Dashnor Kaloçi
The first part
Memorie.al publishes some archival documents labeled “Sekret” taken from the Central State Archive in Tirana (fund of the former Central Committee of PPSh), which belong to the period of September – December 1981 and are part of a file containing some information, relations, reports, letters, notes, instructions, minutes of meetings and plenums, of the Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the PPSh, etc., where the problem of the Prime Minister of that time, Mehmet Shehu, regarding the engagement of his second son, Skënder Shehu, to Silva Turdiu, the former volleyball player of the “Dinamo” team, who had “biographical problems and in her family circle, there were several people who escaped from Albania, who carried out activities against the People’s Republic of Albania”, as well as the action that Mehmet Shehu committed, killing himself. In the said documents published for the first time by Memorie.al, there are the minutes of the meeting of the Plenary of the Central Committee of PPSh, held on December 19, 1981, just a few hours after the event of Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu , who was found dead in the bedroom of his villa inside the “Block” of the APS senior leadership. As we will see in the documents in question, the meeting of the 2nd plenum of the Central Committee of PPSh, which started at 9 o’clock in the morning on December 19, took place without the presence of Enver Hoxha and was led by Ramiz Alia , who informed the members of the plenum to listen to the recorded discussions that took place at the meeting of the Political Bureau. While in the afternoon session, which started at 4:00 p.m. that day, Enver Hoxha came late and after taking the floor, among other things, he said: “Mehmet Shehu, he had an unbridled ambition and his actions were carried out according to a tactic certain and strange. In order to create a sick psychosis of fear in people, in comrades and in Party forums, I can say that he always handled problems with nervousness, arrogance and arrogance. Apart from me, up to and including the members of the Central Committee and the Government, there was no other comrade who was not attacked and did not become the object of his criticism, without a place. With this tactic, he tried to create in the Party, the situation that you heard and that we analyzed at the meeting of the Political Bureau”. For more about this, we are familiar with the archival documents that Memorie.al publishes with the relevant facsimiles, in several numbers.
The secret document with the minutes of the meeting of the 2nd plenum of the PPSh Central Committee, related to the suicide of Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, on December 19, 1981
ALBANIAN LABOR PARTY Secret
CENTRAL COMMITTEE
General Sector
Minutes of the meeting of the 2nd Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, on 19.12.1981
On 19.12.1981 at 9:00 a.m. the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Labor Party of Albania convened. Comrade Enver did not participate in the morning session.
The meeting was opened by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Labor Party of Albania, Comrade Ramiz Alia.
In this meeting, all the members of the plenum took part, with the exception of Shpresa Zeneli, who was sick.
COMRADE RAMIZ ALIA: As you are aware, through the radiogram we sent you, as well as from the announcement given by the radio, television, as well as from the newspapers, last night Mehmet Shehu killed himself, thus ending his history as a sworn enemy of our Party.
You are aware that a few months ago, he committed a grave crime of a political and ideological nature, linking Khrushchev with a very reactionary family.
In the family circle of the girl’s father and mother, who was the fiancée of the second son of Mehmet Shehu, there are 6-7 fierce enemies of the popular power, war criminals, prisoners and exiles, fugitives, some of whom are still active today against socialist Albania, are in the service of the American CIA, and carry out hostile activity against our Party.
The Politburo asked Mehmet to make a self-criticism for this serious political mistake he had made, and according to Party norms, the Political Bureau met yesterday to discuss this issue.
The Political Bureau decided to call the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, where fellow ministers, the first secretaries of the party committees in the districts, the chairmen of the executive committees of the district popular councils, the secretaries of the party committees also participate. of the corps, comrades of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Party and of the press, to inform you fully about the whole development of the meeting of the Political Bureau, in order to see concretely how it developed, to see the position the Marxist-Leninist principle and the unity of the Political Bureau, the condemnation it gave to Mehmet Shehu’s activity, and judge this traitorous enemy of the Party.
First, Mehmet Shehu’s written self-criticism will be read to you, and then you will listen to the recorded discussions of the members of the Political Bureau and Comrade Enver, which took place in this meeting. Mehmet Shehu, killed himself before the meeting of the Political Bureau ended.
This is how we think to proceed (All comrades agreed. After the self-criticism was read and the recorded discussions of the Politburo comrades were heard, Comrade Enver Hoxha also participated in the last session of the meeting).
Afternoon session at 16.00
COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Who was leading the meeting until now?!
COMRADE RAMIZ ALIA: Comrade Simon was leading it.
COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Then we continue. How do you like the program?!
COMRADE RAMIZ ALIA: Now, we will continue with your discussion.
COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Okay then. Now I will also sing, the criticism I make of Mehmet Shehu’s work in his absence, for the reason that he was an enemy of the Party until the last moment when he killed himself. But the Party is strong and overcomes all these difficulties, as it has overcome other great difficulties.
Therefore our work continues. Friends, Mehmeti, as you found out, killed himself. He did not have the patience to wait for the continuation of the meeting of the Political Bureau, to listen to my discussion, which is united and consistent with the opinions of all other members of the Bureau.
It is already clear to us now that he, by the act he committed, had no faith in the Party, having lost it in time. Here at today’s meeting of the Central Committee, many of the leading cadres of the Party and the State have been called, as it is imperative that the main leadership of our country, learn as soon as possible about this very important issue that came before the Party, to which one of its and our country’s main leaders, Mehmet Shehu, took it.
With the aim of making your case completely clear to all the members of the Plenum of the Central Committee, we thought that in this meeting we present to you the tape-recorded discussions of all the members of the Political Bureau in the meeting that took place on December 17 and 18, despite that we will tire you.
We thought that we should act in this way in order for the Central Committee of the Party to be fully informed and to judge clearly and as correctly as possible, for the great care that the Party has always had, to present openly and openly, one or more problems, to discuss them and to take various decisions collegially based on the issues that are raised.
Regarding the event we are informing you about, we are convinced that we acted correctly on the Marxist-Leninist path. Judge us, you comrades of the Central Committee who constituted the supreme body of the Party, after its Congress, if we were wrong, or if we acted rightly. (The attendees shout right, you have acted rightly. They stand up and cheer for Comrade Enver).
In this particular case, as the facts show, we were dealing with a very fierce and powerful enemy, with great opportunities to do a lot of damage and harm to the Party. From what we know so far, it appears that Mehmet Shehu fought for power in all his activities.
He had an unbridled ambition and his actions were carried out according to a certain and strange tactic. To create in the people, in the comrades, and in the forums of the Party, a sick psychosis of fear, I can say that he always handled the problems with nervousness, with arrogance, and with arrogance.
Apart from me, up to and including the members of the Central Committee and the Government, there was no other comrade who was not attacked and did not become the object of his criticism, without a place. Everyone, without exception, was criticized by him. With this tactic, he tried to create in the Party, the situation that you heard and that we analyzed at the meeting of the Political Bureau.
As a member of the Political Bureau, as Prime Minister, and as a cadre with a war past, which he knew how to use very well, he imposed difficult situations on others, but favorable for himself and his goals. All of you, not only the members of the Central Committee, but also the chairmen of the Executive Committees, the secretaries of the Party Committees in the districts, the leading cadres of the army, have to look at and judge his unjust actions.
However, you said that he is also a leader with talent and capacity, who knows well the military art of people’s war that he fought very well, that he knows all the problems of the economy, of art, of culture, of cinematography, as if he was great encyclopedias, and an outstanding specialist in all areas of life.
This situation, and this thought that was created for him, made people cringe. But let’s be clear, there were fellow members of the Political Bureau and the State who opposed it, just as there were others who, when the occasion arose, did not oppose it enough.
The point I have here is that this enemy of the Party and this is being proved now, and life will prove it even better, and for this we must be patient that nothing will escape the Party without finding out, all the time in the Party, he has carried out every action with a certain plan in his head, maybe in someone else’s head, to reach the head of the Party and the State, and thus turn our Party, on the path he thought, i.e. to take it out of the tracks of Marxism and Leninism.
In the leadership, we have not left Mehmet Shehu to graze. The Central Committee and the Political Bureau, as always, have been vigilant, not that they doubted him, that if we had doubted, we would have taken these measures, as we are doing now, we would have done this work before. But we disagreed and were not warmed by the ways of many of his judgments.
Several times we have said that Mehmeti is a great worker, but at the same time that we worked closely with him, we saw that this opinion was not fully confirmed. He was busy with small things, did not go to work, and even prevented other friends from working.
His close friends, he not only regarded them as idlers and did not allow them to take initiatives, but on the contrary dictated to them to deal with small matters, not to study in any way the key capital problems, which constantly posed the Bureau Political and Central Committee, and which required us leading comrades to take responsibility to solve the great tasks of the time and perspective.
As for the small tasks, we leave them to others, even though at the base, in the districts, and in the departments, we now have cadres with great capacity, and reliable, and they have been raised and educated by the Party, which has constantly instructed us to have confidence to them, but Mehmet Shehu had no faith in any of them.
He thought that his control would be necessary everywhere, and that without this control, things would be debauched. I emphasized this last time when we talked with Adili. I drew his attention on this occasion as well that he should give up such a view, liquidate this opinion and create opportunities for all other comrades to take responsibility, because they are good and capable staff.
If they were not skilled and capable, Albania would not be the way it is today. It is not only you, Mehmet Shehu, who knows all things. And in fact, he didn’t know them or knew them superficially; just because he gave the impression that he knew everything. With that you understand me; I don’t want to make it sound like a completely ignorant frame now. No, but I mean he wasn’t what he used to be.
This is exactly what hindered the work, and it became a serious obstacle for Mehmet’s own work method and style. As a result of this and in the state apparatus, a reprehensible work method has been created. There is no such working method in the Party apparatus. These tendencies of Mehmet who seem more in power had a purpose.
What was this objective of him and of the one who led him, the Party will one day discover. We must understand, and in fact we have understood one thing, that how could Mehmet Shehu, who was removed from us as a principled man and defender of the Party’s line as presented to us, one morning came out and had a fight with the class enemies associated with Myzafer Pipa and Jup Kazazi, who were preparing the civil war in our country, against whom the Central Committee itself had sent to fight and liquidate them?!
And when I brought out the list with the names of these criminals, he told me: “I didn’t know about Arshi Pipa, it never occurred to me.” “How come it didn’t occur to you” – I told him, – “You were the Minister of the Interior and fought with weapons, against them”!
“Yes, yes, I remember now,” he answered. I want to say that such a krushqi made by Mehmet Shehu, can you imagine that it could be accidental?! No, you don’t get it. As for us, another thing comes to our mind, what someone else might have told him to do this action at this moment, because it was in their interest that the Party of Labor of Albania be divided, so that it no longer exists Albania as it is today, standing as a granite column against everyone.
There is no doubt that one day these things will be revealed, but now we are based on the facts we have in hand, which are bitter. The facts so far make it clear to us that this element was a disguised and dangerous enemy, but that could not create danger for the Party, as it is strong and with steel unity.
The party is in complete unity with its line and principles, and does not allow dangerous events to happen. We have also said, and we will always repeat, that the Cult of the individual must be fought.
During his work, with his methods, with his character, and with his principles, supposedly Marxist-Leninist but which were very shaky, Mehmet Shehu did his hostile work and we can say that the suicide he committed, for a short time, will to create in our people a degree of surprise which will then turn into a clear truth that this man who killed himself, Mehmet Shehu, had something, because by making a great political mistake, he joined the reaction and later committing the act of suicide, they must weigh on his conscience and other extremely serious mistakes, and acts still unknown by the Party that he had neither the courage, nor the bravery, nor the patience, to come to the Politburo and as I emphasized before, listen to my word. Memorie.al
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