By Andrey Edemskiy
Part Two
Memorie.al / The following material are a paper by Andrey Edemskiy, of the Institute for Slavic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The author, for the first time, brings forward previously unpublished archival sources – Funds 2, 3, and 10 of the Russian State Archive for Contemporary History – through which we can see the Soviet perspective on what was happening in relations with Albania in 1960–1961. These sources help to re-examine certain myths in Albanian historiography and the collective imagination. The myth of the “battle” over the Vlora base should be viewed beyond the narrow scope of an Albanian victory and demonstration of force, as, at least according to the documentation in question, it does not appear that the Soviets ever intended military scenarios in Albania. Nevertheless, the Russian academic concludes the paper by emphasizing the need to compare sources to better understand what occurred.
Continued from the previous issue
One thing is clear: despite the Soviet behavior or mistakes – which are acknowledged as such – Enver Hoxha did not leave the break with the Soviets to chance. He had it as a political goal and provoked it to the end, first by making an agreement with the Chinese side and second by undermining the climate of cooperation. It remains to be explored what lies behind this policy, but, for example, the author’s interpretation of the meeting in Tirana between him and Andropov and Pospelov suggests that Enver Hoxha felt personally threatened by the Soviets.
He decided to purge the party of any possible pro-Soviet elements and then, in light of the Soviet-Chinese friction, prepare for the escalation of the situation, publicly maintaining his position as a determined communist who had caught the Soviets in an ideological error. It is also not well clarified, even with these documents, whether Khrushchev’s rapprochement with the Yugoslavs was a reflex to the break with Albania or related to a Kremlin policy in the Balkans. The author says that in any case, the rapprochement with Yugoslavia gave Enver Hoxha an alibi and further paved his way toward the final separation.
The Study of Andrey Edemskiy, from the Institute for Slavic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences
Despite this, two weeks later the Soviet leadership returned to Albanian themes. The previous statements about the success of the international meeting of communist parties in Moscow in November, recorded in the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, were forgotten. As early as the end of December, the Soviets reverted to the assessments that had dominated thinking in Moscow before the November meeting. “The issue of Albania” was again on the agenda of the Presidium meeting on December 30. The participants discussed the situation of negotiations with the Albanian side on economic issues.
As a result of the discussion, the Soviet Foreign Ministry (Kuznetsov) was instructed to “prepare a response to the note of the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding negotiations on economic issues.” As known from the protocol of the decision (declassified and published), the discussion went beyond merely economic topics. Khrushchev spoke “about the naval base and submarines.” Consequently, the Ministry of Defense (Malinovsky) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were instructed “to elaborate important documents,” “taking into account the exchange of views.”
The materials that the Soviet leaders received before the December 30 meeting are still unavailable to researchers, but consultation with other declassified documents has been useful in gathering further details concerning this discussion. It appears that the reference documents were prepared jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense (Malinovsky and Gromyko, as well as the Commander of the Soviet Fleet, Admiral Gorshkov), as of November 11, 1960 (document no. 655 under the code “top secret”). Only one new document was added for the December 30 meeting – “telegram of comrade Novikov from Tirana,” (no. 423 of December 27, 1960).
It is also known that Malinovsky and Gorshkov, as well as three Deputy Foreign Ministers, Kuznetsov, Semenov, and Firyubin, were invited to participate in the discussions on this issue on December 30. Due to the lack of classified sources, the content of Khrushchev’s statements about the naval base and submarines in Vlora can only be hypothesized from what he said in the meeting with the Albanian delegation led by Enver Hoxha on November 12: “We now say that, if you want, we can remove the base. The submarines are ours.” At the same time, the exchange of New Year’s greetings between the Soviet and Albanian leaders did not reflect the divergence that continued to grow at the end of 1960.
Khrushchev and Brezhnev sent their telegrams to Tirana for the four Albanian leaders and received an almost identical text in response from Tirana. In both cases, the greetings began with: “dear comrades.” The festive atmosphere was also marked by the Soviet decision of January 4, when the Presidium approved the proposal of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union to transfer special materials for the 46th naval detachment OSNAZ (Special Forces) to the Albanian People’s Army. An order on this matter had been adopted by the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union on July 27, 1960, but at that moment, it remained unapproved by any relevant Presidium decision, perhaps due to the sudden developments of the Bucharest meeting at the end of June.
But on January 7, 1961, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow instructed its ambassador in Tirana to protest against the discrimination of Soviet transport ships in the port of Durrës. The Soviets’ dissatisfaction was caused by the situation where “most of the Soviet transport ships carrying grain and other cargo for Albania” were left unloaded, while other foreign ships did not encounter such problems. The Soviets believed that “the Albanian authorities create more favorable conditions for ships of other countries compared to Soviet ones.”
The Foreign Ministry called on the Albanian authorities to take measures to prevent such practices. When the Soviets concluded that the Albanian leaders had not taken any serious steps to normalize relations with Moscow, more than five weeks after the Moscow Declaration, the previously positive assessments had to change. This was done by the ideologue Mikhail Suslov in his report submitted to the January 12, 1961 session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It was dedicated exclusively to the Moscow meeting and its conclusions.
This time he offered a dry assessment of the prospect of further relations with the top Albanian leadership. If the state of relations with the leadership of the Central Committee of the Party had been accurately reported, then Suslov very sharply described the actions of the top Albanian leadership. He noted that the source of “their wrong position,” “the reason for their detachment from Soviet positions, is dogmatism in leadership, political immaturity, the regime of the cult of personality, and nationalist positions, especially regarding Yugoslavia.”
Despite such a profound change in assessments, Moscow continued to exercise restraint in its approach to Albania. The Albanian leaders invited a delegation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the forthcoming Congress of the PLA. The Soviet leadership saw this as a good opportunity to stabilize relations and reduce tension. On February 16, 1961, the Soviet delegation (Petr Pospelov, Yuri Andropov, and Iosif Shikin, the Soviet ambassador in Tirana) was instructed to “adhere to the conclusions and assessments of the Moscow meeting (the meeting of 81 Parties, as it is known in Albanian historiography) in a firm and principled manner, while trying to avoid a direct polemic with the Albanian leaders.”
They were also supposed to “harmonize the general line of conduct at the congress with that of the delegations of other communist and workers’ parties from socialist countries.” In an attempt to anticipate possible developments, the Soviet leadership did not rule out the possibility of “openly hostile attacks against the CPSU” by Albanian leaders at the congress, warning the delegation to be prepared. But Moscow did not rule out the possibility that the Albanian leaders might also offer the option of “a meeting with the CPSU delegation.”
In that case, the delegation was supposed to “accept the offer” and use the opportunity of the dialogue with the Albanian leadership to repeat the points of Khrushchev’s speech of November 23 at the Moscow meeting. It was also declared that; “we would not want to have a discussion with them at the PLA Congress, but if such a thing is imposed on us, the delegation must give a strong counter-argument.” It was also noted that “the delegation should not ignore possible attacks against sister parties at the congress and that proper counter-arguments should be given to these attacks.” The directives emphasized once again that the delegation should not initiate a polemic with the Albanian leadership on its own initiative.
Taking previous practices into account, Moscow believed it was possible that the Soviet delegation might be invited to participate in mass meetings after the congress and recommended that such an invitation should not be refused. The Soviet predictions about the Albanian side’s behavior proved to be partially correct. As long as Hoxha and his entourage refrained from launching an attack on the Soviet leadership, there was no need for Pospelov to launch a counter-attack. He delivered a constructive speech. The Soviet press published abbreviated versions of both his text and Enver Hoxha’s report to the delegates. But Hoxha played better than Khrushchev again.
Contrary to the expectations of the authors of the directives for the CPSU delegation, he met Pospelov and Andropov no earlier than the last day of the congress, February 20. He probably wanted to see their reaction as it was clear that there was no opposition to him among the delegates and that the party was fully under his control. As is clear from the memorandum of their conversation, the meeting was formal. The results of the CPSU delegation’s visit to Tirana were discussed at the meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on February 24. Pospelov’s report gave no reason for enthusiasm. A reading of the minutes shows that an active discussion followed its reading (Andropov, Mikoyan, Khrushchev, Kozlov, Suslov, Furtseva).
Once again it became clear that Enver Hoxha did not want another personal meeting with the Soviets. The delegation’s activity was approved and its “tactical steps” were described as “correct.” However, the discussion revealed some differences of opinion between Mikoyan and Khrushchev. A few lines from the minutes show that Khrushchev spoke “from the positions of principle in economic and trade relations with Albania,” insisting that there was no need to sign a trade agreement at this moment. He saw a way out in continuing negotiations “at the highest level in Moscow.” For his part, Mikoyan argued against steps that might give the Chinese an opportunity to say that “we are pressuring a small country.”
Mikoyan also considered it important not to sever trade relations with Albania. And if the Albanians refused to revise their positions, he proposed that the PLA delegation should not be invited to the work of the 22nd CPSU Congress in October. In the wake of this discussion, the participants concluded that the Soviet stance in the escalating dispute with Albania should be argued with evidence, including the preparation of television broadcasts that would explain the situation. It was decided, based on the results of the discussion, to prepare (Kozlov, Brezhnev, Mikoyan, Pospelov, and Andropov) proposals regarding economic issues between the Soviet Union and Albania and a draft letter from the CPSU Central Committee to the PLA Central Committee on Soviet-Albanian relations in general.
At the end of the winter of 1961, it was clear that the Soviet-Albanian conflict had deepened. A new phase was that of an intensive exchange of letters in late winter and early spring. This exchange has so far been studied only partially and selectively. It requires full use of the available documents and a more careful and objective study than has been done so far. This was the period when letters were exchanged between the Commander of the Joint Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact, Soviet Marshal Andrei Grechko, and the Albanian Minister of Defense, Colonel-General Beqir Balluku (February 25, March 22, 1961), as well as a memorandum of March 22, and then again between Grechko and Balluku on March 24 and 27.
At this time, a particular factor in the further deterioration of relations was the contradiction over the situation and future of the Naval Base in Vlora, created by Soviet naval forces in 1959, at the request of the Albanian side, within the framework of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. The correspondence continued further, including the letters of Mehmet Shehu of April 5 and 8. An important indicator of Khrushchev’s attitude was his speech at the meeting of the senior leaders of the allied countries in the Warsaw Pact, held on March 29, 1961. Before the meeting, the Soviet leader was still hopeful that the growing conflict would be resolved by a personal meeting of his with Enver Hoxha.
He invited him and Mehmet Shehu again to visit Moscow to participate in the meeting of the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact at the end of March. It can be assumed with great certainty that the Soviet leadership’s material; “On the instructions of the Soviet ambassador in Tirana,” dated March 18, 1961 (still unavailable to researchers), is dedicated precisely to this issue. Hoxha and Shehu refused the invitation “for health reasons.” Instead, the Minister of Defense, Beqir Balluku, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Behar Shtylla, were appointed as participants. A part of Khrushchev’s March 29 speech was dedicated to Albania. / Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
