Dashnor Kaloçi
The first part
Memorie.al publishes some unknown documents issued by the Central State Treasury in Tirana (fund of the former Central Committee of the ALP), which belong to a voluminous file with the initials “Top secret”, where there is a correspondence between the leaders of the communist regime of that time, such as: Hysni Kapo, Mehmet Shehu, Ramiz Alia, Kadri Hazbiu, Hekuran Isai, etc., who through various reports and reports compiled by them, inform the leadership of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the ALP, regarding the difficult political and economic situation that our country was going through, before and after the breakdown of political, economic and military relations with the People’s Republic of China. Full correspondence between the main leaders of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Directorate of State Security, the Ministry of People’s Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Party and Executive Committees of the districts, as well as the Branches of Internal Affairs in the cities of for positive and negative conversations and comments made by different people, such as intellectuals, workers, the military and the cooperative peasantry, as well as by the “declassed elements and enemies”, regarding the situation in which the country was after the breakdown of relations. Official of Albania, with the People’s Republic of China and whatever happened after that with the small communist country of the Balkans, which propagated that ‘it would build socialism, only with its own forces’?!
In the beginning of 1978, as a result of the deterioration of the official relations of communist Albania with the People’s Republic of China, which had started to take its first rift since the beginning of the ’70s when Mao Zedong’s People’s China with sides of the “ping-pong policy” began to approach the US and received in Beijing Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and then President Nixon, it seems that official Tirana “set the alarm”. Among other things, this is clear from a large number of official documents of that time, which contain the “Top Secret” correspondence of the Central Committee of the ALP, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as and Party and Executive Committees in the districts and Branches of Internal Affairs, which clearly reflect not only the official position of the senior leadership of the ALP headed by Enver Hoxha, but in general that of the various strata of society Albanians, (intellectuals, workers, cooperative peasantry, military, schoolchildren and students, communists, “declassed elements and enemies”, etc.), to the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government, regarding the immediate severance of political relations, economic, and military by it on July 28, 1978.
Thus, the former closest ally of official Tirana since the early 1960s, Mao Zedong’s communist China, would suddenly become its biggest ideological enemy, after the US and the Soviet Union. This is clear in the lines of these documents that bear the logo “Top secret”, where there is great fear and deep paranoia that has gripped the communist regime and the highest leaders of its leadership, from: Enver Hoxha, Hysni Kapo, Mehmet Shehu, Ramiz Alia, Kadri Hazbiu, Hekuran Isai, etc., down to the base of that power with local government officials, who transmitted that anxiety and insecurity to the common people, school students, workers, and up to the cooperative peasantry.
These documents, which for the first time see the light of publication by Memorie.al, are a clear picture of the situation and the honorable situation in which the communist regime and official Tirana were at that time, especially after the “Open Letter” to the Chinese leadership. , who accused him of “high treason against the course and line of Marxism-Leninism.” In the context of the development of events, where the top leadership of the communist regime, all raised in alarm, has mobilized all state machinery and its structures, headed by the State Security, to keep the situation under full control. And mainly by surveying its political opponents, whom it considered a “declassed element and enemy of the class”, which occupies a key place in these reports-information, where the State Security bodies, through the Minister of Internal Affairs , Kadri Hazbiu and his deputies, such as Feçor Shehu, Rexhep Kolli, etc., inform in detail the senior leadership, mainly Hysni Kapon, (member of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, which covered the organs of the ‘Dictatorship of proletariat ‘) for everything that the “enemy of the class” spoke and commented on, in every district of the country, as well as the positive comments made by them.
This and other things seem sicker in these archival documents with the initials “Top secret”, where the former “Chinese brothers”, who at that time worked in Albania, as staff and specialists in various industrial works from the South to the North of the country, as : Metallurgical Plant in Elbasan, Ferrochrome Plant in Burrel, Paper Factory in Lezha, Pashaliman Military Base, Tank and Artillery Plant in Shish-Tufina, Combat Ammunition Plant in Elbasan, Doctor of Weapons Production in Poli etc., have already become “agents, saboteurs and conspirators” and are monitored everywhere and at every step. The equipment, armaments and all military technology, starting from tanks, planes, submarines, torpedoes, heavy artillery, etc., with which the People’s Republic of China had supplied communist Albania for free for years, were already “severely defective” and sabotaged by “Chinese revisionists”.
Such a thing, that “synoptic picture” that the communist regime was going through before and after the break-up with China, was identical, had been seen several times over the years, when official Tirana, led by Enver Hoxha, decided to sever relations with states that until the last moment had its closest “allies”, such as the Anglo-Americans, Tito’s Yugoslavia and Stalin’s Soviet Union and those who followed him, such as Khurshov, Brezhnev, etc.
The series of “friends-enemies” began with the Anglo-American missions, which until they were expelled from the country in November 1946, were “liberators and true contributors to the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War”, and then returned to the countries and states. Most hated and unwanted for the Albanian communists. The same would happen to the Yugoslavs, who when deported from Albania in 1948-49 were considered “revisionists and agents of the West”. To continue with the “Soviet brothers of father Stalin”, the closest ally of communist Albania who after 1961, were considered by official Tirana, as “the most dangerous revisionists the world had known until then.” And this thing would be repeated identically with the Chinese, which was officially made public, that hot end of July 1978, when after the “Open Letter” of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the ALP and the Council of Ministers of The People’s Republic of Albania, sent to the Chinese government and the Communist Party of China, China withdrew from Albania all its specialists, civilian and military?!
Information report of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Kadri Hazbiu, sent to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, Hekuran Isai
SOCIALIST PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA Secret
MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS Copy no. 3
FIRST DIRECTORY
Temporary 10 years
No. 3786, Prot. Tirana, on 15/8/1978
Subject: On the hostile comments that continue to be made about the Letter of the Central Committee of the ALP and the Government of the RPS of Albania, addressed to the KP of China and the Chinese Government.
SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE ALP
Comrade HEKURAN ISAI
Tirana
In addition to the revolutionary atmosphere, mobilization and optimism that has aroused throughout our people the acquaintance with the Letter of the Central Committee of the ALP and the government of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, addressed to the Communist Party of China and the government of China, on the unyielding manly attitude and consistent of the ALP in defense of Marxism-Leninism, unmasking the anti-Marxist and traitorous Chinese leadership worldwide, there have been positive reactions from many people persecuted or evidenced by the State Security organs for their bad and dubious past .
Thus in Tirana, Vlora, Shkodra, Durres, Lezha, Peshkopi, Kukes and other districts of the country, in dozens of such elements, are forced to accept the vitality, justice and incalculable and argumentative force of the Letter of K.Q. of the ALP regarding the Chinese issue, as another aspect of the Marxist-Leninist straight line followed by the Albanian Labor Party with its beloved leader, Comrade Enver Hoxha.
Some of these reactions, for example, are:
An enemy element in pursuit by the State Security organs residing in the district of Durrës says; “I am obliged to say that I made the wrong calculations when I spoke about China, that our people do not want to know about its threats, that they did not ask about the Soviet Union, and not about China, which they do not have at all on account. “Say you love, but these are strong.” While another person living in the district of Lezha, who is also long followed by our Security organs, says: “Leave the work of the Chinese that they have always been lost, we, as long as we have the party and the main leader do not have that what do neither the Chinese nor the whole world do to us?
In continuation, another person of the above category, also in Lezha, says: “If these people are able to keep it like this, Albania will have great authority in the world, which now the Russians are saying that they have made a mistake that have broken relations with Albania, while the Italians raise the position of our country. ”They do this work to attract us, but their leadership knows their position well, so it is not easy to lie.”
But the brutal anti-Marxist and hostile attitude of the traitorous Chinese leadership to cut off all military and civilian aid to Albania, has greatly revived at the same time the enemy element, which is trying in all forms and ways to oppose you. Letter from the Central Committee of the ALP and the government of the RPS of Albania. In this regard, the comments made in certain hostile environments, such as:
-The declassed elements that are using this situation to raise the morale of their people and other hostile categories speak and comment that: “Now has finally come the long-awaited moment to change the political situation in Albania, as the Albanian leadership “, remaining completely isolated and alone, will not be able to hold on.” “These enemies, in addition to the messages they give to each other for the care they should show in these moments, also express satisfaction that the time is finally coming for them to take revenge.”
Thus, a declassed person in Tirana says: “I am fully convinced that the situation will change, and if we won, there will be no mercy for them”. A kulak in the district of Vlora, comments: “The breakdown of relations with China and the cutting of its aid to Albania will have good things for our hand. The eldest of these had said that: “this is bitter news for the Albanian people”.
Intellectuals with hostile backgrounds and attitudes are also quite lively in these moments. This element is notable not only for the sharp comments it makes, but like the anti-party element and some other persons expelled from the Party, they are trying in particular to strike at the Party, its leadership and its Marxist-Leninist straight line, accused him of being “dogmatic”, “old-fashioned” and “arrogant”.
At the same time these enemies defend the liberal and deeply opportunistic views of the Chinese leadership. Thus a writer in Tirana says: “Let 100 flowers bloom whoever has the best smell, let it be called the most beautiful flower. So let 100 streams of art flourish here as well and whoever is liked by the people, let it be called the best, the world has advanced a lot, we are dogmatic and dictators… even Russia does not have this dictatorship that we have “.
Another intellectual with a hostile attitude, who openly tries to justify the deeply opportunistic attitude of the Chinese leadership, says: for some interests it has come closer to the US and some other Western states. So what is wrong with that? In this environment there are also comments which try to ignore the great achievements, which based strongly on the great Marxist-Leninist principle of self-reliance, have been achieved during the 30-year period in all areas of life in Socialist Albania.
Thus, for example, such an element in Tirana states: “The facts speak differently, we are building socialism with the help and loans given to us by the Yugoslavs, later the Soviets, and most recently the Chinese, then why do they say that we are building socialism with its own forces, the Albanian leadership has constantly worked for fame ”.
Another category of people who have been quite active in this situation and who are developing sharp and varied comments are the contingents of foreign intelligence in general and those of Yugoslav intelligence in particular. These, among other things, defend the view that Albania is supposedly incapable of completing the facilities left half-finished by the Chinese and building and defending socialism without the help of any other greater power, and therefore they conclude that Albania will be forced to the future will definitely make new connections with any of the countries that ‘have even begun to approach’ such as Japan, France, West Germany or Greece.
Judging by this, a Yugoslav emigrant says: “The works that were left half of them will be built that the machines will receive through France from China, but certainly at great cost, because knowing that France loves Albania, “China will sell it to her at high prices.” Another element of this category living in Fier, says: “The strengthening of Sino-Yugoslav relations has doubly damaged Albania, because not only China, but also Yugoslavia, which is becoming more and more connected with the latter, has significantly limited trade with Albania.
“There is complete unity between the Communist League of Yugoslavia and the Communist Party of China, so without prior agreement between these two parties, China would not have cut off aid to Albania.” While an intellectual in Tirana says: “They are trying to get as close as possible to Greece because they are worried that through it, they will be connected to the common market. “Our trade delegation that was recently in Greece also spoke about this issue.”
A considerable number of comments continue to be made by some workers, peasants and intellectuals as well. These elements, although from our strata and of non-hostile origin, being unformed and with a low ideological level, have frightened the situations created after the breakdown of relations with the Chinese and consequently, in many cases they express distrust and uncertainty about the prospects. further development of our country, both in the economic field and in the defense of the country. Judging as cowards, they also give opportunistic views and preach that the party should make concessions in its foreign policy and soften its attitude towards imperialism and revisionism.
Thus, such an element from the ranks of the intelligence in Tirana states that: “What was this for us, oh what found us in the black, what are we going to do now without China”? While an elderly villager from the district of Tepelena, says: “It is not known how our plight will turn out now, because they broke up with everyone and now is the time to attack us.” Other elements of this category continue: “We should not be arrogant, because we will not keep clean only the flag of Marxism-Leninism, therefore for the sake of overcoming the great economic difficulties we are going through, we must also do concessions”.
In these environments, some other very active elements, who try to increase their ranks as much as possible, use Chinese betrayal as a convincing “argument” that’s supposedly falling communism and not imperialism. In this regard, a Kosovar living in the district of Kruja, comments: “ours say about imperialism that is in decadence, but in fact the opposite happens. Some time ago, for example, 350 million people were cut off from socialism and now after the turn of China another 900 million, so it turns out that the communication is ending and the word of Tito is being confirmed, who said that this system is old and must disappear”. Analyzing in full the intense and comprehensive hostile propaganda that is taking place after the publication of the Letter of K.Q. of the Party and the Government of the RPS of Albania, regarding the Chinese betrayal, as a conclusion we can say that:
- From the entirety of the activated element, the tone of this hostile propaganda continues to be given by some main categories of class enemies and especially of the anti-party element, the declassed, the intelligentsia with a hostile background and attitude and the contingent of intelligence to the revisionists in general. of Yugoslav intelligence in particular. In these environments, mainly, the State Security bodies have identified many comments, tendencies and desires of terror, escape and lack of organization, in the direction of which they are working carefully to identify and hit them as soon as possible.
- The fact that special persons from our ranks with non-hostile backgrounds and attitudes, encounter many comments of the same nature as those made by the anti-party element, among other things speaks of the negative effects of hostile activity carried out by the latter, who they try to make an ideological elaboration of the shaky and unformed element, with the aim of creating in them hostile convictions towards the Party, its leadership and its Marxist-Leninist straight line. Here, we think that the source is also very sharp comments that circulate to specific people from our strata, who say that: “The leadership of the Party is dogmatic and judges situations with arrogance and nervousness. “She does not even want to know about the economic hardships that afflict the people, that she has never experienced such things herself.”
- Despite the overall assessment is positive and in this regard there have been comments as never before, the fact that hostile activity as a whole is intensifying and there is a lot of uncertainty, requires that the State Security bodies, to increase to the highest degree vigilance and mobilization to detect and hit in time this element and the enemy of the class, and to do at the same time more carefully and correctly, the differentiation of the wrong element./Memorie.al
MINISTER OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS
(Kadri Hazbiu)
Follows in the next issue
