By Armand Jonuzi
Part Two
Memorie.al / Relations between Albania and the Soviet Union were becoming increasingly icy. It was 1960, and the clashes between the leaders of the communist parties of the two countries were increasing. There were several moments on the eve of the Moscow meeting, with historical significance. On November 8, the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union distributed to all delegations, including the delegation of the Albanian People’s Party, a long letter that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union addressed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. In this letter, the Soviets listed all the criticisms, accusations, and remarks that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had about the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
Continued from the previous issue
MIKOJANI: I never thought he would get there.
ENVER HOXHA: So, you don’t trust us. Keep in mind that I am the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor. I was and am a friend of the Soviet Union. You may not trust me, but you trust your “officials”. What is the interest of the ALP to create discord and say untrue things about the ambassador of the Soviet Union?!
MIKOJANI: I believe that you are not interested in this. The ambassador has not said anything bad about you. He is a good person.
SUSLOV: Not very smart, especially politically.
MIKOJANI: Tell us what we need to do to normalize our relations. We will change the ambassador.
ENVER HOXHA: It is not so, we do not have purely diplomatic relations, but party relations and these should be on a Marxist-Leninist basis. For example, Ambassador Ivanov had relations with me. Why did he have to meet the chairman of the Revision Commission?! (This is about Koço Tashko, our note). I am the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party. I asked you why you expelled Zhukov. So far I know nothing. The Soviet Ambassador has always come to me and asked me about the plenums of our Party, I have told him. He also came and asked me about the proceedings of this Plenum (this is about the XVII Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party, which held its proceedings on 11-12 July 1960, and approved the activities of the delegation of the Albanian People’s Party at the Bucharest Meeting).
I told him what needed to be said. Since the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party told him so, he should go home and sleep. Otherwise, if your ambassador catches one or the other, he and his friends are not diplomats and representatives of a socialist country, but detectives. The embassy employees, through Bespallov, caught the chairman of the Revision Commission and processed him in two meetings, then the third time they called him for lunch on behalf of the ambassador, at the house of the first secretary of the embassy.
And there were all three of them, the ambassador, the advisor, the secretary. There our comrade, who 15 days ago agreed with the decision of the Plenum, with the line of our Central Committee, opposed the line of the Party. Now I ask you: Can an ambassador be allowed to act in such a way and on his own initiative?! We think that the purpose of these actions was to create a diversion in our Party. Your ambassador went even further. He said to our generals at the airfield, alluding to the events in Bucharest: “Who will the army be with?”
MIKOJANI, KOZLOVI: He is a fool.
ENVER HOXHA: I respect you, but we cannot accept such excuses, although we do not have your experience. Regarding the invitation that Khrushchev made to me, this is the main thing. I initially decided to meet. Yes, when I received your material, the letter to the Chinese comrades on November 5, I see that Albania has been excluded from the Socialist Camp. It lists all the countries of people’s democracy in Europe, with the exception of Albania.
SUSLOV: The Soviet Union is not even mentioned there.
ENVER HOXHA: What are you telling us? If I were in your place, I would admit that it is wrong. Ivanov acted like this, Grechko too, such things are written in the document, Khrushchev said mean things to Teng Hsiao-Pin about Albania, but you do not admit anything. And we have always been honest with you. Even Kosygin did not behave well with me, in a conversation we had. He behaved as if he were the boss. He said; “there are enemies in your Party who want to divide us”. This year we have been short of bread, due to very difficult natural conditions. We only had bread for 15 days.
We asked you for 50 thousand tons of grain, we waited 45 days, but we did not receive an answer. We bought it in France with cheap currency. The French merchant immediately came to Albania, to take the pulse. He said; “how is such a thing possible. Albania has not bought bread in Western countries. The Soviet Union sells grain everywhere”? We, to dispel his doubts, told him; “The Soviet Union has given us grain, it has given us corn, but we use it to feed pigs”. We know where you sell grain, where the Romanians, the Germans sell: in England and elsewhere. You set us conditions and we were forced to offer you gold, to buy the grain we needed.
MIKOJANI: We have not refused to give you grain. I know that grain has been sent to you every month, by steamer. You proposed to our people to buy with gold, they accepted. What do we need your currency for?!
ENVER HOXHA: Comrade Pospiylov, you have seen what love our people have for the Soviet Union, when you were in Albania. But you are now looking for this love from Koço Tashko and Liri Belishova, not from us. The tactics you are following are completely wrong. Before you wrote these things in the letter I mentioned, you should have talked to me first. But, when you accuse our Party and its leadership of anti-Sovietism, of being criminal, as you say; “for Stalinist methods”, and after you have accused it in the eyes of everyone, now you want to talk to me, I can never accept this.
MIKOJANI: We invited you to talk before, but you did not want to.
ENVER HOXHA: That is not the case. I had a few days to rest; this was a half-rest, because I was working on the report of the Party Congress. Comrade Hysni Kapo told me that Ivanov had told him that; Comrade Enver, if he wanted, could go to rest in the Soviet Union. But he did not tell me about the meeting with Khrushchev.
HYSNI KAPO: Regarding your letter, with which you invited us to talk, it was clear why we needed to talk.
ENVER HOXHA: The letter spoke of meeting in connection with the issue of China.
MIKOJANI: Not about the issue of China; the word “China” is not even mentioned there. You refused to meet.
MEHMET SHEHU: How can such a thing are denied? How can you behave in this way towards our country? Shame on you, Comrade Kozlov, for allowing yourself to give an ultimatum to little Albania.
KOZLOVI: When your delegation passed here, I only said that I was surprised by Comrade Kapo’s position. Your position was different from that of other parties. We have been good to you. Comrade Enver, when he spoke in Leningrad, said that the Albanian people feel themselves, not one million, but 201 million.
ENVER HOXHA: I say it now, but not if you do not take China into account. Both we, and you, must be for the unity of the camp, for one billion. We love the Soviet Union, but also the Chinese people and we love the Communist Party of China very much. But why after Bucharest do you, comrade Kozlov, talk about zig-zags of our Party, who will we be with, “with 200, or with 600 million”? Even in the meeting attended by other ambassadors, you said that one bomb is enough to reduce Albania to ashes.
HYSNI KAPO: You say that we are supposedly talking behind our backs. But, Khrushchev, on October 22, told comrade Teng Hsiao-Pin that from now on he will behave towards Albania as he did towards Yugoslavia.
YURI ANDROPOV: Here is how this matter was; in the conversation with the Chinese comrades, comrade Khrushchev said that some Albanian leaders are not satisfied that the Berlin issue has not been resolved.
ENVER HOXHA: I have also said something like that. After Khrushchev returned from Paris, Ivanov asked me about the Berlin issue. I replied: “In my personal opinion, imperialism has been shaken, our positions are strong, a favorable political situation has been created in America, which can be used to solve the Berlin problem. This was my personal opinion.”
MIKOJANI: There is nothing wrong with this, but not as someone did, who offended us, told our officers “you were scared in Berlin, you didn’t keep your word” etc…….
ANDROPOV: Khrushchev said in connection with these words that we had good relations with the Albanians, but as things show, we cannot trust them and we lost Albania……
ENVER HOXHA: Even so, it is not social at all. As the Bolshevik party taught us? All these things have a source. Marxism-Leninism does not recognize that events develop spontaneously. Therefore, you should delve into these things. What are the reasons that led to these things after Bucharest? We think that you should tell us about them.
MIKOJANI: We may be bad people, but we are not stupid. Why do we need to worsen relations with you?
ENVER HOXHA: We have also asked this question. Let us not be mistaken, but even if we had made mistakes, why did the CP of the BS, which has seen many things, not show patience with us Albanians and its leadership to say: “Okay, the Albanians were mistaken, let’s see what they say tomorrow after they think about it”. You should know, comrades that we do not like what is happening in the attitudes of the leaders and other Soviet officials towards Albania and our Party of Labor. We tell you that the unhealthy spirit that exists among your people in Albania must be completely changed. Since the Bucharest Meeting, after what Ivanov and his comrades are doing, I have not met and will not meet your people in Tirana.
MIKOJANI: Your cadres have changed their attitude towards us. The Central Committee of our Party is mentioned. Khrushchev is mentioned only because he acts, not rightly.
ENVER HOXHA: I must tell you socially that Khrushchev often accuses us of being hot-blooded. But Khrushchev himself must control the words he says, because every state, every person has its own dignity. He said that we will treat Albania the same as Yugoslavia. You should not write such things in the document.
POSPJELLOVI: Comrade Hysni Kapo acted incorrectly in his replies in Bucharest.
ENVER HOXHA: We do not accept Bucharest, as you organized it, even now.
MIKOJANI: Bucharest is another issue. Now the question arises whether or not we should improve our relations. Today, Comrade Khrushchev, in his speech, said that we will have friendship even with the parties with which we have disagreements. We should meet and talk.
ENVER HOXHA: We are not against meetings. But we ask the comrades of the leadership of the CP of the BS to be more careful, because distributing a document from the 80s to some parties where you leave Albania outside the socialist countries and then inviting us: “come and talk”, this is completely unacceptable from us.
SUSLOVI, MIKOJANI: Let’s meet to discuss how to improve our relations.
ENVER HOXHA: We also ask to improve our relations.
SUSLOVI: But not in such a tone.
ENVER HOXHA: I want to give you some advice: Forget that we are hot-tempered. When it comes to defending Marxism-Leninism and the interests of our people, we will defend them with fire. Memorie.al
