The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE SPECIAL ISSUE 25¢

Volume 11, Number 14

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

December 10, 1981

IN THIS ISSUE

Salute the 8th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania!

Marxist-Leninist Parties from Around the World Attend the 8th Congress

The working people of Tirana celebrate the 8th Congress

Comrade Enver Hoxha's Closing Speech to the 8th Congress

Comrade Enver Hoxha's Report to the 8th Congress of the PLA

Report on the 7th Five-Year Plan(1981-1985)

The demand 'Kosova-Republic' cannot be stifled either with violence or with empty theorizing

Salute the 8^th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania!

Between the 1st and 7th of November the elected representatives of the Albanian communists gathered in the capital city of Tirana to hold the 8th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania. This was a congress of militant socialism. The 8th Congress recorded the triumphant advance of socialism over the last five years since the 7th Congress, and set down the tasks for the further strengthening of working class rule, for the nonstop development of socialist construction, and for guaranteeing a prosperous and happy life for the Albanian people. Comrade Enver Hoxha delivered the Report on the Activity of the Central Committee, which was the main document of the Congress setting forth the line and analysis of the Party. The 8th Congress reaffirmed the Marxist-Leninist principles and stands which the PLA has unwaveringly adhered to in the course of its 40 years of militant revolutionary activity. This Special Issue of The Workers Advocate is devoted to acquainting the American working class and progressive people with this important congress.

Nonstop Advance of Socialism

The 8th Congress of the PLA measured the forward strides of Albania's socialist construction and charted a course for its further dynamic development. The thriving economy of socialist Albania stands in stark contrast to the crisis- ridden capitalist and revisionist world which is in the grip of universal stagnation and decay. In the U.S. more than nine million workers are unemployed. The catastrophe in Poland is the most dramatic example of the crisis shaking the revisionist countries. Only socialist Albania forges, ahead unshaken by the world capitalist economic crisis. This is a concrete expression of the immense strength and vitality of genuine socialism.

Socialist construction in Albania is forging ahead in the face of the bitter imperialist and revisionist encirclement and pressure. The Albanian working class and people have successfully overcome the criminal sabotage of the Chinese revisionists and all the other obstacles which have confronted them over the last period.

The Chinese revisionists, on the other hand, along with the Yugoslav, Polish and other revisionists and traitors, are down on their knees begging the imperialists for alms to help pull them out of their crisis. But in socialist Albania there is no crisis.

The Albanian working class and people are marching ahead entirely on their own efforts.

The 7th Five-Year Plan, which was adopted at the 8th Congress, is the first plan that will be fulfilled without any credits or aid from abroad whatsoever. This is an historic victory for socialism in Albania and a militant example to the working and oppressed peoples everywhere who are striving for freedom from imperialist and revisionist slavery.

The 8th Congress stressed that socialist construction is not only a problem of economic growth, but also of strengthening the socialist character of the economy, perfecting the socialist relations of production, and carrying forward the class struggle. This orientation is essential to prevent the emergence of a bourgeois-bureaucratic stratum, to block the way to the tragedy of capitalist restoration as took place in the Soviet Union, and to carry forward the process of the socialist revolution.

As Comrade Mehmet Shehu stated in his Report on the 7th Five-Year Plan, "On this vital question, the Party has adhered to the Marxist-Leninist thesis that if the socialist relations of production degenerate there is not and cannot be socialism, however developed the productive forces may be. Herein lies one of the main lines of demarcation between us and the modern revisionists.'' (p. 148) Speaking of "the further deepening and uninterrupted development of the class struggle," Comrade Mehmet stressed that "To underrate this class struggle, which is waged in all fields of socialist construction, meansto open the way to the birth of revisionism and the restoration of capitalism. This our Party has never permitted and never will permit." (p. 172)

The Congress paid close attention to further improving and strengthening the state power of the working people, the whole political system of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Comrade Enver's Report spoke to perfecting the relationship between the Party and the other mass organizations and state organs, of the cadres to the masses, and of the executive and administrative bodies to the elected and representative bodies.

As always the Congress stressed that basing all the activity of the Party and the masses on Marxist-Leninist science, not empiricism and practicism, is a fundamental condition for further success. The Congress paid particular attention to the problems of the ideological struggle among the masses, of the struggle against alien manifestations and to arm the working people with the Marxist- Leninist world outlook. It set forward the tasks for the further development of the new socialist man, the man imbued with socialist consciousness.

In all its work, the Congress laid stress on strengthening the Party, ensuring its leading role, and enhancing the effectiveness of the Party's activity. In his Report Comrade Enver Hoxha stressed that: "The experience of our Party over 40 years proves that only a party, which is based firmly on Marxist- Leninist science, can become the true leader of the working class, can achieve its hegemony and ensure the triumph of the revolution and the construction of socialist society.... This has been and remains a law for us. The single and indivisible leadership of the Party is the source of all the victories in the socialist construction and the surest guarantee for the brilliant future we are building." (p. 23, Proletarian Internationalism edition)

A Resolute Stand Against All Imperialism

From the platform of the 8th Congress, the PLA once again proclaimed to the world its unbending stand against U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism and against all imperialism and reaction.

"The superpowers," Comrade Enver Hoxha declared, "individually and jointly, are the most ferocious enemies of the freedom and independence of the peoples, the protectors and guarantors of reactionary regimes, supporters of national bondage to foreigners and instigators of feuds and conflicts between nations. Their policy contains the direct danger that mankind is hurled into a third world war." (p. 51, edition)

The Report forcefully condemned U.S. imperialism, stating that: 'In one way or the other, in this or that form, all the peoples encounter the interference of and are threatened by the aggressive policy of American imperialism, which represents the greatest capitalist power of our time and the main defender of the bourgeois-imperialist system." (Ibid.) Comrade Enver Hoxha denounced the warmongering Reagan policy which he links to the policy of Carter. He said that U.S. imperialism "has begun to apply a harsher, more aggressive and more adventurous line in foreign policy," a line that can be seen in the new warmongering doctrine that was "begun by Carter and further developed by Reagan." (p. 52, PI edition)

Speaking about Soviet social-imperialism, the Report declared: "Today the hegemonic and expansionist policy for the establishment of world domination, the adventurous course for the preparation and incitement of war also characterize Soviet social-imperialism, the global strategy of which and especially the way in which it is applied have likewise become more aggressive." (Ibid.) Condemning the Soviet aggression in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the Report underscores that "The policy of the Soviet Union has assumed the same aggressive, expansionist, warmongering features as those of the United States of America." (Ibid.)

Comrade Enver Hoxha also strongly condemned the aggressive strategy of the other imperialist powers. In regards to the imperialists of Western Europe his Reportpoints out that: "The European members of NATO have now organized and strengthened their economic potential within their countries and abroad, have strengthened their own military arsenal, and have created their reactionary organism -- the European Common Market.... The strategy of the European monopolies is aimed at the transformation of Europe, first into an economic superpower, then into a political superpower, and later still into a military superpower." (p. 56, PIedition)

Likewise the Reportdenounces Chinese social-imperialism and the aggressive U.S.-China alliance. It points out among other things that: "Already a new imperialist alliance between the United States, Japan and China has taken form in the Far East, and this constitutes another danger that local wars, or a general war will break out. ' ' (Ibid.)

The Reportcondemns the neo-colonialist system of imperialist and social- imperialist enslavement of the oppressed peoples. Along with this, Comrade Enver Hoxha exposes the Yugoslav revisionist concepts of "non-alignment," the Chinese revisionist theory of "three worlds," and the hullabaloo about "a new international economic order," as ideological weapons in the hands of the enslaving interests of the neo-colonialist powers.

Speaking on a global scale Comrade Enver Hoxha points out that: "In order to emerge from the chaos which capitalism creates, to escape once and for all capitalist oppression and exploitation, the neo-colonialist yoke of foreigners and the domination of reaction, there is no other course apart from the revolution, the overthrow of imperialism and capitalism.

"The struggle of the peoples, the struggle of the proletariat against their enemies will surge ahead. It is an objective historical process which no force can stop." (p. 59, PI edition)

Unyielding Struggle Against Modern Revisionism

At its 8th Congress, the PLA again displayed its unyielding loyalty to the revolutionary principles of Marxism- Leninism. Comrade Enver Hoxha's Reportvehemently condemns the Soviet, Chinese, Yugoslav and "Eurocommunism" revisionists, betrayers of the working class, the revolution and Marxism-Leninism.

The Reportexposes the thoroughly capitalist and imperialist nature of the present-day Soviet Union. And it warns against the great and pressing danger which Soviet revisionism represents. "More than any other variant of revisionism," the Reportpoints out, Soviet revisionism "retains its socialist disguise and Leninist phraseology in order to cover up the present-day capitalist reality of the Soviet Union and its aggressive imperialist foreign policy. It is a revisionism which has seized power in a state which is a great power and has ample means and possibilities to exert its influence in the world, to operate in many directions and on a large scale." (p. 72, PIedition)

Speaking of the great struggle which the PLA has waged against Chinese revisionism, Comrade Enver Hoxha stressed the immense harm which Mao Zedong Thought brought onto the Chinese Communist Party and the revolution in China. "In the future too," his Reportdeclared, "the Party of Labor of Albania will continue its consistent principled struggle for the complete exposure of Chinese revisionism, for the establishment of a clear-cut dividing line between Marxism-Leninism and the anti-Marxist ideas of Mao Zedong. Without denouncing and rejecting Mao Zedong thought, without combating and eradicating any influence of it in the revolutionary movement, there can be no serious talk about the struggle against Chinese revisionism or against modern revisionism as a whole, the Marxist- Leninist movement cannot be properly consolidated and developed and the cause of the revolution carried forward successfully." (p. 76, PI edition)

The Congress also exposes the Yugoslav revisionists and their anti-socialist and capitalist system of so-called "workers self-administration." It also sternly condemns the racist, chauvinist and anti-people crimes of the Yugoslav authorities against the Albanians of Kosova and other parts of Yugoslavia. At the same time it refutes the vicious slander campaign of the Yugoslav chieftains against socialist Albania, showing that Albania has never interfered in Yugoslav affairs and has consistently acted as a true friend of the Yugoslav peoples.

Underscoring the first-rate importance of combating the influence of the various currents of modern revisionism, Comrade Enver Hoxha's Reportstresses that: "The liberation of the consciousness of the proletariat and the peoples from the inhibiting influence of revisionism, the dissemination of Marxism-Leninism which points out the only correct course for the struggle and victory, is a primary task today in order to carry forward the revolutionary process in each country and on a world scale." (p. 78, PIedition)

A Congress of Militant Socialism

In a word, the 8th Congress of the PLA was a congress of militant proletarian socialism. The socialist reality which the^ Albanian people have created, with the PLA as their militant vanguard, is a great inspiration to the working class and downtrodden masses the world over. Socialist Albania provides a magnificent perspective of the socialist goal which the proletariat and people of the whole world aspire to. As Comrade Enver Hoxha pointed out in his Report: "The ideas of genuine socialism have been and remain a great force to inspire, mobilize and organize the revolutionary struggle of the masses." (p. 77, PIedition)

The world bourgeoisie and its revisionist allies fight bitterly to wipe out this perspective of socialism. The capitalist propaganda proclaims that there is no alternative to this capitalist hell, and even if you do realize socialism then a capitalist restoration is inevitable. At the same time, in order to cloud the significance of genuine socialism, the capitalists and their revisionist liquidator allies propagate a whole grab bag of false models of socialism. These fake models range from the restored capitalism in the Soviet Union, to the Chinese revisionists' Maoist "socialism," to the Yugoslav "self-administration socialism," to "Arab" or "African socialism," to even social-democratic "Scandinavian socialism."

But the example of socialist Albania, the only genuinely socialist country in the world today, provides living proof that socialism and the prevention of capitalist restoration are the fully attainable objectives of the working class. Moreover the Albanian reality graphically demonstrates the wide gulf separating genuine socialism from revisionist state monopoly capitalism and all other fake models of socialism. The 8th Congress of the PLA provides a powerful confirmation of the fact that in Albania genuine socialism, that is the socialism of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, is being successfully built in life and death struggle with the capitalist and revisionist world.

[Back to Top]

Marxist-Leninist Parties from Around the World Attend the 8th Congress

The Party of Labor of Albania and the heroic Albanian people enjoy the love and affection of the and revolutionaries throughout the world. This was again demonstrated at the 8th Congress. Over 20 fraternal delegations came to attend the Congress from all the continents of the globe, making the Congress a militant internationalist gathering. In the course of the Congress, the representatives of the fraternal delegations greeted the PLA, discussed questions of the revolution, and conveyed the proletarian internationalist solidarity of the world's Marxist-Leninists for socialist Albania. Below we are printing excerpts from the speeches of some of the Marxist-Leninist parties who attended the 8th Congress. They have been taken from bulletins of the Albanian Telegraphic Agency reporting on the 8th Congress in early November.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRAZIL

Greeting the Congress, the leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of Brazil, Joao Amazonas, First Secretary of the Central Committee, said, among other things:

The Communist Party of Brazil sends fraternal and cordial greetings to the 8th Congress of your beloved Party. I also greet the 40th anniversary of the founding of the heroic Party of Labor of Albania, which at the head of the people is constructing socialism, opening new horizons for the continuous progress and the complete victory of the great cause of the workers.

We shall never forget the invaluable aid of your 5th, 6th and 7th Congresses in the struggle against modern revisionism of all hues, a struggle which gave essential aid to the working people of all continents to clearly see the traitor role of the Soviet, Yugoslav, Chinese and "Eurocommunist" revisionists and others.

Comrade Joao Amazonas said: Your 8th Congress is holding its proceedings at very complicated moments, when the imperialist system is caught in insoluble problems, and when favorable conditions have been created for the proletarian revolution. Despite the revisionist capitulation and the reformist and deceptive activity of the deceivers of the working class, he said further, the idea of the revolution is being implanted ever more in the conscience of the broad masses. It is the only solution for the working people and the peoples which live under the imperialist and social-imperialist yoke.

Albania, he said, is successfully constructing socialism, with confidence in the future, setting a marvelous example of a fruitful activity, coping with and wisely solving new problems of the socialist construction, led by Marxism- Leninism. Here there is no rise in the cost of living, there is no inflation or unemployment, or insecurity of the morrow and no merciless plundering by the international financial capital. The selfless work of the people is carried out to their own benefit, for their own well-being, culture and the flourishing of their homeland. Here the red banner of proletarian socialism, which the renegades of the Soviet Union and other countries thought they had lowered once and for all, is flying proud and victorious, encouraging the struggle for freedom, peace, national independence, for a life without exploiters and exploited.

The Communist Party of Brazil, sister of the same ideals and of the struggle of the glorious Party of Labor of Albania, Joao Amazonas said in conclusion, feels itself honored to take a seat on the rostrum of your 8th Congress from where we express the feelings of profound friendship which unites the communists of our country with the Albanian communists, and at the same time, it expresses the unshaking confidence that we shall always act hand in hand in the common struggle for the triumph of the immortal cause of the proletariat. From this rostrum the Communist Party of Brazil reaffirms its determination to work for the strengthening of the internationalist unity of the world Marxist-Leninist movement, from which the triumph of the revolution in different countries depends on a great scale. Allow us, dear comrades, to wish you sincerely and cordially complete success in the realization of the objectives of the 7th Five-Year Plan and the great tasks and brilliant prospects which are foresightedly defined in the Report presented by our beloved Comrade Enver Hoxha, the distinguished Marxist-Leninist. The successes in the construction of socialism in Albania are victories of the working class of the entire world, are the triumph of the great and powerful doctrine of Marxism-Leninism.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF COLOMBIA (M-L)

In his message of greetings to the 8th Congress, the leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist), the First Secretary of the Central Committee, said:

In this period the most important success of a historic and political value for the consolidation and development of the Marxist-Leninist movement is constituted by the victories of socialism in Albania and the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat under the correct leadership of the PLA.

The rich experience of the Albanian communists, their great achievements in the construction of socialism, the victories in their struggle against imperialism, social-imperialism and reaction, their determined struggle against revisionism of all hues are important victories not only for the PLA led by Comrade Enver Hoxha, but also for the Marxist-Leninist movement and the revolutionaries.

The Marxist-Leninist thesis of Comrade Enver Hoxha, namely that the revolution is a problem put forth for solution, now assumes even greater force. This means that we must oppose the imperialist war with the revolution.

The sharpening of the class struggle all over the world, the deepening of the crisis of the whole capitalist system and the perspective of the revolution raise the need for the strengthening of the unity of the international proletariat, and in the first place, of its political vanguard -- the Marxist-Leninist communist parties.

The international Marxist-Leninist movement must unify its common tactic and activity in order to counter and destroy fascism and the imperialist war. The struggle against fascism and the threat of war must not circumscribe the objectives of the proletariat within the democratic reforms. We must forcefully raise the banner of the revolution and socialism which, kept aloft by the true Marxist-Leninist parties with determination, will lead to the triumph of the proletariat and the peoples over their most savage enemies.

As Comrade Enver Hoxha has said, "Proletarian internationalism is the unity of thought and action of the proletariat of each country and of the world proletariat in general for the purpose of overthrowing the old capitalist world by violence, smashing the power of the bourgeoisie to its foundations and becoming the master of the means of production and everything else that serves the capitalists for the exploitation of man by man."

On behalf of the Colombian Marxist-Leninists who have taken positions in the trenches of their struggle, he said in conclusion, we wish great successes to the 8th Congress of the PLA which undoubtedly will guarantee new and greater victories for the Albanian working class and people to the benefit of the revolutionary cause of the proletariat and the peoples all over the world.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF DENMARK (M-L)

Greeting the Congress, the leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of Denmark (Marxist-Leninist), Klaus Ris Klausen, First Secretary of the Central Committee, said, among other things:

The Party of Labor and its Central Committee, with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, always raised high the invincible principles of Marxism-Leninism at a time when world imperialism and modern revisionism made the most ferocious attacks on socialism, the international communist movement and the revolution in order to avoid their own final doom. The PLA has unmasked all the variants of modern revisionism, Titoite, Khrushchovite, "Eurocommunist" and Chinese modern revisionism, which bases itself on the opportunist ideas of so-called Mao Zedong Thought, always assisting the revolution, the proletariat and the peoples as well as the new Marxist-Leninist parties.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF LABOR OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

The leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic (Partido Comunista del Trabajo), Rafael Chaljub Mejia, General Secretary of the Party, said in his greeting:

On behalf of the Communist Party of Labor, the working class, and the entire people of the Dominican Republic, we greet the 8th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania.

After the achievement of its national independence violated by Nazi-fascist invasion, Albania entered with determination the road of socialist construction. It has denounced the maneuvers and acts of aggression of the imperialists, has withstood them and has defended the purity of the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, betrayed by the Yugoslav and Soviets, "Eurocommunist" and Chinese revisionists, which on various occasions, but with the same cynicism and betrayal, have launched attacks and used maneuvers against the Party of Labor of Albania and the PSR of Albania.

The Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic is fighting to consolidate its ranks and build itself up as a tempered and militant vanguard according to the Leninist-Stalinist concept of the party and to strengthen its links with the proletariat and masses of the people, with the aim of turning into reality, arms in hand, the objectives: independence and progress, socialism and freedom which are so dear to the Dominican people.

The Communist Party of Labor is aware that to achieve this it is necessary to keep always aloft the struggle against Soviet, Titoite, "Eurocommunist" revisionism and the Chinese one and its source in the so-called Mao Zedong Thought, which had previously had its influence on us. In this struggle the Communist Party of Labor has drawn lessons from the experience of the Party of Labor of Albania, especially by the deep study of the works of Comrade Enver Hoxha such as Imperialism and the Revolution, Eurocommunism Is Anti- Communism, With Stalin, The Khrushchevites, etc.

MARXIST-LENINIST COMMUNIST PARTY OF ECUADOR

In his greetings to the Congress, the leader of the delegation of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador, Pasqual Prado, Secretary of the Central Committee, said:

On behalf of the Central Committee and all the members of our Party, the working class and people of Ecuador, we warmly greet this Congress, greet the entire Party and the people of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania.

The achievements which within 37 years have completely transformed feudal-bourgeois Albania into a socialist country with advanced industry and modern agriculture, with culture and education, with work, well-being and security for all its sons, with complete sovereignty and independence, are a direct result of the correct and unwavering leadership of the PLA, of its indomitable unity with the working class and the people, of the fearless and merciless struggle against all the internal and external enemies.

He said further on that the revolutionary activity of the Party of Labor of Albania is guided by and based on the ever-living scientific theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin; it is guided by loyalty to this theory and its consistency to it in putting into life proletarian internationalism, by vigilance and high exemplary courage in the defense of the purity of Marxism-Leninism, to mercilessly fight against all the opportunist and revisionist trends which in the last 25 years have tried to disorientate the proletariat and the peoples and deviate them from the correct revolutionary path. We are confident of this because the Party of Labor of Albania is a party which has been able to build, uphold, strengthen and continually develop the dictatorship of the proletariat, which gave it the possibility to lead the Albanian people on the road of socialism, in a state of encirclement, coping with the sabotage, blackmail and aggressions by imperialism and social-imperialism, be it Soviet or Chinese.

The crisis of the capitalist system in our country, he continued, is extending and deepening. Dissatisfaction and indignation of the masses are becoming more general and are gradually being expressed in strikes and other fighting actions. The objective conditions for the democratic and anti-imperialist revolution exist, and with the struggle of the Party the process of their ripening will be carried out rapidly.

For the proper implementation of our great tasks, Pasqual Prado said in conclusion, the effective solidarity of the fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties is necessary. Therefore the strengthening and development of the world Marxist- Leninist communist movement, its steel unity round the consistent theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism are a vital necessity at these moments when the proletariat and the people expect and seek the leadership of the Marxist-Leninists.

WORKERS' COMMUNIST PARTY OF FRANCE

In her greeting the leader of the delegation of the Workers' Communist Party of France, Chantal, said:

The entire history of your Party, since its founding, is characterized by the irreconcilable, uninterrupted and principled struggle it has waged against opportunism and revisionism, against imperialism and reaction.

The 8th Congress of the PL A, she said, is the congress of the living and acting socialism, of the triumphant construction of socialism in Albania, at a time when in the whole world of the imperialist and revisionist camp there is only war, misery, unemployment and death. This Congress, which reaffirms once again the principles of socialism as defined by Lenin, and develops them further on the basis of the teachings of history, shows to the peoples of the world that scientific socialism is the most advanced social order in the world, the only one created for man.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF GERMANY

Greeting the Congress, the leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of Germany, Ernst Aust, Chairman of the Party, said, among other things:

It is a joy for me on the occasion of the 8th Congress of your Party and the 40th anniversary of its foundation, to bring the glorious Party of Labor of Albania, with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, and the entire heroic Albanian people, the most fraternal, militant and cordial greetings of the Communist Party of Germany and the revolutionary workers of the Federal German Republic.

Very great have been the difficulties for your country during the last five years, he said. The undermining activity of the Chinese revisionists caused damage. Despite this you succeeded to fulfill the main targets of the 6th Five- Year Plan; therefore you are able now to realize the new five-year plan, relying completely on your own resources and the creative and productive forces of your people.

At a time when the capitalist world of the West and that of the state capitalism of the East are ever deeper plunging into the crisis, when prices are spiraling, unemployment, suffering and poverty are rising, you march with sure steps on the construction of socialism. The modern revisionists speak much of records they want to attain in the international level of technique. They are record men, but in the loans they take from the capitalists from the West.

Speaking of the successes of the Albanian people, he said: you have the ratio two to one between higher and lower wages, you are a country without taxes, you have health service free of charge, etc. At a time when your average life span has reached 70, in our country it is on the decrease.

What characterizes your country is the unity and solidarity among people. At a time when you say: one for all and all for one, the motto of capitalism is: one against the other, all against all! Two years have gone by since the earthquake destroyed large areas in north Albania, and in five months' time no trace remained of its destruction. New houses and new villages were built at a time when in other countries the earthquake victims live in miserable barracks and shelters even though many years have passed by.

No earthquake, no encirclement, no blockade, no threat of the imperialists can affect socialist Albania. Its Party and people stand firm like your mountains.

The Party of Labor of Albania, Ernst Aust said in conclusion, carries the triumphant banner of Marxism-Leninism unwaveringly forward and sets a brilliant example to the workers and working people of all countries. We, too, stand firm and unwavering beside you in the struggle against capitalism, against imperialism and against revisionism of all hues, for the triumph of the world proletarian revolution.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF JAPAN (LEFT)

In his message of greetings to the 8th Congress, the leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of Japan (Left), Toshio Jasudo, member of the Political Bureau and Secretariat of the Central Committee, said:

Through the previous five-year plans the heroic Albanian people have scored great victories in all fields, victories which have proved to the whole world the superiority and vitality of the socialist order. In particular, during the 6th Five-Year Plan the socialist Albanian economy developed with sure steps. This success was achieved at a time when all the other states of the world found themselves in very great chaos because of the deepening of the economic crisis which swept the whole world, both the capitalist and the revisionist countries. It was also achieved in struggle against international imperialism and modern revisionism.

Our two Parties, that of Japan and Albania, he stressed, are fraternal parties fighting for a common ideal and united through the red thread of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. Your victories are ours, too.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF NEW ZEALAND

The leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of New Zealand, Jack Lock, member of the Central Committee, said in his greeting:

On the occasion of the 8th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of New Zealand conveys warm fraternal greetings to the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania and the First Secretary, Comrade Enver Hoxha. Likewise, through the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, we extend our fraternal greetings to the heroic Albanian people. Likewise, we express to you our revolutionary greetings on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Party of Labor of Albania.

The Party of Labor of Albania has resolutely abided by the principles of Marxism-Leninism and has been in the forefront of the struggle to expose those who try to replace the hegemony of the working class allegedly with the so-called "third world,'' those who try to replace revolution with reformism, those who attack the party which relies on democratic centralism, wanting to instill in it the theories on the existence of "two lines'' in the party.

The existence of socialism in Albania, he said further on, is the result of the fact that the Party of Labor of Albania has correctly abided by the principles of Marxism-Leninism. The banner of socialism which flutters in Albania is an inspiration and example to the Marxist-Leninists and the. workers of the entire world.

PERUVIAN COMMUNIST PARTY (M-L)

In his message of greetings, the leader of the delegation of the Peruvian Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), Antonio Fernandez, Secretary General of the Party, said, among other things:

The Party of Labor of Albania is the genuine representative and defender of the working class and working people of Albania and a glorious detachment of the world communist movement. Founded as an historical necessity in the process of stern class struggle, through the efforts of heroic Marxist-Leninist fighters, under the leadership of Comrade Enver Hoxha, your Party always upholds the revolutionary principles of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

The Party of Labor of Albania, which seized power through people's war, has known how to adhere with loyalty to the universal principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which, as Lenin said, is the basis of Marxism. In the 40 years of its existence and in the entire period of the successful construction of socialism, it has stuck to this principle with determination, exposing the betrayal of Khrushchovite revisionism which replaced the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the "state of the entire people,'' as well as the distortions made by Maoist revisionism which replaced the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the so-called "common dictatorship of the entire people,'' including the bourgeoisie, as well. The about-turn and revisionist degeneration of the Soviet Union, where capitalism has been restored, the stagnation and degeneration of the Chinese revolution, which did not go beyond its democratic-bourgeois stage of the old type, are historical proof that the old economic and political state can be destroyed only by the dictatorship of the proletariat, that socialism can be built successfully and the transition to communism, the classless society, can be ensured only through the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Party of Labor of Albania, as a bolshevik party, has achieved its ideological, political and organizational unity which has ensured its continuous strengthening and consolidation, as an invaluable weapon for the successful construction of socialism. It has known how to work out a single revolutionary Marxist-Leninist political line, because the working class is one and its party is also one.

In monolithic unity around a single revolutionary line, the Party of Labor of Albania has always stood in the forefront of the struggle against all forms of opportunism and revisionism, making a great contribution to the exposure of Soviet and Chinese revisionism.

The Party of Labor of Albania, guided by Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and the wise teachings of Comrade Enver Hoxha, leader of the Albanian people and great Marxist-Leninist who is making an invaluable contribution to the science of Marxism-Leninism, is a great inspiration and an example of revolutionary proletarian determination for the Peruvian Communist Party (M-L).

The Party of Labor of Albania and the Peruvian Communist Party (M-L), he said in conclusion,.have been and will be in the same trench of the struggle against imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, Chinese social-imperialism and all reactionaries.

PORTUGUESE COMMUNIST PARTY (RECONSTRUCTED)

The greeting of the leader of the delegation of the Portuguese Communist Party (Reconstructed), Jose Alves, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, said:

On behalf of the Portuguese Communist Party (Reconstructed), its Central Committee and militants, on behalf of the Portuguese workers who are struggling to turn their country into a country of proletarian socialism like Albania, we greet through you all the Albanian communists.

We hail the Albania of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of genuine socialist democracy. We hail Albania, where the workers defeated the despicable economic sabotage of the Chinese revisionists and, mobilizing all their internal forces, have thrown themselves into an assault for the fulfillment of the first five-year plan relying completely on their own forces. With its struggle and creative work, Albania asserts itself in the eyes of the proletariat as the representative of the new world, the socialist world, which will triumph over the decadent capitalist and revisionist world through revolution. The Albanian working people, united under the leadership of the PLA with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, are showing the world that proletarian socialism lives and is triumphing over its enemies.

The historic significance of the Report submitted by Comrade Enver Hoxha to the 7th Congress for the communist movement is fully corroborated in our days. It echoed like a great revolutionary call to all the communists of the world in defense of the principles of Marxism-Leninism against all the revisionist currents. The further promotion of this struggle through a Marxist-Leninist criticism of the so-called Mao Zedong Thought, by revealing its anti-proletarian and revisionist essence, as well as the works of Comrade Enver Hoxha, which were published in that period, were of fundamental importance for the communist movement in taking a decisive step.

After speaking of the struggle waged by the Portuguese Communist Party (Reconstructed) as a party of revolutionary action of the masses, he said:

Developments in the world today require that we must be prepared for a more arduous struggle and to utilize the revolutionary situations to our advantage. An uninterrupted and irreconcilable struggle must be waged against the revisionist and reformist forces which have become active all over the world, and against Soviet revisionism, in particular.

From this rostrum, the Portuguese Communist Party (Reconstructed) voices its unreserved readiness to take concrete steps, together with the sister parties, to find advanced forms for the unity of the Marxist-Leninist parties.

You are holding aloft the banner of socialism, which is the hope for the millions of proletarians. You must be confident that the resolve of all the Portuguese communists to build up militant bonds linking us with the glorious Party of Labor is on your side.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF SPAIN (M-L)

Greeting the Congress, the leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist), Raul Marco, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, said:

We shall never forget your 7th Congress, which played such an important role in exposing the traitor Chinese revisionism and the opportunists who disguised themselves behind the so-called Mao Zedong Thought and the vulgar "three worlds" theory. Only five years have elapsed since that historic Congress. Thanks to the correctness of the stand of the PLA, headed by Comrade Enver, as well as thanks to the struggle of the parties which stand in these positions, Chinese revisionism, Maoism on the international plane has remained only a bitter memory and this is due to the damage it caused to the revolution in the world and the Marxist-Leninist movement.

He said further on that there exists the threat of a world inter-imperialist war with two main centers -- U.S. imperialism and Russian imperialism. But we communists are not pessimistic. We mobilize ourselves and fight actively for peace, to avoid a new world holocaust. This holocaust can be averted only through active struggle conducted by the peoples of the world with all their means.

Against those who preach demoralizing theories to counter the war, against the sham defenders of peace and the homeland in an abstract way, we launch the slogan: let us prepare the revolution. The land we are living in will become our real homeland only after we have done away with imperialism and reaction. Regardless of the demagogy they resort to, all the revisionists are lackeys of the local bourgeoisie, either of one or of the other superpower when they cannot be the lackeys of both of them at the same time; they are counter-revolutionaries and anti-communists and they, all together, are savage enemies of our socialist Albania. We are optimistic for we are revolutionaries, but we do not sleep on laurels. That is why we think that the moment will come when we Marxist-Leninists of the world have to strengthen our ideological, political and practical unity, and take measures in this direction, because as Comrade Enver Hoxha says: "The present circumstances in the world, which we must submit to a profound analysis on a satisfactory level, call for meetings and consultations between us.... Our Party thinks that the times we are living through are not for endless and sterile academic discussions, they call for courageous militant and revolutionary actions full of self-denial and sacrifices." In conclusion, Raul Marco said: Comrades, once more we publicly express our full support for the Party of Labor of Albania and socialist Albania.

PLA GREETS THE FRATERNAL DELEGATIONS

On the evening of November 7, the Central Committee of the PLA gave a reception at the Palace of Brigades on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Party and the successful conclusion of the 8th Congress. The guests included members of the Central Committee of the PLA, delegates to the 8th Congress, and the delegations of the fraternal parties and organizations which came to the 8th Congress. The reception was greeted on behalf of the Central Committee of the PLA by Adil Carcani, member of the Political Bureau. Below we publish excerpts of his speech which have been taken from the Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, November 8, 1981.

The Albanian communists, the working class and the entire people have lived these days with the proceedings of the Congress of the Party. The heart of the communists and of the whole people during these days has been one with the Party. This is a wonderful and steel unity round our heroic Party with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, which has been tested in these 40 years of great and successive battles and victories against the numerous and savage enemies, internal and external, for the great cause of freedom and socialism, and this is the surest guarantee of all the victories scored in our country.

The 8th Congress of the PLA, Adil Carcani said further, was a vivid testimony to the monolithic unity of our Party and at the same time, a brilliant expression of the proletarian internationalism, of the friendship and communist unity that unite the PLA with the other Marxist-Leninist parties. Your presence and greetings at the Congress, dear comrades, representatives of the sister parties, are a great support and inspiration for our Party and people.

We know that despite the slanders by the enemies, we have never been and will not be alone in our just struggle, because we have loyal comrades and innumerable friends far and wide the world over, because the cause we are fighting for is the cause of all the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists, is the cause of the proletariat and of all the freedom-loving and progressive peoples of the world.

The PLA, during the glorious National Liberation War and the epoch of the construction of socialism as well, has never separated its struggle from the struggle of the sister parties and other peoples. It has always considered itself as a detachment of the international Marxist-Leninist movement and the revolution of the Albanian people as a component part of the world proletarian revolution.

The revolution is today more actual than ever. The all-round crisis itself, which is gnawing at the imperialist-revisionist system, is accelerating this process.

The imperialists and modem revisionists for whole decades have resorted to all means to subdue Marxism-Leninism and to liquidate the genuine communist parties, loyal to the immortal and triumphant doctrine of the proletariat. But Marxism-Leninism was not and will never be subdued either by the force of the bourgeoisie or by the demagogy and betrayal of revisionism.

Certainly in the future too the Marxist-Leninist parties, defending and unfolding with courage and revolutionary partisanship the banner of Marxism-Leninism, will successfully continue the resolute and uncompromising struggle against all the trends of modern revisionism and particularly against Soviet-led revisionism. Great battles lie in store for them, but also great and sure victories await them. Without struggle and sacrifices there is no liberation, there are no victories of the revolution.

The unity of the Marxist-Leninist movement as a whole, which has a colossal importance for our revolutionary movement and struggle, is continuously tempered in the process of our common struggle. The Party of Labor of Albania in the future, too, will do its utmost within its possibilities to continuously extend the close fraternal cooperation with the sister parties, to further consolidate together the Marxist-Leninist unity of our movement.

Thanking you once again on behalf of our Party and people, on behalf of the Central Committee with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, for the honor you made us and for the very useful support you displayed with your participation at the 8th Congress of our Party, we ask you, dear comrades of the sister parties, that when you return to your countries, to assure your parties that the PLA, the Albanian communists and the entire people, will carry always forward the cause of socialism in Albania under the triumphant banner of Marxism-Leninism, will hurl themselves into battles for the realization of all the major tasks that the 8th Congress of the Party laid, will successfully realize the 7th Five-Year Plan and at the same time will accomplish with honor and determination their internationalist duty in every situation.

[Back to Top]

The working people of Tirana celebrate the 8th Congress

[Photos: Left: Comrade Enver Hoxha greets the mass rally in Scanderbeg Square in Tirana on November 8. Right: Over 120,000 working people of Tirana took part in a festive rally held in Scanderbeg Square on November 8 to celebrate the 8th Congress and the 40th anniversary of the PLA.]

On November 8, a grand rally was organized in Scanderbeg Square in Tirana, the capital of Albania, to celebrate the successful conclusion of the 8th Congress and the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Party of Labor of Albania. More than 120, 000 working people of the capital attended this rally. With songs and dances, cheers and slogans, they expressed their profound love for the Party of Labor of Albania.

Prolonged ovations burst out when Comrade Enver Hoxha and other comrades of the leadership of the PLA came amidst the people. The rally also greeted the representatives of the fraternal delegations who attended the 8th Congress.

After the speech by a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PLA, the rally was greeted by three representatives of the fraternal delegations who spoke on behalf of the Marxist-Leninist parties of Europe, the Americas, and Asia, Oceania and Africa. Below we publish excerpts from these speeches which have been taken from the bulletin of the Albanian Telegraphic Agency, November 8, 1981.

Raul Marco, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain (M-L), greeted the rally on behalf of the delegations of the Marxist-Leninist parties of Europe. He said:

We, the communists of France, Denmark, Great Britain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden and Spain, want to express our complete support for the decisions endorsed by the 8th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania. These decisions open a still brighter future for our beloved Albania.

Your Party emerged in struggle and came out victorious through great sacrifices. These have been 40 years of struggle and 40 years of victories.

When we notice your victories, he said further on, we have what to say of the Albanian miracle. We state that what you have achieved has been possible thanks to the great and continuous efforts of the women and men of Albania and, above all, thanks to the fact that you have a Party, which at every moment has implemented Marxism- Leninism in a creative way. This is the real miracle of Albania.

I assure you that the Marxist-Leninist parties of Europe, together with the working class of our countries, will always be side by side with you.

Greeting the rally in the name of the delegations of the Marxist-Leninists of the Americas, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Colombia (M-L) said:

Celebrating its 40th anniversary the Party of Labor of Albania presents itself before its people and the whole world chin up and chest out, raising high the banners of triumphant socialism.

In the 8th Congress of the PLA we saw the great vitality of socialism, the unbreakable unity of the Albanian people round the Party and the steel unity of the Party with the outstanding Marxist-Leninist, Comrade Enver Hoxha. For our parties, this reality is a brilliant example and a powerful stimulus for the struggle we are waging in our countries.

On behalf of the Marxist-Leninist parties of America we once again express on this marked day our unreserved solidarity with socialist Albania, with the glorious Party of Labor of Albania and with its unbent people, who, undoubtedly, will score fresh, ever greater victories. The unity between the PLA and the Marxist-Leninist parties of America, just as the unity of Marxist-Leninist parties of the world will become stronger in the joint struggle against all the enemies and reactionaries and against the revisionists of all hues.

Speaking on behalf of the delegations from Asia, Oceania and Africa, Jack Lock, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of New Zealand, said:

I want to greet the 8th Congress of the PLA, led by its very beloved leader, Comrade Enver Hoxha, as well as all the Albanian people. We congratulate you on this 40th anniversary of victories of socialism, as well as on these 37 years of the construction of a new, free society.

Compared with our countries, Albania has been raised to very great heights. Our peoples suffer from exploitation. In our countries there is unemployment, inflation, growing price rise, at a time when the living standard falls. In some of our countries oppression is very savage.

But in all our countries, the struggle of the working class is intensifying. Demonstrations against nuclear stations in Japan, the demonstrations against the visits of racist sports teams to New Zealand, as well as many other strikes and clashes are to be found everywhere. In all our countries exist the Marxist- Leninist parties that fight for socialism.

May our Marxist-Leninist parties live together in fraternal unity, he said in conclusion.

[Back to Top]

Comrade Enver Hoxha's Closing Speech to the 8^th Congress

The following text of the closing speech delivered by Comrade Enver Hoxha to the 8th Congress on November 7, 1981 is taken from theAlbanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin.

In his closing speech at the 8th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, Comrade Enver Hoxha said:

Allow me on behalf of the comrades whom you elected to the Central Committee, on behalf of the members of the Political Bureau and the Secretariat, to thank you for the trust you have placed in us and the great honor you have done to us by electing us to the supreme forums of the Party. We assure the Party and the whole people that we will put all our forces in the service of the cause of socialism, the freedom and independence of the Homeland, for which our heroic Party and people have fought and continue to fight with self-abnegation.

The historic tasks that lie ahead of us, the work awaiting us will not be easy.

But we are fully confident that we shall carry them out successfully. A guarantee for this are the correct line of the Party, the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, the 40-year experience of our Party. A guarantee for this are the militant spirit, the resolute struggle and the creative work of the communists and our people for the socialist construction of the country and the defense of the gains of the revolution.

The successful conclusion of the proceedings of this Congress has greatly rejoiced our Party and people, our friends and well-wishers. Its proceedings were characterized by revolutionary maturity, loyalty to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, the determination to carry our socialist society forward, to make the life of our people happy and sure.

The Congress is a fresh manifestation of the monolithic unity of the Party, of the unanimous determination to defend and carry out the line of the Party in all fields, both on internal and external questions. The unity of the Party is a guarantee for the unity of the people. Therefore, dear comrades, let us preserve and ceaselessly strengthen this steel unity.

Many delegates from the various districts and sectors, workers, peasants, intellectuals, military men and others took the floor at this Congress. They differed in age and in length of service in the ranks of the Party. But all of them were united by the same communist ideal, the same love for the socialist Homeland, the same loyalty to the people. Their contributions to the discussions were another expression of the political and ideological maturity of the entire Party, of correct understanding of the situations and the importance of the tasks set by this Congress.

The Congress endorsed a great program of work in all fields, it formulated concrete tasks and clear orientations for all sectors. Their realization calls for fresh and greater mobilization, increased efforts for improving the organization and management of work, the increase of labor productivity, the application of the achievements of science and advanced experience everywhere.

Our people, with the communists in the lead, will successfully accomplish these tasks, will also win the battle for the fulfillment of the 7th Five-Year Plan. They will not spare their efforts and toil, because they are convinced that only by constantly carrying the socialist construction forward will the victories of the revolution be defended and strengthened, will the present and the future be guaranteed.

Comrades,

Delegations of the fraternal Marxist- Leninist parties from all continents have honored our 8th Congress with their participation. Allow me on your behalf and on behalf of the entire Party tothank them from our heart for the warm messages they brought from their parties and the fraternal greetings they addressed to this Congress.

Their internationalist solidarity is a valuable support for our efforts for the socialist construction, for the struggle our Party and people wage against imperialism and modem revisionism, against all our common enemies.

On our part we assure the fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties, all our comrades-in-arms, that the Albanian communists will jealously preserve the revolutionary friendship that exists between us and will spare no efforts so that our collaboration develops and strengthens further on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.

Forward, comrades, to carry out the decisions of this Congress, to fulfill the tasks of the new five-year plan, to make our socialist Albania more powerful and more prosperous!

Long live the Party of Labor of Albania, the glorious leader of our people!

Long live our heroic people!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Glory to Marxism-Leninism!

[Back to Top]

Comrade Enver Hoxha's Report to the 8th Congress of the PLA

(Summary)

Below we publish a summary of the Report on the Activity of the Central Committee of the PLA ted by Comrade Enver Hoxha to the 8th Congress. This summary is taken from the bulletin of the Albanian Telegraphic Agency, November, 1, 1981. Subheads have been added by the The Workers' Advocate in accordance with the full text of the Report. Emphasis as in the Albanian Telegraphic Agency text.

Dear Comrades,

The Party and our entire people come to this Congress with great successes and notable victories. Socialist Albania has raised its economic and cultural development to a higher stage, has taken a new step forward in raising the well-being of the masses and strengthening the defense of the Homeland.

The five years which have elapsed since the 7th Congress was held are a period of heroic struggle by our working masses on all fronts to carry the socialist construction even further forward, to make our new life even richer and more prosperous. Under the leadership of the Party and with unshakeable confidence in its correct line, the working class, the cooperativist peasantry, the youth and the intelligentsia unsparingly poured out all their physical and mental energies to cope with and successfully overcome the difficulties of socialist growth, as well as those which the foreign enemies created for us.

Our Party comes boldly and proudly to the present Congress, as it did to the former congresses, because it has successfully accomplished the great tasks it undertook, because it has fully justified the unshakeable trust the people have in it. Our people can be satisfied with their work and efforts. This has been creative and fruitful work which brought them new joy and progress, which made them more optimistic and happier.

During the 6th Five-Year Plan, too, the industrialization of the country went ahead nonstop. The utilization of the value of our mineral wealth and other raw materials of the country reached a higher level. With the building of new projects, such as the "Steel of the Party" metallurgical combine, the ferro-chrome plant, the pyro-metallurgy plant, the deep oil-processing refinery, etc., a considerable portion of these materials are now transformed and processed locally, thus creating a sound and reliable base for the development of the whole economy. This is a success of the correct line of the Party, as is the ensuring of the powerful energy base, which was further expanded with the commissioning of all the turbines of the "Light of the Party" hydropower station.

Our agriculture has made new big strides in all directions. The orientation of the Party that it must be transformed into a socialist agriculture of modem large-scale production, relying on an ever more powerful technical base and on the latest agro-technical knowledge, has been proved in practice to be a correct and fully realizable orientation. The increase of agricultural and livestock products from year to year, the ever better fulfillment of the needs of the population and industry for these products, fully confirm this.

Marked progress has been made in the field of culture and education. The socialist content, national physiognomy and popular spirit of our culture have been further developed and deepened. Culture and all its values are being introduced ever more deeply among the masses. A merit of our new culture is that it has withstood the various pressures and influences of bourgeois and revisionist culture, while preserving its originality and socialist features. The people's education has advanced, fully implementing the instructions of the Party to ensure the broad education of the new generation and to give the country specialists at the level which our present and future development requires.

In this grave period of crises which have engulfed the capitalist and revisionist world, where there are many political upheavals, stagnation and decline in production, falling living standards and decadence of moral values, in our country there is complete economic and political stability, our society is sound, our people are confident about the present and the future. During the past five years, a large contingent of people educated and trained by the Party and our people's state power have begun work for the first time, adding to and further strengthening the great army of working people of town and countryside. This fact becomes even more significant if we bear in mind that in the world today, not only is work not ensured for the younger generation, but even people of the older generation are left unemployed.

Our people's state power has been further strengthened and democratized. The participation of the masses in governing the country has become more active and been raised to a higher level. Our socialist democracy has been extended further and better conditions have been created to ensure that the people enjoy the rights guaranteed them as fully as possible, and perform their duties to society better.

The internal situation has never been stronger than it is today. The compactness and unity of the people, the alliance of the working class with the cooperativist peasantry, the collaboration and solidarity among the different strata of our society, have been strengthened and consolidated further. The links of the Party with the people have been steeled and their mutual confidence has been tempered further.

A brilliant expression of this great unity is that determination, that drive and heroism with which our people fight to carry out the tasks set by the Party, to overcome the various difficulties that have emerged in our road, to successfully cope with the imperialist-revisionist blockade and encirclement.

Thanks to the correct line and special care of the Party, socialist Albania today has a reliable and impregnable defense. Our people and the army always maintain high vigilance and stand fearless and ready to defend the freedom and independence of the Homeland and the victories of socialism.

Our country is honored and respected by the progressive and peace-loving peoples and states everywhere in the world. Its international position is strong. Its friends and well-wishers are increasing and multiplying day by day. Its resolute and principled struggle against imperialism and modern revisionism has enhanced the sympathy and love of the Marxist-Leninists, revolutionaries, and honest democratic-minded people for the Party of Labor and the People's Socialist Republic of Albania.

Our Party and people successfully withstood the grave test to which they were put by the sudden and brutal breaking off of economic relations with our country on the part of China. The Chinese revisionists thought that through their hostile activity they would disorganize our economy and stop its development for a long time, that they would force Albania to make political and ideological concessions, to hold out its hand to foreigners and beg for support and aid from abroad.

However, they, and international reaction after them, which hoped that Albania would be forced to change course, failed completely. With great political maturity and a lofty patriotic spirit, with fresh mobilization of their energies and unshaken confidence in the triumph of their struggle, our people overcame the difficulties created.

Our Party comes to its 8th Congress tempered in new battles and richer in experience. It comes as a great army, educated with the proletarian Marxist-Leninist ideology, with strong internal unity and closely linked with the people, with increased organizing, mobilizing and leading capabilities, ever ready to undertake new and greater tasks and to carry them out with success as always.

The work of this Congress coincides with a glorious anniversary, the anniversary of the founding of our heroic Party of Labor. Forty years ago our people entrusted their destiny, the life and the future of the Homeland to the Albanian communists. Our Party justified their trust with its glorious work, with the triumph of the revolution and the creation of the new socialist Albania. Inspired by the trust of the people and conscious of its historic responsibility and the lofty mission it had undertaken, it guided the Albanian people with penetrating mind and sure touch from one battle to another, from one victory to another.

The magnificent achievements attained in the years of our free life under the leadership of the Party have shown that there is no force which can seriously disturb socialism in Albania and the freedom and independence of our Homeland, or dim the brilliance of our future. The consistent adherence to the Marxist-Leninist principle of self-reliance, the policy of the creation of a modern industry based on the country's raw materials and an agriculture which with its products guarantees the food supplies for the people, the training of sufficient technical and scientific cadres capable of working and leading in all sectors, have been proved indispensable to success in all directions. This wise and farsighted policy of the Party has created that sound foundation on which our ceaseless economic and cultural development is based and which guarantees our socialist course.

The achievement of economic independence along with political independence, the ensuring of the country's defense by the people themselves, the education and arming of the working masses with the Marxist- Leninist ideology, are the strong and unshakeable pillars on which our socialist fortress stands, the fundamental features which characterize a truly socialist state. Taken as a whole, these achievements constitute the historical experience of socialism in Albania. The experience of Albania shows that even a small country, with a backward material-technical base, can achieve a very rapid and all-round economic and cultural development, can ensure its independence and withstand the attacks of world capitalism and imperialism when it is led by a truly Marxist-Leninist party, when it is determined to fight to the end for its ideals, and has faith in its ability to achieve them.

In the future, too, the Party of Labor of Albania will march determined and unwavering on the brilliant road on which it has proceeded during the forty years of its existence. Linked like flesh to bone with its people, at the head of them and together with them, it will fight with devotion, sparing no sacrifice in order to ensure new progress and victories for our people and our socialist Homeland.

I

The Development of the Economy and the Tasks of the Party

Comrades,

Our socialist economy enters the new five-year period of its development with stability, dynamic and with great possibilities to develop and extend social production further and raise its efficiency in all directions.

The great achievements of historic significance already made in all fields, as well as the rich experience gained in the work and struggle of the Party and people for the construction and defense of socialism, constitute a powerful political, economic and social basis from which to advance confidently and boldly.

On the basis of the general line and the economic policy of the Party for the construction of socialism, the Central Committee, after all-sided work and study and a broad popular consultation, prepared the Draft- directives for the 7th Five-Year Plan of the development of the economy and culture for the period 1981-1985, which it presents to the Congress for examination and endorsement. The fundamental task of this five-year plan is:"The general development of the economy, relying completely on our own forces, on the basis of deepening the socialist industrialization of the country, the strengthening and intensification of agriculture, raising the efficiency of the economy, the development of the technical scientific revolution and perfecting the socialist relations of production, in order to guarantee and gradually raise the material well-being and the cultural level of the masses of the working people and to further strengthen the socialist order and the defense capacity of the Homeland."

The main directions and objectives of the development of the economy and culture during the 7th Five- Year Plan, which is distinguished by a number of special characteristics, are synthesized in this task.

This is the first five-year plan which will be carried out relying entirely on our own forces and possibilities.Today Albania is the only country in the world which is developing and advancing on the socialist road without any kind of aid or credit from abroad. This is a great but glorious test for our people and Party, and the victory is certain, because, by proceeding on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, we prepared ourselves long ago for this decisive step.

The objectives and tasks of the new five-year plan are greater than in any other plan, but they are scientifically based and fully achievable. For the five years 1981-1985, the volume of social production and investments will be larger than the volume realized over the first four five-year plans taken together, while the volume of exports will be even larger. In 1985, as against 1980, social production is envisaged to increase 34- 36%, at an average annual rate of 6.4%. The funds for investment and construction will be used to build about 750 important projects for the development of the economy and culture.

With the possibilities created by the increased production and national income, in 1985, as against 1980, the fund for consumption by the people is expected to increase by 21% and the circulation of retail goods by 22-24%. Important tasks are envisaged for the development of education and culture, the health service, housing and other public services.

In setting these targets and rates, account has been taken both of the possibilities the economy has and will provide and of the needs for the development of the economy and the employment of the new active forces, for the strengthening of the defense of the country and the increase of reserves, and for the development of the social and cultural sectors, as well as for ever better fulfilling the growing demands of the population. Many of the targets of this five-year plan, especially those which have to do with the utilization of reserves of oil and minerals, the allocation of investments, etc., have also been seen to in close connection with the development of the economy in the future five-year plans, when we will be faced with even greater needs and demands.

During the 7th Five-Year Plan some important structural improvements will be made in the field of production, the circulation of goods and consumption by the people.These improvements will involve energy resources, black metallurgy, the engineering industry, agriculture, transport, finances and mass consumer goods, etc. The improvements envisaged will lead to intensification of the economy, raise its efficiency and make it more capable of meeting the needs of the country and of coping better with the encirclement and blockade and the pressure of the economic crisis of the capitalist and revisionist world.

The development and strengthening of the material-technical base of the country, as always, will be closely linked with the improvement of various aspects of the economic relations in the city and, especially, in the countryside. Important measures have been and are being taken for the further development of the cooperativist system and the restriction of the personal plot, for the extension of specialization and cooperation, the strengthening of the organization and management of production, for a better linking of the remuneration for work with quantity and quality, savings and the fulfillment of targets of the plan. These measures will be carried still further with the aim of ceaselessly strengthening our socialist order.

1. The Further Strengthening of Industry -- A Decisive Factor for the General Advance of the Country

In the 7th Five-Year Plan our industry will advance still further and develop on a broad front.About 46% of all the investments of the five-year plan will be made in this branch. The aim of the policy of the Party for the development of industry is: to consolidate the multi-branched structure of industry, giving priority, as always, to heavy industry; to maintain and further improve the positive balance of energy resources, attaching particular importance to the oil industry; to further develop the mineral extracting and processing industry, while also starting to utilize new minerals; to make tangible improvements in the structure of means of production and consumer goods; to put industry even more in the service of the intensification of agriculture; to expand the existing productive capacities through their reconstruction and modernization.

2. Agricultural Production Must Be Further Intensified and the Socialist Relations in the Countryside Perfected

Consistently following its agrarian policy, the Party has setnew, more important objectives for the development of agriculture and the progress of our socialist countrysideduring the 7th Five-Year Plan. The tasks which the Central Committee of the Party has set for the sector of agriculture in the new five-year plan are aimed: to increase production in order to ensure ever better supplies of all the food for the people and improve its structure; to substantially increase the raw materials for the light and food-processing industry; to gradually eliminate imports of that part of foodstuffs and agricultural raw materials which are still brought from abroad; to increase the volume of exports of processed and unprocessed agricultural products; to increase and strengthen the necessary reserves. On the basis of these objectives, as well as through other economic and social measures, the well-being of the peasantry will be raised and the distinctions between town and countryside will be further reduced.

These major problems for the development of agriculture have to do with the present and the future of the country. For all these reasons, in this five-year plan agriculture will occupy a special and more important place than hitherto.

In the context of the work that will be carried out in agriculture during this five-year plan, the Central Committee of the Party proposes to the Congress that aseries of important measures for the intensification of agricultural production, giving priority to production in the more fertile plains of the country, should be applied within a ten-year period.The first stage of this program, to be applied in the 7th Five-Year Plan, covers more than 100,000 hectares of land in the area of the coastal plains. The aim of this action is to increase agricultural and livestock production in the areas in which the work and investments yield greater and more rapid results. This will also create favorable conditions for a more rapid development of the cooperatives and for the gradual transition from the property of the group to the property of the whole people. Undertaking this action will not affect the investments and material resources necessary for the development of agriculture in the other areas of the country. On the contrary, work will continue for the further development and strengthening of all agricultural cooperatives.

3. Investments and Construction Work -- An Important Basis for the Ceaseless Strengthening of the Economy

The productive potential we have built up and the growing resources of our internal accumulation enable us to undertake a program of investments and construction work of unprecedented proportions in the ⁹ new five-year plan,with a total volume of more than 25 billion leks, or 22-24% more than in the previous five-year plan. This is a very significant expression of the superiority and vitality of our socio-economic order, of the creative abilities and inexhaustible energies of the broad working masses and of the correctness of the principle of self-reliance.

In allocating investments, deciding their structure and the concrete projects, the future development of the various branches of the economy and culture, the strengthening of the independence and defense of the Homeland and the need to guarantee and gradually raise the well-being of the people, have been taken into account.

4. Export Must Be Increased and Hard Currency Used Sparingly

In the development of our economy we have always followed the course of ceaselessly strengthening our political and economic independence, but we have never aimed and do not aim at an autarkic development, while we have always struggled against any pressure to integrate our economy into the economy of capitalist and revisionist countries.

By applying this correct Marxist-Leninist course, and increasing the volume of exports perceptibly, even though we encountered serious obstacles and difficulties,in the last years of the past five-year period our economy managed for the first time to balance all the necessary imports with exports. This balance was achieved without detriment to the rates of the development of the economy, or the standard of living of the people.This is another historic victory of our Party and people on the road of the complete construction of socialist society, a clear expression of the economic strength of our country.

In 1985 exports of goods are forecast to be 58-60% greater than in 1980, while imports will go up 56-58%. Thus, the active balance of foreign trade will be further strengthened and the fulfillment of the targets of the five-year plan as a whole will be more firmly guaranteed.

5.The Level of Well-Being of the People Must Be Guaranteed and Gradually Raised

In the development of production and all other social activities the Partyhas always had the working man, the fulfillment of his material and cultural needs in the center of its attention.

With the development of industry, agriculture and the other branches of the economy during the 7th Five-Year Plan, the material well-being and the cultural level of the people will be guaranteed and raised. Despite the huge program of investments and expenditure for the development of the economy and the increase in the norm of accumulation from about 30% in the 6th Five-Year Plan to 31-33% in the 7th Five-Year Plan, the real income per capita of the population will go up 8-10%. The rate of increase in real income in the countryside will be more than double that in the town. The production of mass consumer goods will increase 33-35% and services for the people 45-47%. There will be increased supplies of meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, potatoes and fruit. Improvements are envisaged in the structure of mass consumer products and the supply of durable household goods, in order to make living conditions easier and to ensure a more cultured family life.

6. We Must Perfect the Management of the Economy and Raise Its Efficiency

Management and organization are one of the most important links which we must grasp firmly to ensure progress everywhere, in the economy, education, science, culture, in all the fields of social activity.

In the existing conditions, when our economy has become a large-scale complex economy, it cannot be managed and progress with outdated concepts and practices. Today, empiricism and narrow practicism cannot do the job. Management and organization must be based on profound knowledge and learning, on sound scientific principles and criteria which stem from the laws of our economic and social development.

Our economy has always proceeded on a correct Marxist-Leninist course. Its stability, vitality and dynamism are clear and concrete proof of this. These fundamental features of our socialist economy will be consolidated and carried still further forward through the struggle and efforts of the working class, the cooperativist peasantry and the people's intelligentsia, under the leadership of the Party, to put into practice the objectives of the 7th Five-Year Plan which we are endorsing at this Congress.

II

We Must Ceaselessly Strengthen the Party and Further Enhance the Effectiveness of Its Work

Our Party of Labor, unwaveringly loyal to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, a determined fighter against external and internal enemies and with its roots deep in the people who gave birth to it and raised it, has led the Albanian people with wisdom and foresight from victory to victory, at each stage of the revolution and the socialist construction of the country.

The Party has also accomplished with honor the great, difficult and complex tasks set by its 7th Congress. The struggle and work for the accomplishment of these tasks has further strengthened and steeled the Party, enhanced its leading role and fighting spirit, revolutionized the life and activity of the basic organizations, the forums and the members of the Party and tempered the steel unity of its ranks and its close links with the broad masses of the people.

1. We Must Further Enhance and Perfect the Leading Role of the Party

The experience of our Party over 40 years proves that only a party which is based firmly on the Marxist-Leninist science can become the true leader of the working class, can achieve its hegemony and ensure the triumph of the revolution and the construction of socialist society.

The Party realizes its leading role everywhere and on every question through the basic organizations and the party members. The better the ideology and political line of the Party in general, and each of its decisions and directives in particular, are grasped and applied by every organization and member, the stronger the Party and its links with the masses become, and the more its leading role is enhanced in all the links of the socialist construction. This is a decisive condition for the fulfillment of the great tasks which face us at the present stage of the development of the country and in the concrete conditions under which we are building socialism. With the Party strong as steel, vigilant and fearless in the lead, the cause of the revolution and socialism is invincible.

Our Party has always had a correct concept of its role in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat and has played this role correctly. Therefore, it is very important to establish thorough understanding and ever better application in practice of the fact that the work of the Party is not the work of the party organs and basic organizations only, and even less, of their apparatuses. The state and economic organs, the commands and staffs of the army, the mass organizations, all the cadres and working people, whether party members or not, also carry out the work of the Party, because they are all guided by the ideology and line of the Party and carry out the laws and regulations of the state and its plans in which this line is embodied.

2. The Effectiveness of the Work of the Party and the Sense of Responsibility of the Party Organs and Organizations Should Be Increased

The work of the Party is effective when the party organizations and all the party members develop the ability to act on their own initiative, develop the creative and innovative spirit widely. In this direction there are many examples and positive experience everywhere.

Life progresses, our socialist society is developing ceaselessly, the conditions change. This development requires us to be creative and inventive, to find new, more flexible and varied forms of work, and to continually renew and enrich them so that they respond better to the requirements of the time.

3. The Established Criteria for Increasing the Ranks of the Party Must Be Applied Correctly

Our Party has always applied correct criteria for the increase of its ranks, with determination and in a revolutionary way. This has made the Party stronger and healthier and increased the effectiveness of its work.

The Party comes to this Congress with its ranks increased with communists who are resolute fighters for the cause of the people, the revolution and communism, proletarians in thought and action. Now 122,600 communists, of whom nearly 38% are workers, 29.4% cooperativists and 32.6% office workers are militating in the ranks of the Party. Women make up 30% of the total, or 2.5% more than at the previous Congress. Members of the Party make up 4.5% of the population; 24,363 candidates for membership, 42.40% of them workers, 40.43% cooperativists and 17.17% office workers, have been admitted to the Party in the years following the 7th Congress. Of these, 40.70% are women comrades.

The overwhelming majority of those admitted to the Party, either as full members or candidates, come from the sphere of production, especially from its main fronts. They are among the best workers, the most developed politically and ideologically, those with lofty moral qualities and virtues and a high educational level, vanguard fighters and active participants in the construction of socialism.

4. Improve the Work of the Party with the Cadres

5. Further Strengthen the Political System of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Following the 7th Congress, with the adoption of the new Constitution and the other codes and laws which stem from it, the management, organization and activity of the entire system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Party itself, the state, the armed forces, the mass organizations, etc., have been further strengthened.

It is known that the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat includes a whole system of organs and organisms with various functions, competences and responsibilities, built on the basis of democratic centralism and which function under the leadership of the Party. The problem presents itself that this entire system has to be strengthened continuously and operate in a synchronized way, with each part of the system performing its own functions with precision, so that all of them in unison realize the objective and program of the Party.

In the period between the two congresses, the Central Committee of the Party and the Defense Council have taken important measures to further strengthen the defense capacity of the Homeland. The Party and the state, the military cadres, both active and reserve, have carried out great work in the army and fought successfully to eliminate the consequences of the hostile activity of Beqir Balluku and company. As a result of this, the organization, training, education and fighting readiness of our armed forces have been raised to a higher level.

The Party has never based the defense of the Homeland on external aid or the various international factors, but has relied mainly on the internal factor, on the strength, patriotism and bravery of our own people, as well as on the all-round preparation and permanent fighting readiness of the whole country for defense.

The defense of the Homeland is strengthened and becomes impregnable when the tasks in the political, ideological, economic and military fields are understood and carried out closely and inseparably linked with one another. Such an understanding and performance of the tasks will further consolidate our internal front in all directions, will make it even more capable of coping successfully with any situation, a steel wall against which any aggressor who dares to raise a hand against the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, will break his head.

III

The Tasks of the Party for the Communist Education of the Working People

The all-round education of the new man has been and remains a fundamental question in the activity of the Party in order to carry the construction of socialist society consistently forward. This education has been carried out on a broad front, closely linked with the task of each stage of development, with the problems which life has raised, and the concrete situations. This has always ensured the active character, the great mobilizing and transforming force of the educational work of the Party and its levers.

The conditions in which we are working and fighting for the construction and defense of socialism, as well as the tasks which we are putting forward in this Congress for the socio-economic development of the country, require that the educational work of the Party be raised to a higher level and concentrated better on certain current and future main problems, in order to create deep Marxist-Leninist convictions among the people, to raise their professional skills, to equip them with broad culture and pure moral virtues.

1. The Communist Education of the Working People -- The Basis of Our Successes

Our Party has always done a great deal of work for the Marxist-Leninist education of the communists and the masses. The task now is that all this work should be done at a higher, more qualified level, with the aim that the principles of Marxism-Leninism and the teachings of our Party should be mastered as well and as thoroughly as possible. The main thing is that our people should be properly armed ideologically with the Marxist world outlook and methodology, should be properly formed from the theoretical viewpoint, so that they stand and act consciously at all times and in any circumstances, as consistent revolutionaries, as determined fighters for the cause of socialism and communism, and not be taught only some Marxist theses and conclusions.

Our Party and people have to advance continuously, to solve new problems. The theoretical working out and the practical solution of these problems require that creative thinking should be developed continuously, relying on the basic Marxist principles and methodology, as well as on the summing up of the experience gained.

2. Socialism Needs People with Broad Culture and Scientific Knowledge

In our country a true revolution has taken place in the cultural and professional level of the working masses. Nevertheless, the raising of the educational, cultural and technical-vocational level of the working people as an inseparable part of the communist education, remains one of the important directions of the activity of the Party and the state.

The intensive development of the economy and culture, the ever more extensive introduction of advanced equipment and technology, the targets set for higher productivity and quality, greater profitability and efficiency of production, the prospects of the whole development of the country in the future, demand the further raising of the educational and cultural level, the mastering of science and technology by our people.

The main center for the assimilation of culture, knowledge, and science is our new school. The great action for the further revolutionization of our socialist school, which has been going on during the recent 15 years, is being carried out with success.

Great successes have been achieved in assuring mass participation in all parts of our school system. In general, the overwhelming majority of the urgent needs for the quantitative development of education can be considered solved, or well on the way to their final solution. We now have an education system capable of coping with the present and future requirements in all fields.

Now the time has come for all the forces of our education and teaching front to concentrate more seriously and in a more qualified way on raising the quality of the work of the school, without neglecting constant care to further increase the mass participation in education in general, and especially in certain of its links.

Our country has been transformed into a great school in which everybody learns and works, beautifies the Homeland and makes it prosper. This has brought the people into an ever more active relationship with culture. Our people take part actively in the creation of the values of material and spiritual culture and in their continuous use. Herein lies one of the superiorities of our socialist system over the capitalist system.

Our socialist life gives our culture, literature and arts more vigor, more dynamism and freshness, enriching them in content and form. The connection with the active life is the only means, the only way to disclose and affirm the lofty moral and political virtues and qualities, the successes and creative activity of people who work. Only in this way are the cultural values turned into a source to inspire and mobilize the masses to carry out the tasks in the fields of the construction and defense of the country, creating an atmosphere of revolutionary enthusiasm to overcome difficulties and achieve new victories.

An important task of all our creative artists in literature, cinematography, figurative arts, music, etc., is to take up the major problems of our days, the processes of the development and the new phenomena of our life and reflect them extensively in their works.

The development and progress of culture means the development and progress of the nation. There is a close dialectical interconnection between them. Engels has said that history shows that every new step forward on the road of culture has been a step towards freedom. It is important that this is understood profoundly by the organs of the Party and the state power at the base and by all the working people of the front of culture. The greater their understanding of the importance of cultural work, the more they will link themselves with the problems of this activity.

Our new science also has made a special contribution to the great successes which our people have achieved in the socialist construction of the country.

But the stage reached in the development of the country and the great tasks which we have ahead of us make the development of science, its proper evaluation and the application of its achievements in production an urgent need. This need becomes even more imperative in the present conditions of the development of our country with our own forces alone, when the economy and all sectors of social activity have set out on the course of intensification and when work of high quality, productivity and efficiency is required everywhere.

The main objective of all the scientific study work is to give the 7th Five-Year Plan the necessary support to ensure its complete fulfillment. Along with this, an important task and objective of our science is to begin immediately to carry out studies in regard to the next five-year plan. To be science, to really play its role and perform its function, science must precede production, must indicate in advance the future course of development of economy and culture. Only on this basis can it aid both planning and production.

IV

The International Situation and the Foreign Policy of the PSR of Albania

The Party of Labor of Albania has always followed the development of international situations and the events which occur in the world with attention. It has, analyzed them in an objective and realistic manner, based as always, on the Marxist-Leninist principles, and has drawn the respective conclusions. In all this work the Party has proceeded from the fact that the processes going on in the world today exert their influence, to this or that extent, on our country, too. We follow and analyze the international situations with particular interest, so that we are never taken by surprise, to ensure that we are always prepared to face up successfully to any danger which might come from abroad, and to build socialism with success. On the other hand, this also constitutes a condition for us to properly and effectively perform our internationalist duty in support of the peoples' struggle for freedom and national independence, democracy and social progress, and to contribute to the strengthening of international peace and security.

Viewed as a whole, the present international situation is disturbed, complicated and very tense. Major political and social forces confront one another: on the one side, imperialism, capitalism and reaction, the bearers of oppression, exploitation and war, and on the other side, the peoples, the revolutionaries and the democrats, who are struggling for national and social liberation and the emancipation of mankind. This large-scale, profound and all-round confrontation, which is a reflection of stern class clashes and has included all the continents without exception, has further exacerbated all the contradictions and the grave crisis which has swept the capitalist world today. Everything indicates that the present situation in the world could give rise to general and local wars, just as it may give rise to liberation wars and revolution. The development of events will show whether imperialism will be able to lead the world to a new catastrophe or whether the peoples will prevent the war and save mankind.

The imperialist-revisionist policy of war, oppression and exploitation has run into the great resistance of the proletariat and the peoples of the world. The peoples understand the intrigues, maneuvers, strategy and tactics of the savage superpowers -- the United States of America and the revisionist Soviet Union, and are not sitting idle.

The world today is witness to the fact that the struggle of the working class and the peoples, oppressed and exploited by world capital and imperialism, has assumed wide proportions and a variety of forms never seen before. The working class and all the exploited, in one way or another, with greater or lesser intensity, are fighting against all the capitalist ruling forces, whether local or international, which exploit them, impoverish them and oppress them economically and morally.

The struggle of the peoples, the struggle of the proletariat against their enemies will surge ahead. It is an objective historical process which no force can stop.

The complex and difficult situations which have been and are being created in the world face our Party and our socialist state with the duty of maintaining the revolutionary vigilance always at a high level, and taking measures for the all-round strengthening of the economy and defense, and the unity and political consciousness of the people. These situations, likewise, demand that our foreign policy should be active, should ever better serve the defense of the interests of the Homeland and the victories of socialism, the advance of the cause of the revolution, the liberation of the peoples and peace in the world, and the support of all those processes which assist the emancipation and progress of present-day human society.

Our foreign policy, as the policy of a socialist state, of a truly free society without exploiting classes, is a revolutionary and internationalist policy. It is free from the slightest sign of narrow bourgeois nationalism, chauvinism, national exclusiveness, or of underration of other peoples. The Albanian people have respect for every people and wish all peoples well.

The policy of our Party and our socialist state has been and always will be for the continuous strengthening of sincere relations of friendship and collaboration with all the freedom-loving and peace-loving peoples, with all those who fight against the aggressive and hegemonic policy of imperialists. It is for the development of sincere collaboration with all those countries which wish it well and maintain a correct attitude towards it.

Our Party and country are opposed to all those imperialist and neo-colonialist practices of inequality, discrimination and great-state dictate in international relations. We believe that the relations between states, whether big or small, should be free from any kind of economic, political or military pressure and dictate, and should serve their economic, cultural and social development, the strengthening of friendship between sovereign peoples and states, and the interests of the maintenance and strengthening of peace in the world.

The word and deed of Albania are listened to and welcomed with respect by the peoples and workers of different countries, because they are in conformity with their own interests and aspirations, That is why the peoples and the progressive opinion throughout the world prize and approve this policy, why the countries and states with different social systems follow it with interest and admire it, while reaction and the Soviet, Yugoslav and other modern revisionists, attack it.

As is natural and understandable, our Party and Government have devoted special care to relations with neighboring countries and, in a wider framework, with the European countries. Our stands towards them are known and they do not alter. At all times and in every situation, the aim of the foreign policy of Albania has been to contribute as much as possible to the strengthening of peace and international security on our continent and to the strengthening of collaboration amongst its peoples. We have said and still say that participation of the majority of the countries of Europe in the military and political blocs of the superpowers is the cause of its misfortune. This is where the divisions and splits in Europe, the frequent tensions and confrontations between different countries of this continent, have their source.

The problems of the Balkans are the same as those which are worrying Europe as a whole, but here, because of the strategic position which this peninsula occupies and the old feuds, the conflicts are more acute and the dangers greater.

The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that the superpowers, proceeding from their hegemonic interests and their desire to transform the Balkans "permanently into a power keg," are trying to arouse chauvinist passions and sentiments, to set the Balkan peoples and countries against one another, to prevent the relations between them from developing normally and in a positive direction, and to undermine the strengthening of friendship between neighboring peoples.

The dangers in the Balkans are increased especially due to the participation of some countries of this region in the military and economic blocs of the superpowers, the existence of foreign military bases, and permitting the American and Soviet fleets to enter their territorial waters and stay in their ports, etc.

Such developments create tensions and are fraught with dangers for the Balkan peoples. In every direction and aspect they are in opposition to the sincere efforts and desires of the peoples of the Balkans for the establishment of trust, understanding and genuine collaboration between the countries of our peninsula.

The People's Socialist Republic of Albania upholds the view that at present the genuine aspirations of the peoples of the Balkans, peace and stability in this zone, can be served best by not allowing the imperialist superpowers to interfere in the internal affairs of the countries of our region and by taking concrete and constructive steps for the positive development of relations on the basis of the good neighbor policy. The situation in the Balkans would be greatly improved if the Balkan countries undertake officially not to allow the superpowers to threaten or endanger other neighboring countries from their territories. In the future, just as in the past, socialist Albania will consistently adhere to this policy and will make every effort to ensure that mutual respect and genuine understanding prevail in its relations with the neighboring states.

Albania has been guided by these principles and these aims in its relations with Yugoslavia, too. Its desire is that the state relations in different fields between the two countries should develop normally. However, this will depend on the stand of Yugoslavia towards socialist Albania and on its treatment of the Albanians of Kosova and other parts of Yugoslavia.

The problem of the Albanians who live on their own territories in Yugoslavia is not a problem of a "minority" which has immigrated to or settled somewhere in an "empty" zone as an economic immigration, is not a result of the onslaught of the Ottoman Empire, nor of the natural demographic increase of Albanians, which is worrying the Great-Serb neo-Malthusians. The Albanians in Yugoslavia constitute an ethnos, a people formed centuries ago, who have their own history, language and culture, an autochthonous people who, as is known, were cut up and were separated from their Motherland by the imperialist great powers and annexed to Yugoslavia. This nobody can conceal. Any other interpretation is arbitrary, a flagrant and harmful falsification of history.

The Albanian people did not allow the fascist occupiers or anyone else to determine the Motherland of the Albanian ethnos. The Albanians have fought unceasingly for centuries against many savage enemies, much greater in numbers, in order to defend their national identity and their very existence. In all these wars, both in defeat and in victory, in the long years of enslavement, throughout their history, the Albanian people have never lost their national identity and national consciousness, their compactness and unity. In all circumstances they have manifested these things with an extraordinary and exemplary vitality.

The empires and the great powers were quite unable to wipe out the compact ethnos of Albanians, nor were they able to assimilate them or to alter their culture, language, habits and customs. The very existence of the Albanian people proves this. History shows that without any support from foreign powers, which have always been opposed to them, the Albanian people have fought successfully for the freedom and compactness of their nation, to defend their independence as a sovereign state, their culture and their own natural and legitimate rights. At all times they have achieved victory only by fighting and shedding their blood for it.

During the Second World War, the Albanian people and the peoples of Yugoslavia fought together and as close comrades-in-arms against the Italian and the German fascist invaders. The Albanians who live in Yugoslavia also fought heroically together with us and all the peoples of Yugoslavia against the same enemies. Not only did they fight together, but our National Liberation Army went to the aid of the Yugoslav partisans and the Kosova brothers, and the blood of the sons and daughters of the Albanian people was shed on their land. We acted as the Communist Party of Albania taught us, with a high level of consciousness and internationalist spirit. We thought that the peoples of our two countries would win freedom in this way, that enslavement would be eliminated and the tragic mistakes of past history would be corrected. We believed that after the victory everything would be settled in the Marxist-Leninist way. Our communist Parties, which led the National Liberation War in the two countries, were a guarantee for this. However, our belief in the "communism and internationalism" of the Yugoslav leaders, our trust in their words, proved to be unjustified. In fact, the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia never took a proper Marxist-Leninist view of the question of the future of the Albanians in Yugoslavia, therefore this question was bound to be settled, as it was settled, in a wrong and distorted fashion, in an utterly anti-Marxist, nationalist and chauvinist way.

The wrong solution of this great issue of principle began at the 2nd Meeting of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council of Yugoslavia, held at Jajce, in November 1943, where the Albanian regions in Yugoslavia were used as a means to adjust the proportions of the territories and populations of the republics of the Federation, and more precisely of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro. The future of the Albanians in Yugoslavia was decided a priori from above, without the approval and self-determination of the Albanian people of Kosova and other Albanian regions of Yugoslavia, and without the slightest consultation with the ally of the peoples of Yugoslavia directly interested in this question -- people's Albania. Contrary to the "policy of national equality" proclaimed at the 2nd Meeting of the AVNOJ, the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia unjustly violated the will of the Albanians in Yugoslavia, expressed at the meeting of the 1st Founding Conference of the National Liberation Council for Kosova and Metohia, held at Bujan from December 31, 1943 to January 2, 1944, which was completely in conformity with the right of "self-determination up to secession" of the peoples who constituted Yugoslavia, and which had been defined in the fundamental documents of the Communist Party and the National Liberation Movement of Yugoslavia.

In regard to consultation with people's Albania on the settlement of this historical problem, the Yugoslav leadership a priori considered it unnecessary. It was against such consultation, because it knew that a principled Marxist-Leninist friendly discussion between the leaderships of our two countries, taking also into account the free will of the Albanians living on their own land in Yugoslavia, would lead to a just solution and not to an arbitrary chauvinist and nationalist solution, such as that which the Yugoslav leadership undertook.

After the war, in 1946, a delegation from our country, which I headed, paid the first official visit to Yugoslavia. In the talks which were held with Tito on this occasion, he wanted to know what I thought about the solution of the question of Kosova and the other Albanian regions in Yugoslavia. I expressed the opinion of the Albanian side that Kosova and the other regions inhabited by the Albanians belonged to Albania and should be returned to it. The Albanians fought to have a free and sovereign Albania, with which the Albanian regions in Yugoslavia should now be united. President Tito replied: "I agree with your view, but we cannot do this for the time being, because the Serbs would not understand us." This official promise of Tito's on this great issue of principle was not accompanied with any further action on the part of the Yugoslavs. The whole thing was a fraud on their part.

The fundamental error of a nationalist and chauvinist character of the Yugoslav leadership, which was followed by other equally grave errors in connection with the legitimate and natural rights of the Albanians who are now accused by the Great-Serbs of being "chauvinist," "nationalist" and "irredentist," lies in the wrong solution at Jajce, in the dividing up of Albanian territories and in the denial of the expression of the free will of the Albanians. The recent events in Kosova and the other Albanian regions in Yugoslavia have their source in this very wrong and anti-Leninist solution of the national question in Yugoslavia, and especially in regard to the Albanian entity of about 2 million inhabitants, nearly as many as the total population of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania.

Right from the start, Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian chauvinism followed a savage nationalist policy of oppression and discrimination against Albanians in all directions, in education, culture, the economy, etc.

Even in the period when there were good relations between our country and Yugoslavia and between the two Parties, the problem of the Albanians in Yugoslavia was a "ball and chain" on the legs of the Yugoslavs. They did not examine the Albanians' demands and causes of complaint, did not settle them politically through understanding, but settled them with violence, with savage administrative measures. The Albanians were accused of nationalism and this was done to cover up the Serbian chauvinism and nationalism. Nothing can cover up or justify the bloody reprisals against the Albanians of Yugoslavia in 1945, 1968 and again in 1981, the discrimination imposed upon them leaving them in poverty, the national oppression, the denial of their rights and great discrimination in the field of education and culture. The falling into disgrace of the Great-Serb group of Rankovic in 1966, and later that of the other Great-Serb group of Nikezic marks the period of the Titoites' political demagogy towards Kosova and the Kosovars. The need to balance the various forces within the Federation led to a certain formal revision of the status of Kosova which, from a simple region of Serbia, was called an "autonomous" region of Serbia.

Whether the Serbs liked it or not, this new situation gave the Albanians in Yugoslavia, and especially the Kosovars, possibilities to extend their schooling, to set up the University of Prishtina, to develop their culture, to learn the history of their people, to establish contacts and educational-cultural and economic relations with Albania, on the basis of the laws of the Federation and official agreements between the PSRA and the SFRY. However, the economic base of the Autonomous Socialist Region of Kosova still remained too weak and was neglected. Its assets were still unscrupulously exploited by the other republics of the Federation, especially by Serbia. All the "solutions," which were presented with great clamor during this period, were unavailing, temporary and useful only to Belgrade and Skoplje. According to the occasion, without saying so openly, they were considered either as "opportunist concessions of Tito's," as occurred among the Serbs, or as "victories achieved thanks to Tito," as they were loudly proclaimed by some Albanian leaders of the Autonomous Socialist Region of Kosova. Meanwhile the masses of Albanians did not nurse many illusions, because what was given them was very little compared with the major rights which they had been denied and robbed of.

The events which have occurred since the death of Tito have shown how wrongly and on what an anti- Marxist course the national question in Yugoslavia, and especially the question of the Albanians, had been settled. A heavy and bloody blow was dealt to their lawful demands, recognized in the Constitution, by the Serbian chauvinist leadership and the whole Yugoslav leadership after the demonstrations which were held in Kosova in March and April this year. Now, apart from the deplorable economic situation, savage national oppression is being imposed on the Kosovars and all the other Albanians in Yugoslavia more than at any other time. A reign of terror has been established over them, the Serbian police and army have been poured in and the jails are packed with young men and women. The measures which are continually being taken are directed not only towards the elimination of any legitimate rights and those few gains which appeared in the development of education and culture, but also towards the denationalization of the Albanians in Yugoslavia. And this is being done by those who claim that they respect the documents of the Helsinki Conference about freedoms and human rights. World opinion must not remain indifferent, but ought to be alarmed about this tragic situation of the Albanian population in Yugoslavia.

After all, what did the Albanians demand in the mass demonstrations which were held in various towns and villages of Kosova?

The Albanians in Yugoslavia have demanded more than once, through peaceful demonstrations and without demonstrations, that their constitutional, economic and socio-cultural situation should be corrected and put on the right road within the laws of the Federation. They demanded the status of a Republic within the SFRY. They did not demand either secession from the Federation or unification with Albania. However, the just and lawful demands of the students, workers, peasants and intellectuals of Kosova went unheeded. Moreover, as at other times when they had presented such lawful and just demands, they were described as nationalist, were persecuted and bloodily suppressed.

Can these problems be solved in this way in our times? Never. It is impossible to keep a people, whose territory contains great wealth and is plundered by others, in poverty and want. It is impossible to keep a valiant people, like the Albanians, under the threat of tanks and bayonets. It is impossible to distort or eliminate their history and ancient culture. It is impossible to wipe out their patriotic sentiments and love for their Homeland.

If the present Yugoslav leadership proceeds on the course it has chosen and is pursuing, the opposition of the Albanians will continue, will grow and become even more acute. Only a solution of the national question, which is well considered by the two sides without passion, a solution which is accepted and approved by the people of Kosova, can eliminate this very complicated situation which has been created not by the people of Kosova, but by Great-Serb chauvinism. The people of Kosova proposed the fairest and the most suitable solution in this situation, which is difficult for Yugoslavia and for themselves. The demand to raise Kosova to the status of a Republic within the Federation is a just demand. It does not threaten the existence of the Federation. Instead of being reasonable, the Serbian and Yugoslav chiefs sent in the tanks, shed the people's blood and now they are going ahead on a wide scale with their famous differentiation, that is, police investigations: who was for and who was against demonstrations. To act in this way, first with terror and then allegedly with "differentiation," means to try to intimidate the masses who cannot be intimidated, to eliminate their patriotism which cannot be eliminated, to have the illusion that you have calmed the situation when you have aroused indignation arid anger, to think that you have brought "trustworthy people" into the state power which you have purged of "nationalists," etc., when you have only impelled the whole people to silent resistance, who tomorrow will raise their voices with greater force against the atrocities which are being committed. The Yugoslav leaders do not want to understand this situation.

Because we state these truths openly and demand that the problem of Kosova and all the Albanians in Yugoslavia, which has been settled wrongly, should be restudied with cool heads, avoiding the use of violence and terror, because we demand an end to the persecutions and the release from jail of the boys and girls of Kosova, they accuse the PSR of Albania of interfering in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia and even of inciting the disturbances in Kosova and elsewhere! And how is it allegedly inciting these disturbances? By means of official educational and cultural relations. They even go so far as to claim that the PSR of Albania is making common cause with Albanian political reaction in exile, which we have always fought with all our strength.

The People's Socialist Republic of Albania has never interfered in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia. The opposite has occurred. The Yugoslav revisionists plotted to bring about the liquidation of the leadership of the Communist Party of Albania and the incorporation of Albania into the Yugoslav Federation as its 7th Republic, aiming in this way, through an annexationist and imperialist course, to resolve the problem of the whole Albanian nation once and for all. However, these plots did not succeed and they will never succeed. Albania is not and never will become a means of regulation to calm the conflicts and contradictions between the Yugoslav clans. It belongs to its people, a people full of vitality, valiant and patriotic, who fear no one.

Albania has never made territorial claims against Yugoslavia, and no demand for border readjustments can be found in its documents. While maintaining this stand, however, we have not denied, and never will deny the fact that a good part of the Albanian nation and people lives in Yugoslavia. We have defended the legitimate rights of our Albanian brothers across the border and we shall continue to defend them in the future with all our might and in a Marxist-Leninist way, and this is not interference in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia. This is our undeniable right.

The question of Kosova is a tragedy. The Yugoslav authorities must cease their terror and persecution of the Albanians, eliminate the national oppression, and recognize all the rights due to them. To solve the problems justly, they must talk calmly, without heat and on terms of equality with the Albanian population in Yugoslavia.

The principled foreign policy followed by our Party and country expresses the aspirations of the Albanian people and enjoys their complete and boundless support and backing. In the future, too, our Party will struggle for the consistent and resolute implementation of this policy, which ensures the freedom, independence and national sovereignty of our people.

V

The Struggle Against Revisionism. The Revolutionary and Liberation Movement at the Present Stage

In the period since the 7th Congress, our Party, standing loyal as ever to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, has continued the struggle against modem revisionism uninterruptedly. The ideological and political criticism against Khrushchovite, Chinese, Yugoslav and West European revisionism has been made more profound. The historical and socio-economic conditions of the birth and spread of these trends have been brought out more clearly, and the process of degeneration of those communist parties which took the course of revisionism, their mistakes and concessions in strategy and tactics, have been analyzed more extensively. The connection of modern revisionism with the strategy which imperialism adopted after the Second World War for the destruction of socialism and the suppression of the revolution and the people's liberation movement has been proved in the light of facts from the past and the present.

These analyses and conclusions have helped the Party to recognize more clearly the dangers which threaten socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country from revisionism and to take more effective and appropriate measures to avert these dangers. They have also helped in the education of the communists and the masses, the enhancement of their theoretical level and the tempering of their revolutionary consciousness. The more profound knowledge of the strategy and tactics of imperialism and revisionism have made our struggle in defense of the cause of the proletariat and the peoples even more effective.

The correctness of the course which our Party chose right from the start to oppose revisionism and fight it to the end has been and is being proved more and more each day by the political degeneration and the profound ideological crisis of modern revisionism, by the grave economic situation and the impasse in which the revisionist parties and the countries where they are in power have landed.

When our Party began the struggle against Khrushchovite revisionism, the communist parties which made common cause with Khrushchov looked, more or less, like a united bloc, with a single line, which was that of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Today, however, 20 years later, they are split and divided into many trends and factions, are fighting and clashing with one another and have been overwhelmed by bourgeois nationalism and social-democratic opportunism. These former communist parties have been transformed either into genuine parties of the new bourgeoisie ruling in the countries where the revisionists are in power, or into component parts of the structures of the bourgeois state, as in the old capitalist countries. The crisis of modern revisionism is a direct expression of the crisis of capitalism and the bourgeois ideology in general.

The revisionist betrayal and restoration of capitalism in a series of former socialist countries have created great confusion about the problem of socialism, which is the nub of the ideological struggle going on in the world today. The problem is that the revisionists present the capitalist society reestablished in their countries as a pure socialist society, as "real socialism," and as "developed," or moreover "very highly developed" socialism. The fact that many parties and different political forces, which are far removed from scientific socialism, talk about socialism, as well as the efforts which the bourgeoisie and its propaganda make to distort the true socialist ideals and to alienate the masses from the struggle for the triumph of these ideals, add even more to this confusion.

Clarity on this question, the establishment of a clear-cut dividing line between genuine socialism and pseudo-socialism, is of capital importance to waging the struggle of the working class and the working masses successfully. If it does not have a clear concept of socialist society, if it does not abide by its principles and universal laws, the revolution stops halfway. The revolution may be carried out, but when it lacks the genuine socialist perspective it can deviate, and the struggle and sacrifices made for its triumph will be in vain.

The ideas of genuine socialism have been and remain a great force to inspire, mobilize and organize the revolutionary struggle of the masses.

Today there is no need to invent new "socialisms" or to copy the so-called socialisms of the modern revisionists, such as the Soviet, Yugoslav, Chinese and other models, which are socialisms only in name.

There is nothing unknown about what socialism is, what it represents and what it brings about, how it is achieved and how socialist society is built. A theory and practice of scientific socialism exists. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin teach us this theory. We find the practice of it in that rich experience of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union in the time of Lenin and Stalin, and we find it today in Albania, where the new society is being built according to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism.

Of course, as Lenin said, socialism will look different and will have its own special features in different countries as a result of the differing socio-economic conditions, the way in which the revolution is carried out, the traditions, the international circumstances, etc. But the basic principles and the universal laws of socialism remain unshakeable and are essential for all countries.

The Marxist-Leninists carefully study the revolutionary processes in their own countries, as well as the national and international conditions in which they take place. They are not dogmatic either in theory or in practice. For them, Marxism-Leninism, as a dialectical materialist world outlook, is a living, creative doctrine in ceaseless development.

The Marxist-Leninists are not conservative and fanatical, as the revisionists and the bourgeois charge. On the contrary, they are the most progressive people, resolute fighters against everything outdated and backward. They stand firmly on the positions of the new and fight with all their might for its victory. The revisionists and all the other opportunists who, as lackeys of the bourgeoisie, defend a lost cause, defend an obsolete order of oppression and exploitation, are conservative and reactionary. It is precisely this reactionary position which has plunged modern revisionism into a profound crisis.

For our Marxist-Leninist parties the times are revolutionary. The new Marxist-Leninist parties are growing and tempering themselves all over the world. Their role and activity, their links and influence among the working class and masses are increasing. New parties have been created in many different countries and zones. All the conditions exist for them to be created even where there are no genuine revolutionary parties of the working class. This is an imperative fighting task of the most conscious, revolutionary elements of the proletariat.

It is an honor for our Party of Labor to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other Marxist-Leninist parties, which are equal detachments of the revolutionary movement of the working class, in the great historic struggle for the cause of Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and socialism. The Albanian communists and our whole people prize very highly the solidarity, the love and trust which the sister Marxist-Leninist parties, the proletariat and the revolutionary and freedom-loving peoples display for the Party of Labor and socialist Albania. This is a powerful support and encouragement for us. In all circumstances, and in any situation our Party and people will fight to perform their national and international tasks with honor, to build socialism successfully in Albania, and to ardently defend the revolutionary cause of the proletarians and the peoples.

The successes which our people have achieved under the leadership of the Party are great and the battles won are majestic. They show that our people have inexhaustible strength, that they are optimistic and determined to undertake new battles to make their lives happier, to raise the name of their socialist Homeland even higher, to strengthen their freedom and independence and the people's power which was born in the flames of the revolution.

It is this marvelous reality, the unbreakable unity of the people with the Party, the maturity, courage and determination of the communists, which give the people and the Party this sure guarantee that the tasks, which this Congress will set, will be fulfilled and overfulfilled.

The enthusiasm which the Draft-directives of the 7th Five-Year Plan have aroused, the mobilization of the working masses to carry out the tasks of this year, and the encouraging results which have been achieved, and above all, the unanimous, resolute and ardent support which our people give the internal and external policy of the Party, show that the whole country is ready and mobilized to go forward confidently and resolutely on the course on which the Party leads them to achieve new victories.

Dear Comrades, let us turn this revolutionary drive, this boundless love for our glorious Party, this unshakeable confidence in the future, into a great motive force to carry out the tasks in all fields, to overcome all the difficulties which we shall encounter and to further strengthen and consolidate our victories and the unassailable foundations of socialism in Albania.

Long live the 8th Congress of the Party!

Long live the heroic, talented and industrious Albanian people!

Long live the Party of Labor of Albania, the wise, valiant and proven leader, the organizer of all our victories on the brilliant road of socialist construction!

Glory to Marxism-Leninism!

[Photo: Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the PLA, delivering the Report to the 8th Congress.]

[Graphic]

[Photo: A view of the delegates at the 8th Congress of the PLA.]

[Photo: Poster on the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Party of Labor of Albania. The initials PPSH and RPSSH stand for the PLA and the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, while 8 Nentor means November 8, the date of the anniversary of the Party.]

[Back to Top]

Report on the 7th Five-Year Plan(1981-1985)

(Summary)

Below we publish a summary of the Report on the Directives of the 8th Congress of the PLA for the 7th Five-Year Plan (1981-1985) of Economic and Cultural Development of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. It was submitted to the 8th Congress by Comrade Mehmet Shehu, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PLA and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the government of Albania. The summary is taken from the bulletin of the Albanian Telegraphic Agency, November 5, 1981. Subheads and emphasis have been added by The Workers' Advocate in accordance with the full text of the Report.

Comrade delegates,

In these joyous days our Party and people, said Comrade Mehmet Shehu, have a great double celebration -- the 8th Congress of the Party and the great jubilee of the 40th anniversary of the founding of our heroic Party. Our Party comes to its 8th Congress with great results in the fulfilment of the 6th Five-Year Plan and a majestic balance of successes in the 40 years of its unrivalled struggle for the liberation of the people from foreign bondage and the establishment of the people's state power, for the construction of socialism amidst the storms of the class struggle and for the strengthening and defense of the freedom and independence of the Homeland against all the internal and external enemies.

We come to the 8th Congress of our Party with a magnificent balance in all spheres of life, as Comrade Enver Hoxha presented it in his report. Our Party is the Party victorious in the National Liberation War; in the struggle for the consistent construction of socialist society according to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and relying on our own forces; in the fight against all the plots of internal and external enemies; in the unprecedented struggle against imperialism, in general, and against American imperialism, in particular, as well as in the likewise unprecedented struggle against modern revisionism: in the fierce struggle against the Titoite plot intended to eliminate the freedom and independence of the Albanian people, in the complicated and complex struggle against the Khrushchovite betrayal and later against the betrayal of the Chinese revisionist leadership.

At a time when the whole capitalist world, plunged into the general crisis of its system, is decaying and degenerating more and more each day, when the economic-financial crisis is wreaking havoc in every country of the world, in socialist Albania there is no crisis and decay, but there is growth, progress, prosperity, joy, unity, revolutionary enthusiasm, optimism and unshakeable confidence in the future. Albania is the only country in the world without external or internal debts, without taxes, without inflation, without price rises and unemployment, with the health service and education free of charge, with the dictatorship of the proletariat and genuine socialist democracy, where the Party and the people are in steel unity, where everything is done only for the benefit of the people, where the working masses are masters of their own fate.

The programmatic report which Comrade Enver Hoxha delivered at this Congress is the synthesis of the scientific-theoretical thought and concrete revolutionary action of our Party on the cardinal questions which have to do with the proletarian revolution, with its triumph, with the dictatorship of the proletariat and with the construction and defense of socialism. It is a profound and all-sided Marxist-Leninist analysis, summing up the work and the complex revolutionary experience which the Party has gained in the work and struggle for the implementation of its correct line. That report is a major program of work and struggle for our future, for the complete construction of socialist society in Albania, and throws light on the most acute problems of the present epoch, which have to do with the stands that must be adopted towards major problems in the development of the international situation, always in the interests of the peoples and the revolution.

In the course traversed by our Party and people for the construction of socialism, a course connected with the external circumstances which have exerted continuous pressure upon us to hinder and block the construction of socialism in Albania, the period of the 6th Five-Year Plan (1976-1980) is one of a special importance. During this period our Party had to cope with three major negative external factors: the imperialist and revisionist blockade, the pressure of the world economic-financial crisis, and the betrayal of the Chinese revisionist leadership. Our Party has a thorough knowledge of the objective economic laws of socialism and has mobilized the people in a great and complex struggle for the application of these laws in the present complicated international conditions of the world economic-financial crisis and the general crisis of capitalism, in the conditions of the capitalist-revisionist encirclement, providing concrete and practical proof of the correctness of Lenin's thesis that socialism can be built even in a single country, indeed even in a single small country such as Albania, when the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and the principle of self-reliance are applied properly.

The Chinese revisionist leadership had begun to exert its pressure to inhibit the construction of socialism in our country long before. As is known, however, it took the final step in this direction at a critical moment for us, in the middle of 1978, by announcing the cutting off of credits and the interruption of economic relations with our country in the hope that our leadership would either capitulate and submit to the Chinese leadership or to imperialism in order to get credits, or our country's 6th Five-Year Plan would founder and we would go economically bankrupt. But neither of these things occurred and our economy forged ahead without faltering.

How was it possible that neither of these things occurred? First, because the Chinese betrayal did not take our Party by surprise, since it had always consistently followed the course of building up a socialist economy more and more capable of marching every day on its own feet. Second, because our Party and state knew, on the one hand, how to maneuver skillfully in our foreign trade, and on the other hand, how to mobilize the whole people and the internal reserves to cope with the cutting off of credits and aid from China.

It is a very difficult task to switch about 50% of the volume of the foreign trade from a single country, as was the case of our trade with China, to scores of other countries in the very short time of less than one year. However, our Party and people overcame these difficulties thanks to their steel unity, the trust of the people in the line of the Party, and their mobilization to carry out the plan, to make savings, to ensure discipline, thanks to the vitality of our socialist economy.

Even in these circumstances, the Party, weighing up the situation, the internal conditions and possibilities, and the creative strength of the people correctly, called upon, mobilized and led the people to fulfill the 6th Five-Year Plan just as the 7th Congress of the Party had approved it. And so, as Comrade Enver Hoxha declared from the tribune of this Congress, today the Central Committee of the Party reports to the communists and the whole people that, in general, the main targets of the 6th Five-Year Plan were fulfilled successfully. This has led to the further strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the defense capacity of the Homeland and to the gradual improvement of the standard of living of the working people. This is another major victory of our Party and people on which we can base ourselves with unshakeable confidence for the opening up of further prospects for the socialist construction according to the principle of self-reliance, for the carrying out of the 7th Five-Year Plan (1981-1985), and other five-year plans later.

Attainment of the Targets of the 6th Five-Year Plan (1976-1980)

Speaking about the attainment of the targets of the 6th Five-Year Plan (1976-1980), Comrade Mehmet Shehu said: During the 6th Five-Year Plan the build-up of productive forces continued at satisfactory rates, the material-technical base was extended and strengthened in all the branches of the economy, the socialist relations of production were further improved, the socialist social order was further strengthened, and the fulfillment of the ever increasing needs of the economy, the people and defense, was achieved.

During the past five years (1976-1980), the total social product reached bigger proportions and the structure of all the productive branches of the economy was improved. In 1980, as against 1975, the total social product was 24.4% greater, while its average rate of increase for each of the five years of the plan was 4.5%

On the basis of the increase of the social product and the national income, the potential of the economy to make investments increased and the material and cultural level of the people rose further. In 1980, as against 1975, the fund of social consumption was 18% greater, while during the five years the norm of accumulation was maintained at an average of about 30%. New successes were scored also in the development of education, science, culture and the health service.

When the Chinese revisionists cut off all aid and credits to our country and reduced to the minimum all their relations with socialist Albania, which was and is encircled by the capitalist work! and under the continuous pressure of the world economic crisis, the enemies (and frequently the friends, too) of our country asked: "What will Albania do now: will it be able to ensure its further independent development without credits and aid from abroad?''

The reality of the whole course traversed by our country in the construction of socialism, the reality of the 6th Five-Year Plan, and especially the reality of its two final years (1979 and 1980), removed any doubt in the outside world in connection with the course which Albania would take after the cutting off of credits and economic relations with China: socialist Albania stuck unwaveringly to its own course for the construction of socialism relying solely on its own forces and demonstrated to the world with concrete facts that this is completely possible.

The principle of self-reliance, which has always found complete application in socialist Albania, is a principle that acts permanently and has universal importance for every country which builds genuine socialism. This is what Marxism-Leninism teaches us and life confirms it. This is precisely the principle to which our Party adheres.

The economy of our country is the only genuine socialist economy with unwavering stability, which is based on socialist social ownership of the means of production and which is developed on the basis of a unified state plan, in a proportional way, according to the theory of Marx and Lenin, at stable and relatively high rates.

The ever increasing proportions of the social product have been made possible and have been ensured on the basis of the maximum mobilization of all the internal factors for its extensive and intensive development, which have allowed our socialist economy to develop in an independent manner and avoid becoming an appendage to the capitalist economy of the bourgeois-revisionist world. In the future, too, the economy of our country will never be integrated into the capitalist world economy, in any form or manner. It has been and will remain an independent socialist economy which develops according to its own objective laws and is guided by the economic policy of the Party which stems from these laws.

The correct harmonization of the leading role of industry with agriculture, as the basis of the economy, has been in the center of attention and a distinguishing feature of the activity of the Party, the state and the people during the 6th Five-Year Plan (1976-1980), too. The continuous development of the socialist industrialization of the country made possible the more extensive utilization of the natural assets, the rise in the level of the processing of these assets within the country and the development of other branches of the economy. During the 6th Five-Year Plan, as always, the principle of giving priority to the development of the production of means of production over production of consumer goods, but always without underrating the production of consumer goods, was applied.

Such a course has ensured the simultaneous development, both of industry and of agriculture, and other branches of the economy. On this basis, our socialist agriculture succeeded in fully carrying out the task set by the 7th Congress of the Party to fulfill the needs of the people and the economy with bread grain produced within the country and to consolidate this great victory more and more each year, further strengthening the independent development of the country in this way. Now our socialist agriculture ever better fulfills the needs of the people for food products, as well as the needs of industry and the export trade. As a result of the care of the Party and the concrete measures taken by the state, even in the difficult conditions which were created during the 6th Five-Year Plan, especially by the external factors, the standard of living of the working masses was not reduced but, on the contrary, was improved, within the possibilities and limits which the development of the economy permitted.

This is another expression of that distinctive feature of socialist production that in any circumstances the supreme aim is to fulfill the material and cultural needs of man.

I. Industry

Speaking of the main results which were achieved in different branches of the economy and culture Comrade Mehmet Shehu said:

During the last five-year plan total industrial production increased at an average annual rate of 6.1%. As a result, in 1980 the volume of total industrial production was 34.4% greater than in 1975.

Continuing the policy of further developing the socialist industrialization of the country, new branches of industry were set up, such as that of ferrous metallurgy, deep processing of oil, the ferro-chrome industry, etc., which further improved the structure of industrial production. Along with this, the material and technical basis of the existing branches of the extracting and processing industry was extended and strengthened. In 1980, as against 1975, production of means of production (Group A) increased 51.3%. As a result, the proportion of Group A in total industrial production reached 64% as against 56.8% in 1975. This does not mean that production of consumer goods was underrated. On the contrary it increased continuously. Within heavy industry priority has been given to the development of the energy industry, the industry of mineral extraction and processing and the engineering industry.

The discovery of the new oil and gas fields during this five-year plan once again confirmed how misleading were the aims of the Soviet revisionists who told us insistently that "Albania has no oil." However, our Party was convinced that there is oil and gas in the Albanian geological territory, and this has been confirmed in practice not just once but several times.

Now our country is not only completely independent of fuel imports, but is also an exporter of oil byproducts, as well as electric power. This is a very great success for our economy and the guarantee for the economic independence and the stability of our socialist economy. The insistence of the Party on giving priority to solving the problem of energy demonstrates the foresight of our Party, and as a result, the great world energy crisis has never taken us by surprise. Our country ranks among the leading countries of the world which have an active energy balance.

More than 80% of the production of electric power in our country relies on hydro power. The use of the hydro energy in our country and its transformation into electric power through the construction of a whole system of hydro-power stations, especially those on the Drin River, which are of the European and world scale in regard to their size and economic profitability, is a major victory for the economic policy of the Party. For the construction of this system of hydro-power stations we had to wage a protracted struggle with the Soviet revisionists and, especially, with the Chinese revisionists. The production of the chemical industry in 1980 was twice as big as in 1975, and the structure of chemical production was extended and further improved.

The engineering industry took the first important steps during the 6th Five-Year Plan towards turning into an industry producing equipment and means of production, without neglecting the production of spare parts. In 1980 the production of the engineering industry was 57.7% greater than in 1975 or about 17% above the target set by the 7th Congress of the Party. The engineering industry successfully fulfilled the targets set by the 7th Congress of the Party to ensure 95% of spare parts within the country, and this is a very important factor for strengthening the economic independence of the country.

The light and food-processing industries have scored important successes in increasing production, improving the quality and range of goods, and now produce more than 85% of the mass consumer goods which the country needs, while part of their production is exported. Today about 25% of our exports come from the light and food-processing industries.

II. Agriculture

The 6th Five-Year Plan, Comrade Mehmet Shehu said further on, marked fresh successes in the development of our socialist agriculture. The cooperativist peasantry and the other working people of agriculture honorably fulfilled the tasks set by the 7th Congress of the Party to ensure the people's bread through the production of all the grain needed within the country and to ensure better supplies of raw materials of agricultural origin for the light and food-processing industries and for exports.

In comparison with the five years of the 5th Five- Year Plan, agricultural production for the five years of the 6th Five-Year Plan taken together was 21.4% greater. Taken overall, our agriculture fulfills the needs of our economy with its own products, and this is a great victory.

III. Fundamental Investments and Constructions

The 6th Five-Year Plan was characterized by the carrying out of a large volume of fundamental investments and constructions for the creation of new branches and the extension of the existing branches of the economy, supporting especially the development of industry, in which about 41% of the direct investments were made, and the sector of agriculture, in which about 27% of the direct investments were made, apart from investments which were made in industry and elsewhere in the service of agriculture.

During the 6th Five-Year Plan about 300 new projects for the development of the economy and social- cultural sectors were built and brought into use.

It is the correct investments policy carried out by the Party which has made us economically independent. And our economic independence does not have the meaning of autarky which the imperialists and revisionists try to attribute to us. Our economic independence, which is also based on the implementation of a correct policy of investments, has the meaning that we must ceaselessly increase the productive forces and extend both our exports and our imports, but our imports must cover those goods which we cannot produce at home, mainly those to increase the productive forces, and on the condition that all our imports are completely covered by the exports, while what can be produced within the country should not be imported.

IV. Transport and Communications

V. Foreign Trade

In the 6th Five-Year Plan the volume of goods export for the five years taken together was 33% greater than in the five years of the 5th Five-Year Plan. Today our country carries on trade with more than 50 different countries of the world.

About 70% of our export goods are finished products.

VI. The Raising of the Well-Being of the People and the Development of Education and Culture

It is a major victory of the correct Marxist-Leninist line of the Party and its economic policy that in the 6th Five-Year Plan, too, despite the difficult conditions and grave obstacles created by the betrayal of the Chinese revisionist leadership and by the pressure of the grave and continuing economic crisis of the capitalist world, the material well-being and the cultural level of the people were further improved.

In each year of the 6th Five-Year Plan, on the average, 70% of the national income created was used for the needs of the personal and social consumption of the people. In this context the fund of social consumption had a higher rate of increase. In the real incomes of the workers and employees about 77% is made up from their pay for the work which they carry out and about 23% from the social funds.

The policy pursued for the distribution and redistribution of the national income and the employment of an average of about another 40,000 people each year of the five-year plan, i.e., in general the same number as the increase in the number of young people available for work, as well as the stability of the prices of retail goods, brought about that the real incomes and the buying power of the population and that of the lek were increased further.

The above factors have led to the increase and extension of the supply of the consumer goods for the people. In 1980, compared with 1975, the volume of the circulation of consumer goods increased 19.8% at an average annual rate of 3.7%, thus outstripping the rate of the natural increase of the population. In the same period, the following increased amounts of goods were sold to the people: fats 28.3%, cheese 18.6%, rice 23.5%, cotton textiles 20.8%, stuffs 14.3%, ready-made clothing 27.3%, knitwear 29.5%, furniture and household equipment 20.4%, etc.

Special care has been shown for the protection and improvement of the people's health, for mother and child, for conditions of hygiene and sanitation and for the extension of the range of pharmaceutical products. To this end, during the 6th Five-Year Plan the system of preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic measures was strengthened, the basis of the medical service was extended and its scientific level enhanced. In 1980, as against 1975, the number of children in creches increased 19.6% and the number of mother and child consultation centers increased 10%, while on a Republic scale we have reached an average of one doctor and dentist for every 597 residents, and this is a great success. Special measures were taken to extend the health service in the countryside, the expenditure for which was met entirely by the state, with special stress on increasing the number of health institutions and the number of the medical personnel.

A new victory of the social policy of the Party to lighten the work of women is the decision taken recently to extend the period of paid maternity leave from three months, which it was previously, to about six months -- about one month before the birth and about five months after it. There are very few states which have created such conditions for the mother and child.

As a result of the rise in well-being and the care to protect the health of the people, Albania has the highest rate of increase of population in Europe (21 per thousand). Whereas the "consumer" society in the capitalist and revisionist countries is leading towards the reduction of the natural increase and the aging of the population as a whole, and this is the inevitable result of the capitalist mode of production and life, and of the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism.

In the field of education the years of the 6th Five- Year Plan were characterized by the work and struggle to deepen the revolutionization of the school.

In 1980 the number of pupils enrolled in the secondary schools was 48.3% greater than in 1975. During the 6th Five-Year Plan more than 113,000 pupils completed their secondary schooling, including more than 84,000 who completed their vocational schooling in 55 different specialities, while about 20,000 cadres in 56 specialities graduated from the higher schools.

Employment has been secured for all the cadres who graduated from the higher schools, as well as for all those who completed their secondary schooling and did not go on to higher schools, without exception. This is a great victory. Our Party pursues the policy that employment must be guaranteed for everybody, and in our country there is no cadre who graduates higher school and is left unemployed, as occurs in bourgeois and revisionist capitalist countries.

Important new successes were marked during the years of the 6th Five-Year Plan also in the all-round development of culture, literature and art.

Scientific-research activity also underwent further development and improved in quality during the 6th Five-Year Plan. Valuable results have been achieved in the field of social sciences. In the field of natural and technical sciences, too, scientific-research work developed rapidly and has made important progress.

The great successes which we have achieved in the 6th Five-Year Plan constitute a major victory of the economic and social policy of the Party. All the attempts of the various imperialist and revisionist enemies to denigrate the genuine socialist course of the Party of Labor of Albania have failed. Everything that the enemies have said about our socialist system has been turned to dust and ashes by the great facts of the socialist construction in Albania.

On the Directives for the 7th Five-Year Plan (1981-1985) of the Economic and Cultural Development of the Country

Then Comrade Mehmet Shehu spoke on the directives for the 7th Five-Year Plan (1981-1985) of the economic and cultural development of the country.

Comrade Enver Hoxha, in the report of the Central Committee of the Party which he presented to the Congress, defined the fundamental task of the 7th Five-Year Plan as:

"The general development of the economy, relying completely on our own forces, on the basis of deepening the socialist industrialization of the country, the strengthening and intensification of agriculture, raising the efficiency of the economy, the development of the technical-scientific revolution and perfecting the socialist relations of production, in order to guarantee and gradually raise the material well-being and the cultural level of the masses of the working people, and to further strengthen the socialist order and the defense capacity of the Homeland."

To fulfill this fundamental task, the draft of the 7th Five-Year Plan (1981-1985) lays down that the main indices for the development of the economy must rise as follows:

Increase percent 1985 against 1980

The overall profitability of industry in 1985 will be 42%, as against 33% in 1980; the overall profitability of agriculture in the 7th Five-Year Plan (for the five years taken together) will amount to 25%, as against 17% in the 6th Five-Year Plan; the norm of accumulation will be 31-33%, as against 30% in the last five- year plan.

The 7th Five-Year Plan (1981-1985) is the first five-year plan which will be carried out only with our own material and human forces, without any aid or credit from abroad. The fulfillment of this plan will ensure relatively high rates of development in all the branches of the economy and the sectors of culture, despite the circumstances and conditions of the existence and tightening of the imperialist-revisionist blockade and the deepening of the world economic crisis. In this sense the 7th Five-Year Plan is more majestic than all the previous five-year plans which have been drafted and carried out in our country.

The total volume of the social product forecast to be achieved in the 7th Five-Year Plan will be equal to the total volume of the social product achieved in the 4th and 5th Five-Year Plans taken together (1966-1975). Despite the high rates of the increase of population in our country, the social product per head of the population will increase 21% during the 7th Five-Year Plan, as against the increase of 12% achieved in the past five years. The national income will increase 35-37% and national income per capita 22%; the rate of increase of national income will be higher than the level of increase of the social product, and this is one of the most distinctive features of this plan.

Fundamental investments are forecast to amount to 25 billion leks, which is equal to the volume of total investments made during the first four five-year plans taken together (1951-1970). Income in foreign currency from the export of goods will be about double that earned in the past five-year period.

It is envisaged that in 1985 the proportion of processed export goods will reach about 73%.

It is envisaged that in 1985, as against 1980, the social product will be increased 34-36%, while the natural growth of the population is forecast to be about 12%; in 1985 the product for society will be 45% greater than in 1980, while the product for the individual will be 27% greater, the productivity of social labor will be increased 12-14%, while the real income per head of population will be increased 8-10%.

I. Deepening the Socialist Industrialization

Further on, speaking of the development of the branches of industry during the 7th Five-Year Plan, Comrade Mehmet Shehu said among other things that in heavy industry priority will be given to the extension and strengthening of the energy base.

In 1985, as against 1980, oil extraction will increase 58-60%, production of electric power 16% and coal extraction 48%. In 1985 the products of the energy industry will represent about 43% of the total volume of the country's exports.

The total quantity of oil, which will be extracted during the 7th Five-Year Plan, will be processed within the country, at the same time increasing the range of oil by-products and improving their quality.

In 1985, as against 1980, the extraction of chromium ore will increase about 29%, copper ore 53%, and iron-nickel ore about 2.5 fold. Likewise there will be increased extraction of other minerals and underground assets discovered, such as phosphorite, quartzite, dolomite, olivinite, marble, rock salt, etc. At the same time, other new useful minerals, such as magnesite, bauxite, alabaster, etc., will be brought into economic circulation.

During the 7th Five-Year Plan great attention will be given to the enrichment of minerals. Thus, in 1985, it is envisaged that 50% of the chromium ore, 78% of the copper ore and 43% of the iron-nickel ore extracted will be enriched. To fulfill this task the more complete utilization and the extension of existing factories, as well as the building of six new enrichment factories have been envisaged.

A new step forward will be taken in the engineering industry in the designing and production of machinery and technical equipment to ever better fulfill the needs of the economy for the extension and reconstruction of the existing productive capacities, for the construction of new projects with our own forces, as well as for raising the level of mechanization of work processes. The years of the 7th Five-Year Plan will be decisive for the maturing of the machine-building industry in our country. In 1985, compared with 1980, production of machines and equipment will increase 56-58%.

The branches of industry which produce consumer goods also have an important place and an appreciable weight in the overall development of industry during the 7th Five-Year Plan.

Production of some main consumer goods will increase as follows: edible fats 47%, cheese 90%, macaroni 31%, sugar 41%, cotton textiles 23%, stuffs 28% (including cloth of synthetic mixtures which will be trebled), ready-made garments 30%, knitwear 31%, stockings 37%, footwear 31%, etc.

II. The Further Strengthening and Intensification of Agriculture

The Draft-directives for the 7th Five-Year Plan envisage that total agricultural production for the five years taken together will increase 30-32%, as against the 6th Five-Year Plan, at an average annual rate of increase of 5.4-5.8%. This task will be successfully achieved by raising the intensification of agricultural and livestock production and its economic efficiency to a new, higher level, as well as by further improving the socialist relations in the countryside.

The Draft-directives of the new five-year plan envisage an increase of 25% in total livestock products as against the 6th Five-Year Plan over the five years taken together. In 1985, compared with 1980, meat production will increase 53-55%, milk 30-32%, wool 34-36%, eggs 50-52%, etc. The successful fulfillment of these targets will be achieved mainly from the increase in the productivity of the livestock.

In 1985, as against 1980, it is envisaged that the number of pip and stone fruit-trees in production will increase 41%, citrus-trees 47%, olive-trees 33%, and grape vines 40%.

III. The Extension of Fundamental Investments and Constructions

Comrade Mehmet Shehu said further:

The volume of investments for the five years taken together will be increased 22-24%, compared with the 6th Five-Year Plan. This is another expression of the strength of our socialist economy and of its possibilities to invest and build, relying completely on our own forces.

In the 7th Five-Year Plan, investments in the sphere of material production will constitute 83% of the total investments, as against 77% in the 6th Five- Year Plan, while those in the non-productive sphere will be 17%, as against 23% in the 6th Five-Year Plan.

IV. The Development of Transport and Post and Telegraph Communications

In 1985, compared with 1980, the total volume of goods transport will increase 34-36%, while that of railway transport will be nearly doubled, coping with 47% of the total volume of goods transported by the enterprises of the system of the Ministry of Communications.

During the 7th Five-Year Plan the Lezha-Shkodra-Hani i Hotit (on the border) and the Fier-Vlora railways will be built and brought into use, the existing railway network will be extended with sidings and secondary lines to the industrial and production centers, and the storage and handling capacities of the railway stations will be increased.

V. Extension of Foreign Trade

The volume of exports in 1985, in comparison with 1980, will be 58-60% greater, while the volume of imports will be 56-58% greater. This will create the possibility to ensure an active balance in foreign trade in this five-year plan, too.

VI. The Rise in the Material Well-Being of the People

On the basis of the possibilities which the development of the economy creates, the level achieved in the material and cultural well-being of the people is guaranteed and will be further improved during the 7th Five-Year Plan. This finds its expression; in general, in the increase in the national income and in its distribution and final use. In 1985, as against 1980, it is envisaged that the fund of consumption will be increased 21 %, or at about twice the rate of the increase of the population.

The money incomes of the population in 1985, as against 1980, will be increased about 31%, while the fund of social consumption will be increased 26.3%. As a result, the real income per capita of population will increase 8-10%.

The turnover of retail goods in the state trade system will increase 22-24%. The supplies of certain food and industrial products for the people during the five- year plan will be increased as follows: meat 33%, fish 2.5 fold, edible fats 27%, milk 19%, potatoes 58%, vegetables 45%, stuffs 23%, bricks and tiles 32%, etc.

During the 7th Five-Year Plan about 50,000 apartments will be built by the state or with voluntary labor, while it is envisaged that about 30,000 houses will be built by the cooperativists themselves with their own financial means.

VII. Development of Education, Culture and Science

During the 7th Five-Year Plan, said Comrade Mehmet Shehu, education, culture and science will be further extended.

Sixty percent of the children of the appropriate age will be drawn into pre-school education. The number of pupils in the full-time secondary schools will increase 46%, and the number of students in the higher schools 24%.

In the field of defense we have the duty to take all necessary measures to ensure its further and all-round strengthening and to enhance the fighting readiness of the entire armed people, so that our socialist Homeland can withstand and overcome any possible aggression from our imperialist and revisionist external enemies who never give up their aggressive plans towards socialist Albania.

Some Main General Tasks to Ensure the Fulfillment of the 7th Five-Year Plan

The Party has always regarded the construction of socialist society, Comrade Mehmet Shehu continued, not just as a simple quantitative and technical-productive process of the development of productive forces, but closely linked with the continual perfection of socialist relations of production. On this vital question, the Party has adhered to the Marxist-Leninist thesis that if the socialist relations of production degenerate there is not and cannot be socialism, however developed the productive forced may be. Herein lies one of the main lines of demarcation between us and the modem revisionists.

In the future, too, the Party will continue to work for the improvement of all aspects of relations of production, both those of ownership, exchange and distribution, and those of organization and management. In this way, the creative activity of the masses will be raised to a higher level and the role of the socialist relations of production will be further strengthened for the rapid development of the productive forces and the continuous strengthening of our socialist social order.

During the 7th Five-Year Plan important steps will be taken for the further quantitative and qualitative development of the socialist property. The addition of new objects to this property and the increase in the efficiency of, its use will constitute important directions of the economic policy of the Party for the improvement of property relations. Attention will be given to the further strengthening and development of the socialist property of the group, to the economic-organizational strengthening of the agricultural cooperatives, especially in the mountainous zones, and the creation of conditions to go over gradually in the future to the voluntary transformation of the property of the group into property of the whole people, in a natural way.

In the field of exchange, the strengthening of economic relations between town and countryside will be the object of special attention, with the aim of further reducing the essential distinctions between them, by making better use of the economic levers for this purpose.

The problems which have to do with the employment of the able-bodied labor force in town and countryside during the 7th Five-Year Plan have been studied with particular attention. In our country everybody is guaranteed the right to work, and work is secured for them; amongst us there is no unemployment or emigration of the labor force.

After speaking of some other main tasks which will ensure the realization of the 7th Five-Year Plan, Comrade Mehmet Shehu continued:

The class struggle, as Marxism-Leninism teaches us and as the practice of life in our country confirms, is one of the main motive forces of our socialist society and it will continue until socialism has triumphed completely, not only on the national scale, but also on the international scale. This is a line of demarcation between us and the modern revisionists. To underrate this class struggle, which is waged in all fields of socialist construction, means to open the way to the birth of revisionism and the restoration of capitalism. This our Party has never permitted and never will permit.

Our enemies have never relinquished the struggle against us. The Party, the state and our socialist system are fighting blow for blow in a face-to-face encounter against the colossal force of the imperialist and revisionist enemies, who want to wipe us from the face of the earth. We must withstand this force at all costs, must triumph completely and finally in this complicated life and death struggle between socialism and capitalism.

We are the only country, the speaker said, which does not accept loans, and we are building socialism with our own material and human forces alone. Our 7th Five-Year Plan is a great socialist battle. We already have ample experience of such battles, because this is not the first time that we are relying on our own forces, and we must triumph in this great battle at all costs, and this will be an historic victory. Therefore, with the communists in the forefront, with everybody on their feet, forward into battle to carry out the 7th Five-Year Plan!

Fulfillment of the targets put forward in the Draft- directives of the 7th Five-Year Plan, Comrade Mehmet Shehu continued, will enhance our victories on the course of the construction of socialism, will further consolidate the socialist relations of production and the dictatorship of the proletariat and will increase the prestige and authority of the Party, the state and our people in the international arena. The successful fulfillment of the targets of the 7th Five-Year Plan will demonstrate what a people, even a small people, geographically encircled by imperialism and revisionism, is capable of doing for the successful construction of the socialist society, when it is guided by the great ideas of Marxism-Leninism, by a genuine Marxist- Leninist party, such as our Party is.

Socialist Albania has already proved to the whole world the strength and vitality of Marxism-Leninism. All the prophecies of our external enemies and their plans and plots against socialist Albania have been smashed to smithereens against the unbreakable unity of the people around the Party, and the determination of our working masses to carry out its correct Marxist-Leninist line.

Our country is beginning this five-year plan at a time when the international tensions have increased, when the situations are disturbed and complicated, when the dangers and threats to general peace and security have been greatly increased.

The Report which Comrade Enver Hoxha presented to this Congress made a profound and all-sided analysis of the present international situation, the factors making it more acute and complicated, the present crises which have gripped the capitalist-revisionist world, the class struggle on a world scale, and all the major positive and negative processes which characterize relations between states and peoples at present. Basing itself on this scientific analysis and regarding the development of events in an objective and dialectical way, the Central Committee, in its Report, has defined the fundamental directions of the foreign policy of our country and its stands towards the many phenomena of present-day international life. This is a correct principled policy, a wise and farsighted policy, which responds to the supreme interests of our Homeland and which serves the cause of the national and social liberation of peoples, and peace and security in the world.

Socialist Albania has maintained and will maintain a clear-cut and resolute stand against imperialism and reaction, and as always, will firmly oppose their plans to plunder the freedom and independence of the peoples and the efforts which they make to establish their domination over the world and the enslavement of all mankind.

Through the policy of expansion and hegemony which American imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism are pursuing today, the black clouds of war are gathering more and more each day over the world. Never before has so much been spent on armaments, on the maintenance of bases and armies may millions strong, as the United States of America and the Soviet Union, followed by China and the other imperialist powers, are doing today. This armaments race of such monstrous proportions is nothing but the most hideous expression of preparations for local and general wars.

All the tensions and dangers which exist in the world today come from this warmongering policy of the superpowers, from their lust to capture new markets and extend their spheres of influence and their mounting rivalry. Wherever the hotbeds of war are kindled, in the Middle East or Southeast Asia, in Afghanistan or Poland, in Africa or Latin America, the hand of American imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism is present.

But the policy of expansion and hegemony pursued by the superpowers, their aggressive activity and interference in the internal affairs of various states is running into ever greater resistance from the peoples. An upsurge of the anti-imperialist struggle, an increase in the efforts of the peoples to defend their freedom and independence and their right to independent national development, can be seen everywhere. If the American, Soviet, Chinese and other imperialists have not been able to embroil the world in war, this is due, in the greatest degree, precisely to the powerful resistance of the peoples, to the exposure of aggressive plots and plans and to the conscious activity of the working masses of all countries in defense of international peace and security.

The Albanian people, who prize the freedom and independence and the social victories which they have achieved in their free, socialist life, above everything, will give all their support to the liberation and revolutionary efforts and struggles of the peoples, to all those fighting against foreign oppression and reaction for the freedom and independence of their countries, who defend their own national sovereignty and contribute to the strengthening of peace in the world.

Albania is a European and Balkan country. On this account, it is particularly interested in everything that occurs in these regions. Our desire has been that Europe, which has suffered more than any other continent from the two great world wars waged in this century, should be a continent on which peace and collaboration between its states prevail. However, the situation is not like this. Europe is divided into military and economic blocs of the superpowers and has been transformed into an arena of great rivalry between them. This has provided the superpowers with opportunities to interfere in the internal affairs of European states, to violate their national sovereignty, and to dictate policies which are contrary to the vital interests of these states.

The Balkans is in a similar situation. The interference of the superpowers is strong here, too. Here, too, the military blocs of the American imperialists and the Soviet social-imperialists have been extended. Here, too, their bases and weapons are stationed and plots and intrigues are hatched up against different states of this peninsula.

Nevertheless, the dangers which threaten the European continent are not inevitable. They can be avoided if the tutelage of the superpowers established over many countries is rejected, if the way is blocked to their interference and dictate, if the foreign bases and troops are withdrawn, and above all, if the military and economic blocs, which represent those heavy chains with which the American imperialists and Soviet social-imperialists have shackled the peoples of Europe, are broken up.

The People's Socialist Republic of Albania, as a socialist country, pursues a just foreign policy against the war which the superpowers want to launch, and for strengthening relations of friendship and sincere collaboration with all the peoples who love freedom and peace. Socialist Albania is for normal relations with all states, on the basis of equality, non-interference in internal affairs, respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and collaboration of mutual benefit with all those countries which wish to have such relations with it. We are particularly interested in the development of good neighborly relations with all the neighboring states.

As Comrade Enver Hoxha pointed out in the Report he delivered here at the Congress, the policy of our country towards neighboring countries has always been principled and consistent. We have been and are for normal relations with them. We have never interfered and do not interfere in their internal affairs, just as we have never interfered and will not interfere in the internal affairs of other states.

Nevertheless, we have the right to raise our voice against the injustices which have been imposed on the Albanians who live in Yugoslavia, to speak out openly and publicly when our brothers and sisters in Kosova are oppressed, imprisoned and tortured, killed and massacred simply because they demand their legitimate rights within the bounds of the Constitution of the Yugoslav Federation. The oppression of the people of Kosova and the ferocious terror which prevails there cannot be covered up with the anti-Albanian propaganda which is being concocted in Yugoslavia. It is not socialist Albania that caused the demonstrations and the present grave situation in Kosova, but the policy pursued by the Yugoslav leadership, the Great- Serb chauvinist oppression imposed on the Albanian people of Kosova.

The Albanians in Yugoslavia take third place amongst the other nationalities in regard to the population, but they are in the last place in regard to their rights. They are among the most backward economically, the most deprived of constitutional rights, the most oppressed from the national viewpoint and the most exploited from the social viewpoint.

Now they are demanding an end to this inequality, an end to these injustices, demanding a republic of their own within the framework of the Yugoslav Federation, just as the Serbs, the Croats, the Macedonians and the Montenegrins have. We want normal, good neighborly relations with Yugoslavia, but we shall defend our brothers in Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro, and when their legitimate rights and just demands within the bounds of the Constitution of the Yugoslav Federation are trampled upon, we shall support them. This is our right and our duty towards our brothers of the one blood who live in Yugoslavia, according to the norms of international right.

In conclusion Comrade Mehmet Shehu said:

Now the Albanian communists and the Albanian people, united like a steel fist around the Central Committee of the Party and its founder and leader, our beloved Comrade and teacher Enver Hoxha, have set to work with all their might to fulfill the tasks of the 7th Five-Year Plan and the plan of the first year of this five-year period, the

plan for 1981, is being realized successfully. Advancing resolutely on our correct Marxist-Leninist course and fully mobilized to implement and defend the correct line of the Party, the Albanian communists and people are invincible.

Therefore, Comrade delegates, let us close our ranks tightly, let us take a firm grip of the pick and strike deeper with it, let us keep the rifle clean and ready and keep our eye always on the target, and remain loyal for ever, generation after generation, to the solemn pledge that was taken forty years ago, when our Party was founded by the Albanian communists, headed by Comrade Enver Hoxha, to always march forward only on the road of Marxism-Leninism, socialism and communism, regardless of the sacrifices, because only the Marxist-Leninist road is the road of the freedom and independence of the people, the road of complete social justice!

[Photo: Mehmet Shehu, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PLA and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Albanian government, delivering the Report on the 7th Five-Year Plan.]

[Photo: Another scene of the delegates at the 8th Congress of the PLA]

[Graphic.]

[Back to Top]

The demand 'Kosova-Republic' cannot be stifled either with violence or with empty theorizing

[Zeri i Popullit masthead.]

(The following article is from the September 1981 issue of Zeri i Popullit, organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, as published in a pamphlet by the "8 Nentori" Publishing House, Tirana.)

The events of March -- April this year raised in an especially acute manner a major question of principle -- that of the constitutional position of Kosova and the Albanian population in general in Yugoslavia in the framework of the Federation. The slogan "Kosova -- Republic," raised in various ways previously, has now been taken up by the broad masses. Now it has emerged openly, is no longer mentioned in whispers, is encountered in the leaflets and appeals, in the squares and streets of the towns, in the lanes of the villages, on the walls of schools and public buildings, throughout the whole Region. It is in vain for the mobile squads of "territorial defense" to rush to erase and paint over this slogan because, despite the mounting terror, it reappears. The main thing is that it is now deeply implanted in the hearts and minds of the people who comprise the overwhelming majority of the population.

In the months which have passed since the spring, it has become clear that the slogan "Kosova -- Republic" is a real demand of the time, a demand which cannot be dodged. Whether or not the Great-Serbs want to accept this, it is becoming one of the most burning problems in the internal life of Yugoslavia. It has won acceptance as a problem for discussion. It is no longer a taboo theme. And bearing in mind the breadth and strength of the movement, we can say with full conviction that it will not be removed from the agenda until it is given a correct solution.

Rather than an aspiration, "Kosova-- Republic" is an expression of protest. It is a powerful protest of a population two million-strong, which is now conscious not only of its numbers, of its size, but also of the justice of its cause. It is the voice of a population which has long experience of persecution and mistreatment, together with a brilliant tradition of proud and indomitable resistance. Its message, which is now spread throughout the whole world, is simple and clear: it refuses to be trampled down, to be treated as a race inferior to the other nations and nationalities in the Federation. An indispensable step towards winning equality is the realization of the demand "Kosova -- Republic."

* * *

The Yugoslav press, whether of a republic or Federation level, has tried for a long time to minimize or ignore this slogan. Everyone remembers how it was disdained and underrated at first in Belgrade and everywhere. The Kosova events were described virtually as an act of simple rebellion, as a brutal outburst of street violence by an unconscious mob without any clear cause or aim. The fable about the "destructive retrogressive" spirit of the Albanians was spread widely in an attempt to excuse the bloodthirsty counteraction by the police.

If the staff directing the anti-Albanian propaganda has now been obliged to change its tactic, this is further proof of the strength and maturity of the movement and of the vitality of the demand. Besides the grave reprisals against demonstrators in Kosova, in the framework of the whole propaganda campaign which accompanies the punitive actions in Kosova, efforts are being made to support the thesis of "ideo-political differentiation" by explaining "why Kosova cannot become a republic."

Under this general title Borba, the central organ of the Socialist League of Workers of Yugoslavia, has recently carried a series of articles in which we can say, it puts an end to a "remote," "superior" and "far- removed" stand towards the events in Kosova, trying to present an analysis and a synthesis at the same time. The articles have been entrusted to the pen of the publicist Jovan Raicevic who toils through pages of print to answer the question which has been raised not only in Kosova but also worldwide: why should Kosova not be a republic, what are the reasons which impel the Yugoslav leadership to insist so rigidly in rejecting a demand which, if not according to the letter, is undoubtedly in the spirit of the Constitution of Yugoslavia (of course, if they take this Constitution seriously).

The first observation which comes to mind from reading such material is that, whereas earlier they did not deign even to mention this question, now, however, they are obliged to discuss it and argue about it. The central organ of the Socialist League of Workers of Yugoslavia itself has taken it up.

Second, it strikes the eye that the articles have pretensions to be rather more than simple publicity materials; they are presented as a kind of pseudo-scientific study with a theoretical-doctrinaire form in which the political, economic, juridical, ethnical and psychological factors are put together to knock down "Kosova-- Republic."

What particularly characterizes the Borba articles, the main idea that runs through them, is the thesis that in post-war Yugoslavia the national question has found the most just and complete solution, that moreover the Yugoslav Federation constitutes an unrivaled example from this aspect, a model unattained till now in the world. Somewhere Raicevic issues the challenge: "In the whole world today, either in the East or the West, or in the so-called developing countries," is there another instance which can approach Yugoslavia from the viewpoint of its handling of the national question?

Thus, the first and most general explanation provided as to "why Kosova cannot be a republic" is that the national question is not raised in Yugoslavia today, because it has long been settled, and that the events in Kosova are nothing but an "accidental occurrence" which must not spoil the harmony of the "community," the atmosphere of "unity and fraternity" which, prevails in the relations between peoples and nations in Yugoslavia. This implies that the action of the Albanians of Kosova is a completely isolated phenomenon, which is out of tune, which is simply "nonsense" compared with the whole picture of national peace achieved in the Federation. The foreign press reports that a psychosis of blaming the Albanians has been created and cultivated among the Yugoslav public, the finger is being pointed at the Albanians as the main, if not the only, source of all the misfortunes which Yugoslavia is experiencing in this phase.

This overall assessment is presented to us as a postulate, as an absolute truth. On the basis of formal logic this must exclude any discussion in connection with the national question in Kosova. It is not our purpose to dwell at length here on a problem which concerns the whole of Yugoslavia as a federation. We have had and have our own opinion and position, have said and say that Yugoslav revisionism does not provide a basis for a sound treatment of the national question either in theory or in practice. Beginning and becoming crystallized as a complete distortion of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine on the broadest plane, it could not but end up with failure in this field, too. In fact, the national policy in Titoite Yugoslavia has never been established on stable foundations, on solid principles pervaded by socialist ideals. It has been a policy inspired by pragmatism, a policy of adaptation to circumstances, trying to balance the contradictions and squabbles among the nations. This is why the rivalries between different nations and Slav and non- Slav ethnic groups constitute one of the most characteristic features of the internal life of the Yugoslav Federation. This has frequently led to clamorous developments, such as the fall of Rankovic in 1966 and the purges in the 70's in the two most important republics -- Serbia and Croatia. All these outbursts that have shaken Yugoslavia have had their basis in the national question. Borba boasts that "the development of Yugoslavia has proceeded normally and without upheavals" in this field convinces no one.

The most important thing -- and this is where we must concentrate our main attention, is that the main operations for "the settlement of the national question" in post-war Yugoslavia, the various deals and concessions were carried out at the expense of the Albanian nationality. Its fundamental rights were sacrificed on "the altar of national peace" in the Yugoslav Federation. Nothing else brings out better the true nature of the national policy in Titoite Yugoslavia. The Albanians and the territories inhabited by them have been used as pawns in the unprincipled game to placate the squabbles between the Slav republics. The later developments are well known but repetition is the best cure for short and weak memories. The greater part, the trunk -- Kosova, was left under the wing of Serbia, while the rest -- the branches, were divided between Macedonia and Montenegro. The opinion and desire of the Albanians was never consulted.

The Albanians on both sides of the border have always adhered to a consistent line. They did not fall into the trap of "Greater Albania" of the fascist brand, they believed in the ideals of the National Liberation War, in the principle of self-determination of nations and, on this basis, at Bujan in December 1943-January 1944, the Albanians on that side of the border, in the proper form and through the proper channels, sought unification with Albania as a right won through their struggle. Tito himself, in his meeting with Comrade Enver Hoxha in 1946, declared that Kosova was Albanian. However, it soon turned out that for the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia their recognition, during the National Liberation War, of the principle of self-determination up to secession for the people of Kosova was, in fact, simply a matter of tactics, and the course of events showed this. The variant of the "workers and peasants' " republic of Kosova, put forward in 1940 by such a figure of the CPY [Communist Party of Yugoslavia -- ed.] as Mosa Pijade, was not accepted, either. Solemn declarations and promises were cast into oblivion, and after being cut off from the Albanian trunk, Kosova was again partitioned within the Yugoslav Federation.

* * *

During all these months we have heard it said that according the status of a republic to Kosova would undermine the foundations of the Yugoslav Federation and that such a thing would jeopardize the federative structures themselves. In this instance the argument has been developed along juridical-constitutional lines, and on this basis the demand "Kosova -- Republic" has been described as illegal and unconstitutional.

Borba more or less repeats these apocalyptical forecasts. Raicevic, too, talks about a great "confusion" which would allegedly be created in the Yugoslav federative system if the demand of the Albanian population were accepted. But how can one seriously reject a just demand with formal, juridical argument? The Yugoslav Federation with its internal divisions and subdivisions was set up without the participation of the Albanian population. The Yugoslav, leaders and their propaganda cannot produce even one document which implies the authentic expression of the will of the Albanians in the various stages of the creation of Federative Yugoslavia, either during the National Liberation War (in the meeting of AVNOJ [Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council of Yugoslavia -- ed.] at the end of 1943 the Albanians not only were excluded from participation, but were not even mentioned), or after the war, when the federative structure was completed. The only act by the Albanians is the decision of Bujan, regardless of the fact that the Great-Serbs today may call it an unfortunate episode and even a black stain on the history of the National Liberation War. Consequently, even if the problem is approached from rigorously formal positions, we have to do with a "juridical flaw" in the process of the creation of the Federation in connection with the rights of the Albanian population, a "flaw" which excludes this population from responsibility for everything decided in connection with it at the various stages and instances. Can Borba be basing itself on the "law" of the Yugoslavia of the Krais to invalidate the demand for changing the position of the Albanians in present-day Yugoslavia?!

A general tendency has been clearly observed in the Yugoslav propaganda to counter the demand "Kosova -- Republic" with a number of difficulties of a constitutional nature which are deliberately exaggerated beyond all reason. This may appear a convenient shelter, but it is completely insecure. Here the problem is turned upside down; to common sense the basis for reasoning in this case should be: whether the demand is just, and not whether eventual obstacles might emerge in the process of its practical realization. If there is good will, the obstacles are surmountable. After all, what is the sense of this fetishism of the juridical forms of constitutional acts?

Although they are fundamental acts, constitutions are not unchangeable or everlasting. There is no constitution in the world which, along with its main provisions, does not also envisage the respective procedures for necessary amendments or additions. The Constitution of the Yugoslav Federation makes no exception. In the foundation of the Yugoslav Federation there is an injustice which has been done to the Albanian population. Therefore, the essence of the question must be considered, and procedural considerations must not weigh unduly. The Albanians cannot be expected to carry the burden of combinations worked out in the past to their detriment. In their demand, the Albanians are not proceeding simply from a desire to disrupt the Yugoslav constitutional framework, but their aim is to have their rights recognized. The conclusion emerges automatically: the authors of these combinations must untangle the knot on the basis of the just settlement of the national question in Kosova by recognizing its right to the status of a republic and to an equal membership in the Yugoslav Federation.

One excuse which is frequently mentioned to oppose the demand "Kosova -- Republic" is that of the "specific autonomy" which is described as a unique phenomenon, "unknown up till now in political-legal theory and practice." In order to add conviction to the phrase there is the ready sequel that "true, the Region of Kosova is part of the Serbian Republic," but at the same time it is also a "constitutional element of the Federation" with certain rights "which are comparable with those of republics." In this case a long list is made of the positions and the responsibilities which members of the Albanian nationality (naturally, selected) can take in all the state structures at the republic or Federation levels. Naturally, all this is calculated to deceive the innocent in the hope that public opinion might be fooled with such transparent tricks.

Here they are speculating on the so-called "federative constitutional element" which has a declarative and formal character, which does not alter the essence, that is, leaves unchanged the position of Kosova, the content of which is not state political autonomy, but administrative autonomy. In the system of the Federation the Region of Kosova today is juridically a subordinate component of the Serbian Republic. Undoubtedly, the administrative autonomy which Kosova has today is an achievement, fruit of the efforts and struggle of the people of Kosova themselves against centralizing tendencies which have always aimed to reduce it to a simple unit of the internal territorial division. However, it always remains an administrative autonomy the limits of which are not only conditioned by the main prerogatives, which belong to the republic and Federation (never to the autonomous region), but also can be altered according to circumstances or the pressures of this or that current which assumes superiority in political life.

It is not surprising that in the countless meetings in the forums of the state and the party at all levels, in the chorus of the recriminations over the "concessions" which have allegedly been made to the Kosova people, different participants in the discussion, spokesmen for the Great-Serb chauvinist clan, have called loudly for the revision and restriction of this autonomy. Now they are passing from words to deeds. Great-Serb chauvinism is using the big stick. One aspect to the repressive policy imposed on the Albanian population is the police terror, the court sentences and the administrative punishment, the mass expulsion and dismissal. Another no less important aspect is the frontal assault on the achievements made in the Region of Kosova in the fields of education, culture and science, especially during the last ten years. Borba does not hesitate to mention these achievements as evidence of the importance of this autonomy and a proof for its value for the affirmation of the Albanian population. However, Borba's words sound like a cynical mockery today when the University of Prishtina, the schools and scientific and cultural institutions are under attack, when a general offensive is being mounted against the values of Albanian national history and culture. Masked as a struggle against "myths of the past" and "national romanticism," a widescale action is being developed the final aim of which is to deprive the people of Kosova of their history, to deny the national identity of the Albanians and to bring about their merger with the Slav mass. A strong tendency for a return to the policy of assimilation, although it has brought nothing but defeats, and even upheavals, is emerging.

The attempt of Borba to present the events in Kosova as the result of a deviation from the official policy, a deviation which is attributed to the so-called "national bureaucracy" of the Region, is ridiculous. With the term "national bureaucracy" the stratum of Albanian officials of the local state and non-state structures is implied, who, always according to Borba, assisted by "an intelligentsia with marked nationalist tendencies," has allegedly permitted, and indeed incited, a process of withdrawal from the "socialist community" which has resulted in a narrow nationalist self-isolation. No, gentlemen of Borba, such mystifications don't hold water! The course which has been pursued towards the Albanian population has been well studied, has been determined long ago and with full consciousness in the highest instances of the Yugoslav state. A number of "short-term and long-term" aims, both against the Albanian population in Yugoslavia (as an element of political calculations in its internal life) and in relation to the independent Albanian state in the hope that it will eventually fall like a ripe apple into the Yugoslav "basket," are linked with this course. The top Yugoslav leadership may have been taken by surprise by the concrete results of this policy, but not by the fact of the application of this policy, which it had formulated in every possible detail. Nothing has been done in the Region of Kosova without the full knowledge of the central state organs in Belgrade. For example: the conference held on the occasion of the centenary of the League of Prizren, to which the Yugoslav press is now returning to paint it in somewhat scandalous colors, had the green light from the top federative organs. Borba is silent on this account and lays the blame on a certain "national bureaucracy" which had allegedly misused the "specific autonomy"! Today the truth is: this policy has been subjected to a radical revision which has two main characteristics: on the one hand, the attack on the achievements of the Albanians, and on the other hand, a free field for the Great-Serb chauvinist trend to seek revenge.

Searching for arguments to reject the demand "Kosova -- Republic" as theoretically baseless and practically unrealizable, Borba attacks it by claiming that this implies what it calls "the vertical linking of all the members of the Albanian nationality" in Yugoslavia, regardless of where they live. The reference is to a state "linking" which would include not only the population of Kosova within the existing boundaries of the Autonomous Region, but all the Albanians wherever they are, including those who live dispersed in the other republics of the Yugoslav Federation. This, adds Borba, would be a political organization on the principle of nationality, and not on the territorial principle, which is the foundation of any proper organization of state life. Here the Belgrade newspaper thinks that it has washed its hands by alluding to the struggle which Lenin waged in his time against the attempts of the Bund to emerge as a center representing all the Jewish workers of Russia, by basing itself precisely on the principle of a "vertical national linking." First of all, one must observe: since the demand "Kosova -- Republic" is totally rejected, why bother to discuss certain supplementary aspects of it, certain further implications of it? When the head is removed what importance have the limbs? Second, although the Leninist heritage has suffered the most unbelievable distortions at the hands of the Yugoslav revisionists, one is still astonished at their boldness in wanting to use Lenin as a witness to justify an act of national oppression! Just imagine -- they try to use Lenin who was the passionate defender of the small peoples, who mercilessly pilloried "his own" Great-Russian bourgeoisie, first of all!

As for the essence of the matter it is a clumsy falsification, an outright attempt at a sleight of hand. The problem of the Albanians in Yugoslavia cannot be compared with that of the Jews in the time of the Czarist Russia, and neither does the demand "Kosova -- Republic" have the remotest resemblance to the pretensions of the Bund about the unification of all Jews under a "vertical national linking." The Jewish workers at that time were dispersed in various regions of the Russian Empire, while the Albanian population in Yugoslavia is compact, not only from the ethnic viewpoint, but also from the territorial viewpoint. The territories inhabited by the Albanians in Yugoslavia constitute, in the main, a natural territorial entity. Geography speaks in favor of the Albanians' demand. It is precisely here that Borba sees the greatest "danger": that the "Republic of Kosova" would lead to the "territorial concentration of the Albanian nationality" in Yugoslavia under "a single umbrella," and this would bring about that some regions (inhabited by the Albanian population) would break away from Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia in order to unite into "a compact Albanian region." But is there any more just and reasonable demand? Why must the Albanians of Yugoslavia be dispersed under three different "umbrellas" and not be united under one "umbrella," that of their own republic, always within the Yugoslav Federation? But see, here they raise the existing territorial divisions within this Federation as another unsurmountable obstacle. The observation which was made above in connection with the status of this Region is equally valid for the territorial division: this division was made without taking into account the Albanian population. After the war it was proclaimed that a new administrative division of liberated Yugoslavia would be made on the basis of the national criterion. However, in regard to the Albanian population, this criterion was trampled on with both feet. The territory inhabited by the Albanians was broken up within three republics and one autonomous region. This was done for two main reasons: first, it was a concession made to the concept of "Great Serbia" and conditions were created for a policy of oppression and assimilation of the Albanians; second, the territories inhabited by the Albanian population were used to give demographic and territorial consistency to the two smallest republics: Montenegro and Macedonia. Hence, this operation with the scissors, too, comes within the framework of the pragmatic policy which was adopted to overcome the contradictions which emerged in the field of the national problem. Here, too, the Albanian population was condemned to pay the bill for these combinations. However, these things are not decreed once and for all, are not unalterable. This is a matter of political will, and not difficulties of a constitutional nature.

* * *

On more than one occasion since the events in Kosova, some circles in Yugoslavia have selected organs of the Western press to express "in confidence" certain of their most "intimate" feelings and thoughts connected with these problems. The French newspaper Le Monde, which has now become a regular spokesman for the Yugoslav chauvinist viewpoints, especially attracts attention. Recently, it published an article by its correspondent in Belgrade, P. Jankovic, who is of Serbian nationality. As a good Serb, this journalist has lined up completely with the most extreme views of the Great-Serb clan. And the French newspaper gives him unreserved use of its tribune, while abandoning its boasted "vocation" of defending human rights on a world scale. Right from the start, Jankovic touched on the question of the status of Kosova and makes known the "clear-cut and definite" reply which has been given to this question in Belgrade. Kosova, he adds, "will never win" the position of a republic within the Yugoslav Federation.

Apart from the fact that the explanation given for this categorical refusal has never been heard before, it also has the merit of being quite explicit. So: Kosova cannot become a republic, because "Yugoslavia is the motherland of its Slav peoples and not of the Albanians of Kosova who have their motherland across the border, in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania." Could it be stated more bluntly? Could the inequality of the Albanians within the Yugoslav Federation be proclaimed more clearly? Up till now it has never been stated that Yugoslavia is a federation of Slav republics. We do not find this in its Constitution, either. Apparently, certain influential circles at republic or Federation level, confronted with pressures from all sides and in an excess of a euphoria of repression, have lost their heads and are opening and laying on the table many letters which they kept profoundly secret. Of course, when it is said that the homeland of the Albanians of Kosova (and we add, the whole of Yugoslavia) is the PSR of Albania, this is true. And this is not denied in the least. But it stands to reason that this is not mentioned in order to condemn the division of the Albanian nation in two as great historical injustice. Today even what a Serbian internationalist social-democrat like D. Tucovif: said about this at the time of the First World War, is considered heresy. Here the aim is neither more nor less than to use the ethnic links of the Albanian people of Kosova with the Albanian people in Albania as an argument to deny the former the right to be equal with the other peoples within the Yugoslav Federation. This assumes the color of racism. Here we have to do with an effort to justify a kind of "apartheid" against the Albanian population precisely because of the ethnic nationality they belong to. Hence, it emerges from this that the present-day Region of Kosova is not at all a form of state organization which opens fields to the affirmation of its population, but a means of discrimination, of elimination, which must keep it firmly in their present inferior position. This is the meaning of "specific autonomy"!

In its series of articles Borba guards against directly mentioning this kind of reasoning. However, it unmistakeably echoes it by maneuvering with certain considerations which we shall call of a juridical-international nature. The thesis that "a nation cannot have two national states," that since a separate state of the Albanian nation exists, a second Albanian state cannot be created, and there is no room for two parallel states of the same nation, is intended to express these shades of meaning. In this connection, it must be made clear that in the present case there is no talk at all about the creation of two Albanian national states. Here, too, the propagandists of Belgrade are up to some trick. They pretend that they do not understand that the demand for the republic of Kosova does in no way raise the issue of the creation of a second Albanian state with the attributes of a separate participant in international relations. The aim of this demand is simply the alteration of the status of Kosova, raising it from the rank of the autonomous region to the rank of the republic, but always within the frame of the Yugoslav Federation. Borba refers to cases of the creation of "dual" national states after the Second World War (two Germanies, two Koreas), which it describes as the result of wars with "grave consequences in international relations" and as "the frontline of conflicts between blocs." Disregarding the fact that the situation is not comparable, because the republic of Kosova would not be a separate state, like two Germanies and two Koreas at the present time, still it is in order to ask: was the division of the Albanian people in two a result of peaceful processes? The separation of Kosova from the Albanian trunk was likewise a consequence of wars, concretely, of the Balkan Wars and the First World War.

The propaganda from Belgrade, and on this point Borba dwells especially, is ringing the alarm bells over the events in Kosova, describing not only the internal dangers for the Yugoslav Federation, but also the threatening developments in the plane of the international policy on the scale of the Balkans and indeed the whole of Europe. The matter is presented as though not only the stability of "non-aligned" Yugoslavia "outside blocs," but also the peace in this zone are connected by a very fine thread with the internal structure of the Yugoslav Federation. This is followed by a hail of "terrible" accusations against the PSR of Albania which, by coming out in defense of its compatriots, is not only "interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign state" and "undermining its internal order," but also is endangering peace, disturbing the equilibrium in the Balkans and Europe and opening the way to international complications and superpower intervention! The foreign policy of our country is declared "adventurous" and "expansionist."

Bluffing is a well-known method in the Yugoslav foreign policy, but we still have not seen it reach such culmination. The PSR of Albania has declared more than once through its top representatives that it is not in the least interested in weakening or destabilizing Yugoslavia, but on the contrary, that the Albanian people will fight beside the peoples of Yugoslavia in case of aggression, whoever it might come from. But does the stability of Yugoslavia rest on its internal juridical status quo? No sound reasoning can accept that the foundations of the Yugoslav Federation could be undermined by the simple alteration of the position of one region which wants to be raised to the rank of the republic within the Federation. In supporting the demand of our brothers in Yugoslavia we are acting within the bounds of international norms which recognize the right of "the mother state" to care for its compatriots outside its borders. Apart from this, we are convinced that the fulfillment of the demand of the Albanian population would eliminate a source of discontent and disturbances and, in the end, would lead not to the weakening, but to the strengthening of the internal situation in Yugoslavia. The interest of the peoples of Yugoslavia and the whole of the Balkan zone, if it is properly understood, requires that the problem of the Albanians of Yugoslavia should not be allowed to become a gangrene. The way to achieve this is not through savage police reprisals, or through campaigns of denigrating propaganda, but by allowing the Albanian population a position of dignity in the system of the Yugoslav Federation.

Borba follows up all this lengthy and high-flown harangue about the internal and external complications, which allegedly will be the inevitable accompaniment of fulfilling the demand of the Albanians, with the thesis which identifies them (the Albanians of Yugoslavia), with a "national minority." It endeavors to analyze the concept of the "national minority" by giving us the content of the regime for this minority.

"The fundamental and vital question for a national minority in the framework of another state," says the Belgrade newspaper, is that it must have "full national rights," for example, the "use of its mother tongue and schools in its mother tongue," and these must be "guaranteed by law." A national minority, it adds, cannot pretend to have its own state in the framework of another state. Borba goes on to display a liking for advice and moralization when it says that "national minorities are an inevitable aspect^of the process of the creation of states," that "it is not possible to define the borders of states in such a way as to ensure that they are made up of a completely 'pure' and 'homogeneous' national population"; therefore,... "the national minorities must not be sources of discord, but bridges for bringing peoples together."

To our way of thinking this reasoning is built on rotten foundations and is lame from the outset. The Albanian population of Yugoslavia is not a national minority. Up till now the Yugoslav propaganda itself has boasted that the term "national minority" has been eliminated from the official terminology, because, it claimed, it expresses a certain deprecation towards some ethnic groups, a certain inferiority of them in comparison with the other parts of the "community." We do not find this term in the Yugoslav Constitution, either. Now perhaps they have repented, and that is why they are talking about "national minorities" again. Many people might conform to the concept of a national minority, and naturally the question is not raised that it should be eliminated from the internal state practice or international practice. However, for the Albanian population in Yugoslavia this is a very narrow concept. Here we are referring to almost half the Albanian people, who are situated within the Yugoslav Federation. Borba likes to refer to figures to prove its thesis and calculates that the Albanian population in Yugoslavia constitutes 7 to 8 percent of the total population, while it reaches 14 to 15 percent in the Republic of Serbia. Although the percentages have been "retouched" to some degree, we have the right to ask: why are such calculations not carried right through to the end? What position does the population of Montenegro and that of Macedonia occupy in the total population of Yugoslavia? From the viewpoint of numbers, the population of Montenegro and Macedonia come right at the bottom of the classification table but, nevertheless, they are not national minorities and have their own republics. Borba is silent about the fact that the Albanian population in Yugoslavia today amounts to about two million people, and hence is third in size in The whole Yugoslav Federation. Now we know that there is another "argument": it is not a Slav population. Then it becomes clear once again that the obstacle is not their numbers but discrimination on a national basis.

The spokesmen for Great-Serb chauvinism also see other "dangers" in the eventuality that the right of the Albanian population to organize itself in a separate republic is recognized. Thus Borba says that, if the Republic of Kosova were recognized, it would be a state form of shutting the Albanian nationality within the narrow framework of its own "ethnos," and this would lead to "a separation and isolation from life and communication with the other parts of the Federation." In this case, as Borba forecasts, the members of the Albanian nationality "would exploit the newly - created national state" "to liberate themselves from the complex of the minority," to establish their own hegemony, and "to absolutize the interests of the Albanian nationality." This would mean that the members of other nations and nationalities in this newly created state would find themselves in a position of national minorities in relation to the Albanian nationality. This would result in efforts to displace these minorities and in mutual quarrels and clashes in general. All this would come about simply if the Albanians were given the right to have their own republic.

In other words, if Kosova became a republic, the Serbian minority which lives there would be oppressed and would not have any rights. In his judgement, the gentleman of Borba proceeds from a concrete fact, namely, that at present, since the Albanians are a minority in the Republic of Serbia, they are denied all rights. He thinks that the present position of the Albanians in Kosova will be that of the Serbs tomorrow. Therefore, for him the only alternative is the continuation of the oppression of the Albanians and the denial of their rights.

The claim about the so-called "xenophobia" of the Albanians, about their "incapacity" to lead a civilized coexistence with the other ethnic groups is more than just a slander. It takes not only a disdain for the truth but also no small dose of evil aim to make such insinuations about a population which has always been the victim of persecution, which has suffered every kind of outburst of the Great-Serb idea on its own back. No, gentlemen of Borba, you are unable to slight the honor and the good name of the Albanians in their conduct towards the other ethnic groups. We need only recall the time of the National Liberation War: we can mention hundreds of cases of massacres committed by the Ustalfe and Cetnici in various parts of Yugoslavia against the Slav population, but not in Kosova or in the territories inhabited by the Albanians in general. It was not rare for the Kosova man to turn his back to the bitter past and take his Slav neighbor under protection to save his life and his property from the occupiers.

Finally, the Great-Serb chauvinist spokesmen never cease to astonish us with their logic. The Albanians can be a minority in relation to others (this is virtually their fate), while the others cannot be a minority in relation to the Albanians! Here again racist tones can be distinguished. We have always understood clearly that the Great-Serb chauvinist ideology has as its intrinsic element anti-Albanian prejudices which border on absurdity.

The whole Yugoslav propaganda machinery has been set in motion in connection with the events in Kosova. The main means of public communication: the press, radio and television are being exploited to the maximum. Countless speeches, articles, talks and broadcasts have been made in order to distort the true meaning of events, to disparage the Albanians' demands, to throw mud at the PSR of Albania over its stand in defense of these demands. Now Borba is making its contribution in this field by putting forward a whole "platform" which could be called "against the Republic." The whole thing is a pitiful reasoning devoid of any power to convince, without any foundation at all, which adds nothing to the stale phrases said long ago and which simply goes to prove once again how legitimate is the demand of the Albanians of Yugoslavia and how pointless, weak and even ridiculous are the "arguments" presented to obscure and liquidate this slogan. In fact, as has been observed by many, it must be admitted that the Yugoslav revisionists have rarely found themselves in such a tight spot as that which has been created following the events in Kosova: it is difficult to find a case as flagrant as this which has so clearly revealed the great gap which divides the words, learned theorizing and the democratic and socialist phraseology from their deeds and the living reality. It is an undeniable fact that in the light of the events in Kosova and the stands which the leaders of Belgrade are maintaining, present-day Yugoslavia is becoming more widely known to progressive opinion as it really is, an unstable anti-democratic state which oppresses and kills its own citizens.

The propaganda from Belgrade can release any number of smokescreens to preserve what it can of the "prestige" of "non-aligned" "self-administrative" Yugoslavia in the outside world. However, it cannot cover up the fact that in Kosova and the other parts inhabited by Albanians today, it is carrying out an antidemocratic and inhuman act of repression and denationalization against a compact population. The demand "Kosova -- Republic" will have greater repercussions yet. Just as it cannot get rid of a population of two million through so-called "drastic" measures, neither can it stifle a just demand with false reasoning and empty theorizing.

Arber Korabi

[Back to Top]