Letter of the CC of the PLabour and the Government of Albania to the CC of the CP and the Government of China
To the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,
To the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China
On July 7, 1978 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China handed an official note to the Embassy of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania in Peking, whereby it announces the decision of the Chinese Government “to stop its economic and military aid and its aid payments to Albania and bring back its economic and military experts” working in Albania up till that date.
With this perfidious and hostile act towards socialist Albania, you unscrupulously scrapped the agreements officially concluded between the two countries, brutally and arbitrarily violated elementary international rules and norms and extended ideological disagreements to state relations with Albania.
Taking this hostile step against socialist Albania, you seek to hit at, and damage, the economy and defence capacity of our country, to sabotage the cause of the revolution and socialism in Albania. At the same time, you gravely undermine the fraternal friendship between the Albanian and Chinese peoples. Wishing ill to a socialist country, such as the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, you give satisfaction to the enemies of socialism and the revolution. The responsibility for this reactionary and anti-Albanian act, as well as its consequences, lies completely with the Chinese side.
The Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian Government denounce the brutal cessation of aid and loans to socialist Albania before all world public opinion as a reactionary act from great power positions, an act which is a repetition, in content and form, of the savage and chauvinistic methods of Tito, Khrushchev and Brezhnev which China, also, once condemned.
The Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian Government reject the attempts made in the Chinese note to blame Albania, to groundlessly accuse the Albanian leadership of allegedly being ungrateful for China’s aid and of allegedly having tried to sabotage the economic and military cooperation between the two countries. To any normal person it is unbelievable and preposterous that Albania, a small country, which is fighting against the imperialist-revisionist encirclement and blockade and which has set to large-scale and all-round work for the rapid economic and cultural development of its country, which is working tirelessly for the strengthening of the defence capacity of its socialist Homeland, should cause and seek cessation of economic cooperation with China, refuse its civil and military loans and aid.
Inspired by the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and the principles of proletarian internationalism, the Albanian people, their Party and Government have sincerely and consistently fought for the strengthening of friendship, fraternal cooperation and mutual aid between Albania and China. They have always highly appreciated China’s aid to Albania; considering it an internationalist aid of the Chinese people, an aid serving the general cause of the revolution and socialism in the world, an aid coming from a country which was called socialist. Now, as in the past, the Albanian people, their Party and Government stick to their assessments of this aid and its role, among other external factors, in the development of our country.
Socialist Albania has never considered its friendship with the peoples of other countries a means of economic profit. At the same time, it has permitted nobody to consider economic aid and cooperation an investment whereby political and ideological views, which run counter to Marxism-Leninism and socialism, are dictated to, and imposed on, our country. The People’s Socialist Republic of Albania has never sold out its principles, it has never traded on them.
When the Party of Labour of Albania defended the Communist Party of China from the attack of the Khrushchevite revisionists at the Bucharest and Moscow Meetings of the Communist and Workers’ Parties in 1960, it did so in full consciousness in order to defend the principles of Marxism-Leninism, and not to be given some factories and some tractors by China in return. When socialist Albania, for many years on end, defended the rights of People’s China at the UNO against the US plot, it was not doing so for material interests, but for the defence of a just and principled cause. When the Party of Labour of Albania and our working class supported the strategic aims of the Cultural Revolution in China, they were not doing so for the sake of compensation, but out of their will to assist the working class, the communists and people of China to save their country from the capitalist elements who had usurped power in China.
In order to justify its cessation of aid to Albania, the Chinese Government, out of necessity, has limited itself to economic and technical “arguments” of simple common practice in interstate relations. You are doing this in order to cover up the true motives which have impelled you to take this hostile action against socialist Albania.
The cessation of aid and loans to Albania cannot be motivated with the 8 “facts” listed in the Chinese note that allegedly “the Vice-minister of Industry and Mining of Albania... refused further consultations... and brazenly terminated the talks”; that the Albanian, experts “ignored the technical guidance of the Chinese experts” in the oil refinery; that the Chinese design for a military project proved unsuccessful because of “the belated discovery of seeping karst caves overlooked through poor geological survey by the Albanian side” and that the Albanian side “changed its mind by taking the work upon itself and terminated Chinese aid for this project”; that the Albanian side “created various pretexts and in violation of agreements, refused to sign notes on the starting of operations of projects”; that the Albanian side “suddenly refused to accept the 25 invoices totalling nearly 100 million yuan Renminbi”; “that due to the Albanian side’s disregard for the technical advice of Chinese experts, a scaffold was formed in the blast-furnace”, and the Albanian specialists eliminated this defect without waiting for experts to come from China; that “the Albanian Ambassador to China refused to accept the Chinese note of June 7, 1978”.
These “arguments” and the “facts” brought forth by the Chinese Government, are not only fabricated and distorted, but even if they were not so, they could never serve as a moral and juridical basis whereupon a state could rely to justify its one-sided and brutal cessation of economic and military aid to another state, with which it has been in close alliance for a long time.
The true motives for the cessation of aid and loans to Albania have not an exclusively technical character, as the note of the Chinese Government makes out, on the contrary they have a deep political and ideological character. In their letter the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian Government will throw full light on these political and ideological motives. But first we will stop to prove that the “arguments” the Chinese side resorts to in its note do not respond at all to reality.
I
The Government of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania will acquaint world opinion with the truth on economic relations between China and Albania and, in particular, on the questions the Chinese note takes up, by publishing the full text of the notes exchanged on these questions between the governments of the two countries. Herein we will clarify some “facts” mentioned in the Chinese note.
Tendentiously listing a series of figures about China’s aid to Albania, the Chinese note of July 7 reflects the desire of the Chinese leadership to boast before the world. It is acting in the same way as the Soviet revisionist leadership, which with the boastfulness of the great state, constantly advertises the “aid” it has once granted to Albania.
We are compelled to remind the Chinese leaders that their boasting is in utter opposition to the official declarations once made by the Chinese Government itself.
The solemn Statement on the 8 principles of the aid of the Chinese Government to other states reads: “The Chinese Government always bases itself on the principles of equality and mutual benefit in giving aid to other countries. It never considers such an aid one-sided alms, but something reciprocal”. When visiting 14 countries in 1964 Chou En-lai stressed that “…in case we were to boast of our aid to others this would be great state chauvinism”.
The Albanian people, Party and Government have never denied the aid of the People’s Republic of China and its role in the economic development of our country. They have acknowledged and appreciated this aid, proceeding from their sincere feelings and thinking that it came from a friendly state and was given in the spirit of the principles of socialism.
Yet, while making an exaggerated and embellished description of the Chinese economic and military aid to Albania, the Chinese note has no word about the fact that Albania, too, has aided China, as the Chinese leaders themselves have declared time and again, previously.
Appreciating the aid Albania has given China, Mao Tsetung said: “First of all, we must thank you, because you stand in the forefront, because you are in very difficult situations and persistently fight to defend Marxism-Leninism. This is a very valuable thing, this is most valuable” (From minutes of a meeting with an Albanian delegation, June 29, 1962).
On his part, Chou En-lai stated: “The Albanian comrades frequently mention China’s support for, and aid to, Albania. I would like to stress here in the first place, that Albania has given us great aid and support.
“...The Chinese people will never forget that at the time when the modern revisionists slandered against and attacked the Communist Party of China frenziedly, assuming a correct stand, regardless of all pressures, difficulties and dangers, the Party of Labour of Albania, courageously faced up to this opposite trend, exposed and mercilessly hit at the anti-Chinese plots of modern revisionism” (“Zeri i popullit”, January 9, 1964, speech at the Tirana rally).
On another occasion Chou En-lai said: “We are doing our internationalist duty and it will be betrayal if we do not help you... As the bastion of socialism in Europe, you are fighting against imperialism; revisionism and all reaction. If we do not help you, we would not be internationalist communists, but traitors. Support and assistance between us, between China and Albania, are mutual. You are a radiant beacon in Europe, and you are fighting unflinchingly and intrepidly. This is of great aid to, and support for, us and for all the peoples of the worlds” (From minutes of a meeting with an Albanian delegation, Peking, August 29, 1971).
A similar statement has been made also by Kang Sheng: “I have often told the comrades and I again stress that the Albanian comrades are giving us a great, colossal help. We must not consider only the nitrate ammonium plant, the thermo-power station, the various plants and factories we give you, they are nothing compared to the great support the Albanian comrades are giving us and the world communist movements” (From the speech at the dinner in honour of the Chinese delegation on November 13, 1966, in Tirana).
We are embarrassed when we have to mention the help Albania has given China, because what the Albanian Party and people have done for China and the Chinese people has been done with a communist sense of duty and inspired by fraternal and internationalist feelings. But you forced us to mention it, because following in the footsteps of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, you began to count the yuans and fens you have given Albania!
In its note, the Chinese Government tries to create the impression, in the public opinion, that if Albania has had any success in its economic development, this, allegedly, is due to Chinese aid. For this purpose and in order to impress the internal and international public opinion, the figures mentioned in the Chinese note are purposely inflated and fabricated. It says that the “implementation of the agreements concluded between China and Albania calls for an outlay by the Chinese Government of more than ten billion yuan Renminbi”. This is an arbitrary figure which does not correspond to the truth.
First of all, it must be said that what the Chinese Government considers aid is in reality credits, obligations deriving from agreements concluded between the two governments in conformity with the desires and interests of the two sides and common international practice in the relations between sovereign states, which involve bilateral obligations. Thus, here we have nothing to do with alms or Christian charity.
On the other hand, from documents in possession of the Albanian side, it follows that from December 1954 up to July 1975, 17 government agreements on granting credits to Albania by Peoples China, besides agreements on military aid, have been signed between People’s China and Albania. Among these 17 agreements there are some in which the aid in credits is reckoned in old rubles, then in new rubles, later in British pounds, finally in internal yuans, or in commercial yuans or US dollars. From the conversion of the various currencies mentioned in these agreements into “commercial” yuans according to the Chinese official exchange rate fixed by the China Bank in the respective periods, it follows that the total value of Chinese economic aid in credits accorded to Albania from 1954 up to 1975, when the last agreement was signed, does not “exceed 10 billion yuans”, as claimed in the Chinese note, but amounts only to 3 billion and 53 million commercial yuans. Until July 1978 Albania has utilized about 75 per cent of this sum, reckoning the value of integral projects and general materials at the prices unilaterally set by the Chinese side. But here it must be stressed that the values included in the invoices of the China Bank for complete projects and general materials are not reckoned on the basis of the prices set “in joint consultation”, but at arbitrary prices set by the Chinese side alone, without consulting the Albanian side at all, as stipulated in the agreement. Therefore, the return by the Bank of the Albanian State to the China Bank of the invoices for the projects built in Albania is no “violation of agreements”, as the Chinese note makes out.
Prices for integral projects and general materials, at which the invoices sent by China are reckoned, were not set in accordance with the provisions of the official agreements between the Government of the People's Republic of Albania and the Government of the People’s Republic of China of June 8, 1965, and the stipulations of the correspondence of December 22, 1971 which dearly says that: “Prices for integral projects and general materials… will be fixed after joint consultation according to the principles of the setting of trade prices between China and Albania”.
As far as military aid is concerned, the assessments of the Chinese side are utterly arbitrary, because in agreements of this category prior to 1967, all evaluations are made in Chinese currency, without consulting the Albanian side, whereas in later agreements which comprise most of the Chinese military aid to Albania, there is no definition of concrete values, either in Chinese or any other currency.
Therefore, those billions of yuans mentioned in the Chinese note do not represent the real sum of China’s economic and military aid to Albania, but represent a claim made on the basis of arbitrary, one-sided and tendentious reckonings by the Chinese side. We affirm that, in order to further its sinister aims, the Chinese side precipitated matters when it set such figures. Complete reckonings will be made according to the agreements, protocols and criteria established by both sides. Reckonings will be made taking also account of the loss and damage the Chinese side has caused our economy by failing to meet contracted obligations on time, leaving an important part of the projects uncompleted, etc.
The Chinese side has not been correct in the implementation of official agreements and protocols and jointly established criteria, either. The overwhelming majority of the economic projects built in Albania on Chinese credits have always been carried out with delays, which fluctuate from 1 to 6 years. There are also projects, such as the Ferro-chrome Factory which was due to be built on Chinese credits in Albania on the basis of an agreement concluded in 1965, which for the fault of the Chinese side has not been completed to this day. Likewise, the construction of the Metallurgical Complex began with delay and to this day, also, for the fault of the Chinese side, investment in its construction has been realized only to a measure of 67 per cent as against the volume of the total value of the Complex, and China has delivered only 74 per cent of the equipment.
These flagrant violations of official agreements by the Chinese side have caused grave damage to the Albanian economy, and the Chinese Government bears full material and moral responsibility for this. When all this is calculated according to official documentation and concrete facts, then it will be seen who owes whom and how much.
In the Chinese note China's aid to Albania is presented as the decisive factor in our country’s development. But it has never been, nor could it ever be, such a factor. The decisive factor, which nobody can deny, has been the resolute, persistent and heroic work and struggle of the Albanian people, under the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania, for the construction of socialism according to the Leninist principle of self-reliance. The brilliant successes attained by Albania in the construction of socialism and the defence of the country are the deed of the Party of Labour of Albania, of the Albanian state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the Albanian people, and not the result of external aid.
The aid received from China has been only an auxiliary factor. The total value of the Chinese credits utilized by Albania up to the end of 1977 amounted to a very small percentage of our national income. This is the reality, and not its false presentation by the Chinese aide which tries to create the impression as if it is China that has kept the Albanian people alive.
The chauvinistic concepts of the great state have clouded the minds of the Chinese leadership and have made it speak in the language of feudal landlords. The Chinese note boasts that China has delivered 1.8 million tons of wheat, etc., to Albania. It almost stops short of saying that Albania “has kept body and soul together thanks to China's bread”! This is an offensive stand towards the Albanian people. The truth is that Albania has imported grain from China during the period of 1956-1975. Not only does this figure not correspond to reality, but it should also be said that Albania has received only 436,000 tons of bread grain on credit from China over all this period, whereas it has received the rest in the commercial way, paying for it on a clearing basis. As the Chinese note has rounded into one figure both the bread grain imported by Albania on credit and the bread grain imported by it on a clearing basis, why does the Chinese side fail to mention what it has taken from Albania, what Albania has exported to China on a clearing basis during the period 1954-1977? Albania has delivered to China over 1.7 million tons of oil, over 1,3 million tons of bitumen, about 2,7 million tons of chromium ore and chromium concentrate, etc.
By mentioning its military aid in its note and making this note public, the Chinese Government has deliberately made public the military secret of the defence of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania. By so doing, the Chinese Government has gravely impaired the defence of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and helped its external enemies, in particular the forces of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization and US imperialism and the forces of the Warsaw Treaty and Soviet social-imperialism. This is an act of perfidy, and the Chinese Government bears responsibility for it.
A special place in the note of the Chinese Government is occupied by attempts to accuse the Albanian working people of allegedly failing to respect and being unwilling to collaborate with the Chinese experts who had come to Albania. These are inventions through and through, and we will not take the trouble to refute them! We are convinced that, in his conscience, no Chinese expert who has lived and worked among our people will approve of these accusations. During all this time, the Albanian workers, specialists and managers have collaborated with the Chinese experts in a fraternal and friendly spirit, assessed their work correctly, respected their knowledge and experience.
Furthering definite ends, the Chinese note says that within 24 years 6,000 Chinese experts have been sent to Albania. This global figure is dished out in order to back up the claim that the credit for constructions, industry, agriculture and everything that has been made in Albania allegedly goes to these 6,000 specialists. But the construction of new Albania is the deed of the Albanian people themselves. Tens of thousands of Albanian specialists, engineers and technicians have worked every day and continuously in the construction of various projects, without mentioning here the hundreds of thousands of technicians of medium training and the skilled workers. Without their work and knowledge no project could have been built.
As well as that, the Chinese note does not say that the experts sent by China have been paid handsomely by the Albanian people. This is not mentioned, but the note does not fail to remind us that China has allegedly spent 100 million yuans to experiment with Albanian iron! And this at the time when the Chinese experts, on orders from above, upon leaving Albania, left no blueprints to the Albanian specialists; they either burnt or took along with them all blueprints in their possession of the projects which were being built in Albania with Chinese aid.
It is natural that problems should arise between two partners, between two states about concrete economic questions for the solution of which discussions are necessary, even indispensable. The Chinese leadership, however, felt no need to conduct normal discussions, because it wanted to impose its opinions on Albania. Not only today, but for a long period of time before, the Chinese side, in various forms and manners, has brought pressure to bear on Albania over economic questions. During the talks about the signing of agreements of China’s granting economic aid in credits to Albania, and then on observance of these agreements, many debates have taken place, in which the Albanian side has successfully opposed the views of the Chinese leadership which sought to impose a one-sided economic development on Albania, to inhibit its rapid and steady development.
In the lengthy debates, the pressure of the Chinese leadership reached such a degree that it threatened to have work on the designing of the hydro-power plants of Vau i Dejës and Fierza suspended, so that we should not build at all these very important industrial projects. The Chinese leadership thought that, as in their opinion, Albania had no technical cadres to design such large and complicated hydro-power plants with its own forces, it would consequently give up work on construction of these projects. But in the end, seeing that the Albanian side was undertaking to design these two hydro-power plants itself, it was compelled to accord the credit. And actually these hydro-power plants were designed and built by the Albanian specialists, whereas the Chinese experts played the role of consultants instead of designers.
Many facts and documents indicate that, at given moments, whenever the Chinese policy made great turns, to which the Albanian Party and Government did not agree, the Chinese Government resorted to pressure and various coercive economic measures. These stands are a flat denial of the clamorous and repeated statements by the Chinese Government according to which “in granting aid to other countries, the Chinese Government strictly respects the sovereignty of the recipient country and never makes it conditional on, or asks, any privilege in return”.
The Chinese note says: “...The Albanian side out of its own needs in domestic and foreign policies…, has wantonly maligned China's aid to Albania…” This lays bare the spirit of intrigue of the Chinese leadership and its desire to see Albania politically, ideologically and economically enslaved by Soviet social-imperialism or American imperialism and the reactionary bourgeoisie. The Chinese leadership speaks so because it thinks that Albania is isolated, that it could breathe and live only through China, and that now it has remained on the streets and will fall into the trap laid by the imperialists or the social-imperialists. This is what Khrushchev and Mikoyan thought when they once said that Albania would sell itself out “for thirty pieces of silver”, that “without Soviet aid it would die of starvation, within fifteen days”!
But life showed that Albania did not sell itself out, nor did it die of starvation. It forged ahead with great success in the construction of socialism. And this was done not with Chinese aid, but with the heroic work and glorious struggle of the Albanian people.
In the future, too, under the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania, the Albanian people, relying on their own forces, will always advance triumphantly on the road of socialism, and with their own example they will demonstrate to their friends and the peoples the unconquerable strength and vitality of Marxism-Leninism, the vigour of socialism, the vigour of the people.
In our struggle for the construction of socialism and the defence of the Homelands in our efforts to face up to and overcome with success the difficulties raised to our country by the hostile act of the Chinese Government, we have and will continue to have more internationalist aid from the genuine revolutionaries, the freedom-loving and progressive people all over the world. Albania has never been isolated, it can never be isolated.
The plans for Albania’s development, as laid out by the Party, will be carried out with success in all directions, through the selfless work and resolve of our people, relying on their own forces, also on the projects which China left incomplete, as well as on more new projects which will be added to them.
II
The unilateral breach of the agreements on economic and military cooperation with Albania by the Chinese Government, the arbitrary violation on its part of the contracts officially concluded between the two countries, the suspension of work on many projects important to our socialist economy, the ordering back of its experts, and so on, reflect a definite political and ideological line of the Chinese leadership. They are the outcome of the departure of the Chinese leadership from Marxism-Leninism and the principles of proletarian internationalism, of its rapprochement to and collaboration with American imperialism, the international bourgeoisie and reaction, of its renunciation of aid to and support for the revolutionary and liberation forces in the international arena, of China's intentions to become an imperialist superpower.
This course of the Chinese leadership, which went through a zigzag process, has come up against the constant opposition of the Party of Labour of Albania which cherishes the cause of socialism, the revolution and the liberation of the peoples above everything else. This accounts for the emergence of serious ideological and political contradictions which have been gradually growing between the Party of Labour of Albania and the Communist Party of China. Precisely because our Party and the Albanian people did not accept and did not submit to the Chinese line and views of a great power, the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Government went to such lengths as to cut all aid to socialist Albania, and extended ideological disagreements to interstate relations.
All along, the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania has tried to settle these differences on a Marxist-Leninist road, through mutual consultations and comradely explanations, never making them public.
On this question, our Party has proceeded from the principle that differences and misunderstandings may arise among various parties and states, even when they have relations of close friendship. No matter which side is to blame, the clearing of differences and misunderstandings calls for negotiations. The more so, this principle should be implemented between two socialist countries and communist parties. Such norms, as mutual consultations and comradely explanations, are absolutely necessary, because these Marxist-Leninist norms defend pure friendship, and not hypocritical and evil-intentioned friendship, they defend the purity of our scientific theory, Marxism-Leninism, strengthen the revolution and the struggle of the peoples.
Among the Marxist-Leninist norms which regulate relations among communist parties there exists also that of the correct and reciprocal, principled and constructive, criticism of mistakes which are observed in the line and the activity of this or that party. Such a comradely criticism cannot be called polemics, as the Chinese leadership interprets this norm. Polemics, as the word itself indicates, means a state of ideological and political struggle, it is a state in which non- antagonistic contradictions are transformed into antagonistic contradictions.
In its relations with the Communist Party of China, the Party of Labour of Albania has rigorously abided by these Marxist-Leninist principles and norms which are implemented among genuine communist parties. Whenever it has seen that the Communist Party of China adopted stands and took actions in opposition to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, in opposition to the interests of socialism and the revolution, it has pointed out the mistakes to, and criticized it in a comradely manner. This is borne out by written documents of our Party and State, which are in your possession. And what has the attitude of the Chinese leadership been? While it welcomed and highly praised the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian Government for their support for, and defence of, People s China, the Chinese side never welcomed the correct and principled remarks of our Party. The leadership of the Communist Party of China has never wanted the Leninist norms and methods to be implemented in relations among parties. Reasoning and acting according to the concepts and logic of a great power, of a great party and a great state, which considers itself an infallible genius, it has demonstrated that it knows no other way apart from dictate and imposition of its views on the others, especially on the smaller parties and states.
Despite the existing divergences, the Party of Labour and the Government of Albania have publicly supported China and the cause of socialism in China, especially, at the most difficult, internal and external political junctures it has gone through, at the moments when China was isolated and made the target of attacks from all quarters, even by its present friends. Our Party and Government have done this with an open heart, convinced that by so doing they were defending the fate of the revolution in China, which was under serious threat, defending the lofty interests of proletarian internationalism, the friendship between Albania and China. In their support for China against the enemies of socialism, and their defence of its stands and actions which were taken on the right road, the Albanian communists and people fought for the strengthening of the positions of Marxism-Leninism and socialism in China.
In order to better understand the political and ideological causes which led the Chinese leadership to its arrogant act of ceasing aid to Albania, in order to understand its chauvinistic attitudes of a great power in its relations with the Party of Labour of Albania, as well as to demonstrate the sincere, fraternal and correct stand adopted by the Albanian Party, Government and people towards China and the Chinese people it is necessary to review the development of Albanian-Chinese relations.
1. Contacts between our two parties and countries were established after the triumph of the revolution in China, after the founding of the People's Republic of China. They became closer and stronger especially after 1960, when the open struggle against Khrushchevite revisionism began. The struggle against imperialism and modern revisionism brought our parties together, but with China’s departure from this struggle their roads parted.
The struggle of the Party of Labour of Albania against modern revisionism had begun even prior to the condemnation of Titoism by the Informbureau, It continued more fiercely after Stalin’s death, when the Khrushchevite variant of revisionism began to show up. Our Party extended and intensified this struggle more and more, rising in opposition against the anti-Marxist attitudes and actions of Khrushchev and his gang, both in their foreign policy and in their relations with the communist parties, with our Party in particular.
The Khrushchevite deviation represented the revision of the Marxist-Leninist theory in all fields and on all questions. The Khrushchevite strategy was aimed at undermining the dictatorship of the proletariat and restoring capitalism in the Soviet Union, transforming this country into an imperialist superpower, for the division and domination of the world together with American imperialism. In order to realize this strategy, Khrushchev attacked Stalin and bolshevism, he advocated extinction of class struggle both within the Soviet Union and outside it. On the pretext that the ratio of forces in the world today had changed, that US imperialism and the international reactionary bourgeoisie had become reasonable, he justified his abandonment of the key thesis of Marxism-Leninism on the violent revolution and spread illusions about the so- called peaceful road. In their relations with the communist and workers’ parties, the Khrushchevites acted according to their concept of the “mother party” and “conductor’s baton”. They wanted the other parties to submit to their dictate and adopt their views, to transform them into tools of their foreign policy. On this road, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and others reconciled themselves to the Yugoslav revisionists and made common cause with them in the struggle against Marxism-Leninism and the revolution.
To this traitorous and counter-revolutionary line of Khrushchevism the Party of Labour of Albania responded with its determined and unyielding fight. In particular, it opposed and denounced the ideological rehabilitation of Titoism by Khrushchev, who with this act of his was clearly showing that he had completely sunk in the quagmire of opportunism and betrayal. Documents prove that, despite its waverings in its stand towards Yugoslav revisionism, at the beginning of 1960, the Communist Party of China, also, influenced by nobody, condemned the rehabilitation of Tito and his group by Khrushchev.
In June 1960, as is known, the Bucharest Meeting was held. There, the counter-revolutionary line of Khrushchev and the Khrushchevites was still better confirmed. They not only attacked Marxism-Leninism in all directions, but also attacked the Communist Party of China directly. At that meeting, the Party of Labour of Albania openly went to the aid of the Communist Party of China and defended it to the end, thus drawing upon itself the fire of the anger and the weight of the pressures of all the Khrushchevite revisionists. Our Party made this principled defence in pure communist conscience, thinking and convinced that by so doing it was defending Marxism-Leninism and People’s China.
The Bucharest Meeting and, later, the Conference of the 81 Communist and Workers’ Parties in Moscow marked the final split between the Marxist-Leninists and Khrushchevite revisionists, and the beginning of the open polemics between them. Whereas our Party initiated and carried on the fight against Khrushchevite revisionism with consistency and resolve, the Chinese leadership wavered and failed to adopt clear-cut anti-Khrushchevite stands. In the initial stage of the fierce polemics between the Party of Labour of Albania and the Khrushchevite revisionists, China was in agreement with Albania, but this only on the surface, because, in reality, as was proved later, it was seeking a reconciliation with the Soviets and the extinction of polemics with them. This was evident also in Chou En-lai’s speech at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where in fact, he did not defend our Party, but demanded that polemics should cease instead. The Chinese leadership called this colourless stand assistance to Albania, but the demand to cease polemics was neither to the interest of socialist Albania, nor to the interest of China itself. It benefited Khrushchev and his fight against socialism and Marxism-Leninism.
2. The wavering stand of the Communist Party of China in the struggle against revisionism became clearly manifest in June 1962. At that time the Party of Labour of Albania sent a delegation to Peking to conduct talks with the leadership of the Communist Party of China on important questions which had to do with the tactics and strategy of the common struggle of our two parties in the international arena. On this occasion, the delegation of our Party came up against the very wrong views of the Chinese leadership.
Liu Shao-chi, who next to Mao Tsetung was the principal leader of the Communist Party of China at that time, and who led the talks for the Chinese side, as well as Teng Hsiao-ping, who was then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, stubbornly insisted on the viewpoint of the Chinese leadership according to which the anti-imperialist front should necessarily include the Soviet Union as well, which at that time was led by Nikita Khrushchev's revisionist clique.
The delegation of our Party upheld the line of the Party of Labour of Albania, which was based on Lenin’s teachings according, to which no successful struggle could be waged against imperialism without simultaneously combating revisionism. Our delegation insisted on the view of the Party of Labour of Albania that not only should the anti-imperialist front not include the Soviet revisionists, but, at the same time, it should spearhead its struggle both against imperialism in general, and US imperialism in particular, as well as against Soviet revisionism.
The Chinese leadership argued its line of reconciliation with the Soviet revisionists with the need to unite “with everybody” against US imperialism, which, in its words, was the main enemy. Apart from other things, this opportunist thesis also expressed the illusions entertained by the Chinese leadership about the Soviet revisionist leaders. During the Peking talks, Teng Hsiao-ping declared to the delegation of the Central Committee of our Party: “It is impossible for Khrushchev to change and become like Tito.... As a socialist country, the Soviet Union will never change” (From minutes of talks, June 11, 1962).
The Party of Labour of Albania accepted neither these viewpoints nor the Chinese thesis on a common anti-imperialist front, in which the Khrushchevite revisionists, also, should be included, whereas the Chinese leadership held on to its opportunist positions.
The development of later events, the stepping up of the struggle of the Marxist-Leninist forces against Khrushchevite revisionism, the deepening of Khrushchev’s disruptive activity and especially the signing of the Anglo-American-Soviet Treaty of August 1963 on the banning of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, which reflected the uniting of the efforts of the two superpowers for the establishment of their domination over the world, forced the Chinese leadership to start open polemics with Khrushchev. In this manner, when the reconciliation and agreement with the Soviet revisionists, so ardently sought by the Chinese leadership, did not materialize, only then the Communist Party of China effectively entered the road of anti-Khrushchevism and agreed to the determined, consistent and principled struggle of the Party of Labour of Albania. This could not fail to rejoice the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian people who, single-handed, were for almost three years then facing up to the open frenzied attacks of Khrushchev and entire modern revisionism. The bonds and cooperation between our two parties in the struggle against imperialism and revisionism were strengthened even more.
Our Party made all the efforts for this struggle to be broadened and deepened, because it served the mobilization of the anti-imperialist and anti-revisionist forces for the defence of the cause of socialism and the liberation of the peoples. But the Chinese leadership, as we will see below, did not prove to be consistent and principled in this struggle.
3. In Summer 1964 Chinese propaganda took up the Sino-Soviet border problem. Referring to a talk of Mao Tsetung with a group of Japanese socialist parliamentarians, it claimed that China had been dispossessed by the Russian Czars of vast territories of hundreds of thousands., of square kilometres, that in Europe, too, the Soviet Union had territorial problems which had emerged as a result of the Second World War.
The Party of Labour of Albania did not approve of Mao Tsetung's raising the problem of rectification of borders. According to the view of our Party, the Chinese leadership was making two gross mistakes. In the first place, the raising of the border problem at that moment did not assist the ideological struggle against Khrushchevism. On the contrary, it provided the Soviet leadership with a powerful weapon against China and the Marxist-Leninists in order to neutralize the effect of the ideological struggle they were waging to expose the Khrushchevite betrayal and to present our struggle as a border dispute or territorial claims. On the other hand, by calling into question the rectification of the borders of the Soviet Union with some European countries following the Second World War, J. V. Stalin was unjustly attacked, and the accusation levelled by international reaction against him for creating “spheres of influence” was backed up. The Chinese leadership agreed with Tito, who, when it came to redress the injustices Yugoslavia had suffered in the past at the hands of the victorious powers, upheld this thesis and raised his voice to the skies, while he kept completely silent about the injustices done to another people, if they were in Yugoslavia’s favour.
The Chinese thesis on the rectification of borders was not as simple as that. It expressed the chauvinistic spirit of the great state and bourgeois nationalism. It was an instigation of war in Europe.
In keeping with Leninist norms, in the spirit of complete correctness and in a comradely manner, the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania informed the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao Tsetung personally of its opinions on these questions in a letter addressed to them on September 10, 1964.
The letter reads in part:
“We think that raising territorial problems with the Soviet Union now would gravely harm our struggle. If we were to do this, we would be giving the enemy a powerful weapon to fight us, and this would paralyse our march forward.
“Under the pressure of Khrushchev’s revisionist propaganda, under the influence of Khrushchev’s slanders and calumnies, and for many other reasons, the masses of the Soviet people will not understand why People’s China is now putting forth territorial claims to the Soviet Union, they will not accept this, and Soviet propaganda is working to make them revolt against you. But we think that even true Soviet communists will not understand it, nor will they accept it. This would be a colossal loss for our struggle.
“...we think that we must not open old wounds, if any, we must not start a controversy and polemics over whether or not the Soviet Union has appropriated other countries’ land, but our only concentrated struggle should be spearheaded against the great ulcer, against the great betrayal represented by imperialism and modern revisionism, the traitor groups of Khrushchev, Tito and all their henchmen
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China did not reply to the principled and correct letter of our Party. The Chinese leadership never gave our Party any explanation on this question of so great importance. Mao Tsetung limited himself to a verbal statement to the effect that “we will not reply to your letter because we do not want to stir up polemics”. In our view, which is in keeping with Leninist norms, the exchange of opinions, comradely criticism and each other’s enlightenment are normal things between two communist parties. They can by no means be considered polemics.
Despite this incorrect stand of the Chinese leadership, our Party did not make this disagreement public. It continued its revolutionary struggle against imperialism and revisionism together with China.
4. In October 1964 N. Khrushchev was overthrown. This event again revealed the wavering stand of the Chinese leaders towards the Soviet revisionists. The hopes for a reconciliation with, and rapprochement to, them were revived.
On October 29, 1964, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, in the presence of .the ambassadors of Vietnam, Korea, Rumania and Cuba, Chou En-lai requested the Albanian ambassador to Peking to transmit to the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania the Chinese proposal that our parties send delegations to Moscow to back up the new leadership of the Soviet Union with Brezhnev at the head, and to unite with it “in the struggle against the common enemy, imperialism”. He added that he had suggested to the Soviet side that an invitation should be extended to Albania, also, to attend the November 7 celebrations.
Expounding the view of the Chinese leadership at that meeting, Chou En-lai said: “Changes have taken place in the Soviet Union. Their influence and importance is not circumscribed within the Soviet Union, alone, but extends to the socialist parties and countries and the entire international communist movement, even to our common enemies and their agents. In a word, this is a good thing, a change has been made.
“...For these reasons we sent a message of greetings to the new leadership of the Party and Government of the Soviet Union, informing them that we support and welcome this change.
“...Now, in Peking, from October 16 we have adopted a truce in our press.
“…This we do in order to unite on the basis of Marxism-Leninism against our common enemy, although many major problems may not be solved for the time being”.
Although Chou En-lai knew that there were no diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Albania, which were brutally broken off on the initiative of the Khrushchevites, he insisted that Albania should send a delegation to Moscow, and told our ambassador, “We think that the Albanian comrades must study our proposal, because this is a good opportunity to stretch a hand to, and unite with them in the struggle against the enemy”.
The Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania could not accept this proposal, which sought the cessation of the struggle against revisionism and ideological reconciliation with it. If this line of reconciliation with the Soviet revisionists were accepted, it would spell disaster to the Marxist-Leninist movement, it would be a destructive blow at it. Therefore, our Party categorically refused the request of the Chinese leadership and turned it down flatly.
In its letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 5, 1964, the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania explained patiently and with Marxist-Leninist correctness that the assessment made by the Chinese leadership of the changes that took place in the Soviet Union was wrong and their proposal to go to Moscow was unacceptable.
This letter reads in part:
“This event, though important and susceptible of serious consequences, has not yet led, at least until now, to the complete defeat of revisionism, has not yet marked the final victory of Marxism-Leninism over revisionism, but has only put off the decay of revisionism, has pushed revisionism closer to its grave, while Khrushchev’s successors are trying to prevent revisionism from falling into this grave, by implementing the policy of Khrushchevism without Khrushchev.
“... Although N. Khrushchev’s exit from the political scene is an important victory of Marxism-Leninism, the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania holds that it must not be overrated, that the vigilance of the Marxist-Leninists must not be relaxed nor should their principled struggle to smash Khrushchevite modern revisionism cease.
“...We are of the opinion that the open and principled polemics for the ceaseless exposure of modern revisionism must be kept up today and carried through to the end until revisionism is buried as an ideology... Our retreat from these positions won with struggle, would be a loss for us and a gain for the revisionists.
“...In these conditions, when the Soviet Government has unilaterally broken off diplomatic relations and committed dreadful anti-Marxist acts against us, we are of the opinion that it is neither permissible for us as Marxists nor is it worthy of us as a sovereign state, to ignore these things, only because of the fact that the person of N. Khrushchev has been deposed.
“For these reasons we have to express our opposition to the proposal of comrade Chou En-lai to the effect that an Albanian delegation should be invited by the Soviet Party and Government to attend the November 7 celebrations”.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adopted a disparaging stand towards this confidential letter of our Party. The Chinese leadership never replied to this letter and did not take into consideration its reasonable and comradely remarks.
On November 7, 1964, Chou En-lai went to Moscow at the head of a delegation of the Chinese Party and Government, to hail Brezhnev’s advent to power. But, as facts were to prove, he had no success in his mission to bring about a reconciliation and agreement with the new Soviet leadership and no sooner had he returned to China than the Chinese leadership was compelled to resume polemics with the Soviet Union.
Thus, our Party’s stand and its assessment o£ the events with regard to Khrushchev’s downfall proved correct, Marxist-Leninist. Whereas the position of the Chinese leadership was conciliatory, opportunist and utterly wrong both in its assessment of, and stand to, the new revisionist leadership of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, although the Chinese leadership did not behave correctly and made no self-criticism, although the ideological differences deepened further, our Party went on with its struggle for the strengthening of the friendship and cooperation with the Communist Party of China, hoping that this would help the Chinese leadership to sound positions in the common struggle against revisionism and imperialism.
5. Regardless of the contradictions which had arisen between us, taking account of the difficult situations China was going through, and sincerely wishing to assist the Communist Party of China to overcome them, the Party of Labour of Albania continued to support China resolutely, especially in those political and ideological questions over which we held common views.
Our Party supported the Cultural Revolution at the personal request of Mao Tsetung, who declared to our Party that China was facing a colossal danger, and that no one knew who would win in China, the socialist forces or the revisionists (From minutes of the talk with the delegation of the Albanian Party and Government, May 1966). The Party of Labour of Albania assisted China at a very critical moment, when it was going through great upheavals and was being savagely attacked by the united imperialist-revisionist front. It supported the general line of the Cultural Revolution for the liquidation of the capitalist and revisionist elements who had usurped key positions in the Party and state power, though it did not agree over many questions of principle and methods which guided this revolution and were used in it. By supporting the Cultural Revolution, our Party nurtured the hope that it would find the road of true revolutionary struggle, led by the working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party. The entire period of the great Cultural Revolution was a very difficult period for socialism in China, it created a complicated and chaotic situation. This situation was the logical outcome of the factional and unprincipled struggle which took place within the ranks of the Communist Party of China during the time of the struggle for the carrying out of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and after 1949, around the road which China would follow for the further development of the revolution.
The great ideas of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Marxist-Leninist ideology were not properly made the example for, the pillar and the compass of, the Communist Party of China in the concrete conditions of its country. This accounts for the fact that the Marxist-Leninist nucleus of the Party slipped into dangerous eclecticism, which gave rise to a chaos of unbridled struggle for power between factions, persons and groups holding various non-Marxist-Leninist views, something which seriously hampered the laying of the foundations of socialism in China. This political-ideological and organizational chaos in the Communist Party of China and the Chinese state enabled capitalist and revisionist elements to seize key positions in the Party, in the state power and in the army. In these conditions, the Cultural Revolution, inspired and led by Mao Tsetung personally, broke out.
The Party of Labour of Albania supported the general strategy of the Cultural Revolution. But we want to stress that our Party supported the strategy of this revolution and not all its tactics, it defended with determination the cause of socialism in China, defended the fraternal Chinese people, the Communist Party of China and the revolution, it did not defend at all the factionalist struggle of the anti-Marxist groups, whoever clashed and wrangled with each other, resorting even to arms, overtly or covertly, in order to retake state power.
The Cultural Revolution, more often than not, preserved the spirit and actions of an unprincipled struggle, which was not led by a genuine party of the working class which should strive for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus, these clashes among factionalist groups ended in the establishment in China of a state power dominated by bourgeois and revisionist elements.
The present Chinese leadership wanted and wants the Party of Labour of Albania to denounce the Cultural Revolution according to the will and the reasons of the Chinese leadership. The Party of Labour of Albania will never accept such a dictate. Together with all the world revolutionaries it is expecting the Communist Party of China to make the true analysis of this Cultural Revolution, to have the courage to state the truth on the ideas which guided this revolution, the groups and people who carried out and led it, on those against whom this revolution was directed, and to assume clear-cut stands on these questions. To this day, the leadership of the Communist Party of China has not done such a thing, because it is afraid of facts, events and their true Marxist-Leninist interpretation.
6. The Party of Labour of Albania has made all-round, powerful and open efforts to defend China in the international arena, though on many issues it held opposite views on principle. Such is the protracted and persevering diplomatic struggle of socialist Albania for the restoration of the lawful rights of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations, denied to it by US imperialism and its allies.
China pursued a close-door policy in its relations with other countries of the world. The leadership of our Party had expressed, on special occasions and in a comradely way, its desire to the Chinese leaders that People’s China should be more active in its foreign policy, extend its political, economic, cultural and other contacts and relations with various countries, particularly with its neighbouring countries. According to our view, this would be to the advantage of China itself and the cause of socialism and the revolution in the world. But your leadership found this wish of Albania’s unreasonable and preferred its own isolation, excusing itself with various pretexts before all the states which expressed their wish to establish relations with it.
7. In 1968, a Party and Government delegation of Albania went to China, headed by the former member of the Political Bureau and former vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers and minister of people’s defence, Beqir Balluku. This delegation was also charged with the task of presenting to the Chinese leadership our requests for aid to strengthen the defence potential of Albania.
On that occasion, Chou En-lai openly put forth to Beqir Balluku the view of your leadership, according to which, Albania, as a small country, had no need of heavy armament and that it was not at all in a position to defend itself alone from foreign aggression, particularly from Soviet social-imperialism and US imperialism, no matter how much military aid it would receive from China. Therefore, according to Chou En-lai, the only road for Albania to cope with foreign aggression was that of applying the tactics of partisan warfare in the country and concluding a military alliance with Yugoslavia and with Rumania.
When our delegation came home, Beqir Balluku informed the Political Bureau of Chou En-lai’s proposal. The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of our Party unanimously condemned and rejected Chou En-lai’s anti-Albanian and counter-revolutionary proposal. Beqir Balluku, who formally adhered to the decision of the Political Bureau, added that he had allegedly opposed Chou En-lai’s proposal. But later facts proved that Beqir Balluku had in reality been in full agreement with the proposal of the Chinese leadership and worked in secret to carry out this hostile strategic plan against the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania.
Chou En-lai repeated this same thesis to the Albanian Government delegation which had gone to Peking in July 1975, to conclude an agreement on China’s economic aid to Albania for the 6th Five-year Plan 1976-1980. This thesis was turned down again by our delegation in a clear-cut and categorical manner.
The leadership of our Party considered Chou En-lai’s proposal about the military alliance he was seeking to impose on us an attempt of a reactionary character on the part of the Chinese leadership to drive socialist Albania into the trap of warmongering plots through military alliances, with the final aim of turning the Balkan area into a powder keg, as the Soviet social-imperialists and the US imperialists are seeking to do.
We do not know if Yugoslavia and Rumania were informed of these plans of the Chinese leadership. But even at present we are witnessing that the Chinese leadership is displaying unusual zeal to interfere in the affairs of the Balkans, to mix up the cards and to kindle the fire of war in this very sensitive area of Europe. But we are confident that the Balkan peoples will never accept to be set at loggerheads with each other, they will never accept to become tools either of US imperialism, Russian social-imperialism, or Chinese hegemonism.
These acts of the Chinese leadership and the opposition of our Party to these reactionary acts had, later, very serious consequences in the relations between our two countries. Our Party has never meddled with the internal affairs of China. But the Chinese leadership, at certain moments, has criminally interfered in the internal affairs of Albania. We will make these facts public at an appropriate time. If these condemnable acts undertaken by the Chinese leadership in collusion with the Albanian traitors were realized, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, its independence and sovereignty would have been liquidated.
8. While our Party was working to strengthen fraternal cooperation with China, while it wanted to correctly wage and intensify the struggle against imperialism, modern revisionism and reaction on a joint front also with all the Marxist-Leninist parties and forces, China saw everything only from its own angle, it wanted to dominate others, so that the latter would follow its strategy and tactics.
The events that were taking place revealed ever more clearly that the political and ideological struggle of the Communist Party of China against the Khrushchevites did not proceed from a sound basis, in reality, its aim was not to defend Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and the liberation of peoples. It was waged simply for pragmatic ends and selfish interests. This became evident in the radical change of the Chinese strategy, to which Nixon’s visit to Peking officially set the seal.
In the summer of 1971, Albania, considered the closest ally of China, learned from foreign news agencies the report spread all over the world that Kissinger had paid a secret visit to Peking. Negotiations, which marked a radical change in the Chinese policy, had been held with Kissinger. As in other cases, this time too, though the question was about a major political turn, a change in the strategic line, the Communist Party and the Government of the People's Republic of China did not deem it necessary to hold preliminary talks with the Party of Labour and the Government of Albania, too, to see what their opinion was. The Chinese leadership put others before an accomplished fact, thinking they had to obey it without a word.
It was clear to our Party that Nixon’s visit to Peking was not an upgrading of the talks that were going on till then in Warsaw between the Chinese and U S ambassadors, that it was not made to promote “people’s diplomacy” and to pave the road to contacts with the American people, as the Chinese leaders claimed, Nixon’s visit to Peking was laying the foundations of a new policy on the part of China.
With Nixon’s visit, China joined the dance of imperialist alliances and rivalries for the redivision of the world, where China, too, would have its own share. This visit paved the road to its rapprochement and collaboration with US imperialism and its allies. At the same time, the inauguration of the alliance with the United States of America also marked the abandoning on the part of the Chinese leadership of the genuine socialist countries, the Marxist-Leninist movement, the revolution and the national-liberation struggle of the peoples.
This alliance and meeting in Peking, between the Chinese leadership and the American President Nixon, were taking place at a time when the US was waging its predatory imperialist war in heroic Vietnam, when it was using all its most up-to-date means of war, except for the A-bomb, to kill the fraternal heroic Vietnamese people and to reduce Vietnam to ashes. This monstrous alliance and the Sino-US contacts were condemnable acts of disastrous consequences for the peoples.
Therefore, in view of this dangerous turn in the foreign policy of China, on August 6, 1971, the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania sent a long letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, stressing in no uncertain terms that it was against this turn of China, which ran counter to the interests of People’s China itself, the revolution and socialism.
The letter reads in part:
“...We regard your decision to welcome Nixon in Peking as incorrect and undesirable, we do not approve of, nor do we support, it. We also hold the view that Nixon's announced visit to China will be inconceivable to, and will not be approved by, the peoples, the revolutionaries and the communists of various countries.
“...Welcoming Nixon to China, who is known as a frenzied anti-communist, an aggressor and assassin of the peoples, as a representative of blackest US reaction, has many drawbacks and will have negative consequences for the revolutionary movement and our cause.
“Nixon's going to China and his talks there cannot fail to arouse harmful illusions among the rank-and-file, the peoples and the revolutionaries, about US imperialism, its strategy and policy.
“...Talks with Nixon provide the revisionists with weapons to negate the entire great struggle and polemics of the Communist Party of China to expose the Soviet renegades as allies and collaborators of US imperialism, and to put on a par China's stand towards US imperialism and the treacherous line of collusion pursued by the Soviet revisionists towards it. This enables the Khrushchevite revisionists to flaunt their banner of false anti-imperialism even more ostentatiously and to step up their demagogical and deceitful propaganda in order to bring the anti-imperialist forces round to themselves.
“...The visit of the US President to China will give rise to doubts and misunderstandings among the rank-and-file who may suspect that China is changing its stand towards US imperialism and involving itself in the game of the superpowers.
“...Our strategy calls for close alliance with the peoples fighting all over the world, with all the revolutionaries, on a joint front against imperialism and social-imperialism, and never for an alliance with Soviet social-imperialism allegedly against US imperialism, never for an alliance with US imperialism allegedly against Soviet social-imperialism”.
In conclusion, the letter points out that “the line and attitudes of the Party of Labour of Albania will always remain principled; consistent, unchanging. We will combat US imperialism and Soviet revisionism uncompromisingly and consistently”. The letter expressed the hope that the remarks the Party of Labour of Albania made to a sister party «”would be taken up in a comradely spirit and understood correctly”.
The Chinese leadership adopted its usual stand also towards this letter. It did not deign to give any answer. By so doing, it betrayed not only big state megalomania but also its fear to face the correct and principled Marxist-Leninist arguments of our Party. It is a fact that two months after our letter, the 6th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania was held. That was a good occasion to exchange views with the Chinese delegation invited to the Congress and to clarify each other’s positions. But in this case; too, the Chinese leadership, consistent on its road of refusing consultations and the settling of disagreements through talks, adopted a stand in contravention of all practice and internationalist relations between sister parties. It concocted some absurd excuses for its failure to send a delegation to the Congress of our Party. Practically, the Communist Party of China has ever since reduced contacts with our Party, turning relations between the two parties into a purely formal relationship.
The change of China's strategy has come about as a result of an internal struggle within its Communist Party where deep contradictions existed, “a hundred flowers blossomed and a hundred schools contended", where there were pro-Khrushchevites, pro-Americans, opportunists and revolutionaries in the leadership. This accounts for the successive changes in the political line of the Communist Party of China, its vacillating, opportunist, and contradictory attitudes towards US imperialism, modern revisionism and international reaction. The axis of the Chinese policy has changed three times over ten years, from 1962 to 1972. First, the Communist Party of China abided by the strategic formula of a “united front with the Soviet and other revisionists against US imperialism and its allies”. Later on, the Communist Party of China came forward with the slogan of a “very broad united front of the proletariat and the revolutionary peoples of all countries against US imperialism, Soviet revisionism and reaction of various countries”. After Nixon’s visit to China, the Chinese strategy again speaks of a “broad united front”, but this time it includes “all those who can be united", incorporating in it even the United States of America against Soviet social-imperialism.
9. After its rapprochement with US imperialism and overtures to the United States of America and its allies, the leadership of the Communist Party of China proclaimed the anti-Marxist and counter-revolutionary theory of the “three worlds”, which it presented as a strategy of the revolution, and made efforts to impose it on the Marxist-Leninist communist movement and all the peoples of the world as the general line of their struggle.
When they were fighting together against modern revisionism, and Khrushchevite revisionism, in particular, the Party of Labour of Albania as well as the Communist Party of China adhered to the principle, and stressed, that there was no “mother party” or “daughter party”, that any party enjoyed the right to hold its own views on all problems, that a party was truly communist and revolutionary, when it looked at this problem from the angle of Marxism-Leninism. The Communist Party of China has violated these principles and norms in all directions. It is seeking to impose China’s counter-revolutionary turn of unity with US imperialism and world reaction on all Marxist-Leninists, to have the entire revolutionary and liberation movement accept its anti-Leninist concepts and analyses of imperialism, the present-day world situation, alliances, and so on, as an absolute and incontrovertible truth.
Practice shows that in most cases, the Communist Party and Government of China have not viewed international issues from the angle of Marxism-Leninism, the interests of the revolution and the liberation struggles of the peoples. Chinese policy is a pragmatic policy, and it cannot be otherwise, in as much as its strategy and tactics are such. Therefore the world has witnessed and will witness about-faces in the Chinese strategy and politics in the future, too. These turns are passed off as Marxist-Leninist, but in reality they are anti-Marxist, they are turns catering to the interests of the big China state in its search of alliances with US imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and world capital to create and build China into an imperialist superpower.
At present, the Chinese plan to become a superpower has found its concentrated expression in the infamous theory of “three worlds”. The theory of “three worlds” seeks to replace Marxism-Leninism with an eclectic amalgamation of opportunist, revisionist and anarcho-syndicalist ideas and theses, it seeks to dampen the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat and its class struggle, advocating an alliance with the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Alleging that time is not ripe for revolution, the theory of “three worlds” seeks to preserve the status quo, the present situation of capitalist, colonialist and neo-colonialist oppression and exploitation.
Under the hoax of defence of national independence from Soviet social-imperialism which it regards as the only danger and threat today, China requires the peoples to give up their struggle for national, economic, and social liberation, to submit to US imperialism and the other capitalist powers of the West, the former colonialists. It presses for the strengthening of the Common Market and the European Union, organisms set up to keep the proletariat of Europe in capitalist bondage and to oppress and exploit the peoples of other countries. By fanning up the armaments race of the superpowers and relying on such instruments of war of US imperialism as NATO and other military blocs, the theory of “three worlds” instigates imperialist world war.
The theory of “three worlds” is a smokescreen to hide China’s ambition for hegemony over what it calls the “third world”. It is no accident that it has included itself in the “third world” and presents itself as its leader in the international arena. It is no accident either that the Chinese leadership is flirting with the “non-aligned” and seeking to take them under its wing,
The Chinese leadership is not the first to display its “affection” and “care” for the so-called "third world”. The imperialists, the social-imperialists and the other neo-colonialists have worked out various theories on the “third world” long ago before it, in order to dominate and subjugate the countries and peoples of this “world”. Therefore, it is a futile effort on the part of the Chinese leadership to claim that it is the first, as early as 1974, to have produced this theory on the basis of an allegedly objective analysis of the international situations made by Mao Tsetung. It is common knowledge that the theory of “three worlds” has been concocted by world reaction. The Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian Government exposed and combated the theoretical and practical speculations in regard to the “third world” in the international arena as far back as 1960, and even before, as bourgeois-capitalist, neo-colonialist and racist manoeuvres and conspiracies to suppress the peoples who were fighting for freedom and independence.
The “contribution” of the Chinese leaders to the theory of "three worlds” consists only in its “substantiation” of the need for reconciliation of the “third world” with imperialism; they have discovered nothing; they concocted the alliance of the “third world” with US imperialism and the other imperialists to solicit their aid and to make China an imperialist superpower.
Therefore, it is not the Party of Labour of Albania which attacks the Chinese inventor or champions of this theory; it is precisely the latter who were the first to attack the Party of Labour of Albania and the struggle it has waged against this theory of world reaction, the struggle it has conducted in support of the freedom and independence of the peoples of Africa, Asia, Latin America, etc.
The implementation of the theory of “three worlds” led the Chinese leadership to unite even with the “devil”, to unite with the US imperialists and the monopolists of Europe, with fascists and racists, kings and feudal lords, most rabid militarists and warmongers. Pinochet and Franco, former Nazi generals of the German Wehrmacht and the Japanese imperial army, dyed-in- the-wool criminals like Mobutu and bloodthirsty kings, American bosses and presidents of multi-national companies, became its allies.
This anti-Marxist line led China’s leadership to unite with Tito, Carrillo and other revisionists. At one time, it was against Tito, whereas now it has united with him. This testifies to its lack of Marxist-Leninist principles, to inconsistencies in its line. But our Party wants to tell the Chinese leadership: your uniting with Tito now and the suspicious alliances you are trying to piece together in the Balkans, pose a great danger to the peoples of this peninsula, to the Yugoslav, Albanian, Greek, Turkish and other peoples. Albania is well aware of the plans and ambitions of the Chinese leadership towards the Balkans. Therefore, the peoples of the world must be vigilant towards the Chinese intrigues in this region.
10. The Party of Labour of Albania has made every effort to solve the differences arisen between the two Parties and which were becoming pronounced with the passage of time, on the Marxist-Leninist road.
Proceeding from this desire, seeing that the Chinese leadership systematically failed to answer its letters and refused to send official delegations to Albania, seeing that ideological differences with the Chinese leadership were assuming broad proportions, the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania did not stay aloof, but made other efforts to engage in comradely talks with it.
Thus, in January 1974, the Central Committee of our Party proposed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that a top level delegation of our Party and Government go to China for talks and that this visit be made, possibly, within the first six months of the year 1974. Though formally agreeing to the proposal of our Party, in point of fact, the Chinese leadership did not agree to our delegation going to Peking. In the beginning, the Chinese leadership told us that the delegation should arrive in the second six months of the year 1974, later it postponed its visit to the first six months of the year 1975. And, finally, it kept silent about this issue, thus barring the way to talks, at a time when kings and princes, reactionaries and fascists were welcomed with great pomp in Peking. It was clear that the Chinese leadership was persistently treading its anti-Marxist road, that in relations with our Party and country, it was guided by the concepts of great power chauvinism, that it was trying to have its line and dictate accepted unconditionally and indisputably.
In these conditions, when the Chinese leadership refused any contacts, when it avoided any discussion and consultation, when it was working arrogantly and overbearingly to impose the theory of the “three worlds” on the Marxist-Leninist movement, what had the Party of Labour of Albania to do? To connive at the anti-Marxist line of the Communist Party of China and deny itself? To give up the struggle against imperialism and modern revisionism and join the enemies of the revolution, socialism, the freedom and independence of the peoples? To break away from the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries and unite with the opportunists and the reactionary bourgeoisie? To fail to support the national liberation struggle of the peoples against the superpowers and their agents in the ranks of these peoples?
The Party of Labour o£ Albania stood loyal to Marxism-Leninism and the correct and revolutionary line it has always followed resolutely, unwaveringly and consistently. It also presented this Marxist-Leninist line at its 7th Congress, where it put forward its views and stand with regard to the main international problems today, the revolution and the liberation struggle of the peoples. Just as at all its other congresses, at the 7th Congress, too, our Party expressed its views also on problems which have to do with the Marxist-Leninist movement in the spirit of proletarian internationalism. The line of the 7th Congress, which was unanimously approved by the entire Party, lies at the foundation of all the home and foreign policy of our country.
This Marxist-Leninist line of our Party, the independent policy of socialist Albania, the principled and resolute stand of the Albanian people which have always run counter to the anti-Marxist big power line and policy of the Chinese leadership, are the main and real cause of the anti-Albanian attitudes and acts of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Government, which led to the arbitrary cessation of civil and military aid to Albania.
This was evident especially after the 7th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, when the Chinese leadership, breaking every norm of relations between sister parties, hurried to attack the 7th Congress of our Party, under the pretence that it had allegedly attacked China, the Communist Party of China and Mao Tsetung.
The accusation of the Chinese leadership is groundless. For this suffice it to read the documents of the 7th Congress, which are all made public. It is not difficult for anyone to see that it contains no attacks either against China, or against the Communist Party of China or Mao Tsetung. The Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania has asked the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China through a letter dated December 24, 1976, to indicate when and where our Party has attacked the Communist Party of China and Mao Tsetung. To this day the Chinese leadership, as usually, has given no reply.
But the question does not consist in “attacks” which do not exist. The anger and arrogance of the Chinese leadership towards the 7th Congress draw their source from the fact that our Party did not adopt the Chinese anti-Marxist theses and views, its counter-revolutionary theory of the “three worlds”. The Party of Labour of Albania, as a genuine Marxist-Leninist Party, agrees to discuss problems, but it has never accepted orders and directives from anyone on what it must put forward and how it must put forward its view at its own congresses. Therefore, it has never allowed any Party, whether small or big, including the Communist Party »f China, to interfere in its internal affairs and dictate what it should do and how it should act.
11. Continuous changes have taken place in the leadership of the Communist Party of China as to its line, strategy and composition. The Party of Labour of Albania never defended this or that group of individuals that were removed from the leadership of the Communist Party of China. We have had and still have our opinion on everything and on every person or group of the leadership acting in China. This is natural.
The present Chinese leadership wanted the Party of Labour of Albania to support its acts with regard to the changes made at the head of the Communist Party of China. As we did not do it, it comes to the conclusion that we are partisans of Lin Piao and “the gang of four”. It is wrong in both aspects, and this is one of the unavowed major political, ideological reasons which have urged the Chinese leadership to cease aid to Albania. The present Chinese leadership has wanted our Party to support its illegal and non-Marxist-Leninist activity to seize state power in China. Our Party has not fulfilled and will never fulfil this desire of the Chinese leadership. The Party of Labour of Albania never tramples on the Marxist-Leninist principles, and has never been, nor will it ever be anybody’s tool.
In the ideological and political differences and contradictions with the Party of Labour of Albania, in the failure of the attempts of the Chinese leadership to impose its views and line on the Party of Labour of Albania lies the real reason of the Chinese decision to cease aid to Albania. Having failed to subdue socialist Albania, the Chinese leadership is now seeking to avenge itself and harm the construction of socialism in Albania. In so doing, it is revealing its anti-Marxist and counter-revolutionary countenance even more clearly.
* * *
The cessation of credits and aid to socialist Albania on the part of the Chinese leadership is not only an episode, however grave, in the relations between China and Albania. This act assumes great international importance, it proves that China has come out against Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, that it has adopted and is applying a big power chauvinistic policy and dictate, that it is implementing hegemonic practices and it is perpetrating arbitrary and brutal acts of a superpower.
For its selfish aims, to make China a central world power, the Chinese leadership is publicizing itself as a “defender of small and middle-sized countries”, that it is fighting against “the unfair division of the world economy”, that it is against “economic discrimination against the developing countries by the imperialist powers”, that it stands for the “development of their national economy”, for “the strengthening of their independence and sovereignty”, that it is fighting “against bullying of the small by the big”, etc. But when the Chinese leadership behaves like an enemy towards Albania, when it ceases aid and credits because the Party of Labour of Albania does not submit to its conductor’s baton, all the falsity of the Chinese line is seen through, the not in the least good-intentioned aims and lies that the Chinese leadership wants to peddle to the peoples of the “third world” in order to suppress and enslave them, to impose its will and that of the old and new colonialists on them, are also clearly understood.
By cutting short aid to socialist Albania, at a time when China receives substantial aid and credits from US imperialism and world capitalism and accords aid and credits to their agents like Mobutu and his ilk, the Chinese leadership openly shows world public opinion that it does not agree ideologically with a truly socialist country, but it agrees and is in alliance with the enemies of socialism and the reactionaries, that it is against the socialist order, against the countries and peoples who demand liberation precisely from imperialism and social-imperialism, from oppression and dictate by big state chauvinism.
We want to say to the Chinese leaders: You extended the ideological differences and disagreements also to the field of state relations with our country. With this you dealt a heavy blow at the Albanian-Chinese friendship for which the Albanian people and the Chinese people have fought so hard. You made public the disagreements and differences and began open polemics. We accept this challenge and are not afraid of polemics. But you are fully responsible for all your hostile, anti-Marxist and anti-Albanian acts before the Chinese people and the Albanian people, before all world public opinion.
In order to provide the Albanian people and the Chinese people, and all world public opinion with the possibility of becoming acquainted with, and pass judgement on, the views of your Party and Government and the Albanian Party and Government with regard to the cessation of credits and aid on the part of China to Albania, we will publish this letter as well as the note of the Chinese Government in our newspaper “Zeri i popullitt”. We hope that you will publish our letter in your newspaper “Renmin Ribao”. This is a norm which China has supported in the past.
The Party of Labour of Albania, the Albanian Government and people will fight to preserve the Albanian-Chinese friendship, which is a friendship between peoples. For their part, they will make every possible effort to maintain normal state relations between Albania and China. They are sure that the Chinese people will make a correct assessment of the Albanian stand and will know how to judge the anti-Albanian acts of the Chinese leadership.
The Chinese leadership ceased economic and military aid to Albania in the belief that Albania would have either to capitulate and submit to it or to stretch its hand out to others and be discredited. But the Chinese leadership has not reckoned with the Party of Labour of Albania and the Albanian people, their determination, the strength of their unity.
The People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and the Albanian people, under the consistent leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania, with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, will thoroughly and honourably fulfil their historic mission for the construction of socialism by relying on their own forces, further proving to the proletariat and all the peoples of the world the inexhaustible and indomitable vitality of the Marxist-Leninist ideology, which enables even a small country, encircled by imperialism and revisionism, as Albania is, to build socialism successfully, to defend and carry it always ahead.
Albania will never submit to anybody, it will stand to the end loyal to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. It will march nonstop on the road of socialism and communism illuminated by the immortal teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. The Albanian people, with the Party of Labour at the head, will resolutely and consistently support the revolutionary and liberation struggles of the peoples, their efforts for freedom, independence and social progress. They will fight uncompromisingly through to the very end against US imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, modern revisionism and world reaction. Albania has never bowed its back or its head, either in the past or today, nor will it ever do so in the future.
The Chinese leadership will fail both in its sermons and in its intrigues. The reactionary act it committed against Albania is revolting to the conscience of every honest man and woman in the world. Though encircled, socialist Albania is not isolated because it enjoys the respect and love of the world proletariat, the freedom-loving peoples and the honest men and women throughout the world. This respect and love will grow even more in the future. Our cause is just! Socialist Albania will triumph!
The Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania
The Council of Ministers of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania
Tirana, July 29, 1978.
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