By DASHNOR KALOÇI
Part Two
Memorie.al / Just as it had happened at the end of 1948, when Enver Hoxha broke official relations with the Yugoslavia of Marshal Josip Broz Tito, as well as in 1961, with the Soviet Union led by Nikita Khrushchev, when the “reactionary element” in Tirana and various districts of the country “had awakened and begun to stir,” in the summer of 1978, when official Tirana was announcing the final break of relations with the People’s Republic of China, history repeated itself point by point, with the exact same situation unfolding. Regarding this, the high leadership of the PPSH (Party of Labour of Albania), headed by Enver Hoxha, Hysni Kapo, Ramiz Alia, etc., were kept informed and made thoroughly aware through dozens of report-informations sent to them by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Kadri Hazbiu, or his subordinates, the Deputy Ministers of Internal Affairs, such as Feçor Shehu, Rexhep Kolli, Mihallaq Ziçishti, etc. Within this framework, according to the guidelines and orientations provided by the high leadership “to keep the situation under control,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Security (Sigurimi) launched crackdowns – arresting, imprisoning, sentencing, and interning dozens of individuals, primarily from the strata of “enemies of the people” and “reactionary families,” who were always under strict surveillance and tracking by the relevant state organs.
All of this and more has long been known, including through the publication of a large number of archival documents sourced from the Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Central State Archive (where the archive of the former Central Committee of the PPSH is located). These documents shed light on the situation in the country during the time period when the high leadership of the PPSH was announcing the official break of relations with its former close friends, such as Tito’s Yugoslavia, Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet Union, or the People’s Republic of China, which, following the death of Mao Zedong, was led by Hua Guofeng at the head of the party.
Based on the above, in this article, we are publishing the speech delivered by Enver Hoxha at the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the PPSH, which held its proceedings on June 26 and 27, 1978, just a few days before official Tirana publicly announced the break of relations with the People’s Republic of China. As we will observe from his speech, the head of the PPSH, Enver Hoxha, focused extensively and solely on the defense aspect of the country, which perfectly demonstrates his paranoia that, following the break of relations with China, Albania could become the target of an external military attack.
This fact – namely, his paranoia – is demonstrated, among other things, by the fact that just two days prior to the proceedings of the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the PPSH, Enver Hoxha visited the command post of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense and the People’s Army (known today as “Bunk’Art 1”). This underground, anti-atomic facility had just been completed on the outskirts of the capital (the hills of Shishtufina). It was presumed that, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Chairman of the Defense Council, Enver Hoxha would take refuge there and, from his office, direct the combat operations for the defense of the country if Albanian territory were to be subjected to foreign military aggression “by a foreign state, the forces of the Warsaw Pact, NATO, both combined, or a coalition of hostile states,” as stipulated by the regulations and documents of the People’s Military Art.
All of the above was and remained purely theoretical, as that eventuality never occurred. Thus, “Socialist Albania, standing proud on the shores of the Adriatic,” never became the target of any external military attack or aggression, and the facility of the General Command Post (“Bunk’Art 1”) remains there to this day as a testament to the Cold War era. For years, it has been transformed into an attractive museum that welcomes thousands of domestic and foreign tourists. Driven by this, in this article, we are publishing in full and with the respective facsimiles, the speech delivered by Enver Hoxha at the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the PPSH (held on June 26 and 27, 1978), where it is plainly visible that the main leader of communist Albania, beyond mobilizing the armed forces, seems to have intended this primarily as “consumption” for the outside world!
Continued from the previous issue
ENVER HOXHA: “LET US PREPARE IN EVERY ASPECT FOR DEFENSE, SO THAT THE ENEMY NEVER TAKES US BY SURPRISE”
Here, too, a sense of economy must be developed, not only regarding the administration and maintenance of armaments, equipment, shells, and ammunition, and the proper preservation of weapons, but also concerning food and clothing. This is because, especially in times of war, these items are not secured easily; therefore, reserves must be guarded with the utmost care and constantly increased. It is understandable that in wartime the level of our industry and agriculture will not be what it is today; therefore, whoever thinks and works well for the present has also thought and worked well for the time of war.
That worker or communist who properly understands the political situations at present, who understands the class struggle as he should, and who correctly grasps non-antagonistic and antagonistic contradictions, will be properly armed politically and ideologically in times of war as well. He will be sharp and vigilant against the enemy that attacks us, as well as against internal enemies, who will not fail to perk up their ears and sabotage us. He who clearly understands all these matters today will be beloved and precious to the troops, to the people he commands, and to the entire population in general.
Therefore, I believe that political and ideological work, the matter of productivity and discipline, and workplace norms – whether in industry, agriculture, education, culture, or anywhere else – must be intertwined, presented, and explained as clearly as possible in connection with defense tasks. It must be properly understood that all these goods, these virtues, acquired with so much sweat and toil, will serve us immensely to withstand any attack from enemies and to break it successfully.
Naturally, lectures must be delivered on these matters, but the best lecture is the concrete breakdown, resolution, and close linking of all these problems with the daily work of our people: explaining and clarifying them, repeating them without empty phrases or prepared speeches, but rather in the course of work from comrade to comrade, the brigadier to the workers, the workers to the brigadier, the brigadier to the enterprise staff, the enterprise staff to the brigadiers and workers, the ordinary communist to the leadership of the base-organization, and the leadership to the communists.
If we develop such political-theoretical and concrete work, closely linked to daily life, then we can say that we have done the job properly and have integrated the matter of education and military tempering into the lives of our working people. I do not wish to dwell too long on this highly crucial matter regarding the preparation of our People’s Army for wartime, because the report of the Political Bureau clarifies all the problems. The issue lies in the fact that the Central Committee of the Party, as always, must be conscious that heavy tasks are placed before the homeland, before our people, and before the cause of building socialism in Albania, and that their proper execution requires even greater efforts than those we have made until now.
Let us not forget, comrades that we have had some weaknesses and shortcomings in matters of army preparation due to the hostile, treasonous activity of Beqir Balluku’s group, which we uncovered and struck down. Currently, our army has made progress and is moving along the true path of modernization; and when I say modernization, I mean that the army and the cadres comprehend military problems through the correct political-ideological path of our Party, viewing them in connection with the current situations developing in the world and with the future perspectives of our country. With the new organization of the army, which encompasses the entire population and causes them to train militarily, a deeper understanding and application of our Military Art of People’s War is required.
The entire Party, big and small, must be clear on this art. By this, I mean that all categories of people, from the youngest to the oldest, in their work and in the duties assigned or to be assigned to them in times of war, must be clear on what they must do. To be clear on this, they must learn what they are required to do, fully grasping, besides the technical side of combat and organization, the political-ideological essence of the task set before them to solve, because the matter of the army is not merely an organizational issue, as the people of Beqir Balluku’s traitorous group believed.
Our army must possess correct concepts regarding the political significance of the difficult situation that will be created for our homeland when it finds itself facing the attacks of aggressive and invading enemies. It must also be clear that the homeland must be defended inch by inch with sacrifice and blood. The matter of war is a difficult one from all sides – human, material, moral, and psychological.
These immense difficulties must find us prepared in all aspects created by such a grave moment, so that we may face it successfully. Let no situation ever take us by surprise, and to ensure it does not, it is indispensable that all members of the Party are conscious that the moments brought about by the military aggression of our enemies, no matter how difficult they may be, must be faced and can be faced successfully only through a thorough ideological and military preparation of our armed forces and the entire soldier-people.
Technical-military preparation through numerous exercises, the execution of military duties, and a deep, continuous understanding of this problem must be done now in peacetime, while we build socialism. Everything, every action in the factory, in the fields, in schools, and everywhere else must be linked to the military aspect. When I say linked to the military aspect, it means that the daily work of everyone must be seen as closely bound to the defense of the homeland. This means that when we work toward fulfilling plans, we should not have only economic and cultural goals in mind, but also the military tasks and plans set before all of us, because we are all soldiers, we will all fight, and we will all defend ourselves.
Therefore, attention toward defending the general interest takes on a very high ideological content. The general interest is concretized in the defense of the homeland, in the defense of the victories of independence, freedom, and sovereignty. There are no higher interests than these; therefore, every daily action on our part must be concentrated on these issues. Some bear this great problem in mind and do not forget it, but there are also people who think that simply fulfilling the wheat or cotton plan is sufficient.
The fulfillment of plans in all sectors – in the economy, education, culture, etc. – is of great importance and is absolutely indispensable to carry out, because it is one of the main tasks for building socialism, strengthening the economy, enhancing the well-being of the people, elevating and tempering proletarian morale and proletarian consciousness in work and war, and for strengthening our socialist homeland. The building of socialism is a great struggle, a massive one indeed; it is a serious, absolutely indispensable preparation to withstand the immense tasks of the future.
But the struggle we wage to fulfill plans must not cause us to set aside or relegate to secondary importance military training exercises. By this, I do not mean only those specific days determined by law for the training of reservists, volunteer forces, or students, etc. No, by combat training, I understand that political, ideological, and technical preoccupation that the Party must firmly instill in people’s minds: that every action of theirs is done for the general well-being, which is threatened by the imperialist-revisionist enemies surrounding us. Therefore, every daily action carried out by us must be conceptualized as a preparatory defensive measure.
Furthermore, the study and application of our Military Art of People’s War in the active army, in the free schools, in the volunteer forces, and across all measures of the soldier-people must be considered an absolutely indispensable, distinct duty – a duty above all other duties that must be executed, but executed in its full complexity. When we say in its complexity, we must properly understand that training exercises must be conducted as if we were in real warfare. This means that everyone’s mind and body must work, and that these two must be in harmony; that our people master their weapons well, know the terrain, know our war strategy and tactics, and also know the enemy, whom we must never overrate nor underrate.
Therefore, the Party must work intensely and on a broad scale regarding combat training; it must cover the political-combat preparation of the entire mass of the soldier-people with its work. In combat training, the technical side is not a matter of fantasy, nor is it cheap propaganda, but rather a comprehensive technical-professional education. If a lathe operator does not learn his trade well, he cannot operate the lathe; a tractor driver who does not properly learn how to drive, dismantle, and reassemble the tractor when it breaks down cannot be a good tractor driver; likewise, a soldier – whether active, reservist, or volunteer – cannot be a good soldier if he is not properly prepared from a technical-military standpoint, and if he does not properly master his specialty during the lessons organized for him in specific theoretical and practical courses.
Therefore, into these courses and these technical military activities, everyone must go willingly and learn diligently, because it is absolutely necessary to become qualified and master one or more specialties in the army. Alongside these, another major issue demands a specific and serious preparation: that of war tactics and the proper, effective, and swift use of our active weapons across various terrains and at different times.
Everyone must know how to use them optimally, always bearing in mind that we will face fierce enemies armed to the teeth with modern assets. If everyone thinks this way, then both the quantity and the modern weapons of the enemies will be successfully withstood. However, to withstand them, training only at designated times is not enough. The issue is that every day, wherever a person finds himself, when he has free time (and everyone must find this time), just as he thinks about other matters, he must also think about military problems.
In the free military schools, everyone learns to know the place where they will take up their position, creating in their minds the topography of the terrain down to the smallest details. Upon these details, he constructs many, many war tactics, which at the most dangerous moment – when he receives the order to act, when he truly finds himself on his suitable terrain, which is of extraordinary importance for combat, maneuvering, attacking, retreating, counter-attacking, and annihilating the enemies – joined together in a single thought, with varied and continuous applications, constitute the creation of the true political-ideological and technical view of the preparation of our People’s Army, starting now in peacetime, to withstand an eventual danger.
Such a comprehension of duties eradicates those views that might have remained with some from the wartime era, which Beqir Balluku’s traitorous group also sought to develop in our army – such as the mistaken view of immediately abandoning the battle terrain at the enemy’s first strike, taking to the mountains, and conducting partisan warfare from there. No, our Military Art of People’s War explicitly stipulates that our war, when we are attacked, will be a frontal war and that we will not yield a single inch of land to the enemy. Even if the enemy should manage in some instance to seize a portion of our territory, we will cling to them like pincers, counter-attacking continuously until we hurl them beyond our borders, and we will not allow them to further expand their occupied territory.
Therefore, the understanding of the frontal war we will wage is indispensable for big and small alike in our country. In our country, the people are in power, and they must defend their socialist state at all costs. It is no longer a regime like that of Ahmet Zogu in Albania, who sold out the country, forcing the people to take to the mountains. Currently, Albania is a socialist, strong, and flourishing country, and it must be defended from all four corners, not allowing the enemy to occupy any corner, let alone penetrate into the depths of our country.
Our terrain has been prepared, and it was indispensable that it be prepared for a frontal war; therefore, we must now properly prepare our cadres and our entire people to bear in mind that the war we wage will be of this nature, causing the enemy to fail from their very first actions. This must be the conviction clearly formed in the minds of our soldier-people. Comrades, I will not dwell any longer. Our Party and army have many materials at their disposal regarding these problems, so they are clear on them; they simply need to deepen them, expand them, develop them further, and apply them in life.
I am convinced that our People’s Army, which is continuously educated with the correct political, ideological, and military line of the Party, will always be ready for its high, noble duty – for the acts of heroism and sacrifice it must make for the life of the people, for the free homeland, and for the building of socialism. On this occasion, I wish to greet you from the bottom of my heart on the 35th anniversary of our heroic army, which was founded by the Party and tempered in the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War against the Nazi-Fascists and domestic traitors. / Memorie.al
Long live the Party! Long live and grow stronger our People’s Army!
(This Plenum, which convened on June 26 and 27, 1978, discussed the report: “On the work done for the implementation of the decisions of the 5th and 6th Plenums of the Central Committee of the Party of 1974, and the tasks set forth by the 7th Congress of the Party for the further strengthening of the defense of the country” and adopted the corresponding decisions).
