By Uran Butka
Memorie.al / To determine the goals, causes, and character of the civil war, it must first be clarified who was interested in it, who prepared it, and who started it. From the above presentation and the following documented arguments, it results that the Albanian Communist Party with its military formations prepared and started it. October 1, 1943, can be considered the official beginning of the civil war, since on this date its start was ordered. In the letter sent on October 1 to the District Committee of the Communist Party of Gjirokastra, Enver Hoxha ordered: “Unification with the ‘National Front’ is now a dead issue and we will not discuss that matter anymore. Now we will discuss its disintegration.”
Also on October 1, 1943, Enver Hoxha sent a circular letter to Liri Gega (“The Peasant”) and for action to all district committees of the Albanian Communist Party, in which he ordered the start of the war, regardless of any circumstances or consequences against the ‘National Front’, as the main enemy.
“The political work against the Front should not be the only one in these cases, it should help the military actions which must be decisive, meetings and conferences are not enough, but power must be taken immediately,” – Enver Hoxha insisted.
In this circular, the aim, the method, and the unwavering determination to take power through armed struggle and the political and physical annihilation of the ‘National Front’ and any other party are openly declared.
This was the beginning of the war to seize power by violent means and establish a totalitarian system, camouflaged with the war against the occupier. “We are in the process of liquidating the Front, and not uniting with it,” – Enver Hoxha instructed.
The goals, programs, participating human forces, methods, and means used determined the character and dimensions of this war. All of Hoxha’s ordinances addressed to the district committees of the party, or to the high leaders of the National Liberation Army and dated October 1, have clearly and sharply expressed the major reason for the declaration of this civil war: the seizure of power.
“First of all, the issue of power arises, I mean the establishment of national liberation councils everywhere, their strengthening, and protection from any attempt by the ‘Front’ or any other party that will appear to sabotage or fight it openly.
For this work there should be no two meanings: only the power of the councils must exist and no other power, there is no compromise and duality in this,” – Enver Hoxha ordered.
He and the General National Liberation Council considered the National Liberation Councils not only as organs of power, but mostly as organs of war.
In fact, they publicly declared this militarization of local governing power: “The whole world today, outside and inside Albania, has understood that only the national liberation councils are organs of war, they are the only power that represents the will of the Albanian people.
Any other power outside the councils can only be an organ of compromise and collaboration with the enemy, an organ of treason.” – sanctioned the presidency of the General National Liberation Council.
This position of the Albanian Communist Party and the General National Liberation Council is an expression of an extreme totalitarianism: not only would no other government be recognized and exist except the one that would come from the barrel of a rifle, but any other representation was considered an enemy and a traitor.
The path that the Albanian Communist Party chose to seize power was that of armed struggle against political opponents. In the name of the Communist Party, Enver Hoxha issued the call: “With force and with arms, let’s take power into our hands.” Now, the spirit, ideas, and practices of the Bolshevik revolution completely dominate the Communist Party, and the national liberation army was turned into an instrument of this revolution.
The National Liberation War itself lost its initial character, because the commissars, led by Enver Hoxha, abandoned the national issue, while they alienated the liberation war into a civil war, exploited the war of the partisans, the ideal and the blood of the martyrs for their own power and ideological interests.
Enver Hoxha, increasingly dominated by the ambition for power, put himself at the head of the crusade to cut off the heads of political opponents, even if these, according to the example of Lenin, would become hills, but also to cut off the heads of close comrades and collaborators, with the criminal coldness of his living teacher, Stalin.
The armed struggle against organizations, military formations, and individuals classified as “enemies and traitors” was initially against the voluntary gangs of the ‘National Front’, then of Legality and the leaders of the North. The civil war in Albania was neither accidental nor unplanned.
It was provoked by the Albanian Communist Party and incited by the emissaries of the Yugoslav Communist Party and was really directed against the Albanian right. But in left-wing propaganda, it was presented camouflaged as “a war against the occupiers and traitors of the country,” as it had been predetermined.
If the ‘National Front’ was a collaborator with fascism, then how was the Mukje agreement made with such a collaborationist organization? Or, immediately after the breakdown of the agreement, did the right-wingers turn into collaborators of fascism overnight?
As ideology and as totalitarian and anti-human practices, fascism and communism coincide with each other, and the liberal and democratic right-wing has nothing to do with them. Since that time, the patriotic and democratic right-wing leaders made the difference between their philosophy and fascism and communism, the two extremes that rivaled and fought for rule in Albania.
“Today’s communism and the Dushan-Miladinist clique are no different from yesterday’s fascism of Mussolini and Jakomoni,” – is written in a tract of the ‘National Front’. “The fascists stained our flag, putting the swords of the Lictors, the communists stained our flag, putting the Soviet red star…!”
“The fascists terrorized the Albanians through political secretaries, the communists terrorized the Albanians through political commissars… the fascists organized the ‘balila’… the communists organized the children… and recruited foreigners, in addition to Greeks and Serbs, also Italians, to continue the war against the Albanians…!”
“Mussolini’s soldiers killed, cut and tore our people; Meladin and Dushan’s soldiers kill, cut and tear our people…! The fascists said: “Whoever is not a fascist, is a communist”, the communists say: “Whoever is not a communist, is a fascist”!” The communist leaders ordered the attack on political rivals or opponents and all those who did not unite with them, calling them fascists or collaborators with fascism.
The internal action, striking and counter-striking, face to face or behind the back, warned or sudden, collective or individual, frontal or partisan, began first in the south and spread everywhere.
Liri Gega, who operated in the Vlora district together with Dushan Mugosha, wrote to Enver Hoxha: “The Front has lost its mind with the murder of Hysni Lepenica…! Azis Çami, their commander, asked to discuss unification yesterday. We do not want any cooperation in the war, we will fight alone. We only accept those who want to fight as members of the National Liberation Front.”
In a letter that Enver Hoxha wrote on October 5, 1943, to Koci Xoxe, who led the Communist Party of the Korça district, he instructed him to annihilate the gangs of the ‘National Front’, the Frontist councils, and nationalist personalities everywhere: “We must liquidate the Front without mercy on every side.
The local ‘Front’ gangs should be liquidated without being gathered and without recovering. As for the collaboration with Fazlli Frashëri, don’t be fooled. You will hit, so also Faslliu, and the one who made Faslliu.”
The taking and the attempt to take power during the war and through the war was the first premise of the civil war and the establishment of a military regime in Albania.
“At this moment,” – Koci Xoxe, Hoxha’s right-hand man at the time, instructed, – “the seizure of power is urgent for the National Liberation Army, by occupying regions and cities!”
The beginning of the civil war is also confirmed by a document of the National Liberation General Staff: “In the fall of 1943, the Communist Party and the National Liberation Front were forced to declare a war to the death on the National Front!”
The decision-making and the attempt to take power during the war and through the war was the first premise of the civil war and the establishment of a military regime in Albania. “At this moment,” – Koci Xoxe, Hoxha’s right-hand man at the time, instructed, – “the seizure of power is urgent for the National Liberation Army, by occupying regions and cities.” / Memorie.al
