On Hoxha

On The Thought and Political Line of Enver Hoxha

By Arlen Tracey

Enver Hoxha led the People’s Republic of Albania from the time of its inception in 1944, until his death in 1985. Of all the leaders who emerged in post-war Europe to lead “People’s Democracies” as fascism collapsed, only Enver Hoxha seem have had an ideological influence.

But what is the ideology of Enver Hoxha? What made his teaching and world outlook separate from the likes of Khrushchev, Tito, Mao, and the others he subjected to constant polemical attacks?

Why did an international develop around Enver Hoxha as never did around his contemporaries in Eastern Europe? What political differences cut Albania off, first from the USSR, and then from China?

When one reads the work of Hoxha, and the publications of the Party of Labor of Albania, one can see a clear, unique interpretation of Marxism-Leninism. It has key distinctions from other schools of Marxist-Leninist thought.

The Value of Confrontation

When the Nazis and Italian fascists occupied Albania, this was the starting point of the revolution. Enver Hoxha turned a small sect of college radicals into a leading force of Anti-Fascist resistance. This then became a Guerilla Army. This then became a “Democratic Front”, which eventually became a Communist Party with a monopoly on power.

The genius of Hoxha during the anti-fascist revolution was his ability to always be “one step ahead” of the Non-Marxist anti-Fascists. When Hoxha formed a Communist led national Anti-Fascist group, the liberals formed one as well.

So, then Hoxha formed a Guerilla Army. The liberal, catching up, formed one of their own.

Then Hoxha called a unifying Congress of the Anti-Fascists, to unite into a Democratic Front.

The liberals, desperately trying to catch up, did this as well, with much less support.

Unlike the Popular Front practiced by Earl Browder and various other western Marxist-Leninists, in which Communists surrender to the wishes of the liberals in order to have “class peace among democratic forces”, Hoxha used the Anti-Fascist war as a moment to expose and humiliate the liberals and capitalists.

The Albanian Communists had no shame or fear in fighting the fascist as intensely as possible. The liberals of course, had many reservations, and were happy to compromise with the fascist elements.

While his illegal, underground Communist party hid inside a “Democratic Front”, Hoxha used extreme anti-fascism to expose all other anti-fascist forces as worthless, and win hundreds of thousands into the ranks of his party.

Hoxha used the Anti-Nazi struggle to fight two wars at once. He led Albania against the fascists, and he led the Anti-Fascist workers against the “democratic capitalists.” The battle went on inside hidden mountain caverns, secret meetings in basements and forests, and makeshift bunkers where he and his comrades were armed with smuggled Soviet Rifles.

Doing this took a high level of political genius. Hoxha had his emotional ear to the ground, and could figure out exactly how to win the support of the population for his Guerilla War against the Nazis.

No red army marched in to liberate Albania. It was Democratic Front of Albania, led by Hoxha and the Communists that drove out the Nazi invaders.

Hoxha’s later speeches to his international followers flow with the same wisdom he used anti-fascist struggle. In late 1970s and 80s, Hoxha gave thundering lectures to his followers around the world, especially Europe and the United States.

He urged them, mostly former Maoists, to not be ultra-leftists, campus radicals, or soap boxers like so many of the 1960s left, but to embed themselves among the people. The job of the Communist Party, according to Hoxha, was to keep its ear to the ground, find the areas ripe for conflict to arise, and then spark a confrontation.

Hoxha warned his followers that in the 1980s the ground was not fertile for Marxist-Leninist agitation. It was time to win a base, like Hoxha had, by proving that those armed with the correct ideology, are the best armed in workers economic and democratic struggles. (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/marxist-leninist.htm )

The Importance of the Working Class

The other theme that arises from the work of Enver Hoxha is the importance of the working class in the struggle for socialism. Hoxha, always one to be controversial and never shy with his words, addressed his followers in Ecuador proclaiming that Ernesto “Che” Guevara, a national hero and legend was “not a Communist.”

Why did Hoxha make such an argument? He said that Guevara’s base of support was among the peasantry, and based on a program of land reform, in a country with a huge industrial proletariat.

Hoxha made clear that a Guevara that lived up to his standards as a Communist would not have been in the jungles of Bolivia, but among the miners and industrial workers, organizing unions, and building a strong, vanguard party, with a mass political base.

(http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1968/10/21.htm )

Hoxha’s critiques of Mao Zedong wreaked of the language. The Chinese Communist Party, Hoxha pointed out, had given up talking about a “Proletarian Revolution” or “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” Rather, it was “People’s Democratic Dictatorship” or a “New Democracy.”

Unlike Albania, despite industrializing the country, China had not placed the working class at the center of political power. The army, the peasantry, and especially the intellectuals and academics had more power and influence than the working class itself.

The Red Guards, used to defend the revolution, had not been based among the workers. In the name of “political line”, the working class had been pushed aside so figures from other classes who were could recite Mao correctly could lead a Jacobin style mob.

Mao’s “cultural revolution” has been an attempt to rectify the problems of China’s 1949 revolution, won on the basis of nationalism and not socialism. However, by not letting worker’s democracy and labor lead the struggle, the cultural revolution failed, and Deng Xiaoping led China down the road of market reforms and revisionism.

Those with the power to stop Deng were not the party’s campus cadre. It was the only industrial workers in the factories, ports, mines, and mills of China who had the power to force the government, with industrial action, to truly “serve the people.”

But the Communist Party had ignored them. The mass uprising designed to save China was done elements with no power to do so, and in some cases, clear economic incentives to do the opposite.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/imp_ch6.htm

(Notice how many of the “Red Guards” from China’s colleges and universities have gone on to write memoirs about the horrors of having live with peasants and workers during the Cultural Revolution. However, few books have ever been published by workers in China’s industries about the “horrors” of establishing the Shanghia Commune, or firing their bosses through a popular vote. This confirms Hoxha’s thesis about which class should have been mobilized to fight revisionism.)

Consistent Anti-Imperialism

Nothing angered Hoxha more than to see China side with the United States in the name of fight “revisionism.” Hoxha denounced the USSR as “social-imperialist”, but he uses this language very differently than post 1972 China did.

Hoxha denounced the “Three Worlds Theory” of China, in which it was justified to align with figures like Sellasie of Ethiopia or the Shah of Iran, in name of opposing the Soviet Union.

Hoxha’s tone, long after breaking with the Soviet Union and its leaders, spoke about a world with two poles. Cuba, despite not ideologically fitting his standards, was fighting against imperialism. The Iranian Revolution, despite removing an ally of China and the U.S., was a heroic revolt against the U.S. imperialists.

Nicaragua’s Sandinista revolt was a victory, despite the various flaws of its leaders.

In addition, the “Euro-Communists” of Italy, Spain, and France who spoke in the name of Communism while denouncing the USSR, China, and every socialist country, and joining the governments of the various imperialists were the greatest sell outs and traitors among the Communist movement.

They were “Anti-Communists” in his view.

Despite his loud critiques of the USSR, China, and everywhere else, he did not fall in line with the U.S. imperialists. They were the main enemy. The other issues were problems among those who fought against them.

Hoxha Lives On

The political contributions of Hoxha live on, and the fact that they do so, is a testament to their importance.

Hoxha’s value is certainly not in his domestic leadership. In 1976, when he denounced China, this lead to Albania shrinking into one of the darkest periods in its history. It was now cut off from the entire world. The economic results were horrendous, and set the stage for the counter-revolution of 1992.

Hoxha’s name is absent from most world history texts. The only aspect of Hoxha that appears to be “common knowledge” is that his Albania was the only officially “atheist state” in history.

However, the man continues to studied. Supporters of his politics continue to meet internationally. The internet Marxist-Leninist culture breeds new teenaged “Hoxhaists” every day.

Clearly, Hoxha had a theoretical contribution of some kind. His highly political leadership of a small country of just over 3 million people has not been forgotten.