Darshnor Kaloçi
Part forty one
Memorie.al/publishes some archival documents extracted from the Central State Archive in Tirana (the fund of the former PPSh Central Committee), which belong to the year 1982, where there is a file with relations, reports, instructions, information, letters, minutes of meetings of the Political Bureau, the Secretariat of the Central Committee, etc., regarding the “hostile activity” of the member of the Political Bureau and the Minister of People’s Defense, Kadri Hazbiu, as well as some of his closest collaborators, such as : Feçor Shehu, Mihallaq Ziçishti, Llambi Peçini, Zoi Themeli, etc., who were accused by Enver Hoxha, as “the main collaborators of the police agent Mehmet Shehu”. In the file in question, there is also a document with Kadri Hazbi’s self-criticism, dated September 27, 1982, sent to Enver Hoxha and the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PPSh, regarding “his poor work at the head of the Ministry of of Internal Affairs and the lack of vigilance, for not detecting hostile groups, all of which the party and Comrade Enver had discovered”. In this document, the former head of the Ministry of the Interior writes: “From the beginning of September, when I was getting my hair cut, a driver who works with the transport lines abroad came to me and told me that, returning from abroad, the drivers they had spoken badly about my fate. I didn’t ask him what he had been told, but I told him to go and report it where it should be. He added in more detail that he had spoken to the companion who stays with me, which I ordered him to report. He told me that he had done this. I don’t know whether I told him about this case or not, friend Hekuran. After a few days when I returned from a 3-4 day service, my family told me for the first time that they are taking us on the phone and so on, in meetings they ask about you, where are you and how are you, because we have heard things not good, as if we have escaped as a family abroad, as if I have been dismissed from my position as Minister of Defense, etc. I told you that anyone who asks about us, you say we are fine and don’t engage in further conversation. I emphasize that these things have spread so much that even one of the workers who serves in my family left without expecting that something is happening with me and my family. All these things, I told my friend Ramiz, together with my opinion that there is not enough fight against these harmful slogans and that they are spreading from Tirana in the first place”. Likewise, the document in question also contains the minutes of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PPSh, held on October 8, 1982, where the “hostile activity of Kadri Hazbi” from the period after the war when he was in the position of Chief of Army Security, which has brought fierce debates, they all discussed, starting from: Adil Çarçani, Hekuran Isai, Simon Stefani, Manush Muftiu, Rita Marko, Prokop Murra, Photo Çami, Lenka Çuko, Pali Miska, Besnik Bekteshi, Muho Asllani and Llambi Gegprifti. Even the debates and strong tones in that meeting were not absent between Enver Hoxha and Kadri Hazbiu, which continued throughout the meeting, for several sessions. But for more about these, we know the document, which is published for the first time by Memorie.al
Continues from last issue
The document with the minutes of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PPSh, held on October 8, 1982, where the “hostile activity” of Kadri Hazbi was analyzed
ALBANIAN LABOR PARTY TOP SECRET
CENTRAL COMMITTEE
RECORDS
OF THE MEETING OF THE POLITICAL BUREAU OF THE PPS CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON OCTOBER 8, 1982
Agenda:
- Discussion on the serious words of friend Kadri Hazbiu
- Approval of the report on transport to the plenum
All members of the Political Bureau are present at the meeting.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MEETING
The meeting was opened and led by the first secretary of the Central Committee of the PPS, Comrade Enver Hoxha.
Discussion on the serious crimes of comrade Kadri Hazbiu.
COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: For what Kadriu claims, there are no documents in the Central Committee. On the other hand, for the good fortune of the Party, I keep a diary where I have noted and continue to note every day who I meet, what they talk to me, and what I talk to my friends. Even with Kadri, I had several meetings, and he informed me about any event or incident, but he didn’t raise anything even remotely related to what we are analyzing. As for me, I have given many orders and advice to the Ministry of the Interior and State Security. Kadriu claims that this positions “of mine (Kadriu’s) has favored all these enemies in the method of hiding their tracks” and Beqir Balluku, who presented the cases “as the first and judged by the comrades”.
Even here there are malicious insinuations, hinting that they have also talked to me as the most responsible friend over them. Comrade Kadri, fellow leader, was unable to distinguish what was on the Party line and what was not?! This is the ABC of every communist, and every communist knows the path to follow. When he sees that the line is crossed, he breaks every hierarchical link, and according to the status of the Party, he reports and asks for clarifications up to the highest instances. No, this is not open self-criticism; this is a self-criticism that is done with reservations and with the tendency to distribute the heavy responsibilities that belong to him. We do not accept this.
Comrade Kadri sometimes presents himself as a victim, sometimes he blames euphoria, sometimes the cult that was created for the State Security, sometimes he says that he acted under the influence of Mehmet Shehu, Beqir Balluku, Feçor Shehu, and Mihallaq Ziçishti. What about us, has Mehmet Shehu imposed something on us?! No, he could not impose on us. So it is not right to say that I also had faith in Mehmet Shehu, just like you did. There is a difference in this matter, and this explains why Kadriu has submitted to the pressure of Mehmet Shehu and Beqir Balluk and his company?!
On the one hand, Kadriu admits that he was wrong and is responsible for the assessments that were made to the traitors who surrounded him, but on the other hand, as I said a little while ago, he also charges some fellow Secretaries of the Central Committee who covered the Ministry of Works with responsibility of the Interior, and with the framework. The fellow secretaries who deal with the framework have no responsibility as far as the Ministry of Internal Affairs is concerned, as they were not briefed on anything. But Comrade Kadri could go even further by charging the Secretariat of the Political Bureau with responsibility, which decided on these cadres of their nomenclature.
But who should have signaled us, not to talk about the secret hostile work, but to talk about the immoral behavior of Beqir Balluk, Feçor Shehu, etc.?! Kadriut says: “The party should signal”. I agree and the Party has made such alerts, with which Kadriu is familiar. As he tells us now since he was in Peshkopi, the Party signaled to Kadri that Feçor Shehu was immoral. In the Central Committee, there is a document that Comrade Kadri made notes with his own hand that: “These things that are said about Feçor Shehu, are not true”. But comrade Kadri Hazbiu and Bato Karafili, who were tasked with verifying the alerts, took us out of Feçor.
All of Shkodra also knew that Feçori was immoral, while the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Kadri Hazbiu “knew”! What did they know?! Only the slogans thrown by the reactionaries here and there?! What was the State Security doing?! Was he sleeping or having fun or having fun?! How did Kadriu work to cultivate in his subordinates and all employees of the Ministry of the Interior, simplicity, wisdom, and loyalty to the cause of the Party and the People?! Why did he allow many of these cadres to carry out performances contrary to communist morality and feed the thought that “we are the most elected of the Party, we can do what we want, no one can control us, denounce us, that we work for you a hundred”.
And these are true, they are not fairy tales. We approved Feçor Shehu as a minister, but who knew him better than us?! Kadri. He had been working directly with her for years. For his appointment as a minister, the Political Bureau relied mainly on the opinion of Comrade Kadri. Comrade Kadri can say that the proposal did not come from him, but from Mehmet Shehu. But this does not suppress anything. Comrade Kadri is also responsible in the case that he only “approved”, as he points out in his self-criticism (implying that he was not asked about this, which is untrue) and in the case that he did not understand anything about ” what was he cooking” Feçor Shehu under his nose!
Before talking about the attitude of Comrade Kadri after the suicide of the chief agent Mehmet Shehu and the discovery of his espionage activity and his collaborators, I will continue with some remarks about the self-criticism of Kadri Hazbiu, regarding the material that was given to him. Politburo, which sheds light on the relations of our Ministry of Internal Affairs with its counterpart in the Soviet Union, and People’s Democratic countries. In his self-criticism, Kadriu makes a history of the relations of our security bodies with those of the Soviet Union and the countries of People’s Democracies.
In the presentation you make, there are things that are not unknown to us and were not made without decisions (written or unwritten). It is a well-known fact that we had assigned and accepted Soviet advisers in all the directorates of the Ministry of the Interior. The request to send us Soviet specialists was first made by me, before Comrade Stalin, and he replied that: “We will send you some advisers, but they will be temporary and after they have helped you, will return to the Soviet Union”. He also told me that: “they will be paid the same as your servants” and so it was, except not with you.
This was the practice that was followed until 1954, not only in the civil sectors but also in those of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense. Then, when Mehmet Shehu came as Prime Minister and Kadri Hazbiu as Minister of the Interior, after 1954, a completely different, completely new situation was created in favor of the Soviet KGB. We had advisers when Khrushchev came to power. From some preliminary data that I have, it appears that this number was increasing after the death of Stalin and the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR.
It is interesting to note that, while in all departments there was 1 adviser (in the Ministry of Industry there were 2) and most of them left in the years 1951-1952, in the Mining Industry, the advisers left in the years 1955- 1956 (only the adviser of the Ministry of Agriculture left in 1960), while in the Ministry of the Interior until the years 1953-2954 there were 10 advisers, while from 1954 to 1960, 35 advisers came and at least more than as they tell us: “that’s how much we remember”!
Why are they added?! Who asked for them?! This may have to be clarified by Comrade Kadri that we, as the leadership, have not made any decision in this direction, except for what I said before. Do you understand, friends, why these were added?! These have been added when our resistance to the Soviet revisionists increased; therefore advisers came in large numbers, and were accepted by the leaders of the Ministry of the Interior, precisely to strengthen their situations inside. Kadriu complains that there are no written decisions or materials to determine the limits of this cooperation with the Soviet advisers.
Of course there is not, but there are laws, there are Party norms, there are speeches and decisions of the Stay Committee, which constitute the border that you have thrown behind your back. It is clear that the Soviets could not provide a document that would be compromising for them, what they asked for and received. Even our Party could not formulate such a document that would hand over the keys to its own secrets and those of the state in a scandalous way, as was done in the Ministry of the Interior. We, as in many other sectors, needed experience, both for the organization of work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as for the exchange of information and the coordination of our activities, related for example to our reactionary political emigration, related to the plans of imperialists and reactionaries, against our countries, and you pushed them deeper and deeper.
So the counselors had their place and we were clear about that, but you were not clear, and you made a big mistake by acting in that way. We currently know that Mehmet Shehu, Beqir Balluku, Petrit Dume, Hito Çako, and many other high-ranking officers, spies of the KGB and the Soviet GRU were at the head of this agency where you were also implicated. . With the decision of the leadership, Kadriu has participated in two meetings of the interior ministers of the Soviet Union and the countries of People’s Democracies. By decision of the leadership, Mehmet Shehu and Kadri Hazbiu have been sent to Moscow to provide some materials and equipment, etc.
We don’t know what Mehmet Shehu did there in the meantime, but Kadriu might have seen what he was doing there. But I want to point out to the Politburo, with full responsibility, that not even in Stalin’s time, and even more so later, was no direction given by the Party leadership, nor by me, that the Soviet advisers should enter into every sector of activity of the State Security bodies, “to have the opportunity to choose and receive the materials themselves”, which Moscow wanted (allegedly for the school of our Security cadres). How is it possible that you allowed dozens and dozens of majors, lieutenant colonels, colonels, and even Soviet generals to enter all the holes of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, while in no other ministry, such a thing is possible ?!
No one can enter, without the permission of a person designated by the Prime Minister or the Minister, the archives and learn about the contents of the documents of a ministry. In our Central Committee, no one has the right to enter the archive without Hysni’s permission, when he was alive, Ramiz’s, and mine. Now, even the member of the Political Bureau cannot enter without my and Ramiz’s permission. He must come and ask permission from me or Ramiz, clarify what he is going for and what he will ask for, and the clerk there will give it to him in the office to read, and when he leaves, the corresponding clerk writes that on such and such a date, such and such a friend, took to read this document. This is the practice followed in the archives. There are strict rules there.
How is it possible that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and you yourself, acted as you are saying Kadri, leaving the archives open like an inn with two doors?! Where was this regulation for you when it existed in other ministries?! You can tell me that you have now put this rule in place, whereas you had not put it in before, when others had it. Is anyone allowed to go to the state archives without permission?! Now you have made this rule for our people, whereas back then you allowed anyone to enter, even the Soviets. This is unacceptable, and what has been done is not a fault, but a crime. On the other hand, I want to emphasize one thing that all state documents that are no longer in use are submitted to our State Archives, and deadlines have also been set for this. And this is determined by decision. Only the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of People’s Defense, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for reasons of secrecy, have their own archives and do not submit these documents to the State Archives, but keep them themselves. And all the more so that they would give it to the Soviets. Despite the fact that we were friends with the Soviets, by what right, with what rules, were documents handed over to the Soviet state that were not handed over to our State Archives?! You have had no order to do such a thing, you cannot find any document of the Central Committee contrary to what others have since, the affairs of the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Defense, are extremely secret.
But these secrets, you have trampled. Are you responsible for this?! In words, yes, only that the evil is done. And this was done in the period after Stalin’s death, i.e. after 1953. That is, it is not as Kadriu says: “That’s how I found it, that’s how I continued.” When Kadriu was already a minister, our residence was handed over to the Soviet Security authorities. When the Party leadership sent letters to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union protesting Khrushchev’s visit to Tito in Belgrade in 1955, our Ministry of the Interior gave the files of anti-party elements to the Soviet KGB. Comrade Kadri must answer for these things. Memorie.al
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