Labor Party of Albania

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Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë

Labor Party of Albania

Party logo
Party leader Enver Hoxha (1941–85)
Ramiz Alia (1985–91)
founding November 8, 1941
Place of foundation Tirana
renaming June 5, 1991
(renamed: Partia Socialiste e Shqipërisë )
Headquarters Tirana
Youth organization Bashkimi i Rinisë së Punës së Shqipërisë
newspaper Zëri i Popullit
Alignment Communism ,
Marxism-Leninism (temporarily),
Maoism (temporarily)
Colours) red

The Labor Party of Albania (PAA, sometimes also PdAA, Albanian “Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë”; official acronym: PPSh), also known as the Labor Party ( Albanian “Partia e Punës”) or simply The Party (“Partia”) was a political party that for decades dictatorial over Albania prevailed. Her longtime party leader was Enver Hoxha , which the Balkan state after the Second World War until the mid-1980s, first Marxist-Leninist then Maoist and most recently in its own form of socialism reigned, now as Enverismus or Hoxhaism is called and by characterized by a particularly isolationist and self-sufficient policy. Since 1948, when Yugoslavia was excluded from the Cominform , politics towards Yugoslavia has been shaped by a strongly anti-Titoist stance.

The PAA was the only legal party in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania between 1945 and 1991 . It was founded on November 8, 1941 with the name of the Communist Party of Albania ( Albanian  Partia Komuniste e Shqipërisë , PKSh ), in 1948 it changed its name to the Party of Labor of Albania . The Socialist Party of Albania ( Albanian  Partia Socialiste e Shqipërisë ) became the successor party of the PAA in 1991 when the dictatorship was overthrown in Albania, democratic reforms were initiated and the country opened up internationally.

construction

In relation to the political line of the Soviet Union, triggered by the 20th party congress of the CPSU and the criticism of Stalin , the Labor Party saw itself as anti- revisionist from 1956 and as truly Marxist-Leninist in its own self-image. The party organization was built on democratic centralist principles with Enver Hoxha as the first party secretary. Article 3 of the Albanian Constitution of 1976 identifies the party as the leading political force of the state and society . In order to carry out its ideological activities, the PAA relied on the Democratic Front of Albania ( Albanian  Fronti Demokratie i Shqipërisë ), a front organization to which all mass organizations belonged.

The PAA published the daily newspaper Zëri i Popullit (Voice of the People) and the theoretical monthly magazine Rruga e Partisë (Path of the Party) . The organ of the Democratic Front was Bashkimi (Union) .

According to the party statutes, the highest party organ was the party congress , which met for a few days every fifth year. The delegates to the congress were elected at the smaller congresses that were held in the individual counties and cities. Congress reviewed and approved reports submitted by the Central Committee, discussed general party politics, and elected the Central Committee. The latter was the next level of the party hierarchy and mostly held the key functions in the government as well as in the intelligentsia . The Central Committee directed party activities between congresses and met three times a year.

Following the example of the Soviet Union , the Central Committee elected the Politburo and a party secretary . The Politburo, usually made up of key government ministers and members of Congress, was the main organ of active politics and convened weekly. Usually the Central Committee approved the reports and policy decisions of the Politburo. The secretary was responsible for the day-to-day business of the party, more precisely it was the enforcement body of the decisions of the Politburo and responsible for the selection within the party and the government cabinet.

During its history, the PAA had a total of two secretaries:

  • Enver Hoxha (Secretary of the Central Committee in February 1943) between November 8, 1941 and until his death on April 11, 1985
  • and Ramiz Alia from April 13, 1985 until his resignation on May 4, 1991.

In 1991 the PAA reformed and became the social democratic Partia Socialiste e Shqipërisë , one of the two largest political parties in Albania today. A group called Enver Volunteers and led by Hysni Milloshi claimed the identity of the PAA and founded the Partia Komuniste e Shqipërisë (1991) .

history

Party leader Enver Hoxha in 1971, at the time when Albania economically and politically to the People's Republic of China leaned

On November 8, 1941, the Communist Party of Albania (Alban .: Partia Komuniste e Shqipërisë - PKSh) was founded in the Albanian capital Tirana . At the first national conference of the KPA (March 17-22, 1943) Enver Hoxha was elected Secretary General of the KPA Central Committee . He remained party leader until his death in 1985. By the end of the Second World War in 1944, the communists in Albania were able to secure the leading role in the anti-fascist partisan movement . Political opponents from their own people, such as the nationalist Balli Kombëtar , were fought with armed force, as were the occupying forces. During the war and in the first post-war years, the communists were allied with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito .

When the independent Albanian state was reestablished in November 1944, the communists were already firmly in the saddle. In the elections for the Constituent National Assembly, the KPA received 93.8 percent of the vote. The communists had previously banned various bourgeois groups from participating in the elections and branded them as enemies of the people and collaborators of the fascists . With the constitution of 1946 the KPA became the only legal party in the country, all other political groups were banned. The few opposition members of parliament had already been murdered at this point, unless they had previously managed to flee the country.

In 1948 the Communist Parties of the Cominform broke up with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia; from then on the KPA leaned closely to the CPSU . At the suggestion of Josef Stalin , the Communist Party of Albania later renamed itself the Party of Labor of Albania . Until the end of one-party rule in 1990, the PAA, like all other communist parties, relied on Marx, Engels, Lenin and also Stalin without interruption.

“After the 20th party congress of the Communist Party of the SU , the 3rd party congress of the PAA should take place. The Yugoslav agents thought it was time to overthrow the 'relentless Stalinist Albanian leadership' and organized the conspiracy that was revealed and crushed at the party conference in Tirana in April 1956. The conspirators received the severe punishment they deserved. "

- Enver Hoxha : Speech given at the conference of the 81 Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow on November 16, 1960
V Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania ( Posta Shqiptare stamp , 1966)

In 1960 the Albanian state and party leadership turned away from the Soviet communists; they threw the reconciliation with Yugoslavia, which had started in 1955 and allegedly wanted to make Albania its “seventh republic”, as well as the one since the XX. Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union introduced “revisionist” reforms. Until 1978, when it declared the Maozedong ideas to be "anti-Marxist" and the PRC to be "revisionist", the PAA was allied with the CPC , which also fought against "Soviet revisionism" .

Organizationally, the PAA was structured like other Soviet-type parties: there was a Central Committee and a Politburo. The tight central line from above was characteristic. At the PAA, there was also a particularly aggressive atheism and a grotesque personality cult with Stalinist characteristics, which lasted even after the death of Hoxha in 1985 until the fall of the dictatorship.

Alleged and actual political opponents were ruthlessly persecuted on behalf of the party by the Sigurimi secret police . Tens of thousands of people were put in prisons and camps. Many of them died there from work and bad treatment, and many others were shot. The crimes committed on behalf of the party were hardly investigated after the fall of the Wall in Albania, let alone discussed openly in society.

Under Ramiz Alia , the successor of Enver Hoxha, there were some moderations in the communist system; the PAA was only forced to give up its sole claim to power after the revolution in winter 1990/91.

International party relations

After the break in diplomatic relations with the USSR in 1962, the PAA worked with communist parties that had also broken with the CPSU or split off from pro-Soviet parties. From then on , support came from China , on which Albania leaned. But after US President Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972, relations cooled off. After the death of Mao Tsetung and the smashing of the so-called Gang of Four , in 1978 the Chinese economic aid broke up and stopped. China has been described as revisionist and social-imperialist primarily because of the “three worlds theory”, which declared the Soviet Union to be the main enemy of the third world.

From 1975 onwards, the PAA tried to rally around formerly Maoist parties or their splits to create a new world communist movement. As early as 1964, the PAA had a solidarity fund with which like-minded parties were supported and contacts were maintained. A total of $ 11,655,000 was spent through 1990.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. cf. Enver Hoxha, encounters with Stalin. Memories. KPD / ML edition (Roter Morgen Verlag, Dortmund, August 1980), p. 53f.
  2. Enver Hoxha: Let us reject the revisionist theses of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the anti-Marxist positions of the Khrushchev group! Let's defend Marxism-Leninism! Speech given at the conference of the 81 Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow on November 16, 1960. Naim Frashëri Verlag, Tirana 1971, pp. 104f.
  3. Nicolas Milétitch: Révélations des archives de Tirana . In: Les Cahiers d'Histoire Sociale . No. 5, Paris Winter-Spring 1996, pp. 2-379.
  4. Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Nga Viron Prodani, Ku u shpenzuan miliona dollarët e fondit të solidaritetit. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tiranaobserver.al