Dashnor Kaloçi
Part Three
Memorie.al /publishes the archival document, which was taken from the archives of Bulgaria, where the speech of the former first secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Nikita Khrushchev, made during an official dinner in Yevksinograd, Bulgaria, where he was invited by the Bulgarian high leadership, headed by the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Teodor Zhivkov, and Prime Minister Anton Ygov, was transcribed (whitened). The former Kremlin head’s conversation with the Bulgarian top leadership, where he initially focused on the two main figures who had led the Soviet Union since the triumph of the October Revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Joseph Visaranovich Stalin, comparing them to each other during the period they were at the helm of the Kremlin leadership, where according to him, Lenin not only did not take revenge against his political opponents, inside and outside the Bolshevik Party, but on the contrary, he showed patience and allowed them to leave their homeland, as happened with Maxim Gorky, etc., while Stalin showed himself to be a cruel dictator, who in addition to killing the flower created by the Revolution, he killed the flower of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, by ‘planting’ it in graves! Khrushchev’s speech about the top leadership of the Party of Labor of Albania, headed by Enver Hoxha, whom he described not only as ungrateful for all the help that Moscow had given to official Tirana up to that time, but also as a cruel man and a butcher, who was acting much worse than Stalin, having managed to physically eliminate all the founders of the Albanian Communist Party, even killing a member of the Politburo who was pregnant, as well as his accusations about Mehmet Shehu and Beqir Balluku!
Continued from the previous issue
NIKITA HRUSHOV. Gromyko was not there, but Vasily Kuznetsov and Rodion Malinovsky were. It was a high-ranking delegation. And Mao Zedong said: We are thinking of organizing communes, and he began to show what these will be, both the village and the industry, or the military units that the communes would have. I replied to Mao Zedong: This is your problem. Lenin tried and we had communes, but Lenin introduced the NEP (New Economic Policy) after the communes. And we thought that Lenin acted correctly, because there was no other way out. So you can try, but we have already tried and failed.
They tried and we even discussed this issue then, but now they do not have communes. The name “commune” remained. Now they say that this is a large work brigade, in fact it is a small brigade. They took away the personal gardens from the peasants and now they have returned them to them again. The whole difference is that now the peasants no longer have any faith in their reforms. By his nature, the peasant does not trust anyone, he believes only in practice, only in experience, but the “Devil” knows how they think.
Another thing is that the Chinese wanted us to support them in the problem of metallurgy, when they would make teapots and samovars. There was such an industry, when non-ferrous metallurgy arrived to replace the Bronze Age. But should we build samovars in our time, in the age of automation?! What kind of cast iron, what kind of steel were they producing? The ‘Devil’ himself did not understand, because there are no such instruments, they were like magic: they added so much of this, so much of another, but it was never understood what came out. They themselves have now ruined the samovars.
(Translator’s note: I suspect that “samovars” here refer to the small courtyard furnaces that were promoted during China’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ period to radically increase steel production).
Now they say: we are introducing something new – older workers must work in production for several months. We are sending the Minister of Foreign Affairs to a factory for three months. I told them, we had this and Lenin himself pulled himself together around a numb skull and among the old communists, there was not a single one who did not work on Saturday or Sunday, on voluntary work days (subbotniki and voskresniki). I chopped coal and fired a furnace myself, while I was in a high-ranking position in the leadership.
But when was this? If I went to an enterprise now, a smart director would not only not give me a lathe, but would not trust me with a good tool. I am a worker, a fitter by profession. But so many years have passed and what would be the productivity of my work?! If we take our Minister of Foreign Affairs and put him on a lathe, then I think we will never see the lathe again, because he will break it and it will be thrown into the thornbushes. (Chaos in the hall. Laughter).
What would be the advantage of this work? I say that we cannot do this. This can probably be done when working with a shovel, but the productivity will be low, and he will not break the shovel. I am saying: You have excavators working. Three men work on a walking excavator and do the work of 250-1000 men. Why should we do this? This is unproductive. I saw a picture of Mao Zedong carrying a basket of earth. But that was for the cinema, that is, for propaganda, and now we are in a different era. Why would we deceive ourselves and deceive the people with such machinations?
(A remark by a Bulgarian was not caught) (Laughter).
We have also worked, but this is not a serious attitude. Let us now come to the question of war and peace, in connection with the ‘paper tiger’. Comrades, if American imperialism were a ‘paper tiger’, we would be the happiest of all. And what the hell would we need to use atomic energy for? But can we really say now that imperialism is a ‘paper tiger’? This ‘paper tiger’ has very strong teeth. It has great strength. Therefore, you know, we must expend energy in order to have resources against this paper tiger.
They say that we are supposedly cowards that we are afraid of war, but they are not afraid of war?! Only a fool is not afraid of war, because he is not afraid of anything, because he does not understand anything. He is like a small child. If you bring something hot to a small child, he grabs it, but once he has it, he will not take it again, because he already knows that this hot thing burns him. We and you are not children. We know what war is. And if we are told that we are for war, and then what will it give us, what will it bring us?
They say that a world war must be started to achieve world communism. We talked with Mao Zedong in 1957. He created a theory that if there is a war, if they attack you, does not respond. We have 600 million people and you have so many. We will prepare so many divisions and they have so many. I told him, and Mao Zedong, but they are no longer counting on divisions and whoever has more divisions is stronger. Now they say that divisions are flesh. The more people, the more flesh. But this is a small force. Now is the atomic age. Who has atomic energy, which has missiles, they have power.
Now, you know….if he knows who has pressed the button, he only has to push and this button will lead to the movement of a mechanism and the war will begin. Now is a different time. In our era we must think realistically, visualize the situation correctly and pursue a policy accordingly.
Some Bulgarian comrades may say, what is our attitude towards Yugoslavia? We still have differences with the Yugoslavs, which are of an ideological nature. The differences remain and I do not know whether these differences can be overcome. I doubt it. Why? Tito is very used to making himself the boss and, of course, if he returns to the socialist camp he would not have this position in the camp and would lose his desired position, so he thinks of getting as many allies as possible among the neutral countries. Moreover, the Americans are helping him and giving him a lot. This spoils the man. I am saying this about things that I think are negative. I would be very happy if I were wrong.
But what is positive? What is positive is that we have always been together in international affairs. On the issue of war and peace, he takes our positions and always votes like us, like Karlo Lukanov, (Bulgarian Foreign Minister).
If Tito wants to take the position of a chameleon, but is with us in big and small issues, then there will be no differences between him and the socialist camp. He understands this. And then the Americans will not give him credit and will not help him. So he is with us on the main issues, but from the way they twist it from the tail, he shows that he is not joining any camp. There is no politics in our time, where someone can act one way and then another. There is no intermediate politics. This is not politics, this is maneuvering.
He wants to be closer to us on economic issues. He is ready for broad cooperation and division of labor. Can this be bad for us? This is good. Yugoslavia is still a socialist country. The Albanians, it is true, say that it is a non-socialist country. But they can now accuse us of being a non-socialist country, because we are not Leninists. Leninism has gone to them; we have nothing left and it is now completely in Albania. Meanwhile they are considered a socialist country. How long this will last, God only knows.
VOICES: (In humor).
NIKITA KHURSHOV. That depends on what worries them.
(Translator’s note: literally: “what flea bites that country”. This could have been translated literally, as he laughed).
(Laughter in the hall). Socialism cannot be interpreted so loosely. To do this, such objective criteria are needed, in whose hands the means of production are. In Yugoslavia they are in the hands of the State and the people. By external signs, this is a socialist country. For example, we are addressing Norway. A workers’ party is in charge there. We are making friends with other parties that are in NATO, in the enemy camp against us. Yugoslavia is not. Yugoslavia bought “IL—21” aircraft from us and other weapons.
(Translator’s note: this type of aircraft is a mistake: it is either “IL-28” or “MiG-21”).
The Yugoslavs are asking us for the right to produce weapons. I think that if a country wants to fight against another country, it will not take weapons from it, because the British and Americans could have given it this weapon. This is an indication of how the Yugoslavs will behave.
It is true that it is difficult to guarantee for the Yugoslavs. This is a shocked, irritated country. Tito spoke very well in his last speech. In domestic affairs he very accurately criticized the policy of his Party, showing the right ways to overcome these difficulties.
Perhaps there is also a tendency that a statesman like him wants to correct the situation. In any case, if we talk to Kennedy and want to agree with him, on some problems, then why should we treat the Yugoslavs so rudely? I do not see the necessity or the reasons for this.
Now, if the Albanians are critical, saying: – Khrushchev spoke in Bulgaria and said this, he said that…!. But the Albanians, supposedly our friends, now slander us with everything. Yugoslavia does not speak against us, and this is our enemy. What is the difference between Albania and Yugoslavia? The difference is that the Albanians behave more contemptuously than the Yugoslavs. I was among you then at a Party Congress and then I spoke after 1956, after Tito’s speech.
I called Tito’s role by his name, the role of a traitor. When I was in New York he came to me at a reception and said: Maybe we will agree. I said to him: Tito, we cannot forget your speech, we remember it, and I personally cannot forget that speech in Pula. It was a shameful, traitorous speech. We know the price of Tito. But, in any case, what do we lose from this?
Right now, we are such a rock, that if it hits us, it will hardly shake us, but it may explode on us. And we must show understanding and not boast of our greatness and power, but on the contrary, we must do everything in order to help the wrong people to set themselves on the right path and help them see this. There is no other choice.
Imagine this: we are the socialist camp. We have broken with Albania, first with Yugoslavia, then with China. It is true, we are not saying it, but everyone knows that we do not have great love for them. Therefore, if we now subjectively determine which countries are socialist and which are not, then there will be no socialist camp as a result.
The future will undoubtedly force us to think a lot. But I will not develop this issue now. There is still time and the parties will find an answer to this. I say this because it is right, it is correct, it is in the interests of our Party, our policy and in the interests of building socialism. Now Yugoslavia is approaching us. But how will things be with Albania?
We would be happy if there were good relations with Albania, but Gomulka spoke well of this, when Enver Hoxha spoke against us and concentrated vile expressions against me. Dolores Ibarrurri spoke more harshly, declaring that only Trotskyists said such vile things against the Soviet Union as Enver Hoxha did.
Wladyslaw Gomulka himself said: as far as it is possible, this can be compared to a man giving bread to his dog and the dog grabbing his hand. The Soviet Union has done everything for Albania, but it acted in this way…!?
(A remark by a Bulgarian, not caught).
NIKITA KHURSHOV. What could we have received from Albania? What can Albania give us? It can only give us scorpions, and perhaps Armenia and Central Asia have more scorpions, if someone wants to joke. These are incomparable scales. We treated Albania as brothers. We helped and they accepted with courage. When we gave them a lot, they said that we were giving them a little.
What should we have done? I think that a good deed does not disappear, and it does not disappear for Albania either. Time will pass, whether a long time or a short time, but the Albanians, I am not talking about the leaders of Albania, but for the Albanians, they will remember good deeds, as the Russian saying goes: a stick does not disappear after a dog; when you hit it, it will remember and will catch on your leg. I think that the Albanians will also remember, if not Enver Hoxha, then the Albanian people…!
I say all these negative things, but this is life, there is no avoiding it. We have difficulties now in agriculture and we created them ourselves, because after 1953 we increased the production of meat, wheat and milk. Our country had never grown in these types of products. But what did we do? We raised the salaries of low-paid workers and raised pensions.
Pensions were such that it was impossible for an old man to live on this pension. We took other measures. But what does it mean to increase pensions? This is to give billions. And we give these billions to precisely such a category of workers and the elderly, who had no chance to get milk, meat and butter before.
They have now returned this money to us through the shops. That is why we increased the production of meat, but there began to be less of it in the shops. A person is not a statistic. He says: I need half a kilogram of meat. But he comes to the store and they say no. He concludes: This means that the situation has become worse than it was.
I say that this is a temporary phenomenon and now we have taken organizational measures, we have developed certain measures and apparently on June 1 this will be announced. I am keeping this secret from the Bulgarians, but we have already made these decisions.
Therefore, we must look to the future and we will not only overcome these difficulties in agriculture, but we will have abundance; we must have and we will have. Things are going well now in terms of the economy and all this is due to the correct policies of our Party. We consider the international situation excellent, because our forces are good and great. Our science is progressing both in the peaceful and military aspects.
I want to thank you. What a talkative child was born among you (laughter), but what to do?
I propose a toast to our brotherly friendship, which exists, to the best that exists between us and Bulgaria. I don’t know what could be better. Of course, people are used to saying, when it’s good, give us better. But I’m not refusing better. I’m for what it is. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I’m joking, of course.
That’s why our relations are good, and in this it’s not just a service to our Party, but this is a legacy from tsarist times, because in tsarist times, Russians lived well with Bulgarians, Greeks and Serbs. I remember my childhood, when I lived in a mine. Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks – they were considered our brothers then.
True, it was a different basis then. It was a basis of a religious nature, etc. But, in addition to the inheritance that we received from tsarism, now this is strengthened by our common revolutionary struggle, to build a new communist society.
This is a stronger, more solid basis, and now we are satisfied with Bulgaria and Bulgarian politics. I think that Bulgaria also does not anger us. I know the feelings of Bulgarians, especially now that I am a citizen of the city of Varna. Therefore, if you pursue a wrong policy, I will criticize you not from the point of view of the Soviet Union, but from my point of view as a citizen of the city of Varna. (Applause).
To your health, dear friends, to your successes, but your successes are our common successes. To the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bulgaria, Teodor Zhivkov, to Prime Minister Anton Yugov, to the leaders of my Party, to whose organization I belong, to the Varna organization!
(Transcribed from a documentary film). /Memorie.al
