By Uran Kalakulla
Part forty
Nazism and communism
Memorie.al / Nazism lasted 12 years, while Stalinism lasted twice as long. In addition to many common characteristics, there are many differences between them. The hypocrisy and demagogy of Stalinism was of a more subtle nature, which was not based on a program that was openly barbaric, like Hitler’s, but on a socialist, progressive, scientific and popular ideology, in the eyes of the workers; an ideology that was like a convenient and comfortable curtain to lie to the working class, to lull the sharpness of intellectuals and rivals in the struggle for power.
One of the consequences of this peculiarity of Stalinism is that the entire Soviet people, its best, capable, hardworking and honest representatives, suffered the most terrible blow. At least 10-15 million Soviets lost their lives in the torture chambers of the KGB, martyred or executed, as well as in the gulag camps and others like them, camps where it was forbidden to correspond (in fact, they were prototypes of the Nazi death camps); in the mines in the ice of Norilsk and Vorkuta, where people died from cold, hunger, from crushing work in countless construction sites, in the exploitation of forests, in the opening of canals and during transportation in leaded wagons, or in the flooded barns of the death ships.
Continued from the previous issue
A supporter of epic-lyrical poetry, Avzi Nela was also a poet deep down. He had been writing before he went to prison and continued to write there. He read many of his poems to me. These poems, fortunately, were collected by a relative or friend of his, I do not know when or how, and were published posthumously during the democratic era. Unfortunately, when I write these lines, I do not have that volume in mind, so that I could make any aesthetic interpretation on them. But after all, what more could I say than what I have said above, speaking about the spiritual formation of the poet Avzi Nela? The other details belong to the specialists of literary criticism, who have said and will say their word again, I believe, just as they do not stop today in Spain or throughout the world, to write about a García Lorca shot by the Francoist phalanges. Because, Avzi Nela, this Albanian poet, was also executed by the red phalanges, in the best and most valuable age of his life.
Avzi was able to get out of prison a few years later than me. I parted with him in Burrel prison, where we had been together several times in the same room or in neighboring rooms. I greeted him at the room’s counter, as with a dear and honored friend. And we never saw each other again…! I learned of his tragic fate too late. When they released him from prison, they did not let him resettle in his village, but forced him to live isolated, in a place uninhabited by people, on an abandoned path, in a miserable hut. But even there he did not waver, and continued to stand firm against his enemies, who were, of course, also the enemies of the nation. And when they went to arrest him again, he bravely stood by them, so as not to surrender alive, with armed resistance.
But the overwhelming force of the opponent finally did its dirty work and, with an accelerated judicial process, Avzi Nela was sentenced to death by hanging. The hanging body of Avzi Nela was left hanging for several days, out of the bestial hatred they had for this hero of Albanian nationalism and to make his fellow villagers remember him, with the evil thought that Avzi Nela’s spirit would disappear in this way. But the law of history has always shown that; the more cruel tyrants have tried to eliminate the hero’s soul and figure in the shadows, the more strongly he shines like the sun and with his rays, scorches them, just as justice and good always triumph in time over deceit and evil.
Escalations of crime
Dictatorship, of every time, of every place, of every kind, is a crime in itself. It, as is known, is a denial of fundamental human rights. In the course of the history of humanity, from ancient times to the present day, its colors may have different genes, but the essence has been and remains the same: crime. Violating human rights and freedoms is, without a doubt, a crime and only a crime! It is another matter, then, how and how these rights are violated, at what time, in what circumstances, that is, in what historical context the city-wide, nation-wide evil is committed.
Researching in this area, it seems to me that I have spotted several games of dictatorships. It even seems to me that I have experienced their most significant naming, which is based on their fundamental motives. Thus, the dictatorships of the Roman emperors, from Caesar onwards, as well as the absolute monarchs who came to Europe, that is, the absolute monarchies (the Louis of France, the Stuarts of England, the Philip of Spain, the Romanovs of Russia, the Habsburgs of Austria-Hungary, the Hohenzollerns of Prussia, etc.), I would call “white dictatorships”, according to the color of the flag of the Louis of France.
With “blue dictatorship”, that of Napoleon; yellow, that of monopoly capital of the time of imperialism (especially in the colonies), that is, gold capital; “black and gray”, those of Italian or Francoist Spanish fascism, as well as German Nazism); “red”, that of communism, Bolshevism. In the meantime, I will neglect other ugliness’s of the Asian sphere, with China, Mongolia, Central Asia, Turkey and the sultans, etc. The wonder is that the more time has passed over the centuries, the more savagery and cruelty of these dictatorships has increased.
Thus, the more humanity, culture and science have developed, the more cruel and bloody dictatorships have been, even up until the twentieth century, when we can say with certainty that the last century, which we have just overcome, has been, not only in wars (two World Wars, etc.), but also in terms of dictatorships, the most cruel century in the entire history of mankind, from its birth to the present day.
What is this human savagery that is growing, much worse than the savagery of the animal jungle?! Will the Darwinian law of “war between species” always defeat humanity, despite the incessant and worldwide practice of monotheistic religions, which, as is known, have this humanism at the core of their souls, be it Buddhist, Christian or Islamist? Not only in wars, not only in dictatorships!
But in today’s democratic system, which is rightfully conquering the world, the system led by highly developed countries in all directions, crime is still increasing! Thefts, murders, dishonors, perversions, corruption, prostitution and so on have increased? Oh God, where are we going like this? Is the devil conquering the world more and more every day? Ah, woe to humanity, to the generations that come after us!
But let us return to dictatorships, which, in their “progress and perfections”, show a little more clearly this evolution of humanity. Why, isn’t the communist dictatorship the most savage, the most bestial, the most sophisticated, the most global, with more victims than all the others taken together, over the past centuries? The Hitlerites exterminated six million Jews and, let’s say, six million other non-Jewish victims.
Let’s add to these several million killed in war, in numerous battles, as well as that of Japanese imperialism, from the war with China to the world war. But communism has exterminated at least 86 million people, if not more. So? I say this based on the data of non-Western historians in their latest book, with the shocking title; “The Black Book of Communism”, published a little while ago also in Albanian.
Let us take, for comparison, the two most evil dictatorships of the century that has just passed: Hitlerism and Bolshevism. Let us analyze them in terms of their basic characteristics. First, in terms of time, Nazism was born later and lived less than Bolshevik, Stalinist communism. It spread over a much smaller area than Soviet Bolshevism. Third, it did not touch private property. Fourth, it was based on an extreme nationalism, to the point of racism, that is, on a furious, unbridled chauvinism. Fifth, its reminiscences today are quite anemic, powerless, without prospects.
That dictatorship was defeated in war and a legal philosophy was institutionalized against it with “denazification”, which began with the Nuremberg Trials. Today, as a result, there are neither Nazi nor fascist parties in Europe, and perhaps even in the whole world. They are prohibited by law. Communism, for its part, was not born earlier and lived as a system, until our days? But, has it really died? What are those communist parties that are still alive, even in our small and martyred Albania?
Why is there not also a globally institutionalized “decommunization”, as for Hitlerism? What is this “forgiveness”, this “mercy”, this “tolerance”, this indifference towards the red plague? Why do Americans and Europeans allow this, let alone others? Where have we seen an international trial against the red hierarchs? How good! Yesterday’s totalitarian communists, today they have become democrats with soles! O God, what is this tragicomedy, as ugly as it is funny, that continues to this day? O people, when will you wake up properly? When will you open your eyes wide and see clearly? O Lord, shall we “forgive them for they know not what they do,” as Christ said of those who crucified him?
What are the consequences or actions of dictatorship?
First, the collapse of the temple of freedom, in all its structures: freedom of speech, of the press, of organization, of feeling, of uncontrolled movement, of private life, of love, of nutrition, of housing, of cure, of spiritual individuality, of education and training, of artistic taste, of scientific inclination, of professional inclination, of free correspondence between people, of rest after work, of clothing, of hours of sleep, even of dreams in sleep, compared to those with open eyes, of marriage, of the birth of the number of children, of the choice of friends and companions, of writing a literary work or creating other works of art, of sympathy or affection for a people or nation other than your own, of the way of thinking, of philosophical or scientific conception, down to control over the smallest details of private life.
This is how far communism intervened. Thus, in these respects, it seems clear that Hitlerian Nazism was naive to the “diabolical communist science”! It was not for nothing that a Western sociologist and political scientist said about Bolshevism, before the Second World War, with a wonderful synthesis: “Bolshevism is a diabolical synthesis, between European science and the diabolical Asian spirit”! What are the means that the dictatorship uses to survive, to secure the future of power? First, espionage to control even the cells of the people, even marital and family relationships. Especially espionage, in communism is the evil spirit that enters even the smallest details of the environment, life and human interaction.
It is the thinnest, sharpest, most diabolical weapon of the communist system, even to the highest spheres of the party and state hierarchy, to the feet of the throne of the absolute dictator, of this god-man, or rather this man-devil. Espionage is accompanied by demagogy. A rampant, all-encompassing, all-powerful, deafening, asphyxiating demagogy to any other sound pleasant to the human ear. Demagoguery poisons thought, perverts and sickens logic, eats and infects the conscience, transforms the living man into a robot, turns his being, from a human, into an animal, a tool of labor exploited to the core, into a killing, criminal machine.
Demagoguery defiles philosophy, science, art, psychology, sociology, even statistics, economics, and so on. Everything, down to human excrement that is turned into a tool of labor. Why, doesn’t the ridiculous fact of the “compost-fecal” of the Chinese method, which was also implemented in our country, show this, a scandalous phenomenon? Another means, necessarily, is violence. Without physical violence, none of the above would be feasible. Political, ideological, organizational, economic, cultural, artistic violence, etc., etc., and mainly military, police violence. In this way, we have a trinomial: violence, espionage, demagoguery. Here, what communism is, in essence?
Violence is the foundation of every dictatorship, on which the other two components are based and survive: execution (by bullet or rope) and imprisonment-externation. All this, our people know very well, who are one of the most martyred, in all directions, by Stalinism and Enverism, for nearly half a century. They are still suffering these consequences today. The whole of Albania was a prison. It was, under the communism of Enver Hoxha, the most typical example of a “prison state”.
The border siege resembled point by point the siege of a prison camp for prisoners, with all its ugliness. And within this miserable and tragic reality, came step by step the internment camps, the prison outpost, and then the prison itself. An entire imprisoned people that are what Albania was between 1944-1991. My generation has spent its life in this hell, for the greater and essential part of this life. My generation is precisely the generation of great suffering and sacrifice.
He is exactly the “lost generation”, more than that of the novels of the great German writer, Remarque. I will list below the suffering and torture, especially of the communist prison, that were inflicted in our unfortunate country. Of course, they started with the investigator. I will start from the duration, that is, from the stay (locked in a cell), without a fixed term. The investigation, that is, the confinement in a cell, was not in accordance with the legal norm. It could last as long as the investigator wanted.
The prosecutor’s office formally issued a piece of paper to the investigator for the extension he wanted, every three months. And this could be repeated endlessly. Like the courts, the prosecutor’s office was nothing more than a “facade”. It was completely subordinate to the State Security. It was the only one who made the law. It was this absolute lord of everything in the country, from the beginning until the collapse of the red dictatorship. I myself spent 18 months in solitary confinement.
But there were others who did much more, to the point where it is reported that a person would not only turn completely white from their hair, even though they might still be young, but would almost go blind from the darkness and forget to speak; from prolonged solitude. This was what we can call it, “peaceful torture”, even if we were to exclude hunger, cold, heat, constant insults and insults, the lack of any medical help, and so on. Complete, absolute isolation, deep solitude, are a very dangerous torture, with very serious consequences for human health, physical, mental, and spiritual.
The second, most common torture, was to be brutally beaten, with fists, kicks, whips or wooden, iron bars, until one fell breathless and covered in blood. The third torture was to be deprived of sleep, day and night, in the most diverse ways. Anyone who has read “Diary with a Rope around the Throat” by the famous Czech communist, Julius Fucik, knows very well what such torture means. On the verge of this state is, inevitably, madness.
Then came other tortures: Crushing the sexual organs of men, with excruciating pain, or putting them in electric current. Hanging by the shoulders or by the raised hands, standing on the tips of the toes, for days. A kind of electric shock until one loses consciousness and foams at the mouth. Hanging from the neck chains with heavy weights attached. Putting in a barrel of ice-cold water, especially in winter and, sometimes, upside down.
Taking out in front of the firing squad and the open grave or near the rope tripod. Burning the body with a red-hot iron. Breaking bones or tearing out flesh with tongs and nails. Inserting freshly laid eggs under the armpits. Making them walk barefoot on hot coals. Putting a cat in the women’s vaginas, which the executioners beat with a stick, so that it would move as much as possible and rage inside.
Nailing the body to the “vest”, under which a wooden or iron shaft had been passed and brought around it, until the intestinal excrement came out of the mouth, without taking into account other consequences. Giving various drugs to completely destroy the nervous system, etc. Memorie.al
