Dashnor Kaloçi
The third part
Memorie.al publishes some archival documents extracted from the Central State Archive in Tirana (fund of the former Central Committee of the ALP), which belong to June 1973, when the IV Plenum of the Committee was held in Tirana Central of the ALP, where Enver Hoxha held the main report on “To deepen the ideological struggle against foreign performances and liberal attitudes towards them.” The unknown speech of Enver Hoxha, which was held mainly only for art and culture and became the “guillotine” of writers and artists, as there were “cut off many heads” of them, being initially dismissed from the duties and functions they had had until then, to end up in the most remote villages of Albania, in mines and construction sites, as well as prisons and internments of the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, such as: Fadil Paçrami, Todi Lubonja, Mihallaq Luarasi, Lluk Kaçaj, Sherif Merdani, Minush Jero, Kujtim Spahivogli, Ibrahim Uruçi, Dhimitër Shuteriqi, Edi Luarasi, Zhani Ciko, Leka Bungo, Bujar Kapexhiu, Novruz Yzeiri, Dorjan Nini, Francesk Radi, Justina Aliaj, Vilson Kilica, Hamide Stringa, etc.
“Phenomena of this nature have been observed in light music, especially in rhythmic music, where there have been deformations of the clear melodic line and the way has been opened to unbridled rhythms. This was especially evident at the 11th Radio-Television Song Festival. Our whole social opinion indignantly rejected that vulgar music, those despised songs and that snobbish performance that this festival brought us on stage. He rightly considers and condemns it as an insult to the best national tradition, popular spirit and partisanship of our art. Such foreign performances have also appeared in some paintings, in the stage presentation of a theatrical and operatic work, on the covers of books, etc. Such deviations have directly affected both the form and the interior of our literature and art. These perverse tendencies are at odds with the partisanship of literature and art, with their formative and educational role, with their popular and national character. “They put a barrier between art and the people, fade the democratic nature that our art should have, spoil the tastes of the working masses.”
This was stated, among others, by Enver Hoxha in his speech held at the IV Plenum of the Central Committee of the ALP, which took place on June 26 and 27, 1973, which was held mainly for the art of culture and became the “guillotine” of writers and artists, as there were “cut off many heads” of them, initially dismissed from the tasks and functions they had until then, to then end up in the most remote villages of Albania, in mines and construction sites, as well as prisons and internments of the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, such as: Fadil Paçrami, Todi Lubonja, Mihallaq Luarasi, Lluk Kaçaj, Sherif Merdani, Minush Jero, Ibrahim Uruçi, Dhimitër Shuteriqi, Edi Luarasi, Zhani Ciko, Leka Bungo, Bujar Kapexhiu, Novruz Yzeiri, Dorjan Nini, Francesk Radi, Justina Aliaj, Vilson Kilica, Hamide Stringa, etc., where most of them were released from prison or returned to Tirana only after the fall of the regime communist in the early 1990s.
For more than what was said by Enver Hoxha in the IV Plenum of the Central Committee of the ALP, we know the archival document that Memorie.al is publishing for the first time in some parts (with some abbreviations), and the article the following is the third part.
Continued from the previous issue
Closing speech of Enver Hoxha in the IV Plenum of the Central Committee of the ALP June 28, 1973
In the Plenum, Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonja were asked a series of questions, but they either avoided the correct answers or, with demagoguery, tried to justify or deny their anti-party activity.
Addressing them, Comrade Enver Hoxha said:
These are not only questions, but also issues with deep ideological and political content. Do not take your friends for granted when you are on trial. Jo. If you have said the things that are required of you, and no doubt you have said them, then you should recognize these mistakes openly and honestly. It is not a case of a case and it is not the work of a consultant. Here are dozens and dozens of facts, where you have underestimated the leadership of the Party and these cannot be denied. You cannot tell lies to the Party leaders here who are here, members of the Central Committee or not, who have heard these allegations with their own ears and have no reason to accuse you of things you did not say. But the point is, you said that. Why has no other friend expressed such thoughts? Why don’t we stand up and say, for example, about this or that person that he has no respect for the leadership, which he constantly criticizes?
We do not say a word about others, because they are communists, party comrades, fighters and on the right path. Look, Fadil, if you have written these things, this is your defense, and you want to put them in the archive, let us ensure that they remain in the archive. But, as we are seeing, the Central Committee is not very interested in the protection you are doing to things in this form that you have prepared, therefore, if in the discussion you can make a summary of these issues and put concrete things, you will be better. Requests are being made, in the first place, for political issues. Do you trust the leadership of the Party, Fadil? “I have faith,” he said. But we are proving here, before the Central Committee, as comrades say, that they have heard with their own ears, that you did not agree with the line of leadership regarding the issue of the shortening of cooperative yards and the policy of the Party with the peasantry. You, Fadil, say you did not say so. But we are not convinced of this, because we trust other comrades who have not erred in the political line better than we trust you. You have the right to speak as you wish, but we also have the right to reach our conclusions.
Now we come to the part where we talk about the middle ground. When you were aware of the line and what you were doing was against the line, that is, you consciously went against it. So where was the goal? Where would you go? This is exactly what friends want to know. If it was a random mistake, it would be another job. But you say that you understood the Party line and that these actions were against the line. Then it is logical to think that you had a purpose. You admit, too, that these attitudes were anti-party. Then the goal was determined in your mind where to achieve and what to break.
After the answers given by the discussions of the friends, at the end of the meeting, Comrade Enver Hoxha spoke:
The plenum of the Central Committee, which discussed the important problems raised in this session, was shown, as always, even more than before, at a high revolutionary level and with a great Marxist-Leninist maturity. The steely unity in leadership fervently reflected the steely unity of the Party, molded and inspired by our theory, Marxism-Leninism. All the discussions that took place in this Plenum were based on and inspired by the great and deep discussion that took place in the Party and in the people about the capital problems that were raised by the Party leadership in recent months. These discussions were a great school, especially for us leadership, and as always, we learned much how necessary, how educative, how courageous and fruitful is open and honest consultation with the broad masses of the Party and the class. The opinion judged the actions of the Party and its leadership and the results of this consultation are very positive. Sound opinion criticized our proven flaws and mistakes at work, taught us how to correct them and as soon as possible.
The whole Party and its leadership were open, honest, simple and loving with the class and the employees during this great discussion. All this increased the love, trust and respect of the people towards the Party and vice versa. This great experience we gained in the field, we brought here, in the Plenum, and here we processed it, we generalized and we will bring these down again, to the Party and to the employees. In the Secretariat we also talked about the working method that the Party should develop for the processing of the documents of this Plenum. We must try to adapt this method to the style and method used in recent months, when the last documents of the Party were worked out with such good results. Comrade Hysni will talk to you specifically on this issue. The deep understanding of these documents requires that such a style and method be used, not only to fight the routine and superficial work, but also for the fact that these problems were widely beaten during the three months in the Party and in the people and can considered unnecessary repetition. But we must delve deeper into them, in order to become an ideological food for the Party and the workers in order to keep alive and to advance this great revolutionary spirit, which we must not let go for a moment.
These documents of the Central Committee should be considered and treated as further supplements to other important documents of the Party. It is superfluous to emphasize, not to repeat, that the great aim of the Party is to make the decisions of the congresses, the documents of the Central Committee, of the Politburo and of the Government flesh and blood for the communists, for the class and for all the workers, those they must serve for the successful realization of all the tasks entrusted to us by the Party and the people. Marxist-Leninist unity in the Central Committee was manifested, as always, brilliantly. This unity is not a myth, but a colossal reality with steel bases and, on behalf of the Politburo, I have nothing to add, why its report was approved by you unanimously, with the exception of Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonja, which may have been formally pro, but in reality, they were fourfold against. The attitude of these two in the face of their grave mistakes and faults and in front of the Plenum of the Central Committee was revolting and scandalous.
Will you allow me in this closing speech to say to you, dear comrades, that I fully agree with you on everything you said in a fully documented Marxist-Leninist way, against labor and anti-Marxist views, anti-party and anti-national of Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonjë. We, the comrades of the Politburo, are all very enthusiastic about your principledness and your high revolutionary spirit in defending the Party and its line, which has inspired us a lot. We assure you that the enemy will never tear, even a bit, the steel walls of our Party. You will also allow me to further develop some thoughts, which I said in summary form in the report on the mistakes of Fadil and Todd. I deemed it necessary to base my following statements on this matter on a written self-criticism which, at my request, Fadil had sent to the Central Committee. I also mean what he said so badly here, but you saw for yourself how political liars they both are: what they say today, they deny tomorrow.
On the anti-Marxist and anti-party deviations of Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonja
Throughout its life full of revolutionary wars, our Party has maintained in principle and applied in practice a theoretically straight line, Marxist-Leninist, has decomposed the theory correctly, in accordance with objective laws, with different situations and circumstances many times intricacies of our country. The party has treated and educated our man in the spirit of proletarian, educative and transformative morality, as a member of a new socialist society, where transformations take place in the common interest, in the interest of socialist property and contrary to idealistic, bourgeois worldviews and concepts., feudal, capitalist and clerical. The party has come out with a rich balance of material and moral successes from these battles, it has also gained a great deal of experience. It has learned to fight for the good, for the new, for the progressive, for socialism, it has also learned to dictate and fight its internal and external enemies, ideological and political, under whatever mask they have tried to deleted.
The party has been and is in constant war with these open and masked enemies of it, of the people and of socialism, and this is the reflection of the class struggle that is successfully developing in our country. One of the great merits of our Party in the world communist movement lies in the fact that, as the small Party of a country with strong micro-bourgeois traditions, staying faithful at all times, well and with storms, to the Marxist-Leninist ideology, within in a short period of three decades, through armed struggle, popular revolution, and the building of socialism, she was able to harden herself, the class, the broad masses of the people, and successfully resist the waves of savage enemies that were attacking one another. one after the other, like the waves of the sea. This Party war is neither a fairy tale nor a fantasy, but it is a reality, as has been the reality of the Italian-Hitler fascist wave, the Yugoslav Titoist wave, the Soviet revisionist wave, as the current wave of siege and capitalist-revisionist blockade. In the victories of the Party there is neither mysticism, nor metaphysics, nor the miracle of saints; this is the work of a people and a heroic Party, it is the inevitable deduction of the consistent application of the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
Defending the purity and Marxist-Leninist justice of the line has been the main and decisive preoccupation of the Party. The internal enemies of the Party, aided by outsiders, have always aimed to strike this straight line, avoid it, whether from the left or the right, and take the reins of leadership in their hands to change course in favor of their anti-party ideology, in favor of their external masters moving the threads. The party, as we know, has fought bravely, maturely and successfully, both against left-wing deviators and against right-wing deviants. Experience has taught us that these deviants are not born in a day, they are formed, they benefit from omissions, from political-ideological uncertainty, from lack of vigilance, from internal and external circumstances. They are disguised, preserved, they are prudent, therefore the bases, whether in the Party or in the people, are weak, they have their roots in the water, they are based on the dissatisfied, degenerate, careerists and smugglers who have joined the Party. These deviants explode in moments when they judge “crisis”; then they think of affirming themselves as the “saviors” of the situation. In other words, they work under the rug and wait for the moments to strike. This is the main feature of their work, but there are also equally dangerous ones who, disguised as Party authority, act openly by distorting the line.
All the enemies of the Party and of our people, deviants of every mold, linked or not with the external enemies of the imperialist-revisionists, are nothing but puppies of the bourgeoisie, all are right-wing, despite putting on some left-wing mask. The enemy deviators of the Party, the Trotskyists Aristidh Qendro, Anastas Lula and Sadik Premte, were removed as “leftists”, ostensibly in favor of the working class and against the peasantry. But in fact, they were against the Party, against its straight line, against the National Liberation War, against the liberation of the people. They were agents, right-wing deviators. Koçi Xoxe and Pandi Kristo “with a proletarian spirit”, as they call themselves, were nothing but two traitors, agents of the Belgrade clique, of this treacherous stream of revisionists, they were nothing but right-wing enemies attacking the Party. Sejfulla Malëshova was an opportunistic right-wing deviant enemy, accusing the Party and its line of being sectarian. The deviant enemy Bedri Spahiu was nothing but a masked fascist. Modern Soviet revisionists and their agents like Liri Belishova, Kocho Tashko and others are nothing but traitors to Marxism-Leninism, right-wing deviants. They call our Party and its dogmatic and conservative line.
So, as we notice from the rich experience of our Party, Anastas Lula and company were openly manifested in the most culminating moment in the history of our people. Sejfulla Malëshova, Koçi Xoxe and company came out in a decisive turn in the history of the country. Even Liri Belishova and company came out at the time of the great Khrushchevite betrayal. This is the first. Second, all these right-wing enemies have accused our Marxist-Leninist Party and its line as sectarian, dogmatic. At present, the capitalist-revisionists and their crooks, all Marxist-Leninist parties or people who do not obey their orders and fight them with all their might, call them not only “dogmatic” and “Stalinist”, but also conservative”. This is the old term with a new meaning given to those who do not want to be “liberalized”, “modernized” according to the capitalist-revisionist ideology and way of life, who do not want to abandon Marxism-Leninism, but fight heroically for them defend and implement it consistently. Our party has always had the right wing in mind and has always liquidated this dangerous show.
This is not to say that she has ignored and not fought left-wing shows. Both of these shows the Party has not fought, also, as the case may be, relying on one to fight the other and vice versa, why then its line would be shaky, unstable and not straight. This phenomenon has never been proven, which proves the complete determination of the line in Marxist-Leninist scientific theory and shows its sound balance. Marxists-Leninists should never disguise the right inclination and orientation of their line. Errors can be proven in the implementation of this line in practice, but these must be corrected without wasting time, as soon as they are seen and verified. This is what our Party has done all its life. The revisionists, right and left, hide their anti-Marxist, anti-party, anti-socialist line, not only when they act as the fifth column, but also when they manage to seize power. The Soviet revisionists and all the enemies of Marxism-Leninism and our Party go the anti-Marxist path and restore capitalism.
They go to the right and to the far right and not only maintain some masks of “socialism”, but betrayal makes them strengthen the dose of demagogic slogans from the left, why do they think they will believe them, that not only they are building socialism “, they are going even further,” in building ‘communism’. When the Yugoslav revisionists betrayed Marxism-Leninism and marched towards the disappearance of the leading role of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and were leading the country from the right towards the restoration of capitalism, we saw them acting with leftist slogans. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia was called the “League of the Communists of Yugoslavia” and they did not associate it with Marx. This kind of “League” was given the functions of the “time of communist society”, which did not openly declare that it was being built, but was beginning “with workers’ self-government”, and this was also linked to Marx. The “disappearance of the state” began in theory and practice, and these were the premises of the Titoist “communist society.” All these leftist slogans and slogans coincided with right-wing actions and served to establish capitalism in Yugoslavia. The same thing happened with the revisionists in the Soviet Union. Capitalism has already been restored there, while they are widely rumored and propagated that “communism is being built”. As here and wherever revisionists are in power, both anti-party extremes in ideology, in politics and in action, coincide.
It is therefore understandable why our Party is fought and will be fought by the anti-Marxists and by all its enemies of any color. With our Party, the party of the proletariat, which defends the dictatorship of the proletariat, they are at war. With our Party, which builds and defends socialism, they are at war. With our Party, the party of the proletariat, which has the only infallible compass of Marxist-Leninist theory, they are against. Our party is a real Leninist party that preserves and develops in the Marxist-Leninist way the principles, norms, proletarian morality, the proletarian-Leninist discipline, it becomes a sacrifice for the cause of the working people, it is the class party that preserves the purity of the class and is inspired from the class, therefore they are against it. So, our Party is successfully building socialism on a broad front of labor and war. She does not sleep on laurels, on the contrary she does not fall asleep to consolidate victories, to lead the people to new victories and to suppress internal and external enemies who do their best to hinder her march forward. Everything has never been paved with flowers, and even now not everything has been paved with flowers for the Party and for our people. Everything must be acquired, built, maintained, improved, added.
This requires war, effort, hard work, sweat, honesty, justice, knowledge, vigilance, education. The party teaches us every hour and every day to be an example in these directions, it guides us, corrects us, but also punishes us when we fill the cup. If the weeds are not uprooted, there is no wheat; if the tree is not pruned, it bears no fruit; if the vineyard is not sprinkled, there are no grapes. The great patience and maturity of our Party, its generosity in the belief in correcting the people who err are exemplary, are Marxist-Leninist. Too bad for those who take these lofty virtues of the Party for weakness, who think they do not see them, and a little worse for those who do not even weigh the Party’s advice and teachings at all, because their minds have grown. Some people who make unforgivable mistakes, like Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonja, say: “The party should take into account my past”. Yes, the Party has always had this in mind, so it has honored you, trusted you, raised you, taught you, advised you. Did you, comrade, take these into account when you got into your wrong path and full of dangers for the people, for the Party and for yourself? No, you forgot them and did not give up this path, even when the Party advised.
The issue of the people and the Party stands above all, therefore whoever harms it, must answer and, according to the importance of the guilt, receive the punishment, because punishment is also one of the forms of education. In this Plenum of the Central Committee, where such important issues were discussed, a number of issues related to the Party line were also raised, related to the concepts and anti-Marxist and anti-party views of Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonja… All the comrades talked about these views of theirs, the whole Party has spoken and harshly criticized these two, as we are doing here. Their self-criticism was very weak everywhere, washed out, unsatisfactory for the whole Party. I, when giving this conclusion, do not mean only the deep and Marxist-Leninist rights discussions of the comrades of the Plenum of the Central Committee who spoke here, I do not mean only the self-criticism of both of them in the respective basic organizations, in the assets of employees where they appeared, but also a large number of minutes coming from the base, where the discussants have spoken fervently and constructively about all these problems and the activity of these two persons.
Fadil asked to meet with me, I waited for him and listened to him and I will talk about this below, I will talk about the whole issue of both. But, as it turned out, the wrong actions and contrary to the Party line by these two have been neither accidental, nor few, nor unknown. They have not been left unnoticed, criticized or advised by the grassroots organizations they belonged to, by the collectives where they worked or by those with whom they had contact, by fellow workers and isolated employees, by the party bureaus and committees, by the people of the Central Committee apparatus, by the Central Committee itself, by me personally and, especially, often by comrades Hysni, Ramiz and Manush. But both of them have not been corrected, they did not want to be corrected. All the distortions in the line by Fadil and Todd took place in the dynamism of problems and issues and created a series of anomalies and difficult situations, especially in the field of literature and arts, hindered the fair resolution of conflicts by arrogance and an unbridled arrogance on their part, by the anti-party method of work they applied. In fact, the Party had entered the war with some right-wing deviants, opponents of its Marxist-Leninist line, and the leaders of this ideological deviation were Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonja. /Memorie.al
