Dashnor Kaloçi
Part thirty-four
Memorie.al/publishes some archival documents extracted from the Central State Archive in Tirana (the fund of the former PPSh Central Committee), which belong to the year 1982, where there is a file with relations, reports, instructions, information, letters, minutes of meetings of the Political Bureau, the Secretariat of the Central Committee, etc., regarding the “hostile activity” of the member of the Political Bureau and the Minister of People’s Defense, Kadri Hazbiu, as well as some of his closest collaborators, such as : Feçor Shehu, Mihallaq Ziçishti, Llambi Peçini, Zoi Themeli, etc., who were accused by Enver Hoxha, as “the main collaborators of the police agent Mehmet Shehu”. In the file in question, there is also a document with Kadri Hazbi’s self-criticism, dated September 27, 1982, sent to Enver Hoxha and the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PPSh, regarding “his poor work at the head of the Ministry of of Internal Affairs and the lack of vigilance, for not detecting hostile groups, all of which the party and Comrade Enver had discovered”. In this document, the former head of the Ministry of the Interior writes: “From the beginning of September, when I was getting my hair cut, a driver who works with the transport lines abroad came to me and told me that, returning from abroad, the drivers they had spoken badly about my fate. I didn’t ask him what he had been told, but I told him to go and report it where it should be. He added in more detail that he had spoken to the companion who stays with me, which I ordered him to report. He told me that he had done this. I don’t know whether I told him about this case or not, friend Hekuran. After a few days when I returned from a 3-4 day service, my family told me for the first time that they are taking us on the phone and so on, in meetings they ask about you, where are you and how are you, because we have heard things not good, as if we have escaped as a family abroad, as if I have been dismissed from my position as Minister of Defense, etc. I told you that anyone who asks about us, you say we are fine and don’t engage in further conversation. I emphasize that these things have spread so much that even one of the workers who serves in my family left without expecting that something is happening with me and my family. All these things, I told my friend Ramiz, together with my opinion that there is not enough fight against these harmful slogans and that they are spreading from Tirana in the first place”. Likewise, the document in question also contains the minutes of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PPSh, held on October 8, 1982, where the “hostile activity of Kadri Hazbi” from the period after the war when he was in the position of Chief of Army Security, which has brought fierce debates, they all discussed, starting from: Adil Çarçani, Hekuran Isai, Simon Stefani, Manush Muftiu, Rita Marko, Prokop Murra, Photo Çami, Lenka Çuko, Pali Miska, Besnik Bekteshi, Muho Asllani and Llambi Gegprifti. Even the debates and strong tones in that meeting were not absent between Enver Hoxha and Kadri Hazbiu, which continued throughout the meeting, for several sessions. But for more about these, we know the document, which is published for the first time by Memorie.al
Continues from last issue
The document with the minutes of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PPSh, held on October 8, 1982, where the “hostile activity” of Kadri Hazbi was analyzed
ALBANIAN LABOR PARTY TOP SECRET
CENTRAL COMMITTEE
RECORDS
OF THE MEETING OF THE POLITICAL BUREAU OF THE PPS CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON OCTOBER 8, 1982
Agenda:
- Discussion on the serious words of friend Kadri Hazbiu
- Approval of the report on transport to the plenum
All members of the Political Bureau are present at the meeting.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MEETING
The meeting was opened and led by the first secretary of the Central Committee of the PPS, Comrade Enver Hoxha.
Discussion on the serious crimes of comrade Kadri Hazbiu.
COMRADE LLAMBI GEGPRIFTI: You know very well that you have not implemented this elementary norm, and this was done on purpose and not without conscience as you say. Let’s leave this period, and jump to 1973 and beyond. How do you explain your silent attitude at the Politburo meeting, when we were discussing the draft decisions on the appointments of important cadres with functions in the army and in the Ministry of People’s Defense that, as we learned in the materials that were made available to us in the Central Committee, many of them were collaborators connected with the Soviet agency until 1960?!
How could the Political Bureau approve these people in important functions of the army?! The Political Bureau would never have approved Kristaq Qarri, Director of the Operational Directorate of the Ministry of People’s Defense, if it knew that he, during the period of his studies in the Soviet Union, maintained regular ties as a collaborator with the local security agencies. The Political Bureau approved this person as well as many others such as M.T. and Sh.M. etc., because you, Kadri, kept a silent attitude.
Why did you, who knew these people well, not disclose the connections of these cadres to the Political Bureau?! You know this yourself?! In my opinion, this in itself constitutes an unforgivable mistake on your part. You said here that you can’t remember the whole agency. We accept what you say, although we are talking about important cadres of the army. When you sent Comrade Hysni their list, how did you not remember to tell the Political Bureau to remove them?!
Kristaq Qarri, started working as Director of the Operational Directorate in the Ministry of National Defense and worked in this function for several years and became familiar with the country’s operational defense plan, which is one of the biggest state secrets. Later, when the list of these collaborators appeared on the scene, and we do not understand how it came out, Kristaq Qarri was dismissed from this position in the Political Bureau with the motivation “that he is sick and is not able to cope with the volume of work that this directorate has ” and he was appointed again as Chief of Staff of the Elbasan Group, this large unit of our army which has very specific tasks for the defense of our homeland.
When he was dismissed from the Political Bureau, you did not know the fact that Kristaq Qarri was a collaborator of the Soviets, although he occupied another very important post. Even more flagrant is the appointment of M.T. who, from the Political Bureau, was appointed Commander of the Military Academy named after the notorious bandit, Mehmet Shehu. For this, as it appears from the correspondence of Comrade Hysni, with the enemy Mehmet Shehu, before his appointment, Comrade Kadri, there was information that he was still in contact with the Soviet agency and that he had sent them the black material of Beqir Balluk.
How and why did you, Kadri, not inform the Political Bureau about these important facts?! And here is the word behind the smashing of Beqir Balluk’s coup group. This is not clear to us and it is completely dark, therefore we are asking you for clarifications which you are not giving us here. Why do you, friend Kadri, avoid this important issue and do not mention it at all in your self-criticism, although you have read the materials, just like us?! Don’t you feel that for these appointments made by the Political Bureau, you have a high responsibility?!
You say that: “the official relations of our Ministry of the Interior with other countries have been entirely without written agreements, and without well-defined boundaries, and have been entirely one-sided.” So you wanted to have written documents for these agreements and well-defined boundaries. You had this claim from the Party and from the Central Committee. But at least, the issue that every agreement, with foreign countries in every aspect that they are established, has as a sole basis the political and ideological line of the Party, and I believe that you know this very well.
As a communist and even more so as a member of the Politburo, there is no way you could not know the political line of our Party, its determined Marxist-Leninist attitude towards the Soviet revisionist leadership which came into power immediately after the death of Stalin and with which our Party has never agreed. Comrade Enver and our Party have had to open fire and wage a life-or-death struggle with these sworn enemies of socialism. And this glorious and saving war for our country is well reflected in the documents of the Party and in the works of Comrade Enver.
This war started in 1953. When you read these works, you can’t help but be indignant with the attitude that you, Kadri, have taken towards the Soviet Security organs and other former socialist countries. What other written document were you looking for, before that great document that you and others had which is the Marxist-Leninist political and ideological platform of our Party?! Wasn’t this platform enough for you to build official relations between our Ministry of the Interior and its Soviet counterpart, as well as with the Security of other former socialist countries?!
Why didn’t you do this and who did they expect to do it?! It is precisely this political and ideological platform of our Party that destroyed and uprooted the course of the Khrushchev revisionists, which constitutes in itself that great and powerful ideological potential, before which all the plans and conspiracies of our enemies have been and will be destroyed internal and external. Why did you not rely on this platform to build the agreements of our Ministry of Interior with the Soviet one?!
Comrade Enver’s work “Synoptic Table on the Hostile Activity of the Enemy Mehmet Shehu” was studied by all communists with special attention, they unanimously approved it, and with deep indignation, they condemned all the enemies led by agent Mehmet Shehu. The Political Bureau and Comrade Enver have criticized the enemy Mehmet Shehu several times for flagrant violation of the Party’s norms and for providing secret information to the KGB without the Party’s knowledge. This criticism was made to this enemy when he was Minister of Internal Affairs, before 1953, when you were also his Deputy Minister.
It is already clear what conclusions and lessons you have drawn from this criticism. Even then, in 1954 when you became a minister, you continued to deepen the mistakes and faults for which you were harshly criticized by the Political Bureau. So the drum, as the people say, has fallen on deaf ears. This burdens you, Comrade Kadri, with a very heavy responsibility. You say that Comrade Enver helped me with the “Synoptic Table for the Agent Activity of the Enemy Mehmet Shehu”, but in fact you have not used this work of Comrade Enver at all, to deepen your self-criticism and to analyze the faults and mistakes that you did
And you do this not because you are unable to benefit from it, but rather because you do not want to tell the Party the truth about your mistakes, but try to hide them. You get as far as to say that Comrade Enver ordered you there since 1960 to turn off the faucet to the Soviet advisers. We find it difficult to understand how Comrade Enver could have told you to leave the faucet open to the Soviets until this time?! Who believes this? This is an attempt and slander on your part to cover your responsibility to the Party. “Ultimately, I think, – as you say, – that the relations with other countries were not treated on the basis of equality, that in this way our interests were damaged, and the secrets in the Ministry of Internal Affairs were endangered”.
The conclusion is correct. But the responsibility does not arise at all, on the unfair construction of these relations. The responsibility for exposing these secrets of the Ministry of the Interior to the KGB and other revelations of the People’s Democracies falls on you. As for your sick familiarity with your enemies Mehmet Shehu, Feçor Shehu, Llambi Peçini, Gani Kodra, etc., we understand well but you, in your self-criticism, do not mention this familiarity at all. In the government, you have always been the most privileged minister of the enemy, Mehmet Shehu.
Your word was law in the government, and you cried out to your enemy Mehmet Shehu, saying: “What should poor Mehmet do, he is very worried, tired, and worried”. While he, has constantly played theater with us, leaving us with the impression that he was a worried and worried man about the progress of affairs. I remember that in the meeting that Comrade Enver had with the leaders of the two departments, MMP and MIA, when he communicated your appointment as Minister of People’s
Defense, among others he gave you a piece of advice that in your new position, not to leave the impression that you were going to the army as a State Security man.
As I understood the word here, it is about the method of your work in this department. You can tell us how much you have kept this word, but I believe that you have not respected this as well. I don’t remember any occasion that when you called us to your office and nailed us every day about different problems, you always talked on the phone with the enemy Feçor Shehu. This actually impressed us all. In the ministry, you dealt with insignificant secondary problems and used the same working methods that you practiced in the Ministry of the Interior. You, even in the Ministry of People’s Defense, did not maintain the same and objective position with the cadres, even among the deputy ministers you made many differences.
For example, it was obvious to everyone that in many cases, not to say in all cases, you supported Veli Llakaj, against any criticism when it was made by his friends. You know why you did this. Regarding the mistake made in Peza, I say that it is also not something of chance, but completely an expression of arrogance and an excessive underestimation of the friend. Shows of arrogance, you have given in many government meetings. “Don’t stick your tongue out”, you once told your friend Nedin Hoxha.
“Sit down, but your legs will get tired”, you told me at the meeting of the Collegium of the Ministry of People’s Defense, where due to the frequent and unfair interventions you made me, I sat down because I found it useless to discuss with you . And here was the word that during the discussion, I raised some issues for the Chief of the General Staff. Regarding the investigation of the putschists, you emphasize that “you worked day and night for their investigation, even going to the investigator yourself.” We have a hard time believing this statement now that we have new facts in hand.
If we accept for a moment that you worked day and night with these enemies, then we ask the question: “Who bears the main responsibility for the creation of the vicious circle, within which only those enemy persons who have interested the enemies, Mehmet Shehu and Feçor Shehu?! How is it possible that their language was limited by saying: “What more do you want from us, we have given you everything and with that our heads are cut off”. This seems surprising to us.
That all the putschists and saboteurs in the investigation used the same expressions?! Logic says that when the enemy manages to say “and this much we have given you is enough, to cut off our heads”, it means that he has reserves and that he has more to show.
Therefore, we have the right to hold you accountable for why you did not insist that they be completely dismembered to reveal everything they were hiding, and then beheaded?! However, I ask the questions: Didn’t they say something more than what the Party knows today?! Didn’t they talk about other people who today are in various functions of the army and who hid from the MIA?! Memorie.al
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