Cominform - on Albania

No. 19 (46), FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1949

ALBANIA 

The people of Albania are following the trial of the fascist plotters and their ringleader Rajk with feelings of repulsion and hatred for this contemptible gang of American-Tito spies. Albania was the first Balkan country which executioner Tito, the present dictator of Yugoslavia and the highly paid resident agent of the American Intelligence Service, tried to  colonise and enslave. Under cover of hypocritical declarations of friendship and “community of interests” and with the help of his hirelings—the dyed in-the-wool trotskyite and provocateur Vukmanovic (Tempo) and his ilk—Tito ruthlessly plundered Albania already [....] by war and occupation, draining the country of its oil, copper, chromium and agricultural products. 

Thanks to the timely assistance of the Bolshevik Party of the Soviet Union, the Albanian people detected the wolf in sheep’s clothing and expelled from their country the agents of the vicious enemy who hypocritically pretended to be a friend. The Budapest trial has fully revealed to the Albanian people the hideous face of the Gestapo Tito clique and the monstrous network of treachery they spun around the People’s Democracies among which Albania figured as one of the first victims. 

Meetings are being held in towns and villages throughout the country at which workers, peasants and representatives of the Albanian intelligentsia are voicing their indignation at the espionage and plotting activities of the Tito clique—the paid agents of American imperialism. 

A mass meeting of the working people of Scutari on the Albanian-Yugoslav border, was addressed by Comrade Enver Hodja, Secretary of the Albanian Worker’s Party and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People’s Republic of Albania. Stressing the significance of the struggle of the Albanian people against the foreign invaders in the past and of the present, and their selfless labour aimed at carrying out the Two-Year Plan, Comrade Enver Hodja said:

 “The clique of the fascist traitors in Belgrade is the centre where all the imperialist intrigues against our country are spun. The Budapest trial is fresh proof of this. We know that Tito’s agents conferred with the Greek monarcho-fascists and officers  of the British and American Intelligence Services in Trieste. These fascist bandits understood each other very well. But the fascist Tito, who has come to terms with the American imperialists, is unable to carry out his bloodthirsty plans in relation to Albania. Our country is not the same country of 1924, when the rulers of capitalist monopolies did as they pleased. 

“Our people are united and consolidated. We are no longer an isolated State, left to ourselves. We now have allies, strong and reliable friends who are resolutely defending the peace of peoples, the freedom and independence of small countries. Relying on the help of the great Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies, the Albanian people will courageously defend their independence and territorial integrity against the encroachments of the Tito espionage gang and its Greek monarcho-fascist allies”.