Memorie.al / Finally, the one who publicly expressed concern was Dritëro Agolli; “I am afraid that with these denunciations by citizens encouraged by the government, we will be turned into a people of spies,” said the well-known writer in an interview; “we have suffered from this. People will be afraid to sit together and talk around a table.” In fact, Dritëro is referring to the bitter experience of communism in this regard, when the topic in question – “anonymous letters” – had an extraordinary power over people’s lives. Whereas today we have initiatives to denounce grievances and violations of the law, which – for the sake of truth – have a separate history over these last 25 years. Until recently, even in the media, an indifferent, non-communal society was highlighted, where crimes happened before people’s eyes and they turned their heads the other way.
“In Germany, or France, or Belgium… it is the neighbor, the neighborhood, or passers-by who immediately call the police on the phone,” our emigrants used to say, and still say. So, then, the recent initiatives have been presented as a Western example, not to be confused with the dictatorship.
Let us return to the anonymous letters of the dictatorship era. We have in hand many letters of this nature, where the writer tries to find a solution by means of “a finger of a card” [Albanian expression meaning writing a letter]. Addressed not to just anyone, but to the ministers of the dictatorship themselves. Family troubles, problems with neighbors, requests for employment, housing, topics of all kinds. But especially, and this is the most tragic, open and covert spying.
Digging into the infamous “biographies” of comrades, work colleagues, fellow villagers, which, transformed into pieces of handwritten letters, almost always with spelling mistakes and awkward syntax, ended up in the secretariats of Kadri Hazbiu, Mehmet Shehu, or Prokop Murra, automatically destroying people’s lives.
Of course, they were retyped by the staff of the Ministry of Defense (most letters concerned military personnel, their families or relatives), because they were not infrequently deliberately difficult to read (perhaps written with the left hand).
If the idea has often circulated among Albanians as a banal observation that “back then” out of every three people two were spies, this pile of letters brings that statement a little closer to the truth. And the repentant statement of the letter-writer Jovan Bregu from the famous socialist realist comedy, “Palace 176,” takes on notes that are sometimes more bitter than the achieved humor of that work: “I said to myself, let me try an anonymous letter too, I had never tried it before.”
A large part of the letters have the author’s name, but with or without authorship, the information was sent into the respective sewers and networks down to the base for verification and then the appropriate measures were taken or suggested.
The complaints were of various kinds, but one typical phenomenon of the regime immediately catches the eye: Whoever had been fired from work or demoted during the time of Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu would complain to Kadri Hazbiu, and when these were declared enemies, they would write to Prokop Murra that they had been condemned “by the traitors M. Shehu and K. Hazbiu.”
In total, the large volume of messages proves that, just like venting one’s anger against another, even hope for solving a problem had as its final destination for the Albanian the implementation of the formula “I wrote a letter to the minister.” Which, in some cases, was implemented even with three or four consecutive letters?
“Comrade Minister, in the command of military unit 1105 in Yzberisht, Tirana, a certain Dilaver Taku from the village of Vaqarr has been employed as a petrol driver by means of bribes. His father Bedri was with Balli Kombëtar, while his uncles were dispossessed by the regime.”
The account continues that the aforementioned, while drinking raki, has uttered poisonous slogans against the regime, praising Yugoslavia. And the letter of May 1981 appears to have been sent by M. Taku! Nevertheless, the notes of Kadri Hazbiu’s secretary shed light on suspicions that the letter-writer may be anonymous and has used the trick of stirring up trouble within the clan.
– Another anonymous letter of October 1986 arrives at the office of the Minister of Defense Prokop Murra from Sazan: “How is it possible that the rear Chief Jorgo Mino, with state goods, has made furniture for his home. The meat of the island has gone to all districts. Please come for an inspection, because the chief will send you meat himself; every team that comes, he fills their bags. Comrade Minister, put your hand to it, take urgent measures, such elements are the spawn of Mehmet and Kadri dogs. I who am writing to you am a 30-year-old communist”!
And the 30-year-old communist demands that action be taken immediately, because according to him, it seems as if the island of Sazan has fallen into the hands of Italy! – Interesting is the story of the former brigade commander in Durrës, Faik Kolasi. Here is what a letter addressed to Minister Kadri Hazbiu, in December 1981, says:
“I am informing you anonymously since I cannot do it openly because of the rotten society that Faik Kolasi has in the corps with comrades Neim Muho, Adem Meta, etc., or in the ministry with comrade Kiço Mustaqi, in the Central Committee with comrade Gafurr Çuçi, gives Mr. Faik Kolasi the opportunity to cut off the head of anyone who has raised their head for any problem whatsoever regarding the unjust actions done by him and all those who do not fall in line behind his chariot, loaded with raki and roasted lambs, in the absence of turkey cocks.”
This letter, which continues with accusations of the gravest kind, even immorality, subsequently led to Kolasi’s dismissal, as appears from the documentation, while in the letter sent to Kadri Hazbiu, Kolasi admits his vice of raki but accuses the Security Chief of the Brigade, Enver Bylykbashi, of distorting the truth.
He has also sent another letter to Enver Hoxha. Mete Koçi, a former communist from Dardha in Berat, later expelled from the party also has much to say against Kolasi. The latter, in a letter sent to Hazbiu, assures him: “I am flesh and blood of the party, and in my family I have no one implicated with the enemy.” This story continues until the end of 1982, when Kadri Hazbiu had become an enemy and had followed the fate of his predecessors.
Often the anonymous letters were verified and their author found, as the cards of the complaints office in the Ministry of Defense also show. Other letters were sent by a group of people, who might be identifiable, e.g., the People’s Council of the village of Tërnovë in Dibër, which “informs comrade Kadri that in unit 5246 in Rrëshen, several people work who do not maintain a good attitude towards work and property.
Such is Lutfi Komeni, who on June 5, 1982, uprooted a quantity of potatoes from the cooperative, while his family was a base for diversionists of the Zerqan area, such as Mahmut Previzi.”
– An anonymous letter of May 1982 informs Hazbiu that officer Dhimitër Simaku of the Plasa Brigade in Korçë has a husband of his wife’s troubles who “is an agent, a spy. He enters and leaves his family. Also, Dhimitër has blood ties with the enemy of the party and the people, Pirro Gusho.” It is not surprising to say that Gusho, until a few years earlier, was an important cadre of the nomenklatura, and apparently, the denouncer had barely waited until he was declared an enemy.
– In August 1986, “a group of workers from the village of Hajdaran-Shushicë in the Elbasan district” write a two-finger letter [i.e., a short letter] to Minister Prokop Murra, about “a pot-bellied officer who resembles Shefqet Vërlaci, who comes with army vehicles to the rest point called Byshek and lies down for lunches with the needy and the hangers-on.
We found out that he was chief of technology in the Elbasan Division. We don’t have petrol to gather the products from the fields, while that pot-belly plays with our sweat, even though he gets 10,000 lek a month from the state.”
A large part of the anger of this letter probably stems from the officer’s physique, which clashes with the socialist version of the thin, weathered-faced Albanian. Nevertheless, the fact is that Shefqet Vërlaci was not pot-bellied.
We have also extracted separately an anonymous letter mentioning the former President Alfred Moisiu, then Deputy Minister of Defense:
All enemies, down to Alfred Moisiu
To the Minister of People’s Defense, Comrade Prokop Murra.
I am bothering you with this letter, but I am forced to write to you because the matter concerns the interest of the party and the people. I who am writing to you without a name am not a coward; I have criticized on other occasions too, but I have been opposed, and what the people say happens: the big fish eats the little one.
The hostile activity is not accidental, but has been working for years to achieve its goals. I will tell you some facts but please look at them with great care and with the correct party line. As for the enemies Veli Llaka and Nazar Berberi, we found out and I believe they will also get their just deserts as enemies.
The case of Maliq Sadushi should be examined: when he was in Shkodër, he had sympathy for Mehmet Shehu and was a friend of Fiqiri Shehu. On the occasion of Beqir Balluku’s group in ’74, he was dismissed from his post, but they brought him to the Academy as an advisor, and later we found out he became deputy minister. Mehmet did this, a very heavy man who thought that he alone was the army and the others knew nothing.
Mendu Backa, a man who eats bread with any kind of party, with Beqir he had it [good], with Mehmet he had it even better. He made him deputy minister and professor, and Mehmet raised the role of this man high. This man has only ever promised, but has done no work. He should be examined, because I have the opinion that he is an enemy, and in the direction of fortification he has sabotaged.
As for Alfred Moisiu, he was a friend of Kadri’s, and when Kadri became minister, he became deputy minister, and you couldn’t talk to him, you couldn’t stand before him because he watched with his eye that he is the son of Spiro Moisiu. He died respected, but the son is among the ranks of the enemies because he has become completely bourgeois. Just for his house, there is a huge fuss in Tirana.
Its entrance has 8 rooms; just the installations cost over 20,000 new lek. This matter became a problem for the party and the regime, but Mendu Backa closed it because he had the economic sector in the army. Mendu has a friend, Thoma Laka, secretary of the party bureau in unit 4930 Tirana; he has kept him close…!
Please, you have some secretaries there like Zija Beqiri and Zenel Frëngu, people who eat bread with any kind of party; they don’t do any work except lying and promising with regard to cadres. Please look carefully because they have taken rotten roots and have played with cadres as they wished.
Kristaq Blushi has not performed his duty properly, but has done what the enemies who were in power told him. Adil Kama, the worst man in the Ministry of Defense, for 20 years has not left any of his friends and comrades without fixing them where they wanted, and in the ministry and in the unit they say: This is the second Brezhnev, both in appearance and in spirit.
Please examine the person Nesib Ibrahimi, deputy secretary of the Party Committee in the MMP, Mehmet Shehu brought him, sent him to the academy too, kept his place for two years in a row. This man is servile, lives with anyone.
Comrade Prokop, after all these enemies came out in the army, I have the opinion that the combat duty of the corps and units should be changed because they have been given to the enemy. I assure you that my letter has no other purpose than to help you in the interest of the party and the people./ Memorie.al
