MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT POSITION PAPER ON ALBANIA Last edit: 8/26/92 Albania: Background by MC5 from: August, 1990 MIM literature Albania is a small country in Eastern Europe that borders Yugoslavia and Greece. It has a population of 3 million people, who are mostly farmers. Politically Albania is an important country in communist history. Today it claims to have the only communist government in the world. [The government collapsed after this was written--ed.] In 1939, Italian fascists occupied Albania and Albanians initiated an armed struggle for independence. In 1941 they formed the Communist Party of Albania led by Enver Hoxha. The Albanians organized the defeat of the Italians and then the Germans who invaded in 1943. Out of the countries in Eastern Europe liberated from the Nazis with the help of Stalin's offensive against the Nazis, Albania did the most to gain its own independence.(1) Upon independence in 1944, Enver Hoxha led Albania till his death in 1985. Most notably under Hoxha, Albania was the only communist government to side with China in the Sino-Soviet split in 1960. >From 1960 to 1976, Hoxha was the only communist government leader to side completely with Mao. During those years, China's and Albania's communist parties issued joint communiques condemning Soviet phony communism and supporting the Cultural Revolution in China. Governments in N. Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia/Kampuchea, not to mention those in Eastern Europe either took positions between the Soviet and Chinese Communist parties or sided with the Soviets against the Chinese and Albanian comrades. Since the two communist parties of Albania and China were thought to be alike, it was with great disappointment that communists found Enver Hoxha breaking with Mao after Mao's death. In his book Reflections on China (1979), Hoxha claimed that Mao was only a progressive nationalist figure. Offering no explanation for why he changed his political stance after the death of Mao, Hoxha changed his theory on the dictatorship of the proletariat and claimed to uphold Stalin but not Mao. In 1976 Mao died. In 1978, China cut off all military and civil aid to Albania. Hoxha's criticisms of Mao came after. Even the anti-Maoists of the U.S. Progressive Labor Party and Kansas City Marxist-Leninist Cell called out Hoxha for this: suddenly Hoxha said that China's revolution was never a socialist one at all, just a bourgeois one. Why did he wait so long to say so? (2) What has been the concrete situation of the masses within Albania? Is it a capitalist society and if so, when did it start being one? While MIM has some information on this subject, it needs much more. In the meantime, MIM can say that Albania's leadership grossly errs in detracting from the Chinese Revolution (1949) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). 1. "New Albania: A Small Nation, A Great Contribution!" (NY: Albania Report, 1984) 2. "The Race to the Right," PL Magazine (NY: PLP, Spring 1979); "Towards the Development of the International Marxist-Leninist Trend," (Kansas City: KS Marxist-Leninist Cell, 1980) Albania: Hoxhaites hang it up MIM Notes 54, July, 1991 The neo-Hoxhaite government of Albania resigned on June 4th. Albania had the last government in Eastern Europe claiming to be communist. As explained in previous articles in MIM Notes, Albania's communists running the government had claimed to be Stalinist. Striking workers brought the government done and forced it to call new elections within a year. The head of state had to quit the Party of Labour (the communist party) in order for the masses to continue letting him serve. It were as if President Ramiz Alia were bent on proving that he was the leader of the bourgeoisie in the party all along. In the 1980s, MIM had a lot of critics saying that it is impossible for a society that had a socialist revolution to go back to capitalism-- the Marxist-Leninist Party, Communist Workers Party, Communist Labor Party and exiles from the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and New People's Army to name a small fraction. Where are they now? --MC5 Source: New York Times, 6/5/91, 1. for more info, or responses: Maoist Internationalist Movement PO Box 559 Cambridge, MA 02140-559 science@mitvma.mit.edu ======================================================================== 204 Received: from MITVMA by MITVMA.MIT.EDU (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 2996; Mon, 27 Jul 92 22:44:25 EDT Received: from cmcl2.NYU.EDU by mitvma.mit.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with TCP; Mon, 27 Jul 92 22:44:23 EDT Received: by cmcl2.NYU.EDU (5.61/1.34) id AA01707; Mon, 27 Jul 92 22:44:05 -0400 Received: by panix.com (5.64/A/UX-2.01-AMR) id AA12841; Mon, 27 Jul 92 19:13:48 EDT Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 19:13:48 EDT From: nyxfer@panix.com (N.Y. Transfer) Message-Id: <9207272313.AA12841@panix.com> To: activ-l%umcvmb.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU, mitvma.mit.edu!science@cmcl2.NYU.EDU, glasnost.news@conf.igc.org, nytransfer@igc.org Subject: INFO:Albania/Maoist View/2 Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit Albania moving for outright Western capitalism by MC5 MIM Notes 52, May, 1991 Election victory Albania, a small country in Eastern Europe that borders Greece and Yugoslavia, held its first Western-style elections on March 31st after the government run by a supposedly communist party agreed to legalize a pro-Western, bourgeois party, the Democratic Party. The Party of Labor of Albania (PLA), which supports Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Albania's own late Enver Hoxha as leaders, won the elections. In the 250 seat Parliament the Labor Party will have over 160 seats and the Democratic Party will have 72. Although PLA head Ramiz Alia lost his campaign for a parliament seat, he remained as head of the party. The Democratic Party won most of the seats in the six major cities as well. Significantly the PLA blamed its own loss on "Tseparation from the masses'" in the cities.(1) After the elections, the Albanian government quelled riots by killing three people. Nonetheless, the opposition recognized the election outcome as legitimate while promising to bring down the government in two months.(1) Background In December, 1990, President Ramiz Alia had announced that opposition parties could run their own newspapers. The opposition had four months to organize for the elections.(2) Albania is the last country in Eastern Europe nominally run by a communist party. It has 3.5 million people, 60% of whom are peasants. Since June, 1990, 80,000 Albanians have left Albania for Italy and other countries.(1) The exodus resulted in the placement of martial law on the ports. Bourgeois Western scholars and journalists refer to Albania as a "hard-line" and "Stalinist" country. MIM has always held that Albania failed to learn from Stalin's mistakes, namely underestimating the existence of classes and class struggle under socialism. However, even the PLA doesn't really uphold Stalin. Without any explanation the supposed Stalinists took down statues of Stalin in December, 1990.(4) Marxist-Leninist Party, USA Western supporters of Albanian-style socialism used to include the Marxist-Leninist Party (MLP, USA). MLP moved away from a 100% orthodox pro-Albania line a few years ago. It saw some of the problems in Albania in the making, but it did not identify Albania as state capitalist.(5) The pro-Albania groups in the United States have been in disarray for some time though and it is likely that new realignments are in the making. The supporters of Albania style "communism" said it was the Maoists who were overly tolerant of the bourgeoisie under socialism. (See MN #46 for a letter from an Albania supporter along these lines.) The "Hoxhaites"-- supporters of Enver Hoxha's model of socialism --found it impossible that a real communist party would ever have a bourgeoisie in it as Mao Zedong believed. As followers of Mao Zedong, MIM is not surprised to see Albania careen from "pure" dictatorship, which simply ignored the reality of class struggle, to Western-style elections applauded by U.S. imperialist and Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell.(1) At the same time that the phony communists in Albania were pledging completely free elections, they announced new regulations allowing unrelated people to own private enterprises jointly.(3) The PLA also has embroiled the country in massive unemployment.(4) Just as Mao always predicted, it was the people in the party in power who cleared the way for capitalism: "You are making the socialist revolution and yet don't know where the bourgeoisie is. It is right in the Communist Party --those in power taking the capitalist road." (6) Although Mao said this in 1976 to persuade people in China, he could have said it