Today is the 100th anniversary of Enver Hoxha’s birth

Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Party of Labor of Albania, was born October 16, 1908. He helped build the PLA, then called the Communist Party of Albania, and led the national liberation war against the Italian and German occupiers during WWII and the bourgeois government of King Zog. Albania was a poorly developed country before the war, and was damaged further by the struggle, but Hoxha and the PLA built socialism, industrialized the country, and raised the standard of living, all while facing threats from expansionist neighbors, imperialism, and modern revisionism. I am still learning about Albania, but just looking at its foreign policy under Hoxha's leadership one can see what interests Hoxha and his party served. Their defense of Albania's sovereignty and revolutionary Marxism-Leninism against all opponents are reasons enough to admire Hoxha and consider revolutionary Albania an influential player in modern history despite its small size.

Near the end of his life, Hoxha wrote several books on his experiences and the world situation, to combat the anti-revolutionary ideas and actions of the leaders of Yugoslavia, the USSR, China, parties such as the Eurocommunists of France, Italy, Spain, and the Communist Party of the USA, which has long had a similar anti-revolutionary line. You can check out these books at the academic libraries of UNC and Duke, or at the links below.

Yugoslav "self-administration:" A capitalist theory and practice, published in 1978, is a short book analyzing Yugoslavia's supposedly socialist system of "self-administration," especially as portrayed in a book by a Yugoslav leader, Kardelj, that was published at the time. Hoxha showed that the Yugoslav system at the time was capitalism, disguised with elements of anarchism and liberalism, and was dependent on, and a tool of, imperialism, both West and East. This Titoist system has now been abandoned in what is left of Yugoslavia, but many people still argue for similar ideas.

Imperialism and the Revolution (see www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/toc.htm), also published in 1978, showed that imperialism and social imperialism (supposedly socialist, but really imperialist countries - the USSR after Stalin's death, and China, especially after Mao's death in 1976) is as vicious as ever, and Hoxha defended the necessity of revolution to defend against imperialist control and defeat capitalism at home. Hoxha also goes into the case against Yugoslav, Soviet, and especially Chinese revisionism, principally led by Tito, Khrushchev and his successors, and Mao and his successors.

The two volumes of Reflections on China: Extracts from the Political Diary give a week by week view of Albania's relations with China, from the early 60's to the late 70's, when Albania came out openly in opposition to the Communist Party of China. In the beginning Hoxha thought Mao and his party were allies in the struggle against the policies of Khrushchev, though the Mao made some suspicious statements. As the years went by Hoxha realized that the Chinese communist leadership was actually for capitalism and wanted to ally with the USA as a way to become a social imperialist superpower. Mao, a bourgeois democrat using a communist phrases, was progressive for leading the Chinese revolution and he helped Albania, but his successors went further towards the right and interfered in Albanian affairs and opposed revolution worldwide, as allies of the West. China even supported Pinochet in Chile and Mobutu in what was then Zaire.

Also that year, in With Stalin: Memoirs (see www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/stalin/intro.htm), Hoxha described his meetings with Stalin and the support that the USSR gave to Albania under Stalin's revolutionary leadership. He also talked about the Soviet, Albanian, and Yugoslav relationships to the Greek civil war, between the communists and capitalist forces, supported by the UK and USA. If I remember correctly, after Greece was liberated from the fascist occupation, the Greek communists had trusted the British imperialists and disarmed, and then were attacked.

The next year, The Khrushchevites: Memoirs was published, describing Albania's dealings with Khrushchev. After the death of Stalin in 1953, which I think Hoxha believed was an assassination, Hoxha gave the new Soviet leadership the benefit of the doubt, despite their first anti-Stalin and revisionist statements. Later they came out openly against socialism and Albania had to decide how to respond, since they received a lot of aid from the Soviets and had Soviet advisors and soldiers in their country, as well as Soviet agents in the PLA. Hoxha also describes how revisionists came to power in most of the rest of the socialist bloc at the same time.

Also in 1980, Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism (see www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/euroco/env2-1.htm), came out. In this book, Hoxha analyzed the totally revisionist and capitalist views of the Eurocommunists, mainly the Communist Party of Italy, Communist Party of France, and Communist Party of Spain. He also mentioned the foreshadowing role of Earl Browder, general secretary of the CPUSA during World War II, who went so far as to dissolve the party and create a non-Marxist-Leninist educational association, which sounds to me like the role assigned to Tito's League of Communists in Yugoslavia. It is hard to believe, but Browder even said that American capitalism no longer had class contradictions and that there should be only two parties!

In 1982 The Titoites: Historical Notes (see www.marx2mao.com/Other/TT82NB.html) described the PLA's relationship to Tito's Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The PLA's first major international contact was with the CPY, and only a while after WWII did it have regular relations with the USSR. The Titoists claim that they created the PLA, but Hoxha refuted this. They tried to annex Albania (along with [Bulgaria]), but Albania broke free, though Yugoslav agents almost captured control of the PLA. Hoxha also described Yugoslav repression of the Albanians in Kosova, which Tito had agreed would be free to decide their fate after the Balkans were liberated from the fascists.

Enver Hoxha wrote several other books before he died, April 11, 1985, but I have not gotten to those yet. The Artful Albanian, a 1986 book by a British author, provides excerpts from several of Hoxha's works, as well as commentary, though not from a communist perspective. Hoxha's words are very relevant today, when looking at the events in the Balkans, Iraq, China, and the decline of the remaining revisionist parties and countries. As Hoxha said, the working class must understand and combat anti-revolutionary, pro-imperialist revisionism in all its forms to win the struggle for freedom from capitalist tyranny and exploitation.