Enver Hoxha's "The Titoites" reviewed by Steve Calder

Enver Hoxha: "The Titoites"
Reviewed by Steve Calder

From Albanian Life  No 26; No. 3, 1983.

https://www.marxists.org/subject/albania/albanian-life/issues/26-03.pdf

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     "The Titoites", the latest volume of memoirs by Enver Hoxha, is a gripping, vivid and factual account, with concrete proofs, of the plots of the Titoites – the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia formerly headed by Tito, who also recruited a number of Albanians into their plots. The aim of these plots was to swallow up Albania within Yugoslavia and eliminate socialism in Albania. They include the treason – for so it was – of Mehmet Shehu and his collaborators. The book details the courageous, determined and protracted stand of the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian people against these plots, as well as the persistent attempts by Tito and his followers to remove Enver Hoxha from the leadership of the Albanian Party and destroy it.

     The ten chapters of "The Titoites", beginning with the period when the Communist Party of Albania was founded in 1941, cover the events up to the autumn of 1982, when an abortive attempt was made to land mercenaries in Albania. It is a story of unending plotting by Tito and Co. against socialist Albania, the PLA and the Albanian people.

     The propaganda from Belgrade has always maintained that the CPY created the CPA, inspired and supported the national liberation war against fascism and Nazism. Let us look at Enver Hoxha's exposure of this propaganda.

     Enver Hoxha explains that the first contact with the leadership of the CPY came with a letter in December 1942 containing "instructions and advice". It advised: "purge the Party of factionalist elements; establish links with different groups to form the National Liberation Front". The CPA had accomplished these tasks long before. That the Albanians did not revere such "instructions antagonised Tito's envoys, and they began to accuse the Albanian Party of making all kinds of "mistakes".

     About this time too began two more threads which run through the relations between the parties and states: the proposal for a "Balkan Federation" and the question of Kosova and other Yugoslav territories where people of Albanian nationality live.

     In March 1943 the Yugoslav Vukmanovic-Tempo "popped up" in Albania, speaking of the need for a "Balkan Staff" for the national liberation war in the Balkans. The aim of this staff, as the Albanians were to realise later, was to impose the dictates of Yugoslavia. Tempo also began recruiting his agents from among those who were then in the leadership of the Party and the war – chief among these being Koci Xoxe. This course was continued by Dusan Mugosa.

     The Second Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPA – known as the Berat Plenum from its location – held in November 1944, marked the climax of the intervention by the Titoites in the affairs of Albania and its Party. The role of Tempo, who left Albania in 1943, was taken over by Velimir Stojnic, who arrived in Albania in August 1944. The war had now reached its climax – in May 1944 the order had been given for a general offensive for the complete liberation of Albania. Nako Spiru, Koci Xoxe, Sejfulla Maleshova and Pandi Kristo (of the Central Committee of the Albanian Party) were now involved in the Titoite plot to split the Central Committee, condemn the main leadership and the policies of the Party, and subjugate it – and through this, Albania – to the Titoites. Stojnic and his agents also acted as agents for the British, attempting to bring about a "reunion" between the NLF and the Albanian quislings. 

     So, on the eve of Liberation, and particularly after it, Yugoslav intervention became fiercer, more flagrant and more arrogant. The Yugoslav-Albania Economic Convention of 1946 was used to try and turn Albania into a seventh republic of Yugoslavia. From across Albania reports began to multiply of deliberately planned damage by the Yugoslav specialists, and the Albanians became convinced that they were dealing with people who were not friends. The Titoites, recounts Enver Hoxha, proposed a "Coordination Commission" which would prepare the way for the ultimate annexation of Albania into a "Greater Yugoslavia".

     When these plans failed, the Titoites tried, through Koci Xoxe, to persuade the Albanian government to allow Yugoslav troops to be stationed in Albania to "protect it from imminent danger".

     The Titoites hoped to crown their plotting with the Eighth Plenum of the CC of the PLA, where Koci Xoxe was to denounce the "anti-Yugoslav clique" in the Party.

     After the Eighth Plenum the PLA received a letter from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which showed that they had reached the same conclusions about Tito. Thus began the process of exposing the Titoites.

     At the Eleventh Plenum Koci Xoxe attempted a self-criticism, but the Titoite plot and his part in it was now out in the open. The First Congress of the Party condemned him, demanded his expulsion from the Party along with other plotters, and that he be handed over to the courts, by which he was condemned to death.

     The question of Kosova is well covered in "The Titoites", The PLA held that the question of the borders should be solved after national liberation on the principle of the self-determination of nations. But the CPY held a Great Serb chauvinist stand. It sought the "solution" of oppressing and exploiting the Albanians of Kosova. Enver Hoxha explains :

"Tito's secret plan was not that Kosova should be united with Albania, but that Albania should be united with Kosova and, together with it, be gobbled up by Titoite Yugoslavia".

     The situation became, especially after Tito, very serious, with tanks and police persecution, and is still very serious. The majority of the population of Kosova is struggling for democratic rights and republican status within the Yugoslav Federation, and this struggle is being bloodily suppressed.

     It was in this context that the Yugoslavs sent their order to Mehmet Shehu to kill Enver Hoxha. The former's part in the criminal plots was not uncovered in his life time because he remained behind the scenes, as Enver Hoxha relates. With the failure of this plot and Shehu's suicide,

"...the UDB and the CIA were left biting their fingers",

as Enver Hoxha expresses it. 

"The foreign news agencies related the fact as we had given it, that Mehmet Shehu 'committed suicide in a nervous crisis'. Here and there some comment secretly paid for by the Yugoslavs was made' (according to the version which the UDB had planned)". 

     So this was the true meaning of the wild west scenario that found its way into the British press!

     Mehmet Shehu was a multiple agent, showing how the Yugoslav, British, American and Soviet secret services work in concert in their attempts to change the sound situation in Albania and overthrow the state power which is in the hands of the people. However, the PLA and the people have stood firm and have not been diverted from the cause of safeguarding their independence, their freedom and their rights.

     It is clear from the pages of "The Titoites" that the attempts to subvert the independence of the PSRA through plots, blackmail and the like are not going to stop. Neither – Enver Hoxha avers – will the Albanians go to sleep on this question. The Albanian people and their Party will continue to struggle to maintain their independence and to defend the socialist revolution.

     With regard to the ideology of the Titoites, Enver Hoxha concludes:

"The great historic merit belongs to the Party of Labour of Albania that of all the parties in power it is the only one which not only was not deceived and never at any moment ceased the struggle against Yugoslav revisionism, but also made a profound and allround analysis of Titoism, or, more accurately, carried out a thorough autopsy on it".

     "The Titoites" shows the spectacular achievements of Socialist Albania, which provides a great inspiration to democratic and progressive people everywhere. It is also a work of high literary quality. I would urge all readers of ALBANIAN LIFE to read and study this important work.