It is obvious from what as been said so far that the PLA’s policies among the “progressive states” of Asia, Africa and Latin America are not fundamentally different than the treasonous line they pursue in relation to Canada. The PLA promotes “national independence” ahead of proletarian revolution and promotes alliance with the bourgeoisie. In the backward and dependent countries, the PLA promotes alliance with the national bourgeoisie and even feudal elements. As we have seen in the case of Canada, the PLA also promotes alliance with the “middle bourgeoisie.” in other words, with the “middle” monopoly bourgeoisie for the cause of national independence.
The PLA’s difference with the Chinese revisionists over the “second world’’ is not a fundamental difference with them theoretically. As in the case of the backward and dependent countries, the PLA operates on the same revisionist theories as the CPC. and with regard to the advanced countries of the “second world,” the PLA bases its policies on the same revisionist theories as well. The difference with the CPC is once again on the matter of the application of these revisionist theories. The problem for the PLA with the conception of the “second world” is like the problem of the conception of the “third world.” it does not distinguish between what is reactionary and what is “progressive.” The PLA says
the Chinese say the ”the second world’ has a dual character! But they see only one aspect of this character, its possibility to unite with the “third world” (Albania Today, no. 6. 1978. p. 72).
The problem for the PLA is that the theory of “three worlds” sees all of these countries as “progressive” and this is one sided. The PLA uses the “class criterion” to distinguish between the imperialists with “good intentions” and those with bad intentions, and within those countries with bad intentions they use the “class criterion” to distinguish which factions of the bourgeoisie have good or bad intentions, which faction is “progressive,” “patriotic” and “peace-loving” and which is reactionary, anti-patriotic and warmongers. This is what “distinguishes” the PLA from Chinese revisionism!
The PLA has the same Kautskyite view of imperialism that is endemic to modern revisionism in general, and that is to see imperialism as a policy to be preferred or rejected by the bourgeoisie, rather than the inevitable outcome of the development of the capitalist system. The bourgeoisie does not choose to be imperialist, it has no choice but to develop in this direction. It is a matter of the development of capitalist laws that are independent of the will of the bourgeoisie. The Kautskyite theory allows revisionists to ally with this or that faction of the bourgeoisie against this or that faction which pursues a policy they do not like. It is true that imperialists may follow this or that tactic, one being in the interest of one faction and the other in the interest of a different faction. The revisionists in power, particularly, try to ally with this or that faction depending on their nationalist interests. This revisionist theory is neither new to the world or to the PLA.
The PLA agreed with this theory along with all the other revisionists. Hoxha in 1957 talked about how “the ruling circles of the imperialist states pursue a policy of war against the socialist camp and, first and foremost, against the Soviet Union”. (Selected Works, vol. 2, p. 664) It is on this basis that Hoxha could talk about “the peace-loving states and forces in the world,” (Ibid., p. 656) promoting the illusion that some countries pursue a policy of war, whereas some pursue a policy of peace. This Kautskyite conception dominates the 1957 and 1960 Moscow Declarations which, as we know, were signed by the PLA and proclaimed by them as the dividing line between revisionism and Marxism-Leninism. The 1957 Declaration puts forward the following analysis of contradictions in order to lay the basis for this revisionist theory.
There is a sharpening of contradiction, not only between the bourgeoisie and the working class but also between the monopoly bourgeoisie and ALL sections of the people, between the United States monopoly bourgeoisie on the one hand and the peoples, and even the bourgeoisie of the other capitalist countries on the other. (Op. Cit., p. 5)
In this way the contradiction between Labour and Capital is liquidated; it is supplanted by a contradiction between the monopoly bourgeoisie and the people, and this is even reduced to a contradiction between the US monopoly bourgeoisie and the peoples, including the bourgeoisie of the other capitalist countries. The declaration goes on to talk about how US imperialism is “threatening the national independence of the developed capitalist countries” (Ibid.), and in this way prepares the ground for uniting with the “second world” against the US “superpower.” But the enemy is not even the entire US monopoly bourgeoisie, but only part of it. It is only certain reactionary groups of US imperialists, and other reactionaries in other countries united with them, who pursue an aggressive policy. “The policy of certain aggressive groups in the United States is aimed at rallying around them all the reactionary forces of the capitalist world. Acting in this way they are becoming the center of world reaction, the sworn enemies of the people. By this policy anti-popular, aggressive imperialist forces are courting their own ruin, creating their own grave-diggers” (Ibid.). So the proletariat is replaced as the gravedigger of capitalism by the “people,” including much of the monopoly bourgeoisie which becomes the gravedigger of the policy of “anti-popular, aggressive imperialist forces.” Obviously what is needed is “popular peace-loving imperialist forces.” In other words, imperialists, like Cyrus Eaton, who believe in detente. The Problem, we are told, is that “the aggressive imperialist forces flatly refuse to cut armaments” and that they are “conducting the aggressive policy of underlining peace and creating the danger of a new war” (Ibid., p. 6).
The result of this revisionist line is the liquidation of the revolutionary role of the proletariat and its Communist parties, making them an appendage of the bourgeoisie and a tool in the hands of revisionists in pursuing policies in their own national interest. The declaration says:
The defense of peace is the most important world-wide task of the day. The Communist and Workers Parties in all countries stand for joint action on the BROADEST POSSIBLE scale with ALL forces favoring peace and opposed to war. The participants in the meeting (including the PLA – BU) declare that they support the efforts of ALL STATES, parties, organizations, movements and individuals who champion peace and oppose war. who want peaceful co-existence, collective security in Europe and Asia, reduction of armament and prohibition of the use and tests of nuclear weapons. The Communist and Workers Parties are loyal defenders of the national interests of the peoples of ALL countries. (Ibid., p. 12)
This abandons the revolutionary struggle to overthrow imperialism and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism and replaces it with a reactionary struggle to return society to the era when capitalism was historically progressive, before imperialism. The struggle to overthrow capitalism is reduced to a struggle to eliminate certain aggressive monopoly groups.
At present the struggle of the working class and the masses of the people against the war danger and for their vital interests is spearheaded against the big monopoly group of capital as those chiefly responsible for the arms race, as those who organize or inspire plans for preparing a new world war and who are the bulwork of aggression and reaction. The interests and the policy of this handful of monopolies conflict increasingly not only with the interests of the working class, but the other sections of capitalist society: the peasants, intellectuals, petty and middle urban bourgeoisie. (Ibid.)
It is not difficult to see where Bains’ ideas of opposing a handful of rich families and Hoxha’s ideas of alliance with the “middle bourgeoisie” come from. The working class is supposed to unite with the bourgeoisie and take the lead in promoting tasks of the bourgeoisie.
In those capitalist countries where the American monopolies are out to establish then hegemony and in the countries already suffering from the US policy of economic and military expansion, the objective conditions are being created for uniting, under the leadership of the working class and its revolutionary parties, broad sections of the population to fight for peace, the defense of national independence and democratic freedoms, to raise the standard of living, to carry through radical land reforms and to overthrow the rule of the monopolies who betray the national interests. (Ibid., pp. 12-13)
The task is not to overthrow monopoly capitalism, but only to replace the rule of those “monopolies who betray the national interests.” The “communists” will replace them with a coalition of the revisionist parties, the petty bourgeoisie, the “middle bourgeoisie,” and monopolies who do not “betray the national interests.” The purpose of all this is to get the proletariat to abandon the revolution and socialism, to engage in parliamentarism, and, of course, there is the obligatory demagogy that this will all somehow lead to socialism, the better to trick the proletariat into abandoning revolution, to become an appendage of the revisionists and the bourgeoisie.
Today in a number of capitalist countries the working class headed by its vanguard has the opportunity, given a united working class and popular front or other workable forms of agreement and political cooperation between the different parties and public organizations, to unite a majority of the people, to win state power without civil war and ensure the transfer of the basic means of production to the HANDS OF THE PEOPLE – The working class then, can defeat the reactionary, anti-popular forces, secure a firm majority in parliament. TRANSFORM PARLIAMENT from an instrument serving the class interests of the bourgeoisie into an instrument serving working people, launch a non-parliamentary mass struggle, smash the reactionary forces and create the necessary conditions for peaceful realization of the socialist revolution. (Ibid., p. 13)
What is this but “Eurocommunism.” Khrushchevite revisionism, Mao Tse-tung Thought and Chinese revisionism. The 1957 Declaration and the 1960 Declaration which deepens this line, are revisionist statements that reflected the basic aspects of modern revisionism. All the revisionists were in agreement, including the PLA. The contradiction that now exists between these forces is a contradiction in how to apply this revisionism to the concrete interests of their own nations. Modern Revisionism is a revitalization of the old revisionist ideas of the Second International, only this time they are under the mask of Marxism-Leninism. The PLA can make no special claim to opposing modern revisionism. They only put forward their own version of it. Even when the PLA was having its contradictions with the Soviet Union, they signed and uphold the 1960 Declaration as a demarcation against modern revisionism, when in fact, the 1960 Declaration went even further in developing this revisionist line. The 1960 Declaration says “The interests of a handful of monopolies are in irreconcilable contradiction to the interests of the nation.” So the interests of the “nation” are what is most important and the “nation” unites against a handful of monopolies. Marx said the workers have no country. But now the revisionists are telling us that the imperialists, the handful of monopolies, have no nation. This is to turn Marxism on its head. We are told that “the domination of the monopolies is causing great harm to the interests of the broad peasant masses and LARGE sections of the small and MIDDLE BOURGEOISIE” (Ibid.). So an alliance must be struck with the “middle bourgeoisie” to wage a reactionary struggle against the inevitable monopolization of capitalism and the inevitable breakdown of international borders.
In this way the modern revisionists substitute for proletarian internationalism the national struggle of many nations against a handful of US monopolies and the monopolist groups of a few advanced countries which have sold out their nation to US imperialism.
US imperialism has become the biggest international exploiter. The US imperialists seek to bring many states under their control, by resorting chiefly to the policy of military blocs and economic “aid.” They violate the sovereignty of developed capitalist countries as well. The dominant monopoly bourgeoisie in the more developed capitalist countries, which has allied itself with US imperialism, sacrifices the sovereignty of their countries. (Ibid.)
So the struggle to overthrow imperialism is reduced to a struggle against the US and other monopoly groups which follow a warmongering aggressive policy. This leads to supporting imperialist countries that are in contradiction with US policy and supporting monopoly capitalists who oppose their countries’ current policy. The Declaration speaks of “the neutral countries which want no share in the imperialist policy of war and advocate peaceful coexistence. The policy of peaceful coexistence is also favoured by a definite section of the bourgeoisie of the developed capitalist countries, which takes a sober view of the relationship of forces and the dire consequences of a modern war. The broadest possible united front of peace supporters, fighters against the imperialist policy of aggression and war inspired by US imperialism, is essential to preserve world peace” (Ibid., p. 13). The struggle for socialism is replaced by the struggle for national independence and the proletariat is made an appendage of the imperialist bourgeoisie which are in growing contradiction with US imperialism. “In the countries where the imperialists have established war bases, it is necessary to step up the struggle for their abolition, which is an important factor for fortifying national independence, defending sovereignty and preventing war. The struggle of the peoples against militarization of their countries should be combined with the struggle against the capitalist monopolies connected with the US imperialists” (Ibid.).
On this basis the 1960 Declaration lays out the precise revisionist line in Canada followed by all the revisionists, those that ally with Russia, China or Albania.
In some non-European developed capitalist countries which are under the political, economic and military domination of U.S. imperialism, the working class and the people direct the main blow against U.S. imperialist domination and also against monopoly capital and other forces that betray the interests of the nation. In the course of this struggle all the democratic, patriotic forces of the nation come together in a united front fighting for the victory of a revolution aimed at achieving genuine national independence and democracy, which create conditions for passing on to the tasks of socialist revolution. (Ibid., p. 17)
The PLA and the CPC, as well as the CPSU, in 1960 called upon the Canadian proletariat to abandon the socialist revolution and make common cause with the bourgeoisie for a “two-stage revolution”, in other words, the abandonment of revolution in an imperialist country. The PLA, indeed, does have the same line today as it did in the past, a line which was and is an abandonment of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
The split of the PLA and the CPC with the Khrushchevite revisionists was not over this revisionist theory. In fact, they both continued to support it. in the CPC’s proposal for the general line of the international communist movement, to which the PLA gave complete uncritical support. The proposal takes up the same revisionist line. The CPC says “the proletarian parties in imperialist or capitalist countries...must unite all the forces that can be united and build a broad united front against monopoly capital and against the imperialist policies of aggression and war” (op. cit. p.19), and specifically:
In the capitalist countries which U.S. imperialism controls or is trying to control (i.e. all of them – BU) the working class and the people should direct their attacks mainly against U.S. imperialism, but also against their own monopoly capitalists and other reactionary forces who are betraying national interests. (Ibid., p.18)
What is paramount for the proletariat, according to these revisionists, is not its own class interests, but the “national interests”, i.e., the interests of the bourgeoisie, and more particularly, the interests of that section of the bourgeoisie which are compatible with the national interests of the revisionists. The Khrushchevite revisionists promoted this line in order to make the international working class an appendage of its imperialist ambitions. The Khrushchevites wanted the proletariat to abandon the class struggle and revolution, to become a pressure group on “their own” bourgeoisie to become “non-aligned” with the U.S. and more aligned with Soviet social-imperialism. The Soviet revisionists wanted to attract those capitalists by offering them support of the working class in their country, provided they accepted the rise of Russia as a great imperialist power. The contradiction that arose with this for the CPC was not one based on principle, but rather reflected their opposition to becoming a sphere of influence of Russian imperialism. The problem for them was not this revisionist way of opposing U.S. imperialism, to this they were agreed. The problem was that the Soviet revisionists were abandoning this “centrist” theory for a more and more open alliance with the US imperialists, for making peace the only issue, and, in practice for abandoning the struggle for “national independence” because it would upset Khrushchev’s dealings with the US. The PLA and CPC were united with the Soviet Union on the liquidation of the proletarian revolution for socialism; where they drew their line of demarcation was on the question of nationalism. The Soviet Union had the view that imperialism could be defeated by “peaceful competition”, in other words, by the Soviet Union becoming a greater imperialist power than the US, by forcing its allies to submit, and then, supporting the peace-loving“ monopoly groups in the US to overthrow those reactionaries that wanted a US imperialism superior to Russian imperialism. The PLA and the CPC did not oppose these imperialist ambitions as such, they opposed the Soviet tendency to liquidate the nationalism of other nations and by implication, the nationalism of China and Albania, i.e., their independence. The proposal says “certain persons have one-sidedly exaggerated the role of peaceful competition between socialist and imperialist countries in their attempt to substitute peaceful competition for the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed peoples and nations.... They are opposed to revolutions by the oppressed peoples and nations of the world and opposed to others supporting such revolutions.” (Ibid., p. 27) We have seen what the CPC and the PLA mean by “such revolutions.” The Soviet revisionists began to oppose the worldwide promotion of nationalism which was incompatible with Soviet imperialist ambitions, which meant they were in increasing contradiction with the nationalism of China and Albania, who both saw it in their interests to promote nationalism everywhere, and thereby, promoting their own. This combined with the fact that the Soviet Union was making deals with US imperialism, which were against the national interests of China and Albania, like the nuclear test ban treaty and reconciliation with Tito. The contradiction between them was played out on stages like the 1961 Stockholm meeting of the World Peace Council where the PLA said “The congress due to be held next year should be a congress of national independence” (New China News Agency, Dec. 22, 1961) and the CPC called for “the building and strengthening of their own armed forces... to defend themselves against imperialism and colonialism” by the countries oppressed by US imperialism. (Peking Review, Dec. 29, 1961, pp. 13-14)
In the PLA’s struggle against the Chinese theory of “three worlds,” the misimpression could be had that the PLA opposes capitalist countries from building up their armies because the PLA attacks China for this; but on closer examination, the PLA is opposed to the armament of NATO and certain countries it is contradiction with. like Germany, but the PLA has never opposed this means of obtaining “national independence.” In response to the invitation of the government of Finland to the Helsinki conference on “European security,” the PLA said the following:
The government of the People’s and Republic of Albania holds that real security in Europe cannot be reached by means of conferences instigated and organized by the two superpowers. It will be achieved by the efforts of ALL THE PEACE LOVING European peoples and COUNTRIES. They must take the defence of their supreme national interests into their own hands. The peoples of Europe will achieve real peace and security by strengthening their national independence and sovereignty. THEIR INDEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT and the DEFENCE CAPACITY OF THEIR COUNTRIES. It is in the vital interest of all the European peoples to be opposed to the aggressive policy of the military blocs on our continent and in the regions adjacent to it. to struggle consistently and through to the end for the liquidation of foreign troops from their own territories, to unite their efforts with the struggle for peace and security being waged bv the other peoples of the world. (Albania Today, no. 6. 1972. p. 49)
The PLA clearly calls for strengthening capitalism and armaments in the “peace-loving countries.” The contradiction the PLA has had with the CPC on this question has not been over arming the bourgeoisie or the development of imperialist economies in Europe. The PLA is for these things too, but the problem for the PLA is that the CPC did not distinguish between these forces and did not use the “class criterion” to distinguish who are the friends and enemies of Albania. The PLA particularly disagreed with the CPC’s support for strengthening NATO and the Common Market because this threatened Albania’s national interest. The PLA very skillfully deforms Lenin on the question of a “United States of Europe” in order to oppose the Chinese support for a united Europe. Lenin maintained that while a “United States of Europe” is desirable, maybe even possible politically, it is impossible to realize economically under imperialism because the economic contradictions between the imperialist powers and monopoly groups of Europe make it impossible to achieve in any but a reactionary form. Hoxha says:
The creation of the United States of Europe is meant to eliminate the notion of nationality in various European countries, to integrate and amalgamate their culture and traditions, in other words to do away with the individuality of the peoples and states of Western Europe under the management of the cosmopolitan reactionary bourgeoisie of this continent (Report, pp. 171-72).
So, for the PLA, it is politically undesirable but economically possible because of the existence of the continent wide “cosmopolitan reactionary bourgeoisie.” “Ultra-imperialism” is possible, just undesirable for the PLA! The PLA’s reasons for opposing a United States of Europe have nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism but are in fact based on their own narrow nationalist interests. They seek to unite with the “national progressive patriotic bourgeoisie” of each European country against the “cosmopolitan reactionary bourgeoisie.” For the national bourgeoisie they favor “strengthening... their independent development and the defense capacity,” both of which occur at the expense of the proletariat, both entail increased exploitation and oppression of the proletariat, both mean increased oppression of the oppressed nations in these countries; but, as the PLA well knows, this is the path to genuine “national independence” which gives real “peace and security,” to the “patriotic” bourgeoisie. So despite all of the PLA’s empty rhetoric about proletarian internationalism towards the proletariat in Europe, in practice the PLA favours the development of capitalism and the army to defend it, but in a “sovereign” and “independent” way to be sure!
Of particular concern to the PLA is the “security” of the Mediterranean region. As we have already seen, the PLA is particularly nervous about the presence of “superpower” fleets in the Mediterranean. The PLA, however, does not only confine itself to forging alliances with “progressive” “non-aligned” states like Egypt to oppose this. The PLA, in fact, promotes the alliance of all the countries of this region.
In the face of the tense, dangerous situation created by the two imperialist superpowers in the Mediterranean region as well as in other areas of the world, the interests of the peoples and SOVEREIGN COUNTRIES, WHICH CHERISH FREEDOM, INDEPENDENCE, true international peace and security demand that they should rise with still greater determination against the hegemonist POLICY and aggressive PLANS of the two superpowers (Albania Today no. 6, 1974, p. 62).
And who exactly are these “sovereign countries” which cherish freedom, “independence, true international peace and security,” of this the PLA is not precise. This allows them to manoeuver all the better. There certainly are no such countries in the Mediterranean region, or any other for that matter. But the PLA ignores this in order to put forward its own version of a united front of the countries of the “second world” with countries of the “third world”; not all the countries like the Chinese want, but only those “sovereign countries which cherish freedom, independence, true international peace and security,” against the “superpowers.” Like the Chinese revisionists, this scheme has nothing to do with revolution but everything to do with the PLA’s nationalism.
Only through a determined struggle by ALL the Mediterranean peoples and COUNTRIES, for the withdrawal of the fleets of the two imperialist superpowers from the Mediterranean, the annihilation of imperialist-revisionist plots and the removal of foreign military bases, will it be possible to achieve real security and the preservation of peace in this region of the world (ibid.).
It is not through revolution and socialism that there will be “real security and the preservation of peace,” but only through an alliance of bourgeois countries against the “superpowers.” The PLA promotes the same revisionist politics as the CPC, but they make a different application to the concrete conditions of their country and region. They promote their own alliances between bourgeois states for their own purposes and they try to create the illusion that somehow these intrigues and alliances will create “real security and the preservation of peace.” Lenin long ago exposed these Kaustkyite politics, which today the PLA tries to disguise as Leninism.
Therefore in the realities of the capitalist system, not in the banal Philistine fantasies of English parsons, or of the German “Marxist,” Kautsky, “inter-imperialist” or “ultra-imperialist” alliances, no matter what form they may assume, whether of one imperialist coalition against another or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers, are inevitably nothing more than a “truce” in periods between wars. Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars and in turn grow out of wars; the one conditions the other, giving rise to alternating forms ot peaceful and non-peaceful struggle out of one and the same basis of imperialist connections and relations within the world economics and politics. But in order to pacify the workers and to reconcile them with the social chauvinists who have deserted to the side of the bourgeoisie, wise Kautsky separates one link of a single chain from the other (“Imperialism. Highest State of Capitalism.” LCW 22:295-96).
It is exactly this kind of alliance, which the PLA calls for, an alliance of states against both “superpowers.” For the PLA the problem with the Chinese revisionist theory of “three worlds’ is that it calls for the strenghthening of the present alliance of states headed by the US, particularly NATO, which is a threat to Albania. Albania opposes this alliance and wants one against both ”superpowers,” but more specifically, they object to the Chinese plots to instigate a war against Russia in Europe. The PLA wants an alliance that will “achieve real security and the preservation of peace IN THIS REGION OF THE WORLD,” as to the rest of the world, it can go to hell. The PLA covers up how its policy, just like the CPC’s or CPSU’s, is a policy for “peaceful alliances (that) prepare the ground for wars.” What is at issue for all of them is who goes to war with whom, who allies with whom. Of course every bourgeois paints his alliance as an alliance for peace, and the alliances of his enemies as alliances for war. To support one alliance is to support peace, to support another is to support war, such is the nature of the contradiction between the revisionists of the PLA and the CPC.
The problem for the PLA with the theory of “three worlds” as it relates to the “second world” is explained by the PLA this way:
The false slogan that this unity is essential for the defence of national independence cannot rescue the Chinese leadership from this anti-Marxist, counter-revolutionary position... in the concrete case, if it is a question of the defence of national independence, as the Chinese claim, why is defence against US imperialism not mentioned? For more than thirty years now the proletariat and the working masses of Europe have been fighting against NATO and American bases in Europe, against interference and control by American capital, against the harnessing of their countries to the chariot of American imperialism. Now they are being told to cease this fight, to submit to American imperialism, to unite with it, to sacrifice themselves for foreign interests! (Albania Today, no. 6, 1978)
For the PLA the problem with the CPC is the same as that with the CPSU; its not that the CPC abandoned the revolution in favor of the struggle for national independence, all these modern revisionists did that years ago. No, it is that the CPC has dropped the struggle for national independence against US imperialism for the sake of allying with US imperialism. The issue for the PLA is lumping all these countries together rather than distinguishing between them, using “class criteria” to be sure. Hoxha confesses all when he says:
The relations of our socialist State with the capitalist and revisionist States are based firmly on revolutionary class criteria. We do not have diplomatic relations with the American imperialists, the Soviet social-imperialists, or the fascist states, and we are not going to have them, but with other States, with a social system different from ours, we shall have relations on the basis of equality, respect for sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs, and mutual benefit.
Although they may be of the one nature, the states have distinctive features in their policies, and these must be examined closely in order to define correct stands. It is not right to lump all States together or classify them in “three worlds” and advocate the alliance of these “three worlds” against one member of the “first world,” Soviet social-imperialism. When we, as Marxist-Leninists speak about the world and its different States, we judge them according to dialectical and historical materialism, and not arbitrarily, therefore we are against the division which the revisionist theory of “three worlds” makes (Albania is Forging Ahead Confidently and Unafraid, p. 10).
So the problem for the PLA is the division of the imperialist camp. Hoxha is about to show us how he uses “class criteria” to make the PLA’s division. Hoxha tries to distort Lenin to justify alliances with imperialists. Hoxha continues:
Having in mind the socio-economic order of the various countries, Lenin said that there are two worlds: socialism and capitalism. BUT, as he teaches us, although all the capitalist States belong to one socio-economic formation, there are small capitalist states and also powerful capitalist states. Under the law of the jungle, which exists in the relations among capitalist and revisionist states, the “big fish” eats the “small fish” has to struggle for existence, and the contradictions emerge precisely from these efforts.
Hoxha tries to substitute “the law of the jungle” for the laws of capitalism and tries to twist Lenin into painting the struggle of these “small fish” as fundamentally anti-“big fish”-imperialist. Hoxha continues:
Our Republic endeavours to utilize the contradictions in the interest of the revolution, AND SUPPORTS THE FIGHT AGAINST THE “BIG FISH” in order to weaken it, to assist the revolutionary movement of the working class and the struggle of the peoples for freedom, independence and social progress. (Albania is Forging Ahead Confidently and Unafraid, Tirana, 1978, pp. 10-11)
For the PLA, as we have seen, the “revolutionary” struggle of the proletariat is a reformist struggle for “national independence,” and is particularly directed against the fleets and military bases that threaten Albania’s “freedom, independence and social progress.” The proletarian revolution means nothing to the PLA; their own national independence means everything, and the national independence of countries which help strengthen Albania’s national independence is the second most important thing. Hoxha tries to cover himself by saying “we cannot support one capitalist world power to fight another capitalist world power” (ibid., p. 12) but for PLA this only means not supporting one superpower against another. Supporting an imperialist country that is not a world power, that is a different matter, and is perfectly acceptable to the PLA. Only, not all of them indiscriminately. “It is not right to lump all States together.” you must use “class criteria” to support those that have “distinctive features in their policies.” which the PLA finds in the interests of Albania’s “independence, freedom and social progress.” All this allows the PLA to define “correct stands” on these States. The PLA talks of naked self-interest and the promotion of Albania’s small state interests. Hoxha says:
In our relations with the capitalist and revisionist States, the concrete attitudes of these States with regard to our country are taken into account. Proceeding from these attitudes we distinguish between those which are WELL-INTENTIONED towards us, which are for friendly approaches and normal trade and cultural relations with our country. With such States as the Scandinavian countries and Austria, Belgium, France, Holland. Switzerland and others, the possibility exists for the trade relations of our State to develop with MUTUAL BENEFIT (ibid., p. 29).
And Hoxha goes on to say that “among the capitalist States there are also those that, in the past, have acted against the freedom and independence of our country. Towards these States Albania remains vigilant. BECAUSE the internal situation in some of them is not tranquil” (ibid., p. 30). And this is exactly what the PLA wants to use its “international communist movement” for. to make the situation less “tranquil” for those states that “have acted against the freedom and independence of our country.” As to the states that are “well intentioned.” the PLA will not be vigilant against them and will use its movement to promote their national development and independence. The PLA is establishing an international “centrist” trend in order to deceive the proletariat into carrying out reformist actions which will either make the domestic situation of its enemies less “tranquil,” or will help the “well-intentioned patriotic progressive national bourgeoisie” in its struggle for “development and independence.” In this way these states can live, along with Albania, in “freedom, independence and social progress” with its proletariat helping, rather that struggling to overthrow, the bourgeoisie and capitalism. This is what the PLA calls “proletarian internationalism,” in other words, asking the proletariat available to the bourgeoisie for a price. The price is good trade relations with Albania and no attempts to politically, economically or militarily annex Albania.
The message has not escaped international finance capital. The Economist, is a journal which Lenin once talked about this way: “The Economist, a journal that speaks for the British millionaires, is pursuing a very instructive line in relation to the war” (“Bourgeois Philanthropists and Revolutionary Social Democracy,” LCW2L192). Today we could say that “The Economist... is pursuing a very instructive line in relation to” Albania. Since the articles in The Economist are extremely revealing about what Albania is up to, we will reproduce them below in their entirety (along with the graphics of The Economist) to demonstrate how international finance capital has certainly gotten Hoxha’s message.
Now that China has stopped giving it aid, Albania is finding the going rough and is looking for closer links with other countries. That was the message Mr Enver Hoxha, Albania’s leader since 1945, conveyed in a major speech last month. Mr Hoxha made it plain that purer-than-pure Marxist-Leninist Albania would nor sully its honour by treating with the “American imperialists,” the “Soviet social-imperialists” or the “fascist” states. But he singled out “well-intentioned” European states such as Austria, Belgium, France, Holland, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries as acceptable partners.
Even before the final breach with China, and while there was still a lot of brave talk about self-sufficiency, Albania had started to mend its fences with its neighbour and erstwhile bitter rival. Greece. A regular weekly air service between Tirana and Athens (Albania’s only one with a non-communist capital) was established in March. A new trade agreement with Greece was signed in the same month. Trade with Greece was worth $21 m last year, compared with only $1.5m in 1973. Albania’s relations with Turkey are also looking up. Those with Jugoslavia remain cool, partly because Albania’s old suspicions towards its bigger northern neighbour, with its 1.5m-strong Albanian minority, and partly because Albania is cross that Jugoslavia has taken its place as China’s bosom friend in the Balkans. All the same, trade with Jugoslavia is expanding.
But Albania still needs more contacts with developed western countries. This year Albanians have been turning up at trade fairs in France, Italy and Sweden as well as in Greece. Albania’s foreign trade minister recently visited Sweden and Finland, the first communist Albanian minister ever to set foot there. Hints are being dropped that co-operation would be welcome with France, a country Mr Hoxha and other Albanian leaders know well from their student days.
Italy, though still Albania’s biggest western trading partner, presents a problem because of its occupation of Albania between 1939 and 1943. Britain is unpopular because it is holding, on behalf of the Tripartite Commission in Brussels (whose other members are France and the United States), some $16m worth of Albanian gold captured in Germany in 1945. Britain is still claiming £836,000 in compensation from Albania, awarded to it by the International Court of Justice in The Hague for the mining of two British destroyers in the Corfu channel in 1946. The West Germans are in Albania’s bad books because they are ignoring Albania’s $2 billion reparations claim for the German occupation of Albania in 1943-44.
Trade with Albania is unlikely ever to loom very large in western Europe. At the end of the 1960s western Europe’s exports to Albania accounted for only 0.3% of all east-west European exchanges, and trade in the opposite direction for only 0.15%. But Albania’s strategic position at Jugoslavia’s and Greece’s rear and only 40-odd miles across the sea from Italy makes it sensible for western governments to try to counter Russia’s wooing of Albania It will not be easy. And some way will have to be found round article 28 of the Albanian constitution, which forbids joint ventures with, and credits from, “bourgeois and revisionist capitalist monopolies and states” (The Economist, December 2, 1978, p. 54).
The tiny communist republic of Albania seems about to relax its self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world. Both Mr Enver Hoxha. the 70-year-old leader of the Albanian Communist party, and Mr Mehmet Shehu. the prime minister, have recently hinted that the country is to open the doors to traders from suitably uncontroversial capitalist countries Businessmen from Belgium, Holland and Austria would be welcome first. Swiss and Italians later. Americans and West Germans, stay home.
Up to now. Albania has bought a few essentials by barter from Comecon countries, and almost nothing at all from the west. Now Albania is going to offer the favoured capitalists quite a lot of chromium or. some nickel, copper wire, bitumen, low quality iron-ore. and. from time to time, even some oil. The Albanian market is unlikely to absorb much in return. With a per capital GNP of $550-$6O0, a spartan ideology and no private cars or houses. Albania is likely to be confining its purchases to imports like chemicals, machine tools, trucks, and breeding cattle. For western salesmen, getting there is going to be half the problem: there are only five flights a week from the west, and in Tirana there is only one hotel open to foreigners. Don’t all rush at once.(The Economist, February 3, 1979, p. 75).
Indeed, the imperialists have made a career getting around such laws. As Lenin said: “Economic ’annexation’ is fully ’achievable’ without political annexation and is widely practised” (“A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism,” LCW 23:44). In the same article Lenin also says “laws are political measures, politics, no political measure can prohibit economic phenomena” (p. 48). As Lenin also said in the article about The Economist, some thing that certainly could be said in this case, “millionaires have a better understanding of present day politics than the opportunists” (op. cit).
Parts of that infamous speech by Hoxha read like a prospectus for investment. “Albania is among the few oil-bearing countries of Europe, a country which has a great wealth of chromium, copper and many other minerals. Working to extract this wealth are tens of thousands of workers and experts who are steadily acquiring special abilities in the discovery and processing minerals” (op. cit., p. 35). Hoxha emphasizes what is meant by the development of heavy industry in Albania. “As is known, heavy industry consists, first of all, in the extraction and processing of materials” (ibid., p. 34). Heavy industry is reduced to a question of developing the export trade, as Hoxha says “we shall open up even greater prospects for all of them to be processed with in the country in the future. Thus our industry will be built up and further strengthened and EXPORTS WILL INCREASE, which will bring about the strengthening of our socialist Homeland and guarantee its defense against anv danger” (ibid., p. 35).
Hoxha and the PLA are playing a dangerous game here. They think that by not allowing foreign investment in their country and refusing foreign credit that Albania can maintain its independence. But, on the other hand, they are deforming the conception of heavy industry by stating that heavy industry serves the export market, which can have nothing but the effect of more and more orientating the entire economy towards, and integrating it with, the world capitalist market. The emphasis on the development of heavy industry in the socialist Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin was precisely for the purpose of decreasing the dependence of the Soviet Union on the World capitalist market, and thus, the emphasis was on machine building industries, steel production, agricultural implement production. The development of natural resource extraction was designed to serve the internal development of industry, for the consolidation of the socialist market. The PLA, however, is developing mineral extraction and processing as the principle aspect of developing heavy industry, and not for primarily developing the other heavy industry, but for the export market. Clearly, this is a quick way to make up for the loss in aid from China and the shock of disintegration from China’s market, but at what price? The more this task is accomplished, the more these industries will have to compete with similar industries in the capitalist world, therefore, in terms of capital investment, wages, etc., these industries, and the industries that serve them, will have to operate more and more on the same economic laws as their competitors in other countries.
The PLA can fulminate all it wishes against the Chinese revisionists for supporting reactionaries in the world, like royalty, and for allying with imperialists for the advancement of China’s interests. No amount of denunciations of the reactionary royalty in Saudi Arabia will cover the fact that the PLA does the same thing, with the only difference that the PLA does it to insure Albania’s own interests rather than China’s. In order to cement relations with these “well intentioned” imperialists, the PLA will go so far as wishing happiness to the likes of the Queen of Denmark.
Tirana 15 April/ATA/Haxhi Lleshi. president of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly of the PSR of Albania has sent the following message to Margrethe 2, Queen of Denmark:
On the occasion of the national birthday of Denmark, I have the pleasure of sending mv felicitations and best wishes for the happiness of the Danish people and your own happiness (our translation from French).
The happiness of the proletariat of Denmark is completely incompatible with the happiness of the Queen and the Danish imperialist bourgeoisie. Lenin exposed the bourgeoisie of Denmark as imperialist but also closely allied with foreign imperialism.
In addition, a specific feature of Danish imperialism is the superprofits it obtains from its monopolistically advantageous position in the meat and dairy produce department: using cheap maritime transport, she supplies the world’s largest market, London. As a result, the Danish bourgeoisie, and the rich Danish peasants (bourgeois of the purest type, in spite of the fables of the Russian Narodniks) have become “prosperous” satellites of the British imperialist bourgeoisie, sharing their particularly easy and particularly fat profits (“Ten Socialist Ministers!,“ LCW 23:135).
The national birthday of an imperialist country is an occasion for celebration by the imperialists and other reactionaries, not for the proletariat. It is unfortunately, however, a day of celebration for the PLA, whose happiness is apparently not in contradiction with that of the Queen of Denmark and the Danish imperialist bourgeoisie.
The PLA has also sent its wishes for happiness to the “people” of Holland on Holland’s national birthday to the Queen of Holland (ATA, Tirana. May 2, 1979). Holland is also an imperialist country, whose Crown Prince, the husband of the Queen, has been exposed for accepting bribes from the US aircraft manufacturer, Lockheed. The PLA has also recently sent a similiar message to the King of Sweden.
Tirana, 29 April 1979/ATA/A/Haxhi Lleshi, President of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly of the PSR of Albania addressed the following message to the King of Sweden, Karl Gustave:
On the occasion of the national birthday of Sweden, it is a pleasure for me to send you in the name of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly and in my own name felicitations and best wishes for the happiness of the Swedish people (our translation from French).
The Executive Committee of the Communist International, in an open letter to the membership of the Communist Party of Sweden in 1929. said “the contemporary Sweden is not a small patriarchal State with characteristics of semi-colonial dependence, it is a young imperialist State fighting greedily for its place among other imperialist States and following in the wake of the policy of world imperialism” (International Press Correspondence, Sept. 20, 1929). The PLA has, apparently, chosen to ignore the statements of the ECCI that the imperialists of Sweden “strive for a monopolist amalgamation of the mineral production of the world” and that this “is a vivid example of the imperialist character of Swedish capitalism” (ibid.). The ECCI also points out how “the Swedish bourgeoisie acts as the most energetic agent of world imperialism in the Baltic states” and that “it subsidises... political reaction in Roumania, Yougoslavia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia” (ibid). The ECCI said “the keynote of the development of Swedish capitalism is its closer and closer association with the imperialist system of the world” (ibid.) and this is a process that has only intensified since ’929. The Comintern had no illusions about Sweden’s “good intentions,” but the PLA does.
If Hoxha and the PLA want to sell out Albania in this way, this is their business, but we must take the strongest exception to their attempts to make Communists in the world and the international proletariat an accomplice of their crimes. It is for this reason, however, that the PLA continues to pursue the revisionist line of the 1957 and 1960 Moscow Declarations, although the PLA continues to try to maintain a “centrist” mask.