate moments.
However, his patrons, too, both the new ones (Khrushchev and company) and the old ones (the Anglo-Americans and the Titoites), sensed and knew that those situations which existed then in the other parties and countries of people's democracy did not exist in Albania. The unity of the PLA was powerful. In the 15 years of its existence the PLA had proved that it did not tolerate mistakes, slips and deviations, its political and ideological past was pure, it had strong links with the masses and enjoyed the boundless love and respect of the people. In such a sound situation it was not at all easy for the enemies to stir up anti-party feelings and triumph. It was more likely that everything would burst like a soap bubble, as it did.
page 608
The enemies calculated these things well, and understandably, they were not so silly as to destroy their main agent for nothing. On the contrary, they did everything in their power to ensure that he remained as <<clean>> as possible, attempted in one instance or the other to launch him into the attack, but as soon as they saw he might be in danger they gave him the signal to change his position and come out <<on the side>> of the sound leadership.
This is what occurred on this occasion and what was to occur even later. As soon as they saw that the Party did not fall into the trap set, Mehmet Shehu and Beqir Balluku retreated into the background and <<condemned>> the plotters, while Fiqret Shehu vowed that she had mot had the slightest warning, that the plotters had operated <<behind her back>>, that she had been shut up at home preparing the report, etc. Fiqret Shehu was dismissed as first secretary and the reprimand was recorded on her registration document. At that time, we knew nothing in regard to Feçor Shehu[1], who, it now turns out, was an agent in the service of the UDB and was the liaision agent between the Yugoslav embassy and Mehmet Shehu. Mehmet Shehu personally maintained the direct links with the Soviet embassy, readily exploiting the good relations we had with the Soviet Union at that time.
In the situation which was created after the failure of the Khrushchevite-Titoite plot at the Tirana Conference and the resolute, open unmasking by our Party of the events in Poland, and especially those in Hungary, the UDB of Tito Rankovic ordered their agents Liri Gega, Dali Ndreu and Panajot Plaku to flee to Yugoslavia in order to create an opposition abroad and to fight us through their mouths. The first two were arrested attempting to cross the border, while
page 609
Panajot Plaku, with the aid of Mehmet Shehu and his collaborators amongst the officers of the army and the state security, such as the former minister of defence Beqir Balluku and the former minister of internal affairs Kadri Hazbiu, crossed our state border and worked for some time in an allegedly clandestine radio which broadcast the old Titoite poison against our Party and country from the territory of Yugoslavia.
Here it is important to point out that even in the stand towards Dali Ndreu, Liri Gega and Panajot Plaku, not only the continuous anti-Albanian activity of the Titoite leadership, but also the collaboration of the Yugoslavs with the Soviets was clearly obvious. When our organs captured Dali Ndreu and Liri Gega red-handed and placed them in the dock, the Yugoslavs jumped up in rage, and so did Khrushchev. He sent an urgent radiogram to the Soviet ambassador in Tirana Krylov to intervene with me to ensure that the enemies and traitors were not condemned. These were precisely those days of November 1956 when, as I said above, Tito delivered his notorious speech at Pula in which, amongst other things, he called openly for the overthrow of the leadership of the PLA and for my condemnation. Khrushchev sent Krylov with two main instructions: we were not to reply sternly to Tito's speech and not to punish the captured agents who were rendering account before the people's court. We very quickly gave Khrushchev and Tito the answer: in regard to the first instruction, we published articles in the press in which we fired off all our batteries against Tito, Titoism and the speech at Pula; in regard to the second instruction, we gave the agents and traitors the punishment they deserved.
This was bitter medicine for Khrushchev and Tito, but they did not stop their anti-Albanian actions. A little after this, the flight of Panajot Plaku to Yugoslavia was achieved. However, the Titoites were soon to be convinced that they could do us nothing from outside, either through the <<oppositions>> the Dusan Mugosas tried to set up with the reac-
page 610
tionary emigrées, or with the spleen the abject traitor Panajot Plaku vented on us through a so-called clandestine radio, so they sought Khrushchev's help. The Yugoslavs hoped that Khrushchev would exercise pressure on us and influence us so that we would accept Panajot Plaku in Albania with the aim that he, together with their agents and other secret enemies, could carry out the plots and plans of the Yugoslav and the Soviet secret services from inside. Sensing the advantages of this course, Khrushchev was ready to collaborate with Tito, as he did over the Polish and Hungarian question, to mislead the work of the Party Conference of Tirana (1956), etc., therefore, he did not fail to intervene for a <<conciliation>> with the traitor. As the first step, he told us that he was considering admitting him to the Soviet Union, since Plaku himself had expressed this desire in a letter he had sent Khrushchev.
<<He is a traitor,>> I told Khrushchev, <<and if you accept him in your country, we shall break off our friendship with you. If you do accept him, you must hand him over to us so we can hang him in the middle of the square in Tirana.>>[1]
This was the end of the old agents of the Titoite clique and, obviously, also of the hopes which both the Titoites and the Khrushchevites had based on them.
However, this by no means meant that from now on we would no longer have to deal with other attempts, traps and plots. Therefore, on no occasion did we permit any lowering of vigilance. On the contrary, our Party of Labour continued persistently with the ideological and political struggle against Titoism, at a time when our contradictions with the Soviet revisionist leadership were steadily mounting. We were heading for the confrontation of June 1960 in Bucharest.
Just as had ocurred continually with the Titoites, the Khrushchevites, too, did not spare either their means, their pressure and blackmail or their agents, recruited long before,
page 611
the eve of and after this great confrontation. The pawn with which they made their opening move was Liri Belishova. In the summer of that year Belishova was in Beijing with a parliamentary delegation, at the time that the meeting of the World Federation of Trade Unions was being held there. Contrary to every party rule and norm, the profound contradictions which had developed in the ranks of the international communist and workers' movement between the Chinese and the Soviets emerged openly at that meeting. In opposition to the stand of the leadership of our Party, which did not want to pronounce itself prematurely on these contradictions, Liri went to the Soviet embassy and reported all that the Chinese had told her. We sent Liri Belishova two letters, one to Beijing and one that reached her on the way back to Moscow, in which we criticized her for her stand in Beijing and explained the stand she must take in Moscow. However, Liri Belishova, as an agent of the Soviets, not only did not follow the advice of the leadership of the Party, but met Kozlov, talked with him, listened to him and even handed over to the Khrushchevites our letters (radiograms) which, when we asked her for them, she told us she <<had burnt>>.
When she returned to Albania, Liri Belishova took Comrade Hysni aside and said to him, <<Let us keep Comrade Enver out of these clashes,>> but Hysni denounced Liri. She had also met Mehmet Shehu and told him, <<Don't talk about Khrushchev, because everything you say reaches his ears.>> Mehmet Shehu reluctantly admitted this much later, when he saw that the leadership of the Party was condemning Liri Belishova. What other pressure Liri Belishova had exerted on him is not known.
Likewise, we do not know what Kosygin said to Mehmet Shehu when he was in hospital in Moscow for treatment, Mehmet Shehu told us that Kosygin had tried to convince him that China must be condemned and this <<had angered>> him, so he left the hospital and returned to Albania. Now it turns out that Mehmet Shehu, together with Fiqret Shehu, had been summoned to a meeting with Mikoyan at which Andropov.
page 612
and I think also the chief of security Shelepin were present and talked for four hours with them.
In the end, apparently, the Soviets decided that they should set Mehmet Shehu in action for the subjugation of the leadership of our Party. I say <<in the end>>, because some months earlier, in February of that year, they not only hesitated, but did not even want to inform Mehmet Shehu of the quarrels which they had with the Chinese.
As I have written in my book of memoirs <<The Khrushchevites>>, when we arrived in Moscow for a top-level meeting in the framework of the Comecon and the Warsaw Treaty, they informed me that Mikoyan sought an urgent meeting <<with Enver' Hoxha alone>>. I insisted that Mehmet Shehu should be present, too, and since despite their wishes I took Mehmet Shehu with me, the Soviets hesitated, frowned, but were faced <<with an accomplished fact>>[1] In order to avoid angering Mehmet Shehu, they justified themselves for not inviting him to the meeting on the grounds that they had decided to speak <<only with the first secretaries of sister parties>>. Now it turns out that this <<reason>> was a bluff. They did not want Mehmet Shehu to learn what had occurred, because they knew that he was the man of many agencies and might carry information to the Americans and the British. However, the events evolved and in May-June the Soviets changed their tune.
Meanwhile, Mehmet Shehu saw that the leadership of our Party was not going to tolerate Khrushchev's plans against Marxism-Leninism and the international communist and workers' movement any longer. Our Party worked out the platform for the stand it would take at Bucharest, retaining its right to present its views at the regular meeting of all parties (in November 1960 in Moscow). At that time Mehmet Shehu was in a quandary: whom to please and whom to displease? To place himself in opposition to the leadership of the Party was of no benefit to him, because he would suffer the fate of
page 613
Liri Belishova and all the other anti-party enemies. However, as a man of many foreign secret agencies he had to take the Americans, the British and the Yugoslavs into his calculations, besides us and the Soviets.
Which way would this multiple agent turn in this complicated situation?!
However, a way out was presented to him. At this time Mehmet Shehu was sent to New York at the head of a government delegation to the UNO. He travelled on the British trans-Atlantic luxury liner <<Queen Elizabeth>>. We knew that Tito, also, was travelling on that ship, but it never crossed our minds that Mehmet Shehu might meet Tito. Now we learn from his fellow-travellers who were his collaborators and are now in jail that Harry Fultz of the American CIA and Randolph Churchill, who was an Intelligence Service agent but figured on the passenger list as a journalist, were also aboard. During this trip of seven days, Mehmet Shehu, being their agent, had secret meetings and talks with Tito, Fultz, and R. Churchill, informed them of the situation in and the stands of our Party, the acute contradictions which were arising with the Soviet Union and the stand which the leadership of our Party intended to take in Moscow.
The strategies of the three agencies, Yugoslav, American and British, were in accord and they suggested to their super agent that he should unreservedly <<support>> the correct stands of the leadership of the Party, which would lead to the great breach and rupture with the Soviet Union. It would be no loss to them that we supported China. On the contrary, this <<friendship>> with their secret pro-American, pro-Titoite friends (such as Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping) would serve their longer-range strategic plans (to involve us in the liberal policies of China, such as it began later with the Nixon-Zhou Enlai meeting, or when Zhou Enlai urged Beqir Balluku to act relying on a Yugoslavia-Rumania-Albania alliance), etc.
Mehmet Shehu returned from the United States of America full of <<courage>> and became more catholic than the Pope, was unrestrained in his <<defence>> of the line of our Party
page 614
against the plans and stands of Khrushchev and the revisionist Soviet leadership. Indeed, he organized <<scenes>> in order to boost himself and thoroughly cement our trust in him. When we were at the Meeting of 81 parties in Moscow, in November of that year, he proposed we should leave the house in which the Soviets had placed us because <<they are capable of poisoning us>>. (He was afraid rather on his own account.) When we went to our embassy in Moscow, through the secret microphones which the Soviets had planted and which we discovered, he <<transmitted>> to them a fiery message eulogizing our Party and its first secretary, while using all the gravest insults against them for their disgraceful act in eaves-dropping on their close friends, such as the Party of Labour of Albania and its leaders. Mehmet Shehu stubbornly opposed our return by ship via the Black Sea and organized our return by train through Austria and Italy. We agreed to these measures, because we no longer trusted the Soviets, either, but with the zeal which he displayed he strengthened our trust in him and also protected himself. Nevertheless, Mehmet Shehu could not but be worried that he might pay with his head for the <<betrayal>> which he was committing against his Soviet patrons as a disobedient agent.
There was no lack of some hints and needling. In my book <<The Khrushchevite>> I have recorded that Kosygin said to me, <<There are enemies in your leadership>>.[1] However, when I called on Mehmet Shehu to translate this to me better, because, although I understood Russian, I had never mastered those cyrillic letters which hindered me from reading and learning it well, Kosygin shut his mouth and said that I <<had not understood him properly>>. There, too, I have written about the pressure exerted on us by the Soviet militarymen who had an argument with Mehmet Shehu, too. Now another explanation can be given for why Khrushchev at our last meeting said to us: <<This is how MacMillan wanted to speak
page 615
to me>>, at which Mehmet Shehu jumped to his feet and we broke off the meeting. Apparently, when Khrushchev mentioned the Englishman MacMillan, Mehmet Shehu feared that he might open a wound which would cause him great pain.
After the Meeting of 81 parties, Khrushchev and company tried to patch up their relations with us. This they tried to do at our 4th Congress, with the letters they sent us, as well as through the Chinese, etc. They also tried to turn us to their course through economic and military pressures, but they failed in all directions. We maintained our immovable stand. We expelled the Soviets from the base at Vlora; they cut off their economic and military aid, even broke off diplomatic relations.
Precisely at the extremely difficult and delicate moments which our Party and country were experiencing in 1960 we uncovered the dangerous plot of Teme Sejko, hatched up and supported by the American 6th Fleet, the renegades of Belgrade and the Greek chauvinist circles. In collaboration with one another, these forces of darkness had thrown into action their long-standing agent Teme Sejko and a number of other agents around him to prepare and cause <<internal>> disorders to break out in Albania which would serve as a pretext for a foreign military intervention against our country. However, although we were deeply involved in the struggle against our new Khrushchevite enemies, we had not relaxed for a moment our vigilance towards our old enemies -- the imperialists, the chauvinists and the Belgrade renegades. We discovered their plot, smashed it and, at the 4th Congress of the Party,[1] spoke about it and publicly denounced it and its organizers. At those moments the Soviets pretended to be totally ignorant of and even alarmed about it, so much so that Gomulka asked that a commission from the Warsaw treaty be set to <<verify>> things, which we turned down! What all this alarm of the Soviets was about, this we did not know at that time.
page 616
Now it is fully proved that at a time when the Americans, the Yugoslav and Greek chauvinists were secretly hatching up the plot of Teme Sejko and company, the Soviets got air of this plot through their secret agents and made the most of it as a very favourable occasion to maintain and strengthen their positions in Albania, which were being shaken.
Let us not forget that the Soviet fleet was still at Vlora. Let us not forget that those were days and months when we were at daggers drawn with the Soviets. The Soviets sensed that the end was coming in Albania and feared that their naval fleet might be driven from Vlora. We had just launched the attack in Bucharest and were preparing the main and general attack for the Meeting of communist and workers' parties which was to be held in Moscow in November that year. To forestall the evil the Soviets threatened us in many ways, indeed, in one letter they wrote that we must extinguish the <<spark>> which was kindled at Bucharest.[1] We continued resolutely on our course. Then, they tried to find a way out through another more <<powerful>> and more <<menacing>> means; through their secret agents Mehmet Shehu, Beqir Balluku and Kadri Hazbiu they tried to employ the truth about Teme Sejko's plot as a means of pressure and blackmail on us in order to make us kowtow to the Soviets. They even gave Mehmet Shehu, Beqir Balluku and Kadri Hazbiu additional information ensured through the KGB, which confirmed the threat of an attack prepared by the West and the Yugoslavs against our country. After this the Soviets and their agents expected that we would fall into the trap and see our <<salvation from the danger>> in relying on the Soviets, especially on their fleet in Vlora. Hence, with the card of the imperialist-Yugoslav plot the Soviets said to us: Don't do anything silly, the attack is prepared, imperialism will gobble you up, therefore come to your senses, because you need us! What a masquerade! These plans and base calcula-
page 617
tions by the Khrushchevites in 1960 about the plot of Teme Sejko are very similar to the plans which the Titoites concocted with Koçi Xoxe and Beqir Balluku at the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1948, that we were allegedly under threat of a Greek attack and, therefore, the Yugoslav divisions should come <<to defend and save us>>!
However, just as we foiled the Titoites' plots and secret plans in 1947 and 1948, we also foiled the plots of the imperialists, the Yugoslavs and the Soviets in 1960. On the basis of many facts and documents which we discovered, we handed Teme Sejko and his network of agents over to the people's court where they admitted through their own mouths, not only their participation in the plot, but also the work that they had done as agents for the Yugoslav, Greek and American secret services.
Naturally, our foiling and public denunciation of the imperialist-Yugoslav plot would alarm the Soviets, as it did. The smashing of the first, American-Yugoslav-Greek, plot automatically blew up the second plot which the Khrushchevites and their agents Mehmet Shehu, Beqir Balluku and others had hatched up in secrecy. The Soviets saw that after this they had their days numbered in Albania. And true enough, very soon we ousted the Soviet naval fleet from Vlora, without it ever crossing our mind that we could rely on it to <<save ourselves>>. This fleet of the Khrushchevites had already become just like the American 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean and we knew that our salvation would not come from relying on it, but from expelling it, as we did.
The fact that we uncovered and foiled this plot right at the outset made Mehmet Shehu draw in his horns.
Meanwhile, our Party pursued the course of Marxism-Leninism and Mehmet Shehu <<endorsed>> its line, indeed, he greatly advertised his role in these situations and, of course, in the eyes of the Americans and the Yugoslavs posed as if it was he that inspired this course. From the plans which they had made and the secret contacts which they maintained, the Americans and the Yugoslavs knew this, while all the Western
page 618
secret agencies were in agreement that their <<boy>> should thunder against them with such statements as <<We are dancing in the wolf's mouth>>, etc., etc. They accepted any abuse, content that their agent was climbing higher and higher and might turn the helm of our Party and state towards the West.
Mehmet Shehu zealously continued the <<struggle>> against the Soviet revisionists, but proceeding from other purposes and aims, quite the opposite of the lofty aims of the Party which worked for the defence of Marxism-Leninism and the supreme interests of our people and socialist Homeland.
The events of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 came about and the Party decided to denounce the Warsaw Treaty, to take our country out of this ill-famed treaty de jure, although de facto we had withdrawn from it at the end of 1960. On this occasion, Mehmet Shehu delivered the speeches as prime minister and, of course, he presented this to his patrons as his personal victory. The American agency (and those linked with it, first of all, the Titoites) thought that Albania was left isolated and undefended, and since China was far away, it considered that the time had come when our country would turn its face towards the West.
The trump card of the Western and Titoite agencies, Mehmet Shehu, was brought into action. In 1972 he went to Paris for an operation, accompanied by the same team that accompanied him to the UNO, plus his wife Fiqret Shehu. There he made contact with a top figure of the American CIA, who said to him: <<What are you doing? You are getting old, you must act!>>
Mehmet Shehu reported to him about the situation and the plots which were being prepared (by Beqir Balluku and Abdyl Këllezi and company). The CIA recommended that he should act, but without compromising himself. It proposed three variants for the elimination of Enver Hoxha: 1) through a motor accident; 2) through shooting with a rifle from a distance; or 3) with delayed-action poison. It was left to Mehmet Shehu to put into action the variant he considered most feasible.
page 619
Through Feçor Shehu, Mehmet Shehu received the same instructions from the Yugoslav UDB which was completely in agreement with the CIA.
In Paris Mehmet Shehu was also given a sophisticated radio receiver-transmitter which his eldest son, who was an electronics engineer, installed in his house, ready to function.
In fact, Mehmet Shehu had turned, or was to turn, his whole family into a nest of agents, a family of vipers. As we said, Fiqret Shehu had been recruited during the war by Dusan Mugosa and had the pseudonym FISARI, without taking into account what she might have done earlier when she went to Italy on a one- or two-year course during the occupation, or what Liri Gega (and Smith[1]) might have done with her when they worked together in the 1st Army Corps. Eventually Mehmet Shehu had made his second son Skënder a collaborator and when he went abroad (especially when he went to study in Sweden), Mehmet Shehu charged him to establish contact with the CIA and act as a liaison agent, while activating his younger son and his wife in the direction of a foreign embassy in Tirana.
Of course, the elements recruited by Mehmet Shehu over a long period, or the hostile and immoral elements of his own family would not suffice for him to accomplish the evil work the CIA and the UDB demanded of him. He would aim to extend the network of agents and conspirators everywhere. To this end in 1972 he was directed and ordered by the American CIA to work out concrete plans to overturn the situation in Albania in favour of the West, to set in motion and urge in this direction the agents known or unknown to him, regardless of whose they were, Yugoslav, Greek, British, Italian, and others, but avoiding compromising himself.
page 620
Thus began the implementation of the ramified conspiratorial plan organized under cover by Mehmet Shehu:
I. The hostile activity of Fadil Paçrami and his group in the field of culture, art and the radio and television service for the degeneration of the line in these fields. However, as is known, the Party quickly dealt with this group and its activity. Mehmet Shehu hastened to wash his hands of them, indeed, he thundered loudly against people of art and the youth in order to realize his anti-party aims in this way, as he had done during the War, to create antagonism in the relations and the links of the Party with these strata.
II. In 1973 the group of Beqir Balluku was set in motion. It prepared the military putsch through the black theses, <<the theory of slipping away>>, of abandoning the coast and the cities to imperialist aggressors, the patrons of Mehmet Shehu. Beqir Balluku was completely unmasked. Even Petrit Dume and Hito Çako, who were in the plot, abandoned him. Mehmet Shehu, who was the head of the plot and pulled the strings behind the scenes (now it turns out that all the strategic and tactical plans had been worked out contrary to the plans of the Council of Defence and these black materials, as they were called when we discovered them, had been approved by him), tried to save Petrit Dume and Hito Çako. They had great hopes that through Mehmet Shehu their <<heads would be saved>>, as he told them in the Plenum of the Central Committee which met at that time on these problems, and they did not give Mehmet Shehu away, but he could not save them from the danger for fear of damaging himself.
III. Meanwhile Mehmet Shehu, this time more directly, set in motion his henchmen Abdyl Këllezi, Koço Theodhosi and Kiço Ngjela to carry out sabotage in the economic field, especially in the oil industry and agriculture, to disorganize the economy of the country by beginning to work out and introduce forms of Yugoslav self-administration.
However, as is known, Mehmet Shehu failed in these three directions.
Throughout this period, Tito, who was following the si-
page 621
tuation attentively, thought that since he had his agent in the leadership of our Party and state, after the fall of Rankovic in Yugoslavia and the exposure of the barbarities which he had perpetrated in Kosova, as well as after the situations which were created with our leaving the Warsaw Treaty, he could make some concessions in regard to Kosova and our relations with it. Kosova began to breathe a little more freely, Albanian schools were opened, the University of Prishtina was set up, cultural relations, visits to one another and other activities began. Tito and company cherished the old dream that through Kosova they could influence the liberal forces in Albania and, in this way, make possible the union of Albania with Kosova in the framework of Yugoslavia. When the leaders of Kosova told Tito <<The Albanians are fanning up nationalist sentiments and speaking against you,>> he replied: <<That's not your business, let them abuse me if they want to. . .>> Tito said this because he knew that in Albania he had Mehmet Shehu, who, after three failures, was regrouping the other conspirators, especially in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with Kadri Hazbiu, Feçor Shehu and some others Nevertheless, Mehmet Shehu needed time to hatch up new plots.
Meanwhile Tito died. A situation of political and economic insecurity was created in Yugoslavia. The world capitalist crisis had gripped Yugoslavia, too, which was up to its ears in debt. The situation was seething in Kosova more than anywhere else on account of the Great-Serb oppression, the unemployment and the gloomy prospects for the working people who saw that in their Motherland, in socialist Albania, the situation was quite different. Thus, Kosova did not serve as a bridgehead for the penetration of Titoite self-administration and ideological degeneration into Albania, but Albania showed Kosova the brilliant features of true socialism in our country. And this it did through normal, official bilateral relations and contacts with Kosova and not through secret agents, because, first, this was not the line of our Party and, second, the Yugoslav secret agency (through Feçor Shehu) was at the
page 622
head of the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Therefore, the <<theses>> of the Yugoslavs about the alleged interference of Albania by means of secret agents for the organization of demonstrations in Kosova have no foundation. The American and Yugoslav secret agencies began to be worried lest Kosova escape from their control, lest Albania intervene, possibly, as they thought, in collaboration with Bulgaria and the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, the situation in Kosova was becoming ever more difficult and complicated. The people of Kosova and the whole Albanian population living on their own lands in Montenegro and Macedonia were seeing more and more each day that in the Titoite reality their legitimate rights, indeed, even those rights written in the Yugoslav Constitution, were being violated and denied.
The profound economic and political crisis which had swept the whole of Yugoslavia was manifesting itself in more tragic colours in Kosova. Not only was the standard of living several times lower than the average of Yugoslavia, but the gap was being ceaselessly widened to the detriment of the Kosovars; unemployment, especially among the Albanian youth there, was wreaking havoc. Whereas 10-15 years earlier the demagogue Tito had laid the blame on Rankovic for the mass expulsions and displacements of Kosovars to Turkey and the Western countries, now the Kosovars were seeing that they were forced to leave their lands and betake themselves to the markets of the West, just as in the <<time of Rankovic>>. At that time Rankovic drove them out, now unemployment was driving them out just the same, indeed, in even greater numbers. Hence, it was not one or five Rankovices that were to blame, but the Yugoslav reality, the Titoite <<self-administrative socialism>>. The people of Kosova were bound to become conscious of this reality, just as they did. However, these were not the only reasons which were bringing the cauldron to boiling-point. Above all, the people of Kosova and the whole Albanian population living in their own territories in Yugoslavia saw and felt deeply that in Titoite Yugoslavia they were treated
page 623
as second-rate citizens, their legitimate rights were trampled on and they were insulted and despised by the Titoites for what has always been dearest to the heart of the Albanian: his national pride and dignity.
Precisely in such situations which had long been boiling up, the demonstrations took place in Kosova at the beginning of 1981. The Great-Serbs and the Yugoslav UDB were alarmed, sent in the army and crushed the demonstrations with tanks. Hundreds of people were killed and wounded. A conflagration dangerous to the internal situation of Yugoslavia, now shaken by both economic crises and political crises, broke out. These savage repressive measures caused a great sensation in international opinion. Albania maintained an open stand, as resolute as it was wise.
Apart from the slanders that these demonstrations had allegedly been inspired by Albania, the Yugoslavs had to take immediate measures to <<discredit>> the <<Stalinist>> Albanian leadership in order to disturb and overturn the sound situation in Albania, as well as to confuse the patriotic-revolutionary forces in Kosova.
They demanded that their agent Mehmet Shehu acted. The Yugoslav UDB was in collaboration with the CIA and was aware of its directive for the liquidation of Enver Hoxha. Therefore, they demanded that Mehmet Shehu send his wife urgently to Paris. The demonstrations took place in March, while she went to Paris in April 1981. There an envoy from Çalamani (Mugosa himself had died, but his mission as an agent <<lived on>>) presented himself to her and gave her the poison which had to be administered immediately to Enver Hoxha.
Fiqret Shehu and Mehmet Shehu had racked their brains together about when, where and how they would act with the variants which the CIA had suggested to them, and had found as the most feasible variant the administration of the delayed-action poison, which could be carried out when we paid each other visits. In the conditions under which I travelled the motor accident was ruled out, while the attempt
page 624
with a rifle was too sensational and with unforseeable dangers.
The order which the Yugoslavs gave Mehmet Shehu to act immediately and quickly according to the third variant found him unprepared. Mehmet Shehu was afraid, did not like being placed in a corner with no room to move. Therefore, he appealed to his major patron, the American CIA. Fiqret Shehu began to visit the capitals of Europe -- Vienna, Stockholm, Copenhagen. Both in Stockholm and in Denmark she met representatives of the CIA and put forward Mehmet Shehu's idea that they should not act hastily, as the Yugoslavs demanded, because they were not well prepared; the poisoning or physical liquidation of Enver Hoxha could be put off until March 1982 (during the winter holidays), while up till that time they could undertake some action which might cause a split in the Party and encourage the liberal element. The representative of the CIA discussed the matter with his centre and at the second meeting, this time in Denmark, gave his approval for Mehmet Shehu's variant.
In this context Mehmet Shehu arranged the engagement of his son to the daughter of a family in the circle of which there were 6 or 7 fugitive war criminals, including the notorious agent of the CIA Arshi Pipa. Such an engagement could not fail to attract the attention of the public. And it was done precisely with the aim of attracting public attention and causing a sensation. If it were accepted by the Party, it would lead to splits and liberalism among others, too, in the Party, the Youth organization, etc. If it were not accepted by the Party, measures would be taken against Mehmet Shehu, not imprisonment, of course, but demotion, removal from his position or even expulsion from the Party. This would cause a sensation and the Yugoslavs could use it, as they needed it for their propaganda purposes to discredit the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania and especially Enver Hoxha, who, as they have repeated over and over again, is <<eliminating>> his collaborators, as Stalin did.
However, the plans did not work out as Mehmet Shehu
page 625
had intended. The Party intervened immediately, the engagement was broken off, Mehmet Shehu was criticized by the comrades for this major political mistake, he was required to make a profound self-criticism to find the sources of such an error and it was left that this would be done after the 8th Congress of the Party.[1] He did not expect this. He tried to make <<some other mistakes>>: he completely neglected his report for the 8th Congress of the Party, presented it late and with flagrant political errors and the Political Bureau rejected it. Mehmet Shehu wanted to make a <<self-criticism>> at the Congress over the engagement of his son (his aim was to cause an upset in the Congress), but it was refused, too. In the Congress he purposely sat like a <<repentant sinner>> and this was so obvious to the delegates and the TV viewers that they began to ask one another why.
OUR FINAL BREACH WITH TITO AND
THE TITOITES
The public denunciation of Titoism * On the relations of the CPA with the CPSU and the parties of the other countries until 1948 * An incognito journey to Rumania in connection with Tito's betrayal. A meeting with Andrey Vyshinsky. The meeting with Vyshinsky and Dej. Irrefutable arguments of the CPA on Tito's traitorous activity. Vyshinsky: <<The Bolshevik Party approves the correct activity and struggle of the CPA in defence of Marxism-Leninism.>> A visit to Bucharest. Back home * Desperate manoeuvres of Koçi Xoxe and company to escape exposure and rendering account * Profound analyses in our Political Bureau. Kristo Themelko and Pandi Kristo testify * The 10th and 11th Plenums of the CC of the CPA. <<The line of the CPA has been correct. It has been attacked but has not wavered, has been threatened but has not been damaged>> * The historic 1st Congress of the CPA. Koçi Xoxe and Pandi Kristo in the dock * The end of our relations with Tito and the Titoites.
The sudden and ignominious departure from Albania of Tito's envoys and their suite in the spring of 1948 brought about a rapid improvement in our affairs. This was reflected both in the subsequent development of relations between our Party and the Yugoslav Party and in the relations within the
The public denunciation of Titoism
The pressure which Tito and company exerted in April and May 1948 about <<re-examining our position>>, the demand that we send a top-level delegation to Belgrade to <<iron out the disagreements>>, etc. were like the final desperate writhings of drowning men of all times. The Titoite leaders were now more than convinced that the game was up for them in Albania.
* Bureaucratic state functionaries of czarist Russia.
An incognito journey
to Rumania in connection with Tito's betrayal
A meeting with Vyshinsky and Dej
[1]
On November 10, 1940.
[1]
Commander of an Albanian volunteer unit in the 60's of the 19th century. Fighting for the defence of the Albanian territories, he was encircled by Montenegrin bands in a house near the Shkodra Lake and rather than fall in their hands, blew up the house with himself and his 23 men together with many of his Montenegrin enemies.
[1]
Codreanu Cornelieu-Zelea -- Rumanian fascist politician.
*
Leader (Rum. in the original).
[2]
General, fascist dictator of Rumania (1940-1944).
[1]
German linguists, collectors and editors of fairy tales' publications.
* Well (Russ. in the original).
[1]
In March-April and in November 1949.
[1]
See Enver Hoxha, <<With Stalin>> (Memoirs), Tirana 1982, p. 141, 2nd Eng. ed.
[2]
Ibidem.
[1]
See Enver Hoxha, <<With Stalin>> (Memoirs), Tirana 1982, p. 123, 2nd Eng. ed.
* Mineral water (Rus. in the original).
[1]
French writer.
The end of the Titoites in our country
The immediate and ignominious departure of Tito's emissaries from our country after the arrival of the first letter of the Bolshevik Party, amongst other things, brought two important consequences for our Party. The first consequence was positive: when they saw that their masters had left them in the lurch and at the mercy of the development of events, Koçi Xoxe and his Titoite clan (up till yesterday predominant in the Bureau) immediately turned their coats and became <<pro-Soviet>>, expressed unanimous <<solidarity>> with the letter
[1]
From the minutes of the 11th Plenum of the CC of the CPA. CAP.
[1]
From Koçi Xoxe's <<self-criticism>> at the 1st Congress of the CPA. CAP.
[2]
The chiefs of Belgrade wanted to escape precisely this exposure. They did everything in their power to have Koçi Xoxe flee to Yugoslavia before the 1st Congress of the CPA. To this end they sent the Yugoslav representative in Tirana at that time a number of radiograms in one of which he was told to make contact with Koçi Xoxe without fail and bring about his fleeing to Yugoslavia. A reward of a hundred thousand leks was offered to the person who would accomplish this. (Archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.)
[1]
The trial of Koçi Xoxe, Pandi Kristo and their three closest collaborators took place in the city of Tirana from May 11 to June 10, 1949. The court pronounced the sentence of death by shooting only for Koçi Xoxe. Pandi Kristo was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment, whereas the others from 5 to 15 years of imprisonment.
IN OPEN STRUGGLE WITH THE TITOITES
The struggle against Titoism -- an historical imperative * Our first clash with the Khrushchevites over the <<Yugoslav question>> * On the Tito-Rankovic <<democracy>> * The Belgrade leadership throws into action the anti-Albanian scum, criminals and saboteurs * Khrushchevite betrayal assisting the Titoite betrayal. Smashing the Titoite-Khrushchevite plot at the Party Conference of Tirana (April 1956) * Mehmet Shehu -- a multiple agent of the imperialist-revisionist secret services * Mehmet Shehu's juggling from the Berat Plenum (November 1944) to the 1st Congress of the CPA (November 1948) * The year 1960. Mehmet Shehu together with Tito, Randolph Churchill and Fultz on the transatlantic liner <<Queen Elizabeth>>. Whom was this servant of many bosses to please and whom to displease? * In the 70's. The Western and the Titoite secret agencies order Mehmet Shehu into action. Three conspirators' groups foiled * Demonstrations in Kosova force the UDB to sacrifice the card on which they had <<placed great hopes>> in Albania. Why did Mehmet Shehu commit suicide? * The hope on terrorist bands * Socialist Albania has been and remains a granite rock.
The 35 years that have passed from the time when the Titoite betrayal was publicly denounced and unmasked are witness to the fact that although the links between our Party and the CPY were broken off once and for all in 1948, since then the struggle between us has never ceased and
The struggle against
Titoism -- an historical imperative
Yugoslav revisionism, the first current which represented revisionism in power, emerged at a key moment in the struggle between socialism and imperialism. Right from the outset, American imperialism and the whole of world reaction saw in Titoism the course, the ideology and the policy which led to the degeneration of the communist parties of socialist countries, to the splitting and destruction of the unity of the international communist movement and to sabotage of the revolution and national liberation wars. For this reason imperialism and reaction supported the renegades of Belgrade with all their might and means, kept them alive and gave
[1]
See Enver Hoxha, <<The Khrushchevites>> (Memoirs), Tirana 1980, p. 101, Eng. ed.
The plots continue
Already in May-June 1948 we were more than aware that Tito and the Titoites, as traitors to Marxism-Leninism, were and would remain inimical and dangerous to all the communist parties, to the revolutionary movements and national liberation struggles everywhere in the world, but far us, the Albanian communists and people, besides this, they were and would remain direct, savage, sworn anti-Albanian enemies. We were convinced that they would never give up their plans and aims to gobble up Albania, and to this end would not lay dawn their arms of subversion, interference and plots against our Party and country.
[1]
From 1948 to 1955 the Yugoslav secret agency infiltrated into and organized in Albania 307 gangs of secret agents, wreckers and criminals who were all captured or wiped out. During the same period groups and secret organizations of agents set up and guided by the Yugoslav secret service in collaboration with Western secret services were discovered and wiped out in our country.
[1]
<<The daily experience of our Party in relation to the Yugoslavs,>> we wrote to Khrushchev among other things, <<both before the breach with the Yugoslavs in 1948 and later, to this day, proves clearly and completely, with many incontestable facts, that the principled content of all the resolutions of the Cominform in regard to the Yugoslav question has been completely correct. . . In our opinion such a hasty (and ill-considered) decision on an issue of great importance and of principle, without first making a profound analysis together with all the parties interested in this issue, and what is more, the publication of it in the press and proclamation of it in the talks in Belgrade, would not only be premature, but would also cause serious harm in the general orientation. We are convinced that this general line of our Party in its relations with Yugoslavia is correct. . .>> (From the letter of the CC of the PLA to the CC of the CPSU, May 25, 1955. CAP.)
[1]
The 3rd Congress of the PLA was held in Tirana from May 25 to June 3, 1956.
[1]
From the letter of Mehmet Shehu addressed to the CC of the CPA [to Koçi Xoxe] on December 10, 1944. CAP.
[1]
See Enver Hoxha <<The Anglo-American Threat to Albania>> (Memoirs), Tirana 1982, pp. 248-268, Eng. ed.
[2]
That Mehmet Shehu was a secret agent of the Americans and served them, is also borne out, among others, by a letter dated Fe-[cont. onto p. 600. -- DJR] bruary 6, 1944 which the CIA agent Larry Post (who later was sent by the American secret service to Albania) wrote to another secret agent of the Americans Hasan Reçi, I repeated many times to them that we wanted facts, facts, and facts about every situation and everything,>> stressed Larry Post in this letter and continued: <<Transmit to Mjekrra -- Mehmet Shehu -- my warmest greetings. Is it possible for him to send me a report on his situation and activity?! You do not write whether you have contacted him. . . ! P.S. Mjekrra may read this letter, too.>> (From the original copy of the letter in CAP.)
[1]
From its assessments of the situation in Albania in the end of 1944, the British secret service envisaged the eventual organization of an opposition to the new state of people's democracy which was created. They included Mehmet Shehu among the main elements of this opposition. This is borne out by a document dated November 10, 1944, the photocopy of which has been taken from the archives of the Foreign Office, London, and which, among other things, says about Mehmet Shehu, <<. . . he is a communist, but his personal ambition exceeds his loyalty to the Party>>. (FO 371/43554 PRO.) Whereas in another document dated February 10, 1945, the section of the British Intelligence Service for Albania (Force No. 399 ) describes Mehmet Shehu <<to be the only man with sufficient following to prove dangerous to Hoxha, should they disagree>> (read: over the program of the British Mehmet Shehu brought with him on his return to Albania in 1942 which was found in his safe after his suicide. See p. 599 of this book). W0-204.
[1]
From the letter of Mehmet Shehu addressed to Major Ivanov. CAP.
[1]
The words in capitals are quoted from the original letter.
[2]
Underlining and brackets in this excerpt of the letter are ours (Editorial Board).
[1]
At the 11th Plenum Kristo Themelko declared: <<The Yugoslavs liked Mehmet Shehu.>> Indeed, at one moment he turned to Mehmet Shehu and said: <<It's true that I have a whole load of mistakes, but don't forget that whenever we went to Belgrade, it was you Tito received first and not me!>> <<As for the criticisms in December 1947,>> continued Kristo, <<true, the Yugoslavs criticized him, but they told me to exert pressure on the leadership to appoint him a minister! They wanted to keep sweet with Mehmet Shehu, because they were afraid of him!>> (From the minutes of the 11th Plenum of the CC of the CPA, CAP.)
Further evidence of Mehmet Shehu's <<special>> links with the Titoites is provided by his <<confidential>> correspondence with Dusan Mugosa. Thus, in the letter which he sent Mugosa on February 9, 1944, Mehmet Shehu wrote among other things: <<The letter which you sent me reassures me. . . ; there you show what special personal interest you have taken [in me]. The letter reassures me, comforts me, advises, helps and teaches me. I am keeping the letter and it will serve me as your photograph with which to remember you. . . Ah! If only you were to desert and come back to us we would keep you under cover as an illegal fighter!)
In the letter of April 22, 1944, on the occasion of Mugosa's departure from Albania, after a dithyramb of praise and describing him with servility as <<our teacher>>, Mehmet Shehu calls the Albanian communists <<communist brigands>>, a <<hotch-potch of bitter vegetables>> and concludes: <<Oh, Salë! [the pseudonym of Dusan Mugosa]. . . To whom will you entrust this special mission. . . ?>> (The letters are kept in the CAP.)
[1]
An anti-party element and sworn enemy of the PSRA. On the proposal of Mehmet Shehu he was appointed minister of Internal Affairs. After the disclosure of the activity of Mehmet Shehu as a secret agent, the true features of Feçor Shehu were revealed, too, and he has been handed over to the organs of justice for investigation of his enemy activity.
[1]
See Enver Hoxha, <<The Khrushchevites>> (Memoirs), Tirana 1980, p. 354-356, Eng. ed.
[1]
See Enver Hoxha, <<The Khrushchevites>> (Memoirs), Tirana 1980, pp. 387-389, Eng. ed.
[1]
See Enver Hoxha, <<The Khrushchevites>> (Memoirs), Tirana 1980, p. 432, Eng. ed.
[1]
The 4th Congress of the PLA carried out its proceedings from 13-20 February 1961.
[1]
See Enver Hoxha, Works, vol. 19, p. 128, Alb. ed.
[1]
Officer of the British military mission in Albania, secret agent of the Intelligence Service, a friend of Liri Gega and Mustafa Gjinishi. During the National Liberation War he was attached to the Staff of the 1st Division of the ANLA. See Enver Hoxha, <<The Anglo-American Threat to Albania>> (Memoirs), Tirana 1982, p. 224, Eng. ed.