Dashnor Kaloçi
Memorie.al The letter that we are publishing in this part of the book and that is authored by Sadik Premten, we think is one of the documents of great interest, because it best shows the political stance and position he had taken towards the communist regime in Albania and its main leadership headed by Enver Hoxha.
The document in question, belongs to April 12, 1956, and through it is made known and published the first letter that Sadik Premtja, from exile in the French capital Paris, sends to the Politburo and the Central Committee of the Labor Party of Albania, in connection with the unexpected and extraordinary developments that had taken place about two months earlier, at the XX-th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Or otherwise known as the Congress that led to the eventual separation from Stalinist methods, the Soviet Union and part of other communist countries of the East. Surprisingly, the period of drafting this letter coincides with the beginning of another “XX Congress”, or more precisely in the spirit of this congress, but this time in that of the Tirana District Party Conference, where for a week in a row Enver Hoxha himself, along with other senior exponents of the Politburo, would face a series of accusations by some ordinary members of the Albanian Labor Party over crimes and repression that had taken place in Albania from 1944 until in those days that conference was held. Also, in this Conference, the luxurious way and expensive living of the members of the government, compared to other members of the ALP and ordinary people across the country, would be severely criticized. This is where the drafting of this letter by Sadik Premte originated, who at that time, influenced by the reforms and the great liberalization movements in the Eastern countries, rightly hoped that such a thing would be done in Albania by Enver Hoxha. Friday in this letter, asks the members of the Central Committee of the ALP and those of the Politburo, to immediately begin the process of rehabilitation of all senior communist hierarchs executed or convicted by Hoxha from 1945 to 1956, as Koci Xoxe, Sejfulla Malëshova, Kristo Themelko, Pandi Kristo, etc., to his former close friends of the founding meeting of the Communist Party of Albania, of the Communist Circle of Vlora, such as: Anastas Lula, Neki Ymeri, and Xhemil Çakërri, in the same way as other Central and Eastern European countries were doing. Perhaps in this way, he hoped that the communist regime of Albania and his own personal opponent, Enver Hoxha, who had hitherto incited the two failed assassination attempts on him, could forgive him and amnesty his return to Albania, once and for all. But unfortunately, this would not happen at all, because as it is already known, the Tirana Party Conference failed, as Enver Hoxha personally attacked all the “rebels” of that meeting, arresting some even demonstratively, that on the premises of the hall. Thus, about 50 people, most of them well-known names of communist officials for the city of Tirana, such as Iljaz Ahmeti, Pajo Islamaj, Vehip Demi, Hulusi Spahiu, Pëllumb Vinçani, Taho Sejko, etc., were dismissed from their positions, arrested, imprisoned, or were interned, where even some of them, how would they be physically eliminated later in quite mysterious circumstances. This would be the clearest “message” that Enver Hoxha would reserve to the opposition in any form in Albania, but also abroad, in the case of the Albanian anti-communist political emigration in Europe and in the World. The last chance of a kind of liberalism in Albania, which came as a consequence and in the spirit of striking at the cult of Stalin and the somewhat liberalizing views of Nikita Khrushchev and his supporters in the leadership of official Moscow and even more so the rehabilitation and return of Sadik Friday and others in Albania, it was practically over.
Central Committee of the Albanian Labor Party
Friendships
The events that marked the 20th Congress of the USSR KP and the repercussions that this congress had on other communist parties in the world force, as in my opinion, to reconsider some things that have to do with the life of the Party and the history of the Albanian communist movement. After the rehabilitation of Rajk in Hungary and Kostov in Bulgaria, it is not too late for Koçi Xoxe and Kristo Themelko to be rehabilitated. Pandi Kristo, Sejfulla Malëshova, etc., accused of “titism” and some of whom were executed criminally. It must be admitted that such acts were in fact the result of the Party’s closer submission to directives coming from the Kremlin led by Stalin. It must be admitted that the life of the Party throughout the past has not been free and that its development has not been primarily based on the interests of the Albanian masses but on those of the Kremlin that has always taken place under the arbitrary and tyrannical yoke of Stalin. But with a Party like ours that has had neither long traditions nor sufficient ideological preparation to resist the evil intentions of such a direction given by the Kremlin, this fact has made it bastardized and ugly. the whole life of the Party. For me there is no doubt that from the Stalinist experience already subjected to a critique that is just coming and becoming stronger, it is imperative that the history of our Party and the guilt and crimes committed against many sincere and determined militants for the cause of socialism to be revised. In this way the events that marked the formation of the Party groups that contributed to this formation and the first struggle between different points of view will have a different judgment and a completely different explanation from the one given in the past based on very different criteria. limited and utterly false and slanderous. All those who have been accused as Trotskyists, fascist agents, etc., and as such have been expelled from the Party and even executed as: Anastas Lulo, Neki Ymeri, Xhemil Çakërri, etc., were in fact fighters determined in the cause of the Revolution and Socialism in Albania, for which their rehabilitation is necessary. These militants are among the pioneers of socialism in Albania and the formation of the Albanian Communist Party. They have all had an exemplary revolutionary life and the proletariat will sooner or later honor their memory. Based on the view that agrees with the real interests of the Albanian communist movement and the regime established after the previous feudal-bourgeois system, my personal role in the Albanian communist movement must and will be re-evaluated. The accusations leveled against me both inside and outside the country are nothing but the result of a bureaucratic and police conception of the inner life of divergences within the labor movement that is more mechanically and bureaucratically rooted in Stalin’s brutal criminal methods. You know very well that all the accusations and slanders with all the assassination attempt against me in Paris on May 6, 1951, I have not ceased for a moment to defend the ideas of Communism, and of the Revolution, and to be for the unconditional defense of the current social regime of Albania against the Albanian reaction and imperialism. I have stated my position in the clearest way in a letter I sent to the Albanian Legation in Paris in 1953, a copy of which I am attaching. It is still time before the development of events to impose the history of the Party to rehabilitate the memory of those who have been victims of methods that have nothing to do with the labor movement to establish a true democracy in the Party and throughout the country without which the progress of Socialism is inconceivable. It is time to recognize the legitimacy as well as the ideological tendencies within the Party and the labor movement of the country. The events that marked the 20th Congress of the USSR KP and their repercussions on the Communist Party make mandatory a self-criticism that should inspire a Leninist faith. The proof will be given not only by the way you will re-evaluate the facts of the last life of the Party such as the case of Koçi Xoxe, but also by the way you will re-evaluate the whole history of the Party since the formation of her. Another test of equal importance will be the establishment of a truly democratic regime in the Party and throughout the country, one that can inspire confidence in the popular masses.
Long live Proletarian Democracy, Long live the democratic power of the Albanian workers and peasants.
Internationalist greetings
Sadik Premte (Pocket)
Member of the Albanian Section of the Fourth International./Memorie.al
