Problems of Socialism in the Light of the Marxist-Leninist Theory
This document was first published in „Albania Today“- No 2, 1980
and in March, 2010, re- published by the Comintern S-H
Problems of Socialism in the Light of the Marxist-Leninist Theory
and the Historical Experience of the Party of Labour of Albania
By Foto Çami – Member of the CC of the PLA.
The problems of socialism, the features of the socialist order and the road to the triumph and construction of socialism have been placed today at the centre of the ideological struggle which goes on on a world scale
Thirty-five years of people's power, under the leadership of the party, are thirty-five years of gigantic battles of the Albanian people for the construction, ceaseless development and strengthening of the new socialist order in Albania. In these three and a half decades socialism, from an aspiration and science, became a living reality which has shown its strength and vitality, its incontestable superiority over the old feudal-bourgeois order. In the conditions of socialism, Albania overcame its centuries-long backwardness and set out on the road of progress and vigorous social, economic, political and cultural development. Colossal achievements have been made in all the branches of the economy and the other fields of social activities. The past fades into insignificance in comparison with the present.
New Albania is the vivid example not only of the carrying out with success of the socialist revolution, but also of its uninterrupted development. The revolution in Albania has not proceeded with zigzags, it has not suffered set-backs, but has always forged ahead. This is the great historic: merit of the Party of Labour of Albania and of the leader of the Party and people, Comrade Enver Hoxha. This experience has a theoretical and practical value because it proves that what happened in the Soviet Union, in China and the other socialist countries which degenerated into bourgeois-revisionist countries, is not an unavoidable fatality, that, if the principles of Marxism-Leninism are implemented and defended rigorously, the cause of socialism is invincible, unbreakable.
The problems of socialism, the features of the socialist order and the road to the triumph and construction of socialism have been placed today at the centre of the ideological struggle which goes on on a world scale.
The popularity, the attractive power of socialism has become so great that everybody, social-democrats and revisionists, democratic revolutionaries and other representatives of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois trends, speak of it. Some preach socialism without revolution, without the dictatorship of the proletariat and without Marxism-Leninism, some are for pluralist, humanitarian and democratic socialism, some others preach national and regional socialism, or self-administrative socialism which is counterposed to “étatist” socialism, and there some others still who try to pass the re-establishment of capitalism in their own countries as real and developed socialism.
All these efforts are made in order to negate genuine socialism and to create the illusion that there are many models and kinds of socialism, with the allegation that the world has been changing, that new conditions have been created for going to socialism in ways different from the practices known to date and from what the Marxist-Leninist theory teaches.
At the root of all these preachings lies the negation of the fundamental common features of socialism as a socio-economic system, which constitute its essence and distinguish it from any other system, the negation of the general laws of the construction and development of the socialist society. Advocating several models of socialism stems from the negation of the leading role of the working class and its communist vanguard, the negation of the only theory of scientific socialism – Marxism-Leninism.
The Yugoslav and Khrushchevite revisionists began their attack against Marxism-Leninism and socialism by attacking the revolutionary ideas and work of Stalin, allegedly in order to go back to Lenin. The present-day “Eurocommunist” revisionists who follow in the footsteps of the Khrushchevites are going even further afield. Now they have launched an open attack against Lenin and Leninism in order to go back to Marx. According to them, Leninism has grown obsolete, or at best, is suitable only to the backward countries.
There is nothing new in the claims of the modern revisionists that “Lenin has departed from Marxism”. They were spread by the social-democrats 60 years ago. It was precisely Kautsky who accused Lenin of “revising Marxism”. The real aim of this anti-Leninist campaign of the modern revisionists is not the return to Marx, but the complete abandoning of Marxism-Leninism in form, too. This has been sanctioned in the programs and constitutions of some revisionist parties as well as in the international documents published by these parties in which the term Marxism-Leninism is completely omitted and is stressed that Marxism-Leninism is not the only theoretical, ideological guide of the party of the working class.
All this is meant to .create a great confusion and, disorganisation among the working class and the peoples, to blur the perspective for them and to turn them away from the correct road of the struggle against the capitalist and imperialist order, to weaken their confidence in-the ideals of socialism and in the superiority of the socialist order, to alienate them from Marxism-Leninism, as the only scientific theory of socialism. This is the great service which the modem revisionists render the bourgeoisie, this is their counter-revolutionary road.
In these circumstances a correct conception of socialism and of the roads to its realization is imperative. Without reflecting on these questions, the aspirations and the struggle of the peoples for socialism can never be channelled correctly, they can never set themselves a clear objective. “In our time,” Comrade Enver Hoxha says, “the problem does not arise of copying the revisionist pseudo-socialist theories, or of inventing new socialist theories. Socialism exists and develops both as a theory and as a practice. It has accumulated rich historic experience, summed up in the Marxist-Leninist theory, the vitality of which has been confirmed in life. By relying on this scientific theory and applying it in the conditions of each country, the revolutionary forces will find the correct road to socialism” (E. Hoxha, Report to the 6th Congress of the PLA, p. 243, Eng. ed.).
A brilliant demonstration of this great teaching is the successful construction of socialism in Albania. The Party of Labour of Albania has never pretended to present this experience of its own as something perfect, which overcomes all difficulties and contradictions, and even less has it pretended to present it as something of universal value. However, in this experience of ours we see the embodiment in life of the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism, the general laws of the revolution and socialist construction, which our Party has known how to apply in a creative manner in the conditions of Albania and in the complicated international situations.
In the great struggle for the triumph of the revolution, the construction of socialism and the defence of Marxism-Leninism, the theoretical thinking of our Party, the outstanding theoretical Work of Comrade Enver Hoxha, which constitutes a valuable contribution in the treasury of Marxism-Leninism, have also developed. They are a powerful means in the hands of the Party and the masses of the people for the advance of the great cause of communism, an inexhaustible source of inspiration to all those who fight for the triumph and the defence of freedom and national independence, the revolution and socialism.
The experience of socialist construction in Albania is broad and many sided. It has been reflected in the documents of the Party and the Works of Comrade Enver Hoxha. In this report I shall dwell only on some problems which seem more pertinent to the present situation of the great struggle which is being waged between socialism and capitalism, Marxism-Leninism and the revolution.
1. On the Relationship between Economy and Politics
The establishment of a correct relationship between the economy and politics is one of the fundamental questions of the strategy of the revolutionary party of the working class and a decisive condition for the triumph of the revolution and the successful construction of socialism. It is precisely for this reason that the bourgeois and modern revisionist ideologists today are making strenuous efforts to distort this question, to divorce the economy from politics and to urge the revolutionary forces towards such road. Just as in the past, underlying the foundations of the views of the modern opportunists is their departure from the proletarian policy, their adoption of another variant of economism, technocratism – the theory of the forces of production. This anti-Marxist course is backed up with a sort of theoretical argument namely, that allegedly under socialism the economic aspect of Marxism comes to the fore.
On this basis developed Khrushchevite opportunism which led to the liquidation of the communist party and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, to the destruction of the socialist base of the economy, to the ideological and political degeneration of people, to the re-establishment of capitalism and the transformation of the Soviet Union into an imperialist, aggressive and counter-revolutionary power. On this basis developed and spread also the other revisionist concepts on the peaceful integration of capitalism into socialism through various reforms without affecting the political and economic base of the bourgeois order, on the so-called non-capitalist road of development, or that of socialist orientation, without the leadership of the working class and its revolutionary party, on political and ideological pluralism also in the conditions of socialism, and so on.
In all its activity, both during the National Liberation War and during the period of socialist construction the Party of Labour of Albania has been guided by the dialectical connection of the economy with politics, by always giving priority to proletarian politics. “The policy of the Party”, Comrade Enver Hoxha has said, “is a question of capital importance. Everything bears the stamp of the policy of the party. This policy everybody must study and have in mind, nothing should be seen outside its angle. No class, Lenin teaches us, can rule without a political stand of its own towards any problem. On such a work, on such a way of understanding things and on the correct implementation of the line of the Party depends the successful construction of socialism and its defence from the dangerous attacks of the internal and external enemies” (E. Hoxha, Reports and Speeches, 1974-1975, pp. 186 187, Alb. ed.).
By making a correct analysis of the economic situation in the country, the ratio of classes, the changes which occurred after the fascist occupation and the complicated international situation during the Second World War, the Party knew how to work out a correct political strategy and tactics, which led to the great historic victory of the people's revolution. It did not stand by, waiting till a high level of economic development was reached, till capitalism developed in extension and the working class could be formed in large numbers, as the various opportunist elements preached, but it hurled itself into action and, in the course of the struggle, created the great alliance with the peasantry which constituted the overwhelming majority of the population of the country, became the architect of the broad union of the Albanian people in the Anti-fascist National Liberation Front, set up a new army of the people and for the people, laid the foundations of the new people's democratic power and connected closely the question of national liberation with the question of social liberation.
The Party made correct use of the favourable revolutionary situation which had been created in the country, a situation which became mature not so much as a result of the economic development as of the other political and national factors. It treated in a creative revolutionary manner both the content of the revolutionary situation, as the objective condition closely and directly linked with the revolution, and its relationship with the role of the subjective factor. It is true that the revolutionary situation is not created arbitrarily, according to the wishes and will of people and political parties, but it matures objectively with the social, economic, and political development of the country. However, the subjective factor plays an important active role in the maturing of the revolutionary situation by retarding or accelerating it. The revolutionary party cannot watch idly the flow of events, or remain at the tail of the situations, waiting for the great day of the revolution. Revolution must be prepared every day, continually and with all-round political, ideological, organizational and military work.
Closely connected with the relationship between the economy and politics is also the question of the development of the people's revolution into the socialist revolution. As is known, due to its low level of socio-economic development, Albania in the past did not directly cope with the tasks of the socialist revolution. However, in the historical conditions in which the revolution was carried out in Albania, all the possibilities for the country to go over to socialism existed. In the epoch of imperialism, as Lenin has pointed out, when the world system of the capitalist economy has been created, the economies of individual countries cannot exist as independent units, but as links in the world economy of capitalism. And as long as the imperialist system as a whole is mature for the socialist revolution, then the economic backwardness of the country is not an insurmountable obstacle to the development of the democratic revolution into the socialist revolution. On the other hand, in the period of the fascist occupation of the country and of the Second World War, the tasks of a democratic character were closely interconnected with the tasks of a socialist character. The struggle against fascism in our country was objectively a struggle against the capitalist and imperialist order, fascism being its offspring. The main exploiting classes of the country – the feudal owners and the big bourgeoisie, made common cause with the foreign occupier. The National Liberation War was closely connected with the great Patriotic War of the socialist Soviet Union. This created the objective premises not only for the transformation of the National Liberation War into a deep-going people's revolution, but also for the development of this revolution into a socialist revolution. The decisive factor which utilized these premises and realized this revolutionary process was the leadership of the working class and of its communist party.
This experience was a living and concrete example of the putting into practice of the Leninist theory of the revolution and a new test ,of this theory, which teaches us that in the epoch of imperialism and of the transition from capitalism to socialism the tasks of a democratic and socialist character come very much close to each other, and when the people's democratic or national democratic revolutions are guided by the proletariat and its Marxist-Leninist vanguard, then all the possibilities exist, with the solidarity and support of the socialist and revolutionary forces of the world, for the democratic revolution to be transformed into the socialist revolution and these two revolutions to be linked up as two stages of the same and uninterrupted revolutionary process.
With the establishment of the people's power, as the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, after the liberation of the country from the foreign invaders and the local traitors, a new contradiction which is characteristic especially of the countries which embark on the socialist road inheriting a great backwardness from the past, arose in Albania. This was the contradiction between the advanced form of the political power and the backward state of the economy, between the socialist character of the political power and the feudal-bourgeois character of the economic relations. For this contradiction to be resolved it was essential that the centuries-long backwardness of the country should be overcome. The only correct road was that of liquidating the old relations of production, beginning from the liquidation of the hangovers of feudalism and the interference of foreign capital, which were the main cause of this backwardness and their replacement with the new socialist relations of production, which would open a broad road to the development of the forces of production. With the carrying out of the people's revolution the Party had created the essential political conditions for the construction of socialism in Albania, bypassing the painful capitalist road of suffering and misery. The political power, the dictatorship of the proletariat became the main weapon in the hands of the Party, the working class and the working masses for the socialist transformation of the country.
In order to make this transformation, the Party and the people's power had to go through an entire historical period, which lasted about 15-20 years. The objective necessity for such a period flowed from the fact that socialism, as a new social order, is not born and established spontaneously in the bosom of capitalism, as the present-day revisionists strive “to prove”, but is built in a conscious manner after the overthrow of the political power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The essence, the fundamental contents of this period consist in the socialist transformation of the economy, the abolition of the old relations of production which rely on the private ownership of the means of production, and their replacement with the new relations of production, which rely on the social ownership of the means of production. This process in our country was carried out through deep-going revolutionary reforms and transformations, such as the expropriation of the bourgeoisie through the nationalization of the principal means of production and the setting of the small producers on the road of socialism through cooperation, and led to the final liquidation of private property and the establishment of socialist social ownership both in town and in the countryside, to the liquidation of the multi-formed economy and the creation of a single system of the socialist economy, which is developed by the state according to plan and on the basis of the economic laws of socialism. On this basis were liquidated the exploiting classes as such and, together with them, also the exploitation of man by man, the socialist principle of remuneration “each according to his abilities and to each according to his work”, was established everywhere.
With the construction of the economic base of socialism, our country embarked on a new historical period, that of the complete construction of the socialist society. In this period two major tasks emerged on the first plane: the task of the complete construction of the material-technical base of socialism, connected with the overcoming of the contradiction emerging between the new relations of production and the relatively low level of the forces of production, and the task of perfecting the whole political and ideological superstructure of the society, connected with the struggle for purging it off anything obsolete and alien so that it could suit and serve the new economic base better. For the solution of these two major tasks and for the further improvement of the relations of production, the Party and the people's state power adopted a series of important measures of a political and economic character which led to the vigorous development of the economy on the road of the rapid transformation of Albania from an agrarian-industrial country into an industrial-agrarian country, as well as to the further revolutionization of the entire life of the country.
On this score, the struggle of the party on a broad front against the hangovers of the old society and against the influences of the present bourgeois-revisionist world has great theoretical and practical importance. This process enveloped all spheres of life – the economy and policy, ideology and culture; it affected the base and the superstructure of the society and, above all, man, his consciousness and world-outlook. Serving this aim are also the struggle against liberalism and bureaucracy, technocracy and intellectualism, the struggle for the revolutionization of the Party and the state power, the army and the school; the establishment of correct relations between cadres and masses, the great movements for putting the general interest above the personal interest, the struggle against religion and backward customs, for the complete emancipation of woman, for the deepening of the ideological and cultural revolution, and so on.
The further revolutionization of the life of the country was not a spontaneous or anarchist process or an administrative-bureaucratic action; it was a process of the deepening of the revolution in all fields, organized and directed by the Party and carried out with the active and direct participation of the masses through mass actions and great revolutionary movements. It was a fierce and all-round class struggle, which was conducted with the aim of rooting out of the life of our society and the consciousness of people any noxious weed and influence of the capitalist-revisionist world and of barring the paths to the danger of bourgeois degeneration.
In all this extensive revolutionary activity the Party also took account of the negative experience of that retrogressive counter-revolutionary process which happened in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. Alongside of the struggle of historic importance for exposing and smashing the revisionist betrayal, from the beginning the Party took upon itself the task of finding the causes of the emergence of revisionism so as to be able to avoid such a phenomenon occurring in our country. On this basis and on the basis of our own revolutionary practice, rich experience was gained about how to bar the road to the danger of the re-establishment of capitalism, whether from within or from outside, how to ensure the uninterrupted continuation of the revolution and the successful construction of socialism. Such an experience was lacking in the international communist movement even in its later stages. The Soviet Union could not create this experience because the revolutionary process there was interrupted by the revisionist counter-revolution. This experience is being created now. Our Party with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head is making a valuable contribution to the solution of this historic task.
Albania today gives a living and concrete example of how the new socialist society is built and defended. The Albanian socialist reality refutes the slanders of the modern revisionists of the Carrillo type and others, who present the socialism established in the undeveloped countries as formal socialism.
Ours is a genuinely socialist society, in which the dictatorship of the proletariat is in power and the Marxist-Leninist party of the working class gives undivided leadership, in which there are no more exploiting classes and exploitation of man by man, where the law prohibits and all paths are barred to the emergence of private property and the penetration of foreign capital. It is characterized by a steel unity of the people around the Parity, a unity which has at its foundations the alliance of the working class with the cooperativist peasantry. In our society not only social antagonisms have been wiped out, but also distinctions between the working class and the peasantry, town and countryside, mental and physical work are continually being levelled out. The law provides for the establishment of correct differentials in the remuneration of the masses so that no privileged strata are allowed to be created.
Socialism which is established in Albania according to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism opened the road for our people to advance in all fields. It released their inexhaustible energies, discovered their wonderful abilities and talents, developed the initiative and creative spirit of the masses of working people, and made them the masters of the country; it freed woman from centuries-old bondage, from heavy social and class oppression, and put her in the honoured place which belongs to her by right as a great social force; it opened brilliant perspectives to the youth and the intelligentsia towards knowledge, culture and science in the service of the people and the socialist homeland; it placed ,the peasantry in new, socialist socio-economic conditions, and made the working class the backbone of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class which with its consciousness, drive at work and lofty revolutionary spirit, gives the tone to the entire life of the country.
The backwardness, poverty and illiteracy which the country inherited from the past, are now only bitter memories. As a result of the policy of the Party for the industrialization of the country, Albania today has a new industry, developed in many branches, and marches steadily towards its transformation into an industrial-agricultural country. It has now a collectivized agriculture which, with the efforts of the cooperativist peasantry and the entire people, has set out on the road of its ceaseless intensification and modernization. A new culture of the masses and for the masses, with socialist content, popular spirit and national features, has been put at the service of the communist education of the working people. On the basis of the growth of production, the living standard has been continuously raised not for a few people but for all, ever better fulfilling not the petty-bourgeois whims of some people but the vital needs of the broad masses of working people. Socialist Albania today is a completely free and sovereign state, it has a secure defence which is in a position to cope with any aggression from whichever quarter it may come, because an entire people, politically and militarily prepared, stand guard of the freedom and independence, the victory of, the revolution. Its international position is stronger than ever, it has numerous friends and admirers in the world, who see in socialist Albania a great example and a source of inspiration.
The reality of socialist Albania has shown its vitality through the many historical tests, and especially in its three major clashes with the Yugoslav, Khrushchevite and Chinese revisionists. Revisionist betrayal not only failed to pass in Albania, but the Party of Labour of Albania became the standard-bearer of the struggle for the exposure of modern revisionism, the ardent defender of Marxism Leninism and the revolutionary cause of the proletarians and peoples. Just as all the efforts of the Yugoslav and Khrushchevite revisionists failed ignominiously, so the hopes of the new Chinese revisionists were shattered, when after the cutting off of Chinese aid and credits they expected to see the Party of Labour and the Albanian people kneeling before them.
Socialist Albania stood unshaken in its revolutionary positions and showed the whole world that even in the conditions of the savage imperialist revisionist blockade, even in the conditions of the grave crisis which has the capitalist, bourgeois and revisionist world in its grip, .it is in a position to march forward non-stop on the road of socialism, securing at the same time high development rates and gradually but steadily raising the living standard of its people, without stretching its hand to anyone, relying exclusively on its own forces.
This is the glorious work of the Party of Albania, the example of victorious socialism in Albania which will shine in the centuries in the history of international communism.
2. Contradictions, Classes and the Class Struggle in Socialism
The revolution and socialism in Albania have developed with success and have forged always ahead because the Party of Labour of Albania has consistently stuck to the line of the class struggle and applied it with determination in practice, correctly treating and solving the various contradictions of our socialist society.
The whole period of the construction of socialism has been a period of fierce class struggle waged in all fields, political, economic, ideological and military, against the internal and external enemies as well as in the ranks of the Party and in the midst of the people. The enemies have fought us with all weapons and means, with blackmail and provocations, with pressure and interference, with the aim of containing and undermining the construction of socialism and eventually destroying it altogether. However, all these efforts of the coalition of the foreign and local enemies, who acted in collusion with each other, met with complete defeat against the sharp vigilance of the Party and the unbreakable unity of the Party with the people. A similar defeat awaits the enemies and their activity in the future, too, because in Albania are working a valiant and indomitable people led by an eagle-eyed party, which is the sharp edge of the sword of the working class and which consistently implements the teachings of Marxism-Leninism.
From this rich experience as well as from the counter-revolutionary turn which events took in the Soviet Union and China and elsewhere, our Party has drawn conclusions of principled importance, which constitute a further development of the Marxist-Leninist theory on the class struggle. These problems should be re-examined today not only because we must treat them ever more deeply, but also because some misunderstanding has to be cleared up and the distortions of the modern revisionists, and in particular those of the Chinese revisionists now, have to be refuted.
The Chinese revisionists have come out with great pretentious in the field of ,theory, presenting the so-called Mao Tsetung thought as a new higher stage in the development of Marxism-Leninism, as the Marxism-Leninism of our epoch. In his outstanding work, “Imperialism and the Revolution” and in his political diary, “Reflections on China”, Comrade Enver Hoxha has made a principled, thorough and all-round criticism of Chinese revisionism, the theory and practice of “Mao Tsetung thought”.
The Chinese propaganda says that “the most important contribution which Mao Tsetung has made to Marxism-Leninism is the theory of the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat”. It must be said from the beginning that if Mao Tsetung has any “merit” at all in this question, this is that he has confused and badly distorted this problem, thus not only making no contribution to the Marxist theory, but bringing about a great confusion and making a flagrant distortion of it.
It is an elementary truth known to every Marxist that the specific feature of the socialist revolution, one of the essential points which distinguishes it from all the other revolutions known in history, is that it does not end with the seizure of power, but continues as an uninterrupted revolution even after the seizure of power during the entire period of the dictatorship of the proletariat until communism. Thus, Mao Tsetung has made no discovery at all.
According to the Chinese theoreticians, “the theory of the continuation of the revolution in the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat” has at its foundation the acceptance of the existence of antagonistic classes in socialism, which exist objectively until communism. What is the truth about this question and what does our experience show?
It is known that the exploiting classes have come to exist in history alongside of the emergence of private ownership of the means of production, and they exist as long as this ownership exists. In socialism, with the liquidation of private ownership and the establishment of socialist relations of production in town and countryside, the exploiting classes as such are liquidated, and together with them also the exploitation of man by man. For a time only their leftovers as individuals linger on, but they do not constitute a class in themselves, because now they are bereft of all political power and the means of production.
In socialism there exist some objective conditions and factors which facilitate the emergence of a new bourgeois class. Apart from ideological factors, bourgeois pressure from outside and inside, there exists also the “bourgeois right”, the principle of distribution according to work, which hides in itself a sort of inequality between people, and still allows the existence of distinctions between town and countryside, between mental and physical work, etc. On this basis even in socialism new bourgeois elements emerge, but they do not turn into a new bourgeois class in every instance. They become such a class, as the experience of the revisionist countries shows, only if the new bourgeoisie usurps power, if the principle of remuneration according to work is violated and great differences in income are permitted, if the struggle against various distortions in the socialist relations of production and against the hangovers of alien stands towards the proletarian ideology and policy of the Party is not waged. All this is a permanent possibility, not a fatality. This danger is avoidable by means of all-round ideological and political, organizational and economic measures. This is proved by the experience of socialism in Albania, where not only the old exploiting classes have been liquidated long ago, but the emergence of new exploiting classes has not been allowed.
The advocates of “Mao Tsetung thought” claim that “if antagonistic classes did not exist in socialism there would be no need for the dictatorship of the proletariat until the stage of communism”. The existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat until communism is not necessarily linked with the existence of antagonistic classes. On this score, the Khrushchevite revisionists declared the liquidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union as a consequence of the liquidation of the exploiting classes.
The need for the dictatorship of the proletariat to exist even after the liquidation of the old exploiting classes, as the Party of Labour of Albania has explained, is connected with the continuation of the class struggle up till communism, and the continuation of this struggle up till that time is connected with a series of other factors and not necessarily with the existence of antagonistic classes. These factors, which exist inside the country, are the leftovers of capitalism which cannot be wiped out instantly, but linger on for a relatively long time and manifest themselves in many fields of life, especially in the field of ideology and the so-called bourgeois right, in the distinctions between town and countryside, mental and physical work, etc.; outside the country there is the great and all-round ideological, political, economic and military pressure of the capitalist and revisionist world, which does not pass without having its impact on our people. The dictatorship of the proletariat is needed precisely to suppress the enemies of socialism, who emerge as a result of these factors, to avoid the danger of a switch-back to capitalism, to ensure the uninterrupted development of the socialist revolution until the triumph of communism on a world scale.
“The theory of the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat”, as presented by Mao and his followers, in fact is an attempt at sanctioning the wrong opportunist line which has been pursued in China and which has led not only to failure to liquidate the old exploiting classes, but even to the emergence of the new bourgeois .class, which shares power in China.
The distorted treatment of this problem in social life is also connected with its distorted treatment within the party. According to “Mao Tsetung thought”, the party of the working class is divided into antagonistic classes, with their bourgeois and proletarian headquarters, and as a result, two lines, which express the interests of these two classes, exist in it objectively and unavoidably. In this question, too, we have to do with a flagrant deviation from Marxism-Leninism.
The division of society into classes is not necessarily expressed in the division of the party into classes. It is true that people from different classes come into the party, but they do not come in the quality of representatives of these classes. “The Party is not the arena of classes and of the struggle between antagonistic classes", says Comrade Enver Hoxha, “it is not a gathering of people with contradictory aims" (E. Hoxha, “Imperialism and the Revolution”, p. 400, Engl. ed.). The Marxist-Leninist party is the militant union of people who are inspired by the same ideals and fight for the same aim, and these are the ideals and aims of .the working class.”
Of course, the people who come into the party, not only those from non-proletarian strata but also those from the working class itself, are not free from the influences and ideologies of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, feudalism and patriarchalism. The communists live, work and fight in the midst of society, in which the class struggle is waged, and they are not immune from alien influences and manifestations. The external pressure from the capitalist and revisionist world acts on the entire society and on the party members as well. All these constitute that basis on which the class struggle in the party is waged.
This class struggle in the party is objective, unavoidable, it is the reflection of the class struggle which goes on in society. However, the class struggle in the party is not expressed in every instance and in an unavoidable manner as a struggle between two lines. The class struggle in the party is objective and unavoidable but not the existence of two lines.
The line of the party is a complex of directives and orientations for an entire historical period; it defines the aims of the party as well as the ways to reach them. The party of the working class can have but one line, the line of the revolution, of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the construction of socialism and communism. From this standpoint, not any alien manifestation in the party, not any opposition, not any divergency, represent a line apart. It is another matter whom they serve and to what mill they are grist. These matters cannot and must not be confused. Otherwise the consequences would very grave; this would lead to sectarianism, to smothering of democracy in the party, to confusing friends with foes.
To accept that the bourgeois line in the party exists objectively, independently of the wishes of people, means to accept the fatalistic and anti-dialectical concept which confuses the possibility with the reality. Since the emergence of the bourgeois line is only a possibility, to present it as something which exists fatally means to open the road, in a conscious manner, to the bourgeois line in the party and to undermine the party, the dictatorship of ,the proletariat and socialism. The present events in China are the direct consequence of the course of Mao Tsetung on permitting two opposed lines in the party.
It is claimed that the concrete implementation of the “theory of the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat” is the great proletarian cultural revolution which was launched and led by Mao Tsetung, whose aim allegedly was to bar the road to that evil which occurred in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. However, as Comrade Enver Hoxha has explained and expounded extensively in his work, “Imperialism and the Revolution” and in his political diary, “Reflections on China”, the cultural revolution in China was neither cultural, nor great, nor, less so, a proletarian revolution. It is a fierce struggle for power on a national scale between anti-Marxist groups and clans. In fact, the cultural revolution was the product of the opportunist line of Mao Tsetung, the product of the struggle between different lines, none of which was Marxist. Not only had Mao allowed this grave situation, this great chaos in China to exist, but he has also presented this cultural revolution as a universal law for the socialist countries, as something absolutely necessary and unavoidable, which should be repeated every 7-8 years. This means to preach fatalism, to paralyse the effort of the party and the masses to bar the road to revisionism and to sanction, in fact, the existence of bourgeois elements, and even to open the way for them to usurp power.
In treating the problem of the class struggle in socialism, especially after liquidation of the exploiting classes, it is essential to take account of the new conditions in which this struggle is waged. The class struggle is a general law of the development of human society divided into antagonistic classes, and which goes on even in socialism for known reasons. However, just as all the other general laws, the law of the class struggle manifests itself concretely in every socio-economic formation, it has its specific features and undergoes respective changes in harmony with the socio-economic conditions in which it operates.
Acceptance or rejection in theory and in practice of the class struggle in socialism even after the liquidation of the antagonistic classes is a question of great principled and vital importance, is a fundamental line of demarcation between the Marxist-Leninists and the revisionists. Even under socialism, the 7th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania pointed out, the class struggle is an objective phenomenon, the main motive force which drives ahead the development of society.
Here we will stress some fundamental characteristics of the class struggle in socialism, the understanding of which conditions the correct waging of the class struggle by the party and the masses. Which are some of these characteristics?
The class struggle in socialism after the liquidation of the exploiting classes, though not waged as a struggle between antagonistic classes, continues and will continue throughout the whole period of socialism up to communism. At present this struggle is waged against the bourgeois, traitor and hostile elements to socialism, on the one hand, or elements who are born from our own ranks as a result of the bourgeois pressure from inside and within, and on the other hand, it is waged also in the midst of the party and people, in which the new fights with the old, the materialist world-outlook clashes with the idealistic world-outlook, proletarian ideology with bourgeois and revisionist ideology, personal interest with general interest, communist morality with bourgeois morality, and so on.
Even in the conditions of socialism the class struggle is waged simultaneously on all fronts: political, economic and ideological, and the 7th Congress of the Party pointed out that the only comprehensive and consistent class struggle is that which is waged at the same time in all its main directions. But today when we say that we have achieved the triumph of the socialist revolution in the political and economic field and raise the fundamental task of securing the complete triumph of the revolution also in the field of ideology, without which the political and economic victories cannot be guaranteed, either, it is clear that the class struggle on the ideological front will necessarily assume special importance. “This is the greatest front of our struggle", says Comrade Enver Hoxha, “the most complicated, the most potentially dangerous, one which calls for the greatest attention of the party, the people's power and the masses and their greatest militancy" (E. Hoxha, Reports and Speeches”, 1972-1973, p. 280).
The Party has stressed that the class struggle in any field, whether ideological, political, economic, cultural or military, in the last analysis, is connected with the question of the political power as the fundamental question of the revolution; even in the conditions of socialism it has to do with the question: is the dictatorship of the proletariat to be preserved and strengthened and will the development of the country on the socialist road be guaranteed, or will the road be opened to the re-establishment of capitalism. This is the objective content of the class struggle which is waged in our country. Nevertheless, for the class struggle to be waged in a correct manner, it is important to distinguish clearly and not to confuse the subjective motives of our people with the objective consequences of their wrong views and stands. The matter stands differently when we have to do with hostile and traitor elements, who have taken upon themselves to achieve their open or underhand counter-revolutionary aims, and when we have to do with our own people who are lined with the party and the people's power and who work and fight for the revolution and socialism, but who may also have wrong concepts and take stands and attitudes alien to the socialist ideology and order. The contradictions between us and the first group of people are antagonistic, while those in the second group are non-antagonistic.
In the conditions of capitalism, the working class and the working masses wage the class struggle only from below, whereas in socialism this struggle is waged from both directions, both from above, by the party and the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and from below, by the working class and the working masses themselves. Any one-sidedness on this question, as the experience of the Soviet Union, China and the other countries which degenerated into revisionism and capitalism shows, is fraught with harmful consequences for the cause of socialism. The party and the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat are the most powerful weapons of carrying the class struggle of the proletariat, the socialist revolution through to the end, therefore they must he continuously defended and strengthened parallel with the extensive application of the line of the masses in the class struggle, by putting the working class and the working masses in such conditions in which they themselves can take an active part in this struggle, as the most secure road for closing the path to the danger of bourgeois-revisionist degeneration and for the revolutionary education and tempering of the masses themselves. This is the correct line which our Party has followed, thanks to which the cause of socialism in Albania has always advanced triumphantly.
In societies divided into antagonistic classes, the class struggle, despite its ebbs and flows, grows steadily more acute and reaches its acme in the political revolution. In the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as our Party has long ago defined, the class struggle develops with ebbs and tides, with zigzags, at times mounting high, at times ebbing low, but never it is interrupted or extinguished. This conclusion is completely correct. It is a faithful reflection of the objective dialectics of the development of the class struggle and is directed both against opportunism and sectarianism; it helps always maintain a correct, vigilant and wise stand in the class struggle.
One of the most important features of the class struggle in our socialist country is that it is waged in the conditions of the savage bourgeois-revisionist encirclement, which makes this struggle especially important and sharp. The capitalist-revisionist encirclement, as Comrade Enver Hoxha has said, is not just a geographical notion, nor is it a passive encirclement, but a hostile, active and threatening encirclement, from which our country is threatened with many great dangers: the danger of military aggression, economic pressure and blockades, and the ideological diversion and aggression. There is a close connection, coordination and interaction between the internal front and the external front of the class struggle. Without overlooking their other plans and aims, the external enemies today attach special importance to the disintegration of our internal front through the encouragement of liberalism and the anti-socialist elements and counter-revolutionaries. Therefore, the Party stressed at its 7th Congress, “We must confront the united front of the enemies by strengthening our internal front in all directions, in the field of defence and the economy, policy and ideology, by always consistently waging the class struggle.”
Just as the objective law of the class struggle has its specific features, the dialectical law of unity and struggle of opposites, of the development through contradictions, has its concrete aspects, too. Here changes are made both in the character of contradiction and in the character of unity, new relations are formed between them and new ways are found for overcoming contradictions.
On the basis of the correct understanding and implementation of this dialectical law, the Party has tempered that steel-like unity of our people, who have coped with the great historic tests and have been transformed into a new motive force. Underlying the basis of this unity is the alliance of the working class with the cooperativist peasantry. This unity has been strengthened and tempered on the basis of the major social, economic, political and ideological transformations which have been carried out in the life of our country in the process of a fierce class struggle against the internal and external enemies as well as in the midst of the people. The Party has invariably followed a wise and correct policy in regard to the relations between the friendly strata of our society, the relations between cadres and masses, and has carried out an intensive and differentiated ideological and political work among the masses for the strengthening of the unity of the people. Of great importance in this respect is the struggle of the Party, together with the masses, against bureaucracy and liberalism, alien leftovers and manifestations, religion and backward customs, which weighed heavily especially on the woman, which oppressed and smothered her, thus depriving the unity of the people of a colossal force.
The unity of our people is one of the greatest victories of socialism and of the correct line of the Party. It is a factor of vital importance for the construction of socialism and the defence of the homeland, and as such it should be continuously strengthened and defended by correctly waging the class struggle, combating all liberal or sectarian stands, and giving timely solutions to the various problems which emerge in the course of this struggle.
In regard to the relationship between unity and struggle of opposites, two wrong concepts are notable. One such concept is that which negates contradictions, which sees them as something evil, and which prettifies and veneers the reality, seeing everything, all processes and phenomena in socialist society, in the light of unity alone, by overestimating and absolutizing unity. This is the view held by the Khrushchevite revisionists and in fact by all the opportunists as a whole. The essence of the opportunist policy has been and remains the reconciliation of opposites by preaching about their unity. This is the theoretical basis of the departure from the class struggle and of the class conciliation both inside the country and in the international arena.
The other wrong concept is that which negates unity and accepts only contradictions, which in every instance sees unity as something evil, that represents conservatism and inhibition of development, and which in everything tries to find and create contradictions. The Chinese revisionists, in particular, stick to this concept. Mao Tsetung raised the division of the whole into two to absolute principle. With this he wanted to find some theoretical basis for his course of sanctioning and permitting the existence of antagonistic classes in socialism and two lines in the party, the existence of other bourgeois and reactionary classes in the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the cultural revolution which should be repeated time and again. At the foundations of the policy pursued by the Chinese revisionists lies division, but not division with the reactionaries, the imperialists, the revisionists, but division of the people, the party, the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism, and alliance and unity with the opponents of socialism and the class enemies.
Thus, though starting from different standpoints, the Khrushchevite revisionists from the standpoint of unity, and the Chinese revisionists from the standpoint of division, both sides come to the same pass in their reactionary and counter-revolutionary policy.
From the theoretical angle the source of these views and stands lies in the distortion of the dialectical law on unity and struggle of opposites and the specific nature of the operation of this law in socialism. The experience of our country proves that the unity of the party, the people, socialist society has been formed and continually strengthened on the basis of the solution of various contradictions, antagonistic and non-antagonistic, by waging the class struggle correctly and consistently. The progressive new in socialism, too, always makes headway through the struggle of opposites. A similarly great role is played also by the unity of the party, the people, society, which becomes a new motive force that promotes the development of the country. This is connected with the character of the contradictions which exist in the context of unity, mainly as non-antagonistic contradictions, in which the opposites are not in irreconcilable struggle with each other, as is the case of contradictions under capitalism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Here we have to do mainly with a unity of opposites in which both sides of the contradiction are generally progressive, and their essential interests coincide. Such unity helps society advance, because it assists, creates favourable conditions to give solution to various contradictions existing in this unity, which, thus, is raised to a higher level.
This leads to the next important problem, i.e., on the place which antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions occupy in our society. Acceptance of the two types of contradictions in socialism is a principled question. Acceptance only of the non-antagonistic contradictions and negation of the antagonistic contradictions even after the liquidation of the exploiting classes, as the modern, Khrushchevite and other revisionists, do, is in opposition to the objective reality. They need it to negate the class struggle in socialism and to cloak the revisionist counter-revolution which they have carried out in their own countries. But it is just the same wrong and of harmful consequences to fail to see the changes made in socialism with the liquidation of the exploiting classes and to put antagonistic contradictions on the same footing as the non-antagonistic contradictions. Antagonistic contradictions are typical, characteristic of societies divided into antagonistic classes. In socialist society, where these classes have ceased to exist, antagonistic contradictions do not stem from the nature of the socialist order itself. They emerge and exist as a product of the leftovers of the old bourgeois society inside the country and the pressure of the capitalist-revisionist encirclement from outside, and these factors exist objectively, but are alien to the socialist order and its ideology. Therefore, from a deep assessment of antagonistic contradictions, it emerges that the non-antagonistic contradictions are characteristic of socialist society without antagonistic classes.
On the other hand, we must not forget that the non-antagonistic contradictions may turn antagonistic. This our enemies are trying to achieve by spreading their ideology, culture and decadent way of life, by encouraging liberalism and bureaucracy, discord and discontent, theft and embezzlement, etc. And this happens whenever the stand towards the class enemy, its ideology and activity, are opportunist and liberal, when vigilance and the stern struggle against it are weakened or altogether neglected, when a wrong policy in connection with the relationships between various classes and strata in society, between cadres and masses, etc., is followed. If Albania did not go through the retrogressive process which occurred in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, this is accounted for by the fact that our Party has known how to treat correctly the two types of contradictions, and has not allowed non-antagonistic contradictions to become antagonistic contradictions.
3. Socialism and Democracy
The question of the relationship between socialism and democracy has been and remains one of the fundamental questions in the clash between the proletarian ideology and the bourgeois ideology, the political struggle between two opposed systems – socialist and capitalist. This struggle began as early as the time of the triumph of the October Revolution in Russia and continues just as fierce up to our days. Even today, the enemies of communism, the bourgeoisie and the reactionaries, the social-democrats and the revisionists extol the bourgeois democracy and furiously attack the dictatorship of the proletariat under the allegation that it is the negation of democracy. They carry out similar attacks against socialist order in our country, by labelling it all sorts of epithets such as “Stalinist”, “totalitarian”, “conservative”, “destroyer of religion and ancient traditions”, “smothering the freedoms and personality of man”, etc.
We are clear about the aim of the enemies. They await to discredit the ideas of socialism and undermine the socialist order by seeking all possible ways and means to encourage liberalism allegedly in the name of democracy and freedom. However, their attacks, vituperations and speculations cannot overshadow the great truth that only the socialist order, built according to the Marxist-Leninist theory, is the most democratic order ever known to history. In his speech, “Proletarian Democracy is Genuine Democracy”, held in September last year, at the meeting of the General Council of the Democratic Front of Albania, Comrade Enver Hoxha has once again exposed the falsity and deceptive nature of bourgeois democracy and has brought many facts to show the incomparable superiority of proletarian democracy, as the broadest, most complete and real democracy for the broad masses of the people.
The triumph of the revolution and the establishment of the people's power opened the broad road not only to the rapid material-economic development and progress of society, but also to the all-round development of socialist democracy, to the genuine liberation of the working man. “The 29th of November”, says Comrade Enver Hoxha, “marks in our history the dividing line between two worlds, the one in which the people all their lives had been trampled underfoot by the ‘powerful' and in which they had no rights altogether, and the world in which they were raised to the pedestal of the all-powerful master of their own destinies” (E. Hoxha, “20 Years of New Socialist Albania”, Tirana 1964, p. 6).
The character of a social order cannot be judged in an abstract manner, from its formal aspects and the juridical provisions about democratic freedoms and rights. Democracy is a political, class notion, and the only way to judge about it correctly is from its class contents and from its practical implementation in life. The question, Lenin says, is raised like this: Freedom from the oppression by which class? Equality of which class and with which? Democracy on the basis of private ownership or on the basis of the struggle for the liquidation of private ownership?
The state is the welding of the dictatorship with democracy. The bourgeois ideologists and the modern revisionists try in vain to negate this connection and lay down the liquidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a condition for the development of democracy in socialism. Dictatorship and democracy are two inseparable aspects of the state, they are two opposites which, while in fact they reciprocally exclude each other, still are two opposites in dialectical unity, which cannot exist independently of each other. The essence of the question is what is dictatorship for and what is democracy for.
With the transition to socialism and especially after the liquidation of the exploiting classes, a great quantitative and qualitative change takes place in socialism in the relationship between dictatorship and democracy. From limited democracy for the exploiting minority and the savage dictatorship for the exploited majority, which has been the nature of all states in the past, independently of the forms they had, in the socialist state we witness an unprecedented development of democracy for the overwhelming majority of the people and stern dictatorship for the minority of the exploiters, or later, for their leftovers and other enemies of socialism.
From these changes it does not follow that, as the Khrushchevite revisionists say, now as long as the typically social function of the state, as a means in the hands of a class for the exploitation of other classes, is invalid, and the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer needed, and since the socialist state ceases to exist as the weapon of the political domination of one class over another, it, thus loses its class character, too, and becomes a “state of the entire people”.
Of course, when the antagonistic classes have ceased to exist in the life of society, there can be no talk of the domination of one class over other classes, because in our country today relationships between the working class, the cooperativist peasantry and the people's intelligentsia are not relationships of domination and subjugation, oppression and exploitation, but relationships based on alliance, mutual collaboration and aid. However this does not mean that the state loses its class character. If the domination of one class over other classes has been wiped out this does not mean that the domination of the working class over the various enemies of socialism has been wiped out too, that the leadership of the working class over all the other classes and strata of socialist society has been wiped out. Lenin has defined the essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat as leadership of the working class in the state. This leading role of the working class remains in force completely for as long as the classes are not wiped out from society, until the overthrow of capitalism and the complete and final triumph of communism are achieved on a world scale. And the working class does not and cannot play this leading role in the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat and in the entire life of socialist society in a direct manner, except through its Marxist-Leninist communist party, and on this question, too, the modern revisionists claim the opposite as true.
Irrespective of the limitation the repressive function of the socialist state undergoes in the process of its development, and it cannot fail to do so, this function does not cease to exist. It is still necessary not only to crush the resistance put up by the leftovers of former exploiting classes, to crush any hostile activity which is carried out by the foreign enemies, but also to crush the new bourgeois, the anti-socialist elements who emerge in the course of the class struggle inside the country. Therefore, by accepting the changes which the repressive function of the socialist state in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat undergoes it is important not to underestimate in the least the vital character of this function for the successful continuation of the revolution and ensuring the final triumph of the socialist road over the capitalist road of development. This must be kept well in mind, especially in the conditions of our country, encircled by the hostile waves of the capitalist and revisionist world, which exerts great and all-round pressure on our country and our people and becomes the cause of many evils which threaten the socialist order.
Our Party has abided and continues to abide by the Marxist thesis that without the dictatorship of the proletariat it is impossible to defend socialist democracy from the attempts of external and internal enemies and all the forces, traditions and influences of the old capitalist world and the revisionist world, which want to undermine and destroy it, just as it is true that without the all-round development of democracy, without drawing in the broad masses of working people to take an active part in the governing of the country, the dictatorship of the proletariat is in danger of being transformed into a bureaucratic-administrative dictatorship, which places itself above the people, in opposition to the people, as happened in the revisionist countries. The strength of our socialist order lies precisely in its close links with the broad masses of the people, in the powerful support which they give it, in their participation for the discussion and solution of state and social problems.
The democratic nature of a social order is determined, in the last analysis, by the fact in whose hands are the means of production. The liquidation of private ownership, and together with it of the exploiting class and the exploitation of man by man, is a colossal development of democracy, because genuine democracy, freedom and equality cannot exist where private ownership, the capitalist relations of oppression, subjugation and exploitation, prevail. “There can be no genuine equality between the patron and the worker, between the landowner and the peasant”, says J.V. Stalin, “as long as the former have the wealth and political weight in society, while the latter have none; as long as the former are exploiters and the latter are exploited" (J.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 14, p. 61). On the basis of the liquidation of private ownership in our country, the striking inequality, the great gap which divides the classes in capitalist society, has also been liquidated, and the social, political, and economic unity of our new society is created, in which the existing distinctions between the working class and the peasantry, town and countryside, mental and physical work grow continuously narrower, and in which all working people work for themselves and for their society, and are remunerated according to the work they do.
One of the fundamental features and main direction of the development of socialist democracy is the increased participation of the masses in the governing of the country. In our country, all power springs from the people and belongs to the working people. It is exercised through the representative organs and directly by the working class, the cooperativist peasantry and other working people, too, without any limitation or privilege in the rights and duties of the citizens following from sex, race, nationality, education, social position and material well-being. The entire organization of our state and the methods and forms of direction in its activity are such as to enable the broadest masses of working people to take an active part in the government of the country. In our country, the people's revolution destroyed the foundations of that bureaucratic system of government which dominates in the capitalist, bourgeois and revisionist countries and which is exercised by the exploiting classes in power and by the stratum of bureaucrats in its service, which keeps the masses as far as possible from the effective levers of exercising power, thus raising an insurmountable wall between the masses and these levers.
Of great importance for the development of socialist democracy and the defence of the dictatorship of the proletariat are the teachings of Comrade Enver Hoxha on the worker and peasant control, as a form of direct and organized control which is exercised under the leadership of the Party, on the activity of the state organs, the economic and social organizations and on their working people, and which extends on all fields of life. This control by the working class and the masses from below is a powerful weapon in the struggle against bureaucracy and liberalism, against any alien influence and manifestation in the work of cadres, organs and apparatuses; it is a living expression of the role of the working class and the masses in the whole life of the country, a great school for the revolutionary education and tempering and which increases their leading and control capacity.
The establishment of correct relationships between cadres and masses is another important question connected with the defence and development of socialist democracy. The problem is to stop that dangerous phenomenon which occurred in the Soviet Union and in the former socialist countries where the state cadres and office workers became bureaucrats, isolated themselves from the people, and from servants became rulers of the people. In order to bar the path to this evil, our Party has taken special care for the education of the cadres, closely connecting this with the education of the masses, for the establishment of correct relationships between them, for putting the cadres in such socio-economic conditions in which they think, work, fight and live always like revolutionaries, as loyal servants of the people.
Our people have never enjoyed the democratic freedoms and rights which they enjoy today. These freedoms and rights in our country are not only proclaimed and defended by law, but the socialist order created the objective conditions for their complete implementation in life. In the capitalist and revisionist countries, even when proclaimed in constitutions, these freedoms and rights have a formal and deceptive nature, because numerous restrictions are imposed in practice, the condition for their fulfilment does not exist, and on top of this, when the bourgeoisie sees that its interests are at stake in the least, it altogether disregards them and establishes the savage fascist dictatorship. Bourgeois democracy, Lenin has pointed out, though a great historic progress in comparison with the Middle Ages, always remains and cannot but remain a narrow, curtailed, false, hypocritical democracy, a paradise for the rich, a trap and fraud for the exploited, for the poor.
In the capitalist revisionist world there prevail the laws of the jungle, there is no humanism, no freedom, there is insecurity, poverty, fear, unemployment, degeneration. The contrary happens in our socialist country, where the people are in power, live free and happy. In our country the life of the masses is continuously improved. Socialist Albania knows no strikes and unemployment, taxes and price increases, anarchy and inflation; health service and education are given free of charge and the house rents are very low.
Even when confronted with such natural calamities as earthquakes, floods, devastations by fire, our people have never felt themselves isolated and abandoned to the mercy of the fate, as happens in the capitalist, bourgeois, and revisionist countries, where such calamities become a real tragedy for the working people and a source of profit for the exploiting classes, for the various speculators and dealers. The grave consequences of the earthquake of April 15 were liquidated within a very short time in our country, with all expenditure being met by the state and the new houses were given gratis and rent-free to the peasants whose houses were destroyed. This lofty humanism of our socialist order, the great solidarity of people, the vitality of our economy, which is in a position to cope with such large-scale construction work within such a short time, relying on its own forces without any aid from abroad, were manifested in the course of this great action. “Only socialism, constructed according to the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin,” Comrade Enver Hoxha stressed at the meeting in Bahçellëk of Shkodra, “is the socio-economic order which, in any case, transforms any calamity into great revolutionary strength which subdues any grief, which copes with any difficulty and makes people happy”.
There is no democracy where the masses are oppressed not only politically and economically, but also spiritually. The bourgeoisie and the revisionists with various and many powerful means of propaganda and with their innumerable institutions of ideological influence, such as the press, the radio, television, school, culture, arts, advertisement, the church, etc., enslave the working people spiritually, try to .confuse them and to estrange them from the revolutionary ideals. In these countries, corruption and crime, drug addiction and kidnapping of people, violence and terror have become incurable social ills.
A radical change has been made in the life of our socialist country in this field of democracy, too. The Party has seen and sees the struggle for the liberation of the consciousness of the working people from the heavy ideological burden of the exploiting classes, from the religious dogma and superstition, from old customs and traditions, from, the idealist and metaphysical world outlook, from the standards of bourgeois morality, as a condition necessary to emancipate the working man. This struggle is not in the least “a violation of the freedom of conscience", as the reactionary bourgeois propaganda tries to make out, but a struggle of historic importance for the education of the new man of new society, for the development of all his creative abilities, for the enrichment of his personality and the enhancement of its role in the entire life of the country. From this standpoint, the concepts of “ideological pluralism”, which the modern revisionists, especially the Chinese and the “Eurocommunists” trumpet so loudly, are altogether alien and anti-Marxist.
Their attacks against the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the highest type of democracy, have been concentrated especially on the leading and undivided role of the communist party. The revisionists see the extinction of this role and the implementation of the bourgeois system of many parties in socialism as conditional for the development of democracy, as its highest expression. But it is known that the number of parities has never been and will never be a yardstick of democracy. Neither the existence of many parties, nor the existence of a single party determines the democratic character of a social order. There are .capitalist, bourgeois and revisionist countries where there are many parties, there are also such countries where there is a single party, and yet social order there is anti-democratic in its essence. “It takes no explanation,” says Comrade Enver Hoxha, “to prove that, by sharing state power, many bourgeois, capitalist, revisionist and fascist parties of such capitalist and imperialist countries as the United States of America and others, do not .in the least transform their societies from reactionary into progressive societies. On the contrary, under imperialism, the turn is made from democracy to reaction. A society which defends and relies on the exploiting order is neither progressive nor democratic. Likewise, when state power is in the hands of a single party, which does not pursue a Marxist-Leninist line, which is not a party of the proletariat, it can never lead to the construction of socialism. On the contrary, no matter what such a party calls itself, whether “Marxist”, or “Marxist-Leninist”, it is in reality a party of the bourgeoisie or a fascist party” (E. Hoxha., “Proletarian Democracy is Genuine Democracy”, pp. 20 21, Tirana 1978, Engl. ed.).
In socialism, in its initial period, there may exist several political parties. The existence of these parities in this period is conditioned by the historical circumstances, in which the transition to socialism is made in any country as well as by .the fact that in this period there still exist the exploiting class, the individual peasantry and the stratum of the old intelligentsia, which further their individual interests. It must be pointed out that even in these conditions the leading role in the state and society belongs only to one party, the communist party of the working class. However, if the existence of these various parties in this period is inevitable, their sanctioning cannot be justified in the later period of socialism, where the exploiting classes are liquidated, the socialist collectivization of agriculture is accomplished, the new intelligentsia is formed, the community of the fundamental interests between the working class and the cooperativist peasantry as well as the people's intelligentsia is created, which is characteristic of the new socialist society. In these conditions there are no objective socio-economic bases for the existence of other political parties.
According to the Italian revisionists, “even after the destruction of the economic base of society and the liquidation of its division into antagonistic classes, different interests will continue to exist, the ideological, political, cultural and religious trends and traditions will still retain their value. “With this”, they say, “we explain the possibility of the existence and operation of several parties and their replacing each other in the governing of the state even in the conditions of the socialist and democratic regeneration of society” (Problems of Peace and Socialism, No. 3, 1979). But what are these different interests which will continue to exist even after the liquidation of antagonistic classes? If this refers to the interests of the working classes and strata, they are expressed and defended by the communist party and hence no need for other parties. In these conditions, the other parties can express and defend only the interests of the overthrown exploiting classes or of the other enemies of socialism, since it is known that the political parties are class parties, they work to achieve the aims of certain given classes, to lead their struggle for power. But what trends and traditions will preserve their value in socialism, too? If they are democratic and progressive trends and traditions, they are quite well expressed and defended by the communist party. Then, does it follow from this that we should sanction the anti-Marxist and anti-socialist ideological and political trends, the bourgeois and reactionary cultural traditions, and even the obscurantist religious trends and traditions? This is precisely what the modern revisionists want to do, to undermine and disrupt the genuine socialist society.
The modern revisionists speculate largely on democracy. Loudest of all in this are the Eurocommunist revisionists, who have come out with a new variant of socialism, which, according to them, is neither that of social-democracy nor that of real socialism known so far. It is the third road, or the number three variant of socialism. This, they say, is “democratic” socialism which will be established and constructed on the “democratic” road.
The socialism of the “Eurocommunists” is a sort of “socialism” which will be established not through the revolution, but with reforms and by winning the majority of the seats in parliament through elections: without overthrowing the power of the bourgeoisie and without breaking its bureaucratic-military apparatus, but with the aid of this power and its apparatus, which, they preach, is “being socialized”-ever more; without the leadership of the working class and its Marxist Leninist party, but together with all the classes and bourgeois and reactionary political parties; without being inspired and led by the proletarian ideology, but with a variety of ideological and political trends. Berlinguer has even said that even “religious conscience can arouse the believer to an effort of achieving the regeneration of society towards socialism” (“Rinascita”, October 14, 1977, p. 4).
As for “democratic socialism”, which will be established on this “democratic road”, its features, in fact, are the negation of genuine socialism.
In the political field it altogether negates the dictatorship of the proletariat and the undivided leadership of the Marxist-Leninist communist party. Instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat it preaches a democratic parliamentarian bourgeois form of the state, which, according to them, is the “highest institutional form of the state including also the socialist state”, “it constitutes the basis and, relying on this, the working class goes towards the seizure of power and builds socialism” (“Problems of Peace and Socialism”, N°. 10, 1978). Whereas, instead of leadership by the communist party, they preach political pluralism – the bourgeois system of many parties – including even those which maintain a hostile stand towards socialism, which should replace one another in the government, depending on the number of votes they win in parliamentary elections.
In the economic field it negates the socialist socialization of ownership and the planned direction of the economy by the state on the basis of democratic centralism. “Democratic socialism” they claim, will rely on “a mixed economy”, on the coexistence of the elements of private ownership, the freedom of competition, on the one hand, and the existence of the social ownership and plan, on the other, which will complement and condition each other. The Eurocommunists openly declare that, in socialism for which they are fighting, “alongside of the state sector the private sector of the economy will exist, and the ownership of the working peasantry in free association with the handicraftsmen, the small and middle-sized industrial enterprises, the private entrepreneurs in the sphere of services, will play a special role.” (“Problems of Peace and Socialism”, N°. 3, year 1979).
In the ideological field they negate the domination of the Marxist-Leninist socialist ideology, which, according to them, has become obsolete and cannot serve as the ideological basis of the party of the working class. Instead of this ideology, they claim “neutrality in world outlook” and “ideological pluralism”, complete freedom for all the ideological, political, cultural and religious trends and currents.
In the field of foreign policy they negate proletarian internationalism, the struggle against imperialism and neo-colonialism, against the military and economic alliances of imperialism. The fundamental principle of “democratic socialism” in this field is “Atlantism”, i.e., loyalty to NATO and the European Common Market.
This is, in broad outlines, the physiognomy of “democratic socialism” of the Eurocommunists. It is obvious that it has nothing at all in common with genuine socialism; it is a downright negation of all the fundamental .principles and laws of scientific socialism. In essence, despite all their claims about the “democratic socialism”, this socialism of theirs and the “democratic socialism” of social-democracy, are as like as two drops of water, and in fact, are nothing other than the present day capitalist order.
The Party of Labour of Albania, by fighting and refuting with determination the attacks and slanders of the modern revisionists against socialism and proletarian democracy, has defended and implemented in practice the teachings of our great classics, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. It has seen and sees the all-round development of socialist democracy as the fundamental direction of the development of our entire political and social system, the strengthening and consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, without which there can be no genuine democracy for the masses of the people.
In these thirty-five years under the leadership of the Party, the Albanian people have realized their centuries-long aspirations, the most daring dreams of their outstanding thinkers, the lofty ideals for which our heroic partisans fought and the best sons and daughters of the people gave their lives. Albania today has become the country of triumphant socialism, a developed and advanced country, free and sovereign, with a stable economy and secure defence, with authority and prestige in the world, with numerous friends and well-wishers in all the countries. It holds high the banner of the struggle against imperialism, reaction and revisionism, the invincible banner of Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and socialism. These historic achievements are the living and most complete testimony of the correctness of the general Marxist-Leninist line of our heroic Party, of its wise and far-sighted leadership, of the vitality of the illuminating teachings of the leaders of our Party and people, Comrade Enver Hoxha.
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