Dashnor Kaloçi
Second part
Memorie.al publishes an archival document issued by the Central State Archive in Tirana (Fund of the former Central Committee of the ALP), which contains the minutes of the conversation between a senior delegation of the ALP and the government of the People’s Republic of Albania headed by Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu (which also included: Ramiz Alia, Mihallaq Ziçishti, Rahman Perllaku, Tonin Jakova, Comrade Agim Mero, Comrade Foto Çami, Comrade Piro Bita, and Vasil Nathanaili), during the reception given in honor by the main leader of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, who was accompanied by the Prime Minister, Chu En Lai, (which also included: Kang Sheng, Liu Ningyi, Liu Xiao and Luo Wei Bo). The full conversation of the senior delegation of the Albanian leadership with the main leaders of the People’s Republic of China, which took place on the eve of the celebrations for the 18th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, where various issues and problems were discussed, such as: Great Proletarian Cultural in China, the relations between the two countries, the support that the Communist Party of China had from communists and Marxists-Leninists from different parts of the world, the discovery and unmasking of traitors under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, such as: Liu Shaochi, Wang Ming, Chen Duxiu, Peng Zhen, Bo Yibo, An Ziwen, etc., as well as in the Communist Party of Albania, since Koci Xoxe, Liri Belishova, etc.
Although Enver Hoxha and the entire senior leadership of the ALP, for almost two decades (1959-1979), greatly promoted the unbreakable friendship with the People’s Republic of China and its Communist Party led by great “, President Mao, friendship” forged in the heart of revolutions “, even presenting Albania in the eyes of its people and in the international arena, as the friendliest place that People’s China had in the whole world, seems not to have been all as deliriously presented by the communist leadership of Tirana. Not only that, but even Mao Zedong did not even remember if he had ever met the Albanian Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, during his visits to the People’s Republic of China, and did not even know the Albanian ambassador in Beijing and also how long he served in that task! All these, among other things, are made known by a record of the conversation held between the senior delegation of the ALP and the government of the People’s Republic of Albania, headed by the Prime Minister, Mehmet Shehu, during the reception given to them by of the senior leadership of the Communist Party of China headed by Chairman Mao Zedong and the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China, Chu En Lai, held on September 30, 1966, in Beijing. For more about this meeting, we know the minutes of the conversation between them, which Memorie.al publishes in full and for the first time, together with the relevant facsimiles.
Continued from the previous issue
Minutes of the meeting between the delegation of the ALP and the Albanian government headed by Mehmet Shehu, with the senior leadership of the People’s Republic of China, chaired by Mao Zedong and Chu En Lai, in Beijing, on September 30, 1966
R A P O R T I
OF THE MEETING OF THE CENTRAL DELEGATION OF THE ALP AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA, headed by comrade MEHMET SHEHU, with comrade MAO CE DUN, on SEPTEMBER 30, 1967
MAO CE DUN: You came at exactly the time when the Cultural Revolution began. During the summer of last year those who supported the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were few. The working class was not yet mobilized at that time. Pressure was being exerted on the students. The Red Guard had just been born and the war was in its infancy. Now the situation has changed a lot: the working class has risen to its feet; most students are now revolutionaries; In most of the provinces, autonomous regions and larger cities under the authority of the center – there are a total of 29 of them – things are going well.
Many people say that the cult of personality exists in our country; in other words, my cult exists here. They also say that the same thing continues in your country with the cult of Comrade Enver Hoxha. In fact, my personality cult developed here just this year. Before that not only foreigners but also Chinese did not hear my words. This is due to the fact that bourgeois ideology existed in our country. We once had Liri Belishova of China.
MEHMET SHEHU: In our party we had even more dangerous enemies than Liri Belishova. Liri Belishova can be considered on the same level as Lu Dingyi, but we also had elements like Khrushchev of Albania.
MAO CE DUN: Then I overestimated Liri Belishova.
MEHMET SHEHU: Khrushchev of Albania, if we can say this, was Koci Xoxe. He was the deputy secretary of the Central Committee of the party, the second person after Comrade Enver Hoxha, (he was also) Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs. He directed the organizational work of the party. He was an agent of Tito, spiritually and ideologically connected to him. So, Koci Xoxe was just like N. Khrushchev and Tito of Albania. He had put his people in the party, in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the army, in the administration, everywhere. This happened immediately after the liberation of Albania. From November 1944 to 1947, he was able to control many key positions and was trying to isolate Comrade Enver Hoxha. His aim was to liquidate Comrade Enver Hoxha, together with all other comrades who stood in a healthy Marxist-Leninist position. During that time many comrades were expelled from the Central Committee.
MAO CE DUN: Was this man so tough?
MEHMET SHEHU: Yes, he was very tough.
MAO CE DUN: He seems to have been like Liu Shaoçi.
MEHMET SHEHU: If you would allow me, Comrade Mao Zedong, without going into too much detail and without taking much of your time, I can talk to you a little about this issue. A very dangerous situation was created in our party at that time. Many good friends were expelled from the Central Committee and all were placed under the control of the security apparatus. The enemies created a serious and unbearable situation around comrade Enver Hoxha. A member of the Politburo who could not take the pressure, committed suicide. I, for example, was expelled from my position as a member, candidate of the Politburo, and expelled from the Central Committee; they were preparing to put me in jail. Comrade Enver Hoxha, and all his comrades who remained loyal to his line and Marxist-Leninist view, were accused of being anti-Yugoslav elements because they were against Tito’s attempts to turn Albania into a Yugoslav province, in other words, his efforts to take away Albania’s independence; they opposed Tito and (remained) loyal to Stalin and the Soviet Union.
This situation continued for about three years and culminated in the 8th Plenum of the Central Committee in 1947. The decisions of this plenum were truly revisionist. Comrade Enver Hoxha and other comrades fought resolutely all the time against the decisions of the 8th Plenum, and thanks to this long and difficult war and the arrival of the famous letters from Stalin, on the issue of the revisionist course and Tito’s position was made possible by the 9th plenum of the Central Committee, in October 1948, the opportunistic and reactionary course of Koci Xoxe and his followers, and their plots against the party, its Marxist leadership, were destroyed. Leninist and anti-socialist in Albania, were discovered. After being openly exposed to the party and the people, Koci Xoxe and his group faced a public trial in May 1949; that trial sentenced him (Koci Xoxe only) to death, and this decision was executed in June 1949.
MAO CE DUN: (ironically) He went to heaven.
MEHMET SHEHU: That is why I said that he was the first N. Khrushchev of Albania, although N. Khrushchev had not yet reached the stage. In addition to this person, we have also fought other anti-party and enemy elements in our party. We have expelled from the Central Committee and the party dozens of enemies, who have had more or less the same course and activity with Liu Shaoçi and his followers. Now we see well how Liu (Shaochi) Deng (Xiaoping) has operated in China, and we also know many things we did not know last year; their betrayal and the need for a war to the end against them are very clear to us.
Forgive me, Comrade Mao Zedong for taking so long with these issues.
MAO CE DUN: No, I want to hear from you.
MEHMET SHEHU: During the last days of the Italian occupation in 1943, when we created the National Liberation Army and the party-led National Liberation Front and when we took power in many areas of the country, there were two organizations in Albania that called themselves nationalists and acted as they really wanted the liberation of Albania from fascist occupation. Although the party knew well the intentions of these organizations, it made every effort to cooperate with them against the (foreign) occupier – of course without wanting to join them and seeking to preserve its independence and the hegemony of the National Liberation Front at all costs . As part of these efforts, a meeting was held in which representatives of these two organizations met those of our party. The delegation of our party was led by one of the secretaries of the Central Committee named Ymer Dishnica. Instead of defending the party line and carrying out the clear orders given by Comrade Enver Hoxha, this person capitulated and accepted the ideas of two nationalist organizations – led by the reactionaries – to disperse the National Liberation Army and include the Communist Party of Albania and these bourgeois organizations as equals in the developing government.
At this meeting, they drafted and distributed a joint statement, which the traitor Ymer Dishnica signed on behalf of our party. I remember that it was exactly August 1943, when Comrade Enver Hoxha took note of the joint statement. I was with him at the time in a mountainous region of southern Albania. Immediately, Comrade Enver Hoxha declared it a treacherous act. The above statement was declared inadmissible by our party. Ymer Dishnica was expelled from the Central Committee and later from the party; now he works as a doctor. But the damage he did to the party, at a time when the war was getting worse, as the Italian occupation of Albania had just been replaced by the Nazi one, was quite severe.
I mention these facts, Comrade Mao Zedong, because there are similarities between the activities of our traitors during the war and the activities and views of Liu Shaochi. Liu Shaochi wanted to hand over Jiang Jieshi to the Red Army. Ymer Dishnica in our case, wanted to hand over our National Liberation Army “Balli Kombetar” (National Front) and “Legality” (Albanian monarchists). Liu Shaochi wanted to join Jiang Jieshi’s government and force the party to hide. Ymer Dishnica wanted to do the same in our country, etc.I do not want to take away more from the time of Comrade Mao Zedong because such people have existed in our country with results at different times. If you have more time, as Comrade Chu En Lai mentioned, to meet again, I can talk in more detail about these issues. I wanted to emphasize that even in our party, since its founding and until now, there has been a constant fierce struggle to maintain the purity of its line. The struggle of opposites as a general law of progress cannot but happen even within a party and this has been true in our country as well.
MAO CE DUN: This war is an indicator in the class war party that continues in society, because the bourgeoisie exists, and so does the feudal class and they introduce their representatives into our party as well. In the ranks of the party there were some people who for a long time were not communists, but agents in the service of the enemy and we knew about them. For example, Liu Shaoçi since 1929 committed treason by signing a statement before the enemy. This was recently revealed by the Red Guardians. Later he, along with Peng Zhen, Bo Yibo, An Ziwen and others, betrayed (us) once again. Peng Zhen was a member of the Politburo, secretary of the Central Committee, first secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee, chairman of the Beijing Executive Committee and vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Assembly. Bo Yibo was a candidate in the Politburo and deputy minister dealing with the industry sector. A Ziwen was for 20 years director of the Organizational Directorate of CC. They issued statements while in jail and swore allegiance to the portrait of Jiang Jieshi. The Red Guards made many mistakes and (had) shortcomings, but their general orientation is correct.
MEHMET SHEHU: You have said that revolution is not knitting. We have all made mistakes, some of which we are able to consider stupid today.
MAO CE DUN: I did some nonsense too. But the (Red) Guards were educated during the war process. In the past the whole education system in our country was in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Most newspapers, including those disguised as communists, were in the hands of the bourgeoisie. They had even wrapped their hands around People’s Daily newspaper.
For many years now, I have noticed several times that newspapers need to change their appearance, but no one heeded my call because they did not accept my advice. On June 1 last year we received the newspaper “People’s Daily”. Before this time we had only two military divisions in Beijing, but then we doubled them to 4 military divisions and thus in May 1966, we dared to reorganize the Beijing party committee. In May, June and mid-July of that year I was not in Beijing. Will we end it here?
MEHMET SHEHU: We apologize, comrade Mao Zedong, that I tired you so much. As you can see, we are never tired of coming to see you and talk to you. /Memorie.al
