Dashnor Kaloçi
The fourth part
Memorie.al publishes some unknown documents issued by the Central State Archive 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 the 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., and down to the base of that power with local government officials, who transmitted that anxiety and insecurity, to ordinary 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 others, look best 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, such as: Metallurgical Plant in Elbasan, Ferro-chrome Plant in Burrel, Paper Factory in Lezha, Pashaliman Military Base, Tank and Artillery Plant in Shish-Tufina, Combat Ammunition Plant in Elbasan Doctors, Weapons Production Plant in Poliçan, etc., have already become “agents, saboteurs and conspirators” and are intercepted 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, now resulted in “serious defects” and sabotaged by “Chinese revisionists”.
Such a thing, the “synoptic picture” that the communist regime was going through before and after the breakup 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 at the last moment it had its closest “allies”, such as the Anglo-Americans, Tito’s Yugoslavia and Stalin’s Soviet Union, and those who succeeded him, such as Khurshov, Brezhnev, and so on.
The series of “friends-enemies” began with the Anglo-American missions, who 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 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-July of 1978, when after the “Open Letter” of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the ALP and the Council of To the 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?!
Continued from the previous issue
Report of the secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of People’s Defense, Ali Vuakatana, sent to the secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, Hysni Kapo, about the work and behavior of the Chinese at the Pashaliman base in Vlora
Comrade Hysni
Secret
Based on the orders given by the Party Committee of the Ministry of People’s Defense, for the careful attitude towards the Chinese specialists, the Palermo Detachment Party Bureau is carefully recording their attitudes and activity.
From the information they have sent us and from the meetings we have had with the leaders of the Detachment, they raise some problems for the Chinese specialists who are in this facility.
Chinese specialists are not related to the work done in this facility, previously they went out to work around nine o’clock, recently they go out at intervals of 2-3 days once, where they stay for about 20-30 minutes and return to the place of rest.
Recently had the spring holiday, dated 7.II. until 15.II.1978, they did not leave their rooms at all, they even ate food in the rooms, especially dinners, claiming that in China the spring festival is five days and the villagers celebrate it for 15 days.
On their part, there is no preoccupation with the facility that is being built, but they are more concerned about the work that is being done, not in accordance with their project and forecasts.
Chinese specialists in this facility have entered into talks with soldiers and cadres and asked various questions. For example, on February 14, 1978, the Chinese translator Li asked the following questions to his friend K. Fejzo, who serves in the Chinese canteen:
-How is the accountability and party elections done here?
Comrade KF, replied that: every communist here gives us an account before the basic organization of the Party and before the mass, how he worked for the dismantling and implementation of the Party directives, how he works and fights in practice, how he conducts the class struggle in all directions, how it fights against imperialism and revisionism.
-Who approves the request to be elected in leadership as secretary?
In our country, answers Mrs. K. F., no one makes a request to be elected, but the communists evaluate everyone’s work, skills and propose him to be elected secretary of the organization.
-Who does the request to be elected to the Bureau, and how do the Bureau and the secretary account? The same answer was given to this question, as well as to the secretary of the basic organization of the party.
Ay asked the question how voting is done by secret ballot or by show of hands? In response to this question, she said: “We vote for those comrades who deserve to be in the leadership of the masses, elections and voting are done according to the statute of the ALP and not by finger, as you say.”
-The Chinese translator, Li, also asked about the exam procedure in schools. For this question, he told you that in our country, exams are based on the orders and regulations issued by the Ministry of Education and explained the procedure of an exam.
-On February 15, 1978, the same translator entered into a conversation with two soldiers and an officer and asked them some questions such as:
At what age do soldiers rise? How many years do they stay in the army? That there are all new soldiers in the ward, or are there old ones? Did you finish training or not?
The officer staff, Q. Skuqi, and soldiers B. Jaupi and E. Selishta, who took part in this conversation, answered that: we are 19 years old, that they stay in the army for 2-3 years and that the homeland needs it, that in the wards have young and old soldiers and that they continue to work and train.
After they gave you the answers, because he asked several times, he left upset.
At the end of January, the comrades of the Detachment Command had a meeting with the Chinese specialists on the completion of a facility that is related to the assembly that will be done by the Chinese themselves according to the agreement and arose as a problem: the equipment of the facility, which they to verify the implementation of the Chinese project for this facility and the quality problems of the implementation in the facility.
The deputy head of the group (after the person in charge has been away for six months, ostensibly with a regular leave), said that they will definitely fulfill the obligations, both for sending the equipment and the specialists. The Chinese later said that these requests should be made to our embassy through the Ministry.
We also point out that recently, the Chinese working in Porto-Palermo have started moving out of the ward without vehicles and unaccompanied. It has recently been noticed that they have bought large quantities of clothes hangers (as their driver says over 100 pieces) rubber tubs and other items, which they think they can use for trade.
With the installation of the amplifier in this area, the TV antennas have been directed from Italy and Greece. There have been quarrels between them and these have recently made requests for many types of food….?! There have been cases when in their kitchen, they have stolen chocolates and other food items.
For these actions and attitudes of the Chinese specialists, the Party Committee of the Ministry of People’s Defense instructed the comrades of the Detachment to be careful with their Chinese comrades, to follow their actions vigilantly and to answers are given based on the given orders.
Regarding the works in the facility, we have instructed the relevant directors of the Ministry of People’s Defense, to take measures for further continuation of the works, who from time to time have sent study groups and the works are continuing according to our variants.
20. 2. 1978
Ali Vukatana
The report of the secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Defense, Ali Vukatana, sent to the secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, Hysni Kapo, on the situation with the Chinese in Pashaliman
Comrade Ramiz for Comrade Gafur
Think of the division of labor as being told to follow orders carefully. Be vigilant…! You told Ali
14. IV.1978
Hysni Kapo
In the Porto-Palermo facility, as we have informed you before, Chinese specialists do not go to work. As for all other problems that arise for the fortification of this facility, an agreement has been reached between us and the Chinese specialists and a program has been made for the training of pigeons.
On this basis, Officer F. Hanxhari, by order of the Detachment Command, on 14.III.1978, met with the Chinese specialists and told them to start the training for diving.
Chinese specialists told him that: we made a program last year, why was it not implemented? On the part of our friend who met with them, he told you that this plan has been postponed, because the works have not been carried out according to the plan of the facility.
At this time, the Chinese asked who is to blame for this? Comrade F. Hanxhari replied that: you yourself are a witness to the development of events in the facility, but I have come to ask you: will we start training together with the divers or not?
On 31.III.1978, you were asked to meet again by our friends and after informing the Chinese specialists that the technical parts and the material base of the diving technique were ready and that they were waiting for the help of the Chinese specialist who had come for this purpose. , they changed the conversation and asked our friend if he knew English, but do you listen to foreign radios in English?
Comrade F. Hanxhari replied that: I do not know English and I only listen to Radio Tirana and insisting on the issue of diving training, he said again: how are we going to do the training of divers?
They said: go ahead with the plan and wish you success in training.
The Detachment Commander has taken action and started work on the diving exercise. We emphasize that the Chinese specialists not only do not go to work and do not help in the facility, but in the meetings they have with the cadres and soldiers, they ask various questions, about which we have informed before. /Memorie.al
Tirana, on 13.4.1978
Ali Vukatana
The next issue follows
