Dashnor Kaloçi
The third part
Memorie.al publishes some archival documents extracted from the Central State Archive in Tirana (fund of the former Central Committee of the ALP), where the speech of the first Secretary of the Central Committee of the Albanian Labor Party, Enver Hoxha, is held on May 30, 1962 before his constituency voters no. 179 in Tirana where he was running for deputy in the People’s Assembly, where he after talking about the achievements of the People’s Republic of Albania under the leadership of the ALP, stopped and made a presentation of social order and the electoral process in capitalist countries, saying that “There are many restrictions there, as a result of which millions of voters, in one way or another, are excluded from voting. “Comprehensive pressure is exerted on the voters, the elections take place in conditions of terror, fraud, corruption, falsification and various machinations”, etc. Enver’s whole speech before the voters where he promised salary increases for workers, road construction and investments in infrastructure, increasing the welfare of the people, etc.
“Everywhere you look today, the tide of protectionist sentiment is flowing. Tens of thousands of brand new houses have been built by cooperatives, they have renovated and decorated the old ones, and everywhere they are building new ones, building schools, houses of culture, clubs, nurseries and gardens, they are building the cultured life in our socialist village. . There is no work center where no residential houses are built, no big or small city, where schools, clubs, hospitals, nurseries, cinemas, theaters, stadiums are not built. This pace of construction is increasing every year. The aim of the Party and the Government is to make the centers of the districts cities of socialism where the employees have their apartments, to have places of entertainment and rest, to have schools, dormitories, cinemas and theaters, to have paved roads. , systematized parks, to relax in a cultured way. “Whoever looks at Durrës, Fier, Lushnjë, Korçë, Shkodër, Vlora, Gjirokastra, Elbasan, Peshkopi, not to mention all of them, everything in them has changed so much that he does not know them, they are decorated”
This was stated, among others, by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, Enver Hoxha, in his speech before the voters of constituency 179 in Tirana, where he was running for deputy in the People’s Assembly, where after making a speech The great achievements in various fields of the economy that the People’s Republic of Albania had made up to that time under the leadership of the ALP, stopped and made numerous promises, for salary increases for workers, road construction and investments in infrastructure, the increase of welfare of the people, etc., etc. For more about Enver Hoxha’s speech held in front of his constituents in constituency 179 in Tirana on May 30, 1962, we are introduced to this archival document that Memorie.al publishes for the first time (with some abbreviations), by starting from today’s number.
Continued from the previous issue
Enver Hoxha’s speech before the voters of constituency no. 179 in Tirana, on May 30, 1962
Only by working, we have achieved these great results, only with work will we be able to reap even greater results than in the past. The highest goal and the most sacred task of the Party and of our state is the systematic and rapid rise of the welfare of the people. To this goal of this task are subject to us all the development of the economy and all the activity of the Party and of our state, who have no higher interests than the interests of the people. Everything in our country is done only in the interest of the people and for their good. The superiority of the socialist order does not lie so much in the fact that it ensures very high rates of development of the productive forces, but in the fact that the high rates of development of the productive forces are accompanied at the same time by the systematic increase of welfare, not only of one class or small part of the population, but of all the workers of the town and the village. As a result of the development of the economy, the growth of industrial and agricultural production, the standard of living of our people has changed greatly compared to the past. Every adult is able to make a good comparison of today with yesterday.
Now gone once and for all from our hearth’s misery, hunger and unemployment, insecurity for the next day and hard slave labor for a piece of bread, half-naked children and straw hats and many other evils that accompanied human life yesterday our workers and which were a direct consequence of the rule of the beys and the capitalists and the plunder of the country by foreign imperialists. Our people today live better, their lives have become and are becoming day by day happier and richer, both materially and spiritually. National incomes have increased from year to year, the real wages of workers and civil servants have also increased, the incomes of the peasantry have also increased. State spending on socio-cultural measures has been higher every year. From time to time there have been reductions in the prices of consumer goods, from which the population has benefited billions of ALL per year. A great deal of work has been done especially for the construction of dwellings. Everywhere, in all four corners of our homeland, in villages and towns, thousands of new houses and apartments are built every year.
Despite the great successes that have been achieved in improving the living standards of the people, we are fully aware that in this regard we still have much to do. We cannot and should not be content with what we have achieved, but we must always look forward. We have now created such an economic base, which enables us to move forward at a faster pace. And we will achieve new successes, we will move even faster forward, convinced that the future will be even happier, even happier. For this we must honorably perform the great tasks we have for the construction of the material-technical basis of socialism, for the increase of industrial and agricultural production, for the increase of labor productivity and the reduction of the cost of production. On this basis, during the third five-year plan, the standard of living of our people will be raised even higher. Thus, the national income, three quarters of which goes directly to the benefit of the workers, will increase by 56 percent, the real wages of the workers and employees – 30 percent and the income of the peasantry – 35 percent.
The increase in the real wage will be done both through the increase of the nominal wage, especially of those categories of employees who have low wages, and through the reduction of the prices of consumer goods. Housing conditions will be further improved, for which 75 percent more funds will be spent than in the previous five years. The living area that will be increased during the third five years, will be enough for 5 new cities like today’s Vlora. The trade and communications network, utilities, electrification of cities and especially villages will be further expanded. Special care will be shown for the preservation and strengthening of the health of the people, for the extension of the life of our people, etc. A real revolution has taken place in the field of education and culture. Albania has become a great school of education and learning. Education and culture have spread to the four corners of our homeland, to the farthest corners, spreading the darkness and ignorance we inherited from the past and suffering everywhere the light of knowledge.
There is no doubt that the development of education and culture, in terms of their breadth and spread to the wider working masses, is a great victory. But of particular importance is the fact that education, culture, science and art in our country have developed and are developing in the right way, that they have a sound socialist content, are completely traversed by the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, are fully put in the service of the people and of socialist construction. They have now risen to a higher level. In our educational, scientific and cultural-artistic centers now a more qualified work is done. Courses come from our schools more prepared staff. The great successes of our people in the development of the economy and in all other sectors of the life of the country are inseparable from the development of education and culture and from the quality of work of their respective institutions, because without education, without culture, they cannot even the construction of great works of socialism is thought.
The clearest expression of the revolution, which has taken place and is taking place in the field of culture and ideology, is the birth and formation of the new man, the man of our new socialist society, in whose consciousness they are rooted every day and deeper Marxist-Leninist worldview, norms of communist morality, high ideals of socialism and communism. Socialism frees people from the spiritual oppression of bourgeois ideology, from the norms of bourgeois morality, according to which “man for man is a wolf,” from individualistic and selfish bourgeois psychology. The high moral figure of our young man, the builder of socialism, is expressed in his socialist attitude towards work and life, towards society and the state, towards the people and the homeland. It is this attitude that has now become the basic criterion for judging people in our new society. The new moral features of our young man appear now in every step of our lives, they are embodied especially in our vanguard people, in the heroes of socialist labor, in the innovators and rationalizers of production, in the initiators of various patriotic movements.
The most concentrated expression of the new moral figure of our people builders of socialism has found in the movement of the brigades of socialist labor, in the flag of which is written the slogan with a very deep meaning: “To work, to learn and to live in socialist way”. The complete construction of a socialist society requires people with a clear socialist conscience, capable people, with deep culture and knowledge, requires people to master science and technology. To this end, the 4th Congress of the Party set out great tasks for the strengthening of the ideological work of the Party, for the preparation of cadres for the development of education and science, art and culture. Successful performance of these tasks is of great importance for carrying out the cultural revolution. In 1965 we will have 9,700 senior cadres, out of about 5,500 we have today, and 35,100 middle cadres, out of the 20,000 we have today. Popular education will receive a great development, especially the 7-year and later 8-year education, which in the next ten years will become general and compulsory. In 1965 almost, a quarter of the country’s population will attend schools of various categories. In high schools alone, the number of students in 1965 would reach 7,000, not including night and part-time students.
In this way our country will become in the future not only a country developed from the economic point of view, with modern industry and mechanized agriculture, but also a country advanced from the cultural point of view, with developed education, science and art, with a rich cultural life. The great changes that have been made in the life of our country and people, the great successes that have been achieved in the development of our economy and national culture, are reflected both in the mirror in the life of our capital and its inhabitants. Our Tirana has become today a great industrial, economic and cultural center. The place of small artisanal production and of some small and primitive workshops and factories that existed before, have been taken by large industrial production, factories, plants and modern factories. There is a wide network of schools and cultural-artistic institutions in Tirana. Almost every 3-4 people learn in school. Only regular high school students have almost as many students as there were in all schools in Tirana in 1938.
The city of Tirana today has 60 percent more doctors than all of Albania had in 1938 and a considerable number of health institutions. Tirana has been arranged and decorated with gardens and parks, with new and asphalted roads, with magnificent buildings and palaces. Excellent prospects open up for our capital. The industrial production of the city of Tirana in 1965 will increase 62 percent compared to 1960, or 34 times more compared to that of 1938. During the third five years in Tirana will be built many new industrial and socio-cultural facilities. Magnificent will be erected the Palace of Culture. 5,200 residential apartments will be built, housing 30,000 people, almost as many as Tirana had a few years before the war. Based on the regulatory plan approved by the Government for a period of 15 years, our Tirana will become truly a modern city, with beautiful streets and magnificent palaces, with numerous gardens and gardens, with a developed cultural life. Such a perspective has been opened in time everywhere in our country in cities and villages.
Everywhere is being built at a rapid pace. Tens of thousands of brand-new houses have been built by cooperatives, they have renovated and decorated the old ones, and everywhere they are mostly building new ones, building schools, cultural houses, clubs, nurseries and gardens, they are building the cultured life in our socialist village… There is no work center where no residential houses are built, no big or small city, where schools, clubs, hospitals, nurseries, cinemas, theaters, stadiums are not built. This pace of construction is increasing every year. The aim of the Party and the Government is to make the centers of the districts cities of socialism where the employees have their apartments, to have places of entertainment and rest, to have schools, dormitories, cinemas and theaters, to have paved roads. , systematized parks, to relax in a cultured way. Whoever looks at Durrës, Fier, Lushnjë, Korçë, Shkodër, Vlora, Gjirokastra, Elbasan, Peshkopi, not to mention all of them, everything in them has changed so much that he does not know them, they are decorated. We must get people to go to all places to work happily, and to insist on going to work in the districts themselves.
The fact is that right now, with these big changes that have been made, many require transfer to the base, to the district, to the cooperative. Districts, localities, cooperatives are now being attacked, and in the coming years, a larger number of stable cadres, such as teachers, agronomists, doctors, etc., will leave. Life requires change and culture is spreading rapidly. Now not to mention others, more than 10,000 young girls have graduated from 7-year schools and work in cooperatives; young workers in factories rarely find without 7-year school. Therefore, the builders, our architects who build and decorate cities with buildings, schools, museums, sculptures, etc., are required to work full of taste and artistic taste, to represent socialism and the development of our national art, everything that comes out their hands and their inspiration, to satisfy the masses, to express the beauty, the wishes of the people, everything to have a definite character, and what we build today to please not only our generation, but not to be criticized too much by future generations, that will have tastes and culture greater than ours. Such are, in very general terms, our successes and the excellent prospects that open up to our country. We see our future in the grand plans of our Party and state.
These plans are not at all dreams and fantasies, as our enemies have slandered and are slandering. Our plans and perspectives are based on in-depth studies, they are based on our real capabilities, the strength of our economy, the resources and wealth of our country, the creative work of our people, the leadership skills of our staff and internationalist assistance. of the fraternity of our friends. Our plans are not empty promises, as the candidates for MPs in the capitalist countries do, to deceive the voters and get their votes. Our plans are based on the laws of economic development of our society and are materially guaranteed. They express the desires and aspirations of our people and are realized in life. Our Party and Government have not separated and never separate words from deeds. The slogan “What the Party says the people do and what the people do the Party does” is fully applied to us. Dear friends, Our people, although a small people, have their own opinions and views on international issues that concern humanity. The Albanian people have the right to live free, independent, sovereign with all the rights enjoyed by every people and every state, big or small./Memorie.al
