From Nesti Kerenxhi
Second part
Memorie.al / “Perhaps two years ago, although this does not have any particular importance, which will be written below, in various mass demonstrations, which took place in various countries of Eastern Europe, with the demands for more freedom and democracy, an impressive slogan unfolded magnificently: “Proletarians of all countries, forgive us”! Of course, the news given in those years was hopeful, shocking, among other things, about this new, shocking slogan I would say, it impressed me a lot, I say that for my conditions and condition, this new slogan made me more more curious than any other news of those years, about his special side.
Continues from last issue
The formation and communist career of Koçi Xoxes
The Communist Group of Korça chose him without hesitation as its leader, and it is now known that the Communist Group of Korça did not, in any period of its activity, practice terror and crime. This practice was implemented when Enver Hoxha was in charge of the NPSH and when Koçi was in prison. During the war, there is not a single case that anyone was sentenced to death, or that he was eliminated behind his back by order of Koçi Xoxes, as in those cases that Enver Hoxha ordered with Miladin Popovici and Dushan Mugosha.
After the liberation of the country from the Nazi-fascist occupiers, no action, arrest, shooting, punishment, seizure, etc., was ever done without the permission of the Political Bureau and its platform, as well as without the knowledge of Enver Hoxha. Any statement contrary to what I am saying is slander or deliberate deception. Koçi Xoxe was not ignorant, on the contrary, he knew several foreign languages, which gave him this opportunity in the multilingual region where he was born and raised until the age of 18-19.
He was an excellent studious student, which is proven by school records and many other archival documents of the time.
He was a wonderful sportsman. Smiling, loving and outgoing with friends of all walks of life; he tirelessly studied Marxist and progressive literature, perfected himself in learning foreign languages, especially French, which is proven by the official practice of correspondence with foreign countries when he was the Minister of the Interior or the Organizational Secretary of the NPSH, as well as other facts like these are known much better by those of us who knew him in his youth, lived with him in the war, in prisons and after the war in very high party and government positions.
But, I am leaving this fact that it will seem like I am doing the biography of Koçi Xoxes, while the purpose of this article is completely different, but also in function of these banal distortions of Enver Hoxha and many of his friends.
The picture of Enver Hoxha in front of that of Koçi Xoxes
Under these conditions, the punishment of Koçi Xoxes should not be taken apart from the many punishments that were given in Eastern European countries, on the contrary. If so, the punishments given to him should have been limited only to those measures that were decided in the 11th Plenum of the Central Committee of the ALP, i.e.: his expulsion from the Political Bureau, dismissal from the post of Deputy Prime Minister and to the Minister of Internal Affairs and appointment as Minister of Industry and leaving as a member of the KC of the NPSH.
Why and how were these measures rejected? How and why were other drastic measures, beyond heavy measures, passed in the 1st Congress of the NPSH, contrary to what the Plenum had decided? Why were such street frauds done to the NPSH? However, these are separate and very important issues and for their clarification, I think there are still interested people and authentic documents that can help clarify them.
I think, too, that; the correct determination of the complex and extremely negative figure of Enver Hoxha, will also determine many other positive features of the interesting figure of Koçi Xoxes. A very significant fact was mentioned. On the day that Koçi Xoxe was arrested, Enver Hoxha called me and said in a very calm voice: “Listen Nesti, today we arrested Koçi Xoxe, don’t worry, this has nothing to do with you.”
This news must have surprised and shocked me, so I couldn’t help but say to Enver Hoxha: “Comrade Enver, I was his deputy and I don’t know anything about it, then you’re telling me not to worry…”! Heavy measures for me and my wife would follow later, but I don’t mean it there. Imagine, I was the Minister of Internal Affairs and I knew nothing about this sensational arrest!
That is, Enver Hoxha was a dictator, who dictated everything with medieval methods. He had his own invisible police and with it he would surprise when he wanted and whom he wanted, or group of people. Despite the constant pressures and wild persecutions, there were honest communists who, in those difficult conditions for the ALP and our country, expressed opinions different from the unbridled current of the campaign against Koçi Xoxes, such as the facts I mentioned a little above and this is known better than me by many other militant comrades of the party and its idealists.
But let’s go back to his punishment and physical elimination, which can never be taken apart from the analogous punishments, which were given by order of Stalin, in all the countries of Eastern Europe.
Josif Broz Tito, dared against “Zeus” Stalin
Titism was hit as a “regressive anti-Marxist and Trotskyist” current, everywhere, because it could not help but be hit. Firstly, because Tito was the one who first dared to do the autopsy on Stalin’s person, and this was the main thing, and secondly, because this was the order, this is what he ordered, not Comrade Stalin, but Stalin the Great. Why? Because J.B. Tito, he was the first who dared to break the iron taboo of autocracy and Stalinist authoritarianism from the obedient flock of Cominternist communist vassals, who never thought with their heads, but according to the conductor’s stick.
He was among the first who dared to attack Stalin’s individual Zeus cult. In those years, this movement, this new and very bold current of Tito, resembled a great cosmic explosion, a real earthquake of continental and world proportions. Immediately after this extraordinary “horror”, which happened with the denigration of the figure of the “great leader of the world proletariat”, such measures of terror had to be taken that would not only frighten the loyal leaders of the Socialist Camp, but also every party member of simple.
To implement this anti-Tito crusade, “scapegoats” were found very quickly, which was not difficult to find, in the composition of autocratic and authoritarian governments or in the typical vassal leftist parties of the countries. of Eastern Europe. The bad luck in this case, the director-in-chief Stalin assigned, with the help of the KGB, would necessarily be the Ministers of Internal Affairs of all Eastern European countries without exception, as well as the repression of a dizzying amount of pious and loyal cadres of communism, which ended in lead.
The question arises, was there such a major order or not? The logic of things and phenomena of the time, that of Stalin’s leadership activity and dictates, practically unlimited even outside the Soviet Union, dictates you to accept without wavering: Yes! For this “yes”, in Western countries it has been investigated, excavated, studied in open and secret archives for more than half a century. Absolute confirmation of this “YES” is required until today and no one has found a correct answer!
The secret letter of a Western country, which Enver handed over to the Soviets
At that time, in 1948, the Security of the Albanian State, with the help of one of our very trusted people, added a letter, a very important document that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of a Western country was sending to the legate of itself in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.
In that secret letter, it was requested to investigate intensively, whether in Bulgaria they were working and investigating the discovery of the agency connections of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Bulgaria, with Yugoslavia, pointing out that such activity was already happening with the Minister of Internal Affairs of Hungary, which had been processed. I immediately handed the copy of this letter to Enver Hoxha.
The next day, the Soviet adviser in our Ministry of Internal Affairs, urgently asked me for a working meeting and a copy of this document, even he was full of anger and resentment towards us, because you had received this important announcement first, through agency channels, our Ministry of Internal Affairs and immediately Enver Hoxha, who readily presented this data to the extraordinary and powerful Soviet minister in Tirana.
In other words, it was receiving notification about the content of this document with great and very important values from Albania, first the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then the KGB, this powerful, silent and impressive body with a reputation of undisputed world. Finally, as a result of intensive digging through the dirty annals of the intelligence services of many countries of the world and the unscrupulous fabrications of the Soviet KGB, Lazlo Raiku in Hungary and before him, Trajco Kostovi in Bulgaria, Rudolf Slanski in Czechoslovakia, Koçi Xoxe in Albania was tried and shot first in order, in this dizzying process as if it were a nuclear chain reaction, in all the countries of Eastern Europe.
Of course, the other countries of the so-called People’s Democracies, such as: Lucreciu Patrashkanu and others in Romania, Berndt Steinberger and others in the German Democratic Republic, and so on, will not have passed without anything. Only Vladislav Gomulka was lucky enough to remain without being physically eliminated, because on March 5, 1953 the “great director” of these macabre scenarios (Stalin) finally died in Moscow, in the capital of his great country. .”!
The rehabilitation of Koçi Xoxes is also logically and quite naturally connected with the rehabilitation of all repressed persons in Eastern European countries. Raiku, Kostov e Slanski, Patrashkanu, Shteinbergeri and others, were rehabilitated after the analysis and reassessment of the figures that were made in these countries, related to the directives of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the fight against the cult of the individual. But Koçi Xoxe is not!
He was not rehabilitated! Naturally, the question arises: Why was Koçi Xoxe not rehabilitated?! Because in Albania, Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship was never overthrown. Somehow, his ideology still lives on today! If the normality of the application of legality had been respected in Albania after the eliminations of the “Koci Xoxes group”, everything would have been justified, but since it continued even more amplified than before, it means that the author of the reprisals it was him. Here, this was the monster Enver Hoxha!
As far as is known, from ear-to-ear whispers from the horror of dictatorial oppression and from official documents, considerable pressure was also exerted on the leadership of the Party of Labor of Albania, by the Soviet leadership, for the rehabilitation of Koçi Xoxes and his friends others. Besides, the fact is certain that Nikita Khrushchev, fully rehabilitating Tito’s personality, worked for this rehabilitation to be recognized and legalized everywhere, in every country where he was unfairly attacked as an ideological trend and as a state practice.
The rehabilitation of Tito’s figure, he meant; rejecting all the charges against him, including the charges that led to the shooting of the Ministers of Internal Affairs of the countries of the Socialist Camp.
The opposition he made to the request of the Russians, Enver Hoxha!
Enver Hoxha, in order to protect himself and his collaborators, could not accept the advice given by the senior Soviet leadership, just as he did not accept and opposed this movement with monstrous force, increasing terror and repression, blackmail to the maximum and domestic fraud and international maneuvering. Thus, it is also understandable the courageous attitude of Tuk Jakova, regarding the review of the history of Albania, the KPSH and the ALP that was analyzed in the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the ALP in 1955, which led the wonderful Tuk Jaskova, in the unjust political sentence of 20 years in prison, together with the incomparable brave Bedri Spahiu.
How many other honest and courageous communists, at the Tirana Party Conference in 1956, put the problem of the rehabilitation of Koçi Xoxes and his friends on the discussion table? Yes, there were no discussions, after the Conference there were only arrests. Also, Bedri Spahi’s brilliant attitude in the trial, for this necessary rehabilitation, is also understandable. The rehabilitation of Koci Xoxes, then and now, requires time, because he is, in fact, the “Gordian Knot” of the history of the NPSH, ALP and Albania for so many tiring years.
Political science, historiography, sociology, diplomacy and other different fields of Albanian life are directly related to the right solution of this cancerous legal problem. It is related to the further strengthening of relations between neighboring countries, the increase of trust between them on the basis of new concepts. As in other countries, the issue of rehabilitation became a problem that required a solution here in Albania, but on the contrary, it was rejected under the merciless and savage blows of the new judicial processes of Enver Hoxha’s regime, which would stop at nothing to maintain his personal power.
I want it or not, the disappointed want it or not, the democrats, socialists or militants of any political trend want it or not, the Enverists want it or not, the extremists of yesterday and today want it or not, such problems that are not few left, as a hostage of the past and the present; sooner or later, these problems will be analyzed and we will find the correct legal, moral and civic solution. History will also make this its major task.
Enver Hoxha’s visit to Yugoslavia
I was a member of the government delegation headed by Enver Hoxha, as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Albania in Yugoslavia in 1946. Also, like many other members of the delegation, I was also in the delegation by name and number , as well as Major General Myslim Peza, Colonel Kristo Themelko, Manush Myftiu, Manol Konomi and many other companions, such as; journalists, various specialists, economists, financiers, engineers, personalities of art and culture, historians, pedagogues, etc.
I’ve always felt sick and cringe even today when I remember it, (I’m sorry for the non-journalistic and unethical word I’m using, but I have nothing to do, I can’t find another equivalent word), when they come to my mind the so-called stories, or rather deceptions of Enver Hoxha, about that high-level official visit.
The visit was long in time and with a wide territorial scope, up to Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia, Belgrade, etc. Enver Hoxha did not find time to visit Kosovo, because the detailed plan for the visit to Yugoslavia was prepared months ago in Tirana and Belgrade, and out of servility towards Tito, he did not ask to go to visit his compatriots. So, he sold Kosovo for Tito’s pleasure!
What about a large delegation of Kosovars, why didn’t he ask to meet him in Belgrade or anywhere? Why didn’t the “head of the motherland” send them a big greeting telegram, or was it for fear that it wouldn’t be broadcast on the radio or published in the newspaper? We, the members of the delegation, must have been very impressed by the disregard for Kosovo and the Kosovars, but did anything depend on us?! We were just whispering.
The extent of the lie, the deception and the evil intention to hide everything about that visit from our people are inconceivable and what makes this storyteller very funny in the eyes of the internationals, and especially the neighbors, who followed the progress of the visit with great interest. The pompous receptions and flattery were so great that we, the members of the delegation, were extremely impressed, as if we were visiting the empire of Shahin Shah of Persia.
However, we were inclined to wait for the results of the “grand” visit. When, on the spot, without waiting or remembering, together with Nako Spiru and Hysni Kapo, without the smallest and most formal notification or consultation with specialists and other members of the delegation, even without the prior approval of the Political Bureau and the Council of Ministers, Enver Hoxha, signed all the agreements himself, from the biggest political-legal agreement, that of cooperation and mutual assistance, to the agreement on the customs union, the scandalous monetary parity agreement, the agreement of joint companies, etc.
Tell me, please: what else was missing from this total political and economic vassalage? Nothing! And the slanders, about the so-called 7th Republic of the Yugoslav Federation, are only fictions of Enver Hoxha, because the real architect of these federations (because the structuring of several large Slavic federations was foreseen) was and remained the great Stalin in Moscow.
But the realization of these unbridled fantasies, for the re-composition of the borders of Europe, after all those colossal sacrifices that the anti-fascist world made and spilled an entire ocean of blood, were never allowed by the documents that regulated the construction of the next world World War II such as: the Atlantic Charter and the Yalta Conference Documents, as well as other final acts of ending the War.
So, after the signing of all those official acts in Belgrade, personally by Enver Hoxha, only the signing of the final-formal acts was missing, the announcement of the date of the “fraternal” union of Albania with the Federation of South Slavs. This was the oriental mentality of the vassal of Enver Hoxha. But states, whether small or weak, cannot be swallowed as Stalin said about Albania to Milovan Gjilas.
So, these are the tracks that have constantly “preoccupied” and terrified our beautiful commander, Enver Hoxha, and not the wolf, that is, not the agreements that he himself had prepared and signed with J.B. Titon since 1946, but the chair of the head of the country.
If someone else had made these acts-agreements, he would definitely have called him not only an agent, but a chief agent, a super-agent and a basket full of epithets of this nature, but surely, he would have been annihilated as well physical, as for Enver Hoxha, it was already the most unimportant thing, the most ordinary thing. He learned physical eliminations as early as during the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War, his Balkan soldiers, he had perfect masters.
Enver’s conversations with Tito, about Kosovo’s self-determination
It is shameful that the issue of Kosovo’s self-determination, that dream so cherished with a burning love for the entire Albanian people during LANÇ in mother Albania and in Kosovo, was first raised in the talks by Tito and not Enver Hoxha. This is the truth. Enver Hoxha did not dare to make such a “mistake” in front of Marshal J.B. Tito. Necessarily, Enver Hoxha was prepared in time for the position he took in Belgrade regarding the issue of Kosovo’s right to self-determination, since the time of the Mukje agreement.
But, especially when our divisions shed blood in Kosovo, Montenegro, Sanjak and Bosnia, according to his order as Supreme Commander. It must be said that for the sending of our two divisions, with the motto of internationalist help, there is no special decision of the K.Q. of the Party or the Government, but only a request of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army signed by Tito. As it seems, for Comrade Commander, the sending of the armed forces outside the territories of the state was not an important issue to rise in the Political Bureau of the KPSH or in the Government of the People’s Democratic Republic of Albania.
In this field, the contemporary history of the Albanian nation has a great job of clarifying the attitude of Enver Hoxha, relying among other things on valid and invalid official materials and facts, which he himself left us in ” his “illuminated works”, the secret letter of a Western country, which the Albanian counter-intelligence got hold of in Sofia before the KGB and, like Enver Hoxha, handed it over to the extraordinary and all-powerful Soviet minister in Tirana.
Who was Nesti Kerenxhi?
Nesti Kerenxhi was born in Korça on September 5, 1920, and his family is originally from Vithkuqi, while his father, Pilo Kerenxhi, was a friend of Mihal Grameno and Spiro Bellkameni and, together with them, fought for the country’s independence. He completed his primary, secondary and French high school education in his hometown. It has been associated with the communist movement since 1936-1937, when the Spanish War was taking place. He joined the Communist Group of Korça in June-July 1939. He participated in all the demonstrations of the Communist Group of Korça, against the fascist occupation. Since the establishment of the Communist Party of Albania, he is one of the 200 first communists.
With the creation of the party circular and that of the youth, he was a member of them. In 1942, he was elected political secretary of the Regional Youth Committee. In March 1943, he was one of the 6 delegates of the District of Korça at the First National Conference of the SNP. Then, at the national youth meeting, a member of the KC of RKSH is elected. With the creation of the 4th Assault Brigade, the head of the political sector of the brigade is appointed. With the opening of the courses for the political cadres of the army in Panarit of Korça, he was appointed to be in charge of the first party school. From here he leaves to go as a representative of the General Staff of the Albanian Army near the Yugoslav General Staff and Marshal Tito. In the 2nd plenum of the Central Committee of the SNP, a member of the SNP Central Committee is re-elected.
After liberation, he was assigned to the position of Deputy Director of People’s Protection (State Security), where Koçi Xoxe was the director, with the unification of the Ministry of Interior, Lieutenant General Koçe Xoxe and Colonel Nesti Kerenxhi were appointed ministers. Later, Kerenxhi was appointed Minister of the Interior and member of the Political Bureau. After the First Congress, he and his wife, Naxhije Dume, who was Minister of Education and a member of the KC of the NPSH, were excluded from all government and party functions and the long ordeal of Enverist persecution began. /Memorie.al
