By Kastriot Dervishi
Memorie.al / The fierce war that the Party of Labour of Albania, led by communist dictator Enver Hoxha, waged against livestock in cooperative private plots did not stop at animals kept for meat and dairy, but extended even to draft animals used for work. In the final part of the discussions on November 4, 1980, the “comrades” of the Politburo of the Central Committee decided the fate of pigs in the countryside, as well as bidding farewell to working animals. But while pigs were to be collectivized “for free,” the party believed that for draft animals, it could offer a pittance in installments (which did not work out, as they were either sold extremely cheap or “given away for free”).
Oxen (working animals used for tilling the land with wooden plows) had previously suffered the same fate. With these decisions, the Party of Labour ultimately complete Sovietized the Albanian peasant. The section selected below contains the discussion between the First Secretary of the Central Committee, Enver Hoxha, and the country’s Prime Minister, Mehmet Shehu.
As can be seen from the document in question containing the meeting minutes, the communist dictator expressed regret for having allowed cooperative peasantry until that time to survive on the income generated from their private household plots.
Extract from the discussions at the Politburo meeting, November 4, 1980
COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Another issue we must keep in mind is that the cooperative private plot should no longer keep pigs.
COMRADE MEHMET SHEHU: Agreed, no pigs either.
COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: There is no way for a cooperative family to keep a pig on its plot, because it requires feed concentrate that the family cannot provide. If pigs need to be kept, this should be set as a task for the cooperatives to maintain them.
COMRADE MEHMET SHEHU: It is the villagers of former Catholic background who are asking to keep one pig each today.
COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Let them ask, there are no Catholics among us anymore (laughter). Even former Muslims eat pork nowadays without any hesitation (laughter). Therefore, no pigs should be allowed on private plots.
Furthermore, pack animals – horses, mules, or donkeys – must under no circumstances be allowed on cooperative private plots, because these require oats, grass, and corn husks.
It’s interesting how we ever allowed such a thing? Well, we did allow it and naturally made a mistake, but at that time we needed them. What should we do now with these animals on the plots? We cannot simply seize them from their owners, so the only way is to collectivize them into the cooperative. Now let us decide how we will carry out this collectivization, how we will take them from those who own them?
COMRADE MEHMET SHEHU: Let us act as we did with the oxen, Comrade Enver. We took those from the private plots and paid their value, but in installments.
COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: So we collectivize them and pay their value in installments.
COMRADE MEHMET SHEHU: I don’t think we will suffer losses of these animals, because when we began collectivizing livestock for meat and milk, many families slaughtered part of them, whereas you cannot slaughter a donkey or a mule, because people don’t eat them. The same goes for horses, whereas a cow they own can be slaughtered.
COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: No, I don’t think they will slaughter cows either.
COMRADE MEHMET SHEHU: However, we do not plan to move to full collectivization of cows, but rather to herd grouping (tufëzim), whereas for donkeys, mules, and horses we must move to full collectivization.
Let the Party issue the call to proceed with the collectivization of pack animals and put an end to this matter once and for all.
Let us keep in mind that the collectivization (of donkeys, horses, mules, etc. – note) will be done with payment, not all at once, but in installments, just as we collectivized the oxen. / Memorie.al
