Area Handbook for Albania Part 14

Party Operations

A fundamental factor in the Party's exercise of political power and control is the selection of candidates for all elected positions.

Although the candidates for such elective organs as the People's a.s.sembly, the people's courts, and the people's councils at all levels are formally nominated by the meetings of ma.s.s organizations or of workers and peasants, they have been, in fact, handpicked by the local Party organizations and approved by the Party Central Committee.

The procedure at all nominating meetings is standard and simple: a list of candidates, previously prepared by the Party district or city committee, is read; the qualifications of each candidate are described; and the list is unanimously approved. Since the first national and local elections held in 1945 in which the list of candidates included non-Party people, lists have been restricted to Party members only.

Veterans of Hoxha's partisan forces of the so-called War of National Liberation still predominate among candidates for office.

A similar situation prevails with regard to the appointment of government officials. After each national election, the People's a.s.sembly has appointed a new government. The procedure for this appointment has never varied: at the first meeting of the new People's a.s.sembly the Party First Secretary has submitted for approval the list of the new ministers, which invariably has received unanimous approval.

Because of purges in the top echelons of the Party, especially in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the government list has undergone several changes. Since the elimination of the pro-Yugoslav faction in 1948, however, these changes have affected mostly the technical and economic ministries. The three key posts in the government, however--namely, those of prime minister, minister of the interior, and minister of defense--have been consistently held by Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu or their trusted lieutenants.

The appointment of all government officials as well as the managers of the state economic enterprises rested formally with the agencies involved, but no official has been appointed without the prior approval of the appropriate Party organization. In reality, all key positions are held by Party cadres who have been selected and appointed by the Party district or city committees. The Party statute empowers the basic Party organizations in all governmental organs and economic enterprises to check and guide the activities of all officials and to see that they are properly oriented in the political and ideological fields. The prime requisite in filling these positions is Party loyalty.

Party Schools

In 1970 the Party operated a number of schools and courses for its cadres as well as three research and study inst.i.tutes, attached to the Central Committee. The highest school was the V.I. Lenin Inst.i.tute, headed by Fiqrete Shehu, wife of the prime minister. It was attended by the higher and more promising Party members.

The three Party inst.i.tutes were the Inst.i.tute of Marxist-Leninist Studies, headed by Nexhmije Hoxha, wife of Enver Hoxha; the Inst.i.tute of Party History, headed by Ndreci Plasari, who was also editor in chief of the Party's theoretical monthly, _Rruga e Partise_ (Party Path); and the Inst.i.tute for Economic Studies, under the direction of Myqerem Fuga. In addition, there were a number of secondary Party schools for training low-level Party functionaries and one-year schools for refresher ideological courses, attended both by Party officials and leaders of ma.s.s organizations.

The Party also operated intermittently, as the need arose, political courses and study groups for its activists and propagandists. In 1969, for example, more than 20,000 study centers were organized throughout the country for the study of the official, newly published _History of the Workers' Party of Albania_. The teaching program of all the Party schools and study centers included such topics as the importance of Communist education; the origins and development of Communist morality; socialist att.i.tudes toward work and property; the importance of patriotic education; the history, theories, and tactics of the international Communist movement; and the history and statutes of the Party.

Ma.s.s Organizations

In its exercise of power and control over every phase of the people's lives, the Party also utilizes several ma.s.s, or social, organizations, the most important of which are the Democratic Front, the Union of Albanian Working Youth, the Union of Albanian Women, and the United Trade Unions of Albania. In a speech at the Fourth Congress of the Democratic Front held in September 1967, Enver Hoxha said that the ma.s.s organizations, as components of the system of the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat were "levers of the Party for its ties with the ma.s.ses" and that they carried out their political, executive, and organizational work in such a way as to enable the Party directives to be correctly understood and implemented by all segments of the population.

Party Secretary Hysni Kapo, in a speech delivered at a Party seminar in January 1970, declared that the Party carried out its mission through its own organizations and through the activities of its "levers, the ma.s.s organizations, such as the trade unions, youth, Democratic Front, women's, and the people's councils," thus revealing that even the people's councils were mere Party levers. By relying on these powerful levers, Kapo added, the Party guaranteed its links with the ma.s.ses and obtained their support for its policies. He remarked further that, although there were not Communists in every family in the country, everyone in the family belonged to some kind of organization.

The Party has set the implementation of its line as a general primary goal for all ma.s.s organizations. Considered as powerful Party levers, they are required to convey the Party line to the people and to bring to the Party the people's att.i.tudes and grievances. As Party instruments they must mobilize, organize, and orient the people during the process of the building of socialism. The ma.s.s organizations also a.s.sist the Party in its control over the administration and management of state enterprises and initiate new actions and new movements in all work centers.

The Party places particular importance on the Union of Albanian Working Youth, described officially in such terms as the "greatest revolutionary force of inexhaustible strength," a "strong fighting reserve of the Party," and a "vital force of our revolution." According to the Party statute, the union operates directly under the guidance of the Party, and the union's local organizations are guided and checked by the appropriate district or city Party committees. Organized in the same way as the Party, the union has parallel basic organizations, district and city committees, a Central Committee, a Politburo, and a Central Control and Auditing Commission. In 1967 official reports credited the youth organization with 210,000 members, ranging in age from fifteen to twenty-five and, in a few cases, even older.

The main function of the union is to select and prepare future Party members. It is also required by the Party to control all Pioneer organizations, which embrace all children from seven to fourteen years of age; to see to it that all Party directives and policies are implemented by the country's youth, especially in schools and in military units; and to mobilize the youth into so-called voluntary labor brigades to work on production projects. The Party often gives the union special storm trooper or Red Guard types of missions to perform. For example, in February 1967 Enver Hoxha a.s.signed to the organization the mission of shutting down all places of wors.h.i.+p in the country; within a period of a few months, the union had accomplished its mission.

The Democratic Front, successor to the National Liberation Front, was defined by Enver Hoxha, who has headed it since 1945 and was still its president in 1970, as the greatest political revolutionary organization of the Albanian people and as a powerful weapon of the Party for the political union of the people. In 1970 the Democratic Front continued to be a key element in the Party's control mechanism. Considered officially as the broadest ma.s.s organization, it was supposed to give expression to the political views of the entire population and to serve as a school for ma.s.s political education.

The tasks and objectives of the Democratic Front, as set forth in its statute and as constantly reiterated by Party leaders, include the strengthening of political unity among the people and the mobilizing of the people for the implementation of Party policies. The spreading of the Marxist-Leninist ideology is also a task of the front, as is the purging of any att.i.tudes that are considered backward and reactionary.

In essence, the front is an instrument of the Party, expressly designed for the political control of the entire population. Enver Hoxha declared in a speech to the Fourth Congress of the Democratic Front in 1967 that all citizens over age eighteen were members of the front, including Party members and members of all other ma.s.s organizations.

The Union of Albanian Women is also referred to as a powerful weapon of the Party. The union, headed in 1970 by Vito Kapo, wife of Secretary of the Party Central Committee Hysni Kapo, controls and supervises the political and social activities of the country's women, handles their ideological training, and spearheads the Party's campaign for the emanc.i.p.ation of women. The campaign was launched by Hoxha in June 1967 and renewed in October 1969 in a Hoxha speech to the Party Central Committee.

The Union of Albanian Women, according to reports by visitors has a good record of a.s.sistance to the Party in making legal, economic, and social equality for women a reality. By 1970 women shared responsibility in the government at all levels, had entered all the professions, and worked side by side with men for equal pay in most occupations.

By 1967 the union was able to boast that more than 284,000 women took part in production in some way, mostly in industrial plants and agricultural collectives. In the same year there were about 40 women, out of a total of 240 deputies, in the People's a.s.sembly; 1,878 women in the people's councils; and 1,170 in the people's courts.

Since 1967 task forces of women from the cities have been dispatched to tour backward regions, particularly the highlands, explaining the Party's line on the emanc.i.p.ation of Albanian women. Reforms such as giving women equal rights to inherit property, an equal voice in the people's councils, and equal political rights, however, have created considerable hostility in a country where man has traditionally been the master of the family.

The tasks of the United Trade Unions are similar to those of the Democratic Front, albeit on a more limited scale. During ceremonies in February 1970 marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the trade unions, it was stated that they were created by the Party, that they had since struggled to implement the Party line, and that they recognized the Party leaders.h.i.+p as the "decisive factor of their force and vitality." It was stated further that they were created jointly with the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat for its consolidation and defense and as an important component part of this dictators.h.i.+p.

In a conference in Tirana on February 10, 1970, Gogo Nus.h.i.+, then president of the trade unions, boasted that they had become powerful levers of the Party in implementing the Party line among all the country's workers, who had grown from some 30,000 in February 1945 to about 400,000 in February 1970. At the same conference Politburo member Adil Carcani, in a speech dealing with the functions of the trade unions, attributed to them the task of exercising control over all workers.

Other duties and responsibilities of the trade unions in 1970, according to Tonin Jakova, General Secretary of the General Council of the United Trade Unions of Albania, were to carry out the political and ideological education of the workers; to influence all the other strata of the population so that the cla.s.s ideology should gradually become the sole ideology of the society; to broaden their control and sphere of action in all fields of life--political, ideological, cultural, artistic, social, economic, and educational; to increase labor productivity by increasing work norms; and to struggle against old traditions and backward customs, with emphasis on religious beliefs. In listing the duties and responsibilities of the trade unions not a word was said about their safeguarding the interests of the workers, such as improving their living and bargaining with the management.

Organizationally, the United Trade Unions of Albania was composed in 1970 of three general unions--the Trade Union of Workers of Industry and Construction, consisting of workers in industry, mines, construction, and transportation; the Trade Union of Workers of Education and Trade, made up of the workers in the state administration, trade, health, education, and culture; and the Trade Union of Workers of Agriculture and Procurements, composed of workers in agriculture, forestry, and procurements. Over 2,000 individual trade union organizations existed in enterprises, factories, plants, offices, schools, and other work centers and cultural and social inst.i.tutions.

In the exercise of political power through the Party, the ma.s.s organizations, the state organs, and the security and armed forces, the Tirana rulers have consistently followed Stalinist methods of rule. In major policy speeches these rulers have in recent years often praised Stalin's political system and have consistently attempted to emulate it in Albania. As _Zeri i Popullit_ (Voice of the People) phrased it on April 13, 1963, "without reinstating Stalin and his work, [throughout the Communist world] our revolutionary movement and the cause of Marxism-Leninism can make no headway."

FOREIGN RELATIONS

After centuries of foreign domination, Albania in 1912 was ill prepared for independence, and the chaos brought by the Balkan wars and by World War I allowed little opportunity for the development of statehood. One of its first moves in foreign relations was to secure support for its independence from some of the great powers of Europe. In the years between World War I and World War II, Albanian foreign policy was dominated by the Italians.

In the years immediately after World War II, Albania was a satellite of Yugoslavia, which in turn was a satellite of the Soviet Union. This situation deprived Albania of any initiative in foreign affairs, and it remained out of the mainstream of Eastern European affairs until 1948, when ties with Yugoslavia were broken and Albania became a full-fledged satellite of the Soviet Union. Albania's position vis-a-vis the other satellite countries was improved when it came under the direct tutelage of the Soviet Union; it then became the recipient of economic aid, military a.s.sistance, and military and economic advisers, not only from its powerful sponsor but also from the other Communist nations. In time it also became a member of the Warsaw Pact and the Council for Economic Mutual a.s.sistance.

Soviet influence in Albanian affairs was pervasive from 1948 to 1960 but, from a material point of view, Albania benefited from the relations.h.i.+p. The Soviets canceled a large debt and sent aid and advisers to help develop the backward Albania economy. Internally, the ruling elite, headed by Enver Hoxha, maintained a rigid regime of the Stalinist type. In foreign affairs the country became a cold war partic.i.p.ant completely accepting directions from Moscow.

Its thirteen years as a Soviet satellite were years of turmoil for Albania, particularly after the death of Joseph Stalin and the rise of Nikita Khrushchev to the Soviet leaders.h.i.+p. Khrushchev's policy of seeking a rapprochement with Yugoslavia worried both Hoxha, the Party leader, and Shehu, the premier, because of the difficulties they had encountered in purging their Party of a strong pro-Yugoslav faction while in the process of securing their own positions of power. In the Albanian view Stalin had been a great hero, and t.i.to of Yugoslavia, a great villain. Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin and wooing of t.i.to brought consternation to Tirana, but reliance on Soviet aid apparently tempered Albanian reactions.

During the 1950s the Albanian leaders.h.i.+p, coaxed by Moscow, made some attempts at restoring normal relations with Yugoslavia. After the riots in Poland and the revolt in Hungary in 1956, however, the Albanians raised strident voices against Yugoslavia's so-called revisionism--that is the alleged perversion of Marxism-Leninism--which they a.s.serted was the basis for the troubles afflicting Eastern Europe. According to official Albanian dogma the two greatest evils in the world were revisionism and imperialism, personified, respectively, by Yugoslavia and the United States. Toward the end of the 1950s it became apparent to Hoxha and Shehu that they were closer ideologically to Peking than to Moscow, and only the latter's economic aid prevented an open break.

In 1960, as Khrushchev sought to line up Communist parties for a condemnation of Communist China, Albania refused to partic.i.p.ate and, by the end of the year, the Soviet-Albanian dispute was made known openly.

By the end of 1961 diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed, Soviet aid ceased, and Soviet advisers and technicians left Albania, to be replaced by those of Communist China. Although not formally breaking off diplomatic relations, the other Eastern European Communist countries also halted aid programs and withdrew advisers.

Khrushchev then became the object of violent attacks in the Albanian press, being castigated as more of a revisionist than t.i.to. Khrushchev counterattacked to defend himself but, in addition, used Albania as a proxy for violent propaganda blasts that were obviously directed against the Chinese Communists.

After the final break with the Soviet Union, Albania entered the third stage of its Communist existence--the alliance with Communist China.

Stages one and two had been as a satellite, first of Yugoslavia and then of the Soviet Union. In stage three, if not a satellite, it was a client of a powerful sponsor. Albania, throughout the 1960s and into 1970, continued to require the economic support of an outside power. Communist China has provided that support, though apparently on a much reduced scale.

In return for Chinese support the Albanians accept the Chinese view of world affairs and speak for their sponsor in Eastern Europe and in the United Nations. Albania successfully defied Moscow, but its internal and international positions remained weak. In 1968 Hoxha withdrew his country from the Warsaw Pact in protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia, but this was primarily a symbolic move because Albania had not partic.i.p.ated in Warsaw Pact affairs since 1961.

By 1970 Albania was attempting to normalize relations with its Balkan neighbors, but its main propaganda thrusts continued to be against revisionism and imperialism. Overtures toward both Greece and Yugoslavia were made in 1970, which may indicate that the Hoxha regime recognized the futility and danger of an isolationist policy. Official att.i.tudes toward the Soviet Union remained as they had been for ten years--strident and abusive--but better relations were being sought among Eastern European nations as well as with some non-Communist states. Seemingly the regime recognized that Communist China was a distant ally, that the Chinese could not support the Albanian economy, and that, if Albania was to remain a viable national ent.i.ty, it would have to relate to its European neighbors and, in effect, become a part of Europe.

CHAPTER 7

COMMUNICATIONS AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Information channels in 1970 were relatively well developed compared with those of the pre-World War II period. The press was the most advanced, although by 1970 a substantial radio network existed.

Throughout the 1960s there was only a single experimental television transmitter, at the end of 1969, however, the government reportedly requested the French to install a television system.

The press and radio were indispensable instruments in the efforts of the Albanian Workers' Party (Communist Party) to revolutionize all aspects of life. To supplement the formal channels, there were several thousand Party activists who orally transmitted the Party line to the people on a more personal and informal level.

The various aspects of culture, such as literature, art, music, and drama, were also structured to promote the goals of the Party. They have been used extensively to promote support among the ma.s.ses for the Party and its principles, to combat religion, and generally to increase the political and social consciousness of the people.

The guidelines set forth by the Party for all writers and artists to follow in their creative endeavors are the principles of socialist realism. The general definition of this approach to art and literature is that the form of creative works must be national, but their content must be socialist. The principle of art for art's sake has been rejected by the Communist leaders. All cultural developments must reflect the efforts to create a socialist society.