Dashnor Kaloçi
Part forty four
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: Precisely under these conditions, not with declarations of loyalty to the Party and Comrade Enver, but by looking back from work in the past, to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, using memory and logic for what is likely in that dicastery, and for what it is possible for the Party, by giving facts and drawing conclusions in the interest of the Party, this is served with great conscience, and you have no little responsibility for this.
I have tried several times to help you reflect, deepen, and advance in your self-criticism. We tried to do this in this meeting of the Political Bureau, where all comrades spoke openly, honestly, and with Marxist-Leninist courage, not to discourage you, but to bring you to your senses so that you correct your mistakes by look them straight in the eye.
Comrade Kadri, you have fought and worked all these years and the People’s Party has entrusted you with high responsibilities. But you, let’s say the smallest, have allowed and made big political mistakes, which have cost the Party and the People a lot. That’s why you can’t continue to hold the positions that the Party has entrusted to you.
I, too, agree with my comrades that you should be dismissed immediately as Minister of People’s Defense, and we will propose to the Plenum that you be expelled from both the Political Bureau and the Central Committee of the Party, for actions contrary to the Party’s line and interests the highest state, such as the concealment of information that has come out at different times, for the main members of the conspiracy, led by the traitor and dangerous enemy, Mehmet Shehu, cultivate in the subordinate cadres of the internal dicastery, the spirit of familiarity sick, creating opportunities for Mehmet Shehu’s agents to operate freely in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, even his devious and provocative attitudes towards the Political Bureau, trying to justify and deny everything.
Therefore, until the meeting of the Plenum, I advise you to go even deeper into the self-criticism you are going to do, so that the Plenum will be convinced of your sincerity, otherwise the Plenum can go even further to request the expulsion from the Party and in this time we will join the Plenum of the Central Committee.
We receive many letters and resolutions where they ask us: “To see things through to the end”. But if the Plenum, the Party, and the People knew how you acted with the residencies and the impermissible relations you had with the Soviet KGB, and with the Secret Services of the People’s Democracies, and that you remained silent about these even when the conspiracies were discovered from the Party, they would demand even more severe punishments.
But for the high interests of the Party and the State, neither we nor you, neither in the Plenum of the Central Committee nor elsewhere, will talk about handing over lists of students, civilians and military, as well as residency or our agents of the bodies of the Soviet Security and the countries of the People’s Democracies.
This would not only be a great shame that has been done by you, but we want to highlight the concern and panic that can be caused by our people who have studied abroad, and who today are cadres in various sectors of the country. In this situation, I think that the Party can no longer have the trust it had before in Kadri Hazbiu. Comrades expressed their opinions, and my opinion is this: that our trust in Comrade Kadri has been lost a lot.
But we do not lose hope that he will recover. This decision we are making for him, comrade Kadri, should not be taken as a serious decision, nor should the fact that we are not expelling him from the Party be taken as a weakness, but as a sign that we have not lost hope from him. So my opinion is that, for all these serious mistakes, Kadri Hazbiu should be dismissed from all party and state functions.
His dismissal from office should be done as soon as possible and the government should follow the procedure as it is done in these cases, while for the people we will say that: “Comrade Kadri Hazbiu, is dismissed from office as Minister of National Defense and retires “. We will inform the Central Committee of the decision that I said a little while ago, and at the Plenum meeting, Comrade Kadri, should make a sound and deep self-criticism, reflecting the entire synthesis of the decision of the Political Bureau, with except for the issue of the handover of the secrets of the Ministry of the Interior, to the Soviet agency by the agent Mehmet Shehu, as well as the connection of our collaborators and agents, to the Soviet Security bodies and other countries of the People’s Democracies.
This work should not appear in Kadri Hazbi’s self-criticism, because it would not only irritate the Plenum of the Central Committee and demand severe penalties for him, but also put the Party in a critical situation because all those cadres who studied in the Soviet Union and in the countries of the People’s Democracies would be viewed with suspicion. This would be a disaster for us, but we will try to prove this conscientiously.
We will do our best so that this does not become an issue, but remains only in the knowledge of the Political Bureau, that this is what the interests of the Party and the State demand. To the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party, I think that we should communicate the decision of the Political Bureau, where we will characterize the grave mistakes of Comrade Kadri, such as the great lack of vigilance in the development of the class war, inside the ministry, where he operated a large and dangerous group that threatened the interests of the Party and the State, as well as the measures taken against him.
I advise you, Comrade Kadri, not to take it as a weakness of the Party and it is in your best interest to shut your mouth and turn your arms to those who will try to incite you against the Party or feed you some kind of cult, which was created for some comrades of the War, or who had high responsibilities. I emphasize this because, I did not like at all that, just because you did not mention the state function as Minister of People’s Defense at the Peza rally, you made 5-6 pages of protest, raising this as a big mistake and not only a person, but expressing himself very nervously, that the Party did not take immediate measures to put an end to the slogans that had been spread about you, that you had escaped with your family, etc.
What more could we do?! Where they were heard, the slogans were dismissed and we as leaders thought that going to the presidium of the solemn meeting of the 40th anniversary of the Peza Conference, and sending them to the Peza rally, would refute these slogans. Even with rumors, the enemy does his job.
That’s how he gathers friends, and with the death of his friend Hysni Kapo. The news spread throughout Albania that comrade Hysni did not die of cancer, but they eliminated him by order of Mehmet Shehu and with this, they try to make Hysni Kapo a martyr of Mehmet Shehu’s hostile activity. But it is not so. Enter Kapo, he is a “Hero of the People” and a glorious fighter of the Party, but there is no doubt that he died of cancer.
Why are these words spreading then?! Who spreads these?! There are also members of Hysniu’s family, who had doubts about this issue, and they expressed them, but we fought them. They expressed them again, and we fought them again. But there are cousins among them; there are also enemies who seek to create difficulties for the Party.
What do we do about it?! Should I give a special speech, where I can say that friend Hysni was not killed, but died of cancer?! No, I don’t do this, but I defend my friend Hysni Kapo, for the great merits he had and for the fact that he died of cancer, this has been confirmed by the doctors.
Therefore, Comrade Kadri, the issue of touching his personal cedar, the issue of not tarnishing his past, should not put it in front of the great interests of the Party. So tomorrow, in one way or another, we will not stay without telling the Party about Kadri Hazbi’s mistakes.
I would also like to point out to Kadri, that there should be a more realistic and sound opinion about the Party and the People, about their opinions and the manifestation of these opinions.
Let’s exclude the enemies who throw all kinds of slogans, but the sane opinion of the Party and the People is not in a position to ask itself and its comrades, that of all the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who have been put in prison, because of the conspiracy led by Mehmet Shehu, only Kadri Hazbiu and Rexhep Kolli were left out?!
We can no longer go with the idea that it is taboo for the ordinary people of the party and the people to make remarks about any leader. The vigilance of the Party and the People has been raised and greatly strengthened after the discovery of the conspiracy of Mehmet Shehu and his gang at the head of the Ministry of Interior.
That’s why questions are raised, and we have to give answers. But we have neither allowed nor will we allow the slander of enemies who fish in murky waters. I tell Comrade Kadri, that it is not the first time that such a thing has happened, as we must never remember that the slogans of the enemy do not take place. They take place, but to fill prisons with people who allegedly issued propaganda slogans and agitated against the state, as Feçor Shehu did, to whom I spoke so harshly, that it is not done on this issue, means that there was a belief great in the recruited agency, in the dubious elements, to generally report people who can and have made any criticism of the irregular performances in the Party by its people, and which have been fair.
But immediately, these were considered as agitation and propaganda. Even the trial of the guilty was not done properly. There has never been a stability of punishments for the same cases, despite the fact that we have both the Civil Code and the Criminal Code in hand.
But having the Investigation in the hands of the Security, and unfortunately at the head of the State Security there were such enemy elements, they greatly influenced the giving of opinions on the Courts and Prosecutions. So in most cases, the punishments were influenced not only by the expertise of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, not only by the Investigation that depended on the minister, but also by the individual influence of the minister, deputy ministers, and the director of State Security.
When we took these measures, we did so because we thought that in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we had people from the Bureau, we had qualified employees who would respect the norms of the Party. These norms should be strictly respected not only in the investigator and in the expertise, but also in the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court.
Therefore, see friends, how many problems need to be deepened, need to be corrected, and need to be repaired, in the Ministry of the Interior and in the bodies of Justice. I recommend and think that we should fight the slogans of the enemies, we should find out those who throw these slogans. But the fairest fight is to clarify these things, when they have no basis, to the people politically.
We must have more respect for the opinions of the communists and for the sound opinion of the people, since it is the opinion that will fight the hostile work of the secret conspiratorial elements. Therefore, Comrade Kadri, stays calm, speak and work like a communist, and think not about yourself but how you can help the Party. Rest your head on the Party, because it does not love evil, but good. She will continue to help you if you follow her path. Memorie.al
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