Stalinist party purges in Albania

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Symbol of the Labor Party with Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin

The Stalinist party purges in Albania culminated in 1948/49 with the trial against high party and state functionary Koçi Xoxe . In terms of time, Albania was at the beginning of the wave of political cleansing initiated by Stalin within the communist parties in the states under Soviet influence. In terms of content, the purges served to eliminate alleged political deviants within the communist movement and as a combat and propaganda instrument in the dispute with the Yugoslav party and state leader Josip Broz Tito .

prehistory

The Communist Party of Albania , later the Labor Party (PPSh) , was founded in 1941 under the guidance of the Yugoslav Communist Party and remained a satellite of the Yugoslav sister party until the break between Tito and Stalin. From the beginning the CP of Albania was split into two factions: on the one hand the so-called "workers" led by Koçi Xoxe , Politburo member , deputy prime minister, interior minister and head of the Sigurimi State Security Service , on the other hand the so-called "intellectuals" or "moderates" around the chief of staff Mehmet Shehu , the culture and propaganda minister Sejfulla Malëshova and economic planning chief Nako Spiru , also all politburo members.

In February 1946, with Yugoslav backing, Xoxe accused Malëshova and his followers of being "offenders" and "enemies of Yugoslavia". Malëshova lost his party and state functions and had to work as a warehouse clerk until his death in 1971. Communist General Secretary and Prime Minister Enver Hoxha , who initially stood between the two wings, feared a power struggle for the leadership of the Albanian Communist Party controlled by Tito and took the lead in the anti-Xoxe faction without initially being able to assert himself against it. In a friendship treaty enforced by Xoxe in July 1946, a merger of the economic systems of Albania and Yugoslavia was agreed. The ultimate goal was to incorporate Albania into the Yugoslav Federation. Attempts by Hoxhas and Spirus to revise the treaties failed in 1947. As a counterweight, they concluded an economic agreement with the Soviet Union in July 1947.

In return, Xoxe had already arrested nine members of the People's Assembly known as anti-Yugoslavs in May 1947, brought them to the People's Court and had them sentenced to long prison terms for "subversive activity". Backed by Tito, who attacked Hoxha and Spiru in letters to the Albanian Communist Party, Xoxe accused Nako Spiru of “anti-party, nationalist activity” in November 1947 at a meeting of the Central Committee. The next day he was found shot dead in his apartment. The 8th plenum of the Central Committee voted in March 1948 for the unification of the Albanian economy and army with Yugoslavia, numerous supporters of Enver Hoxha were expelled from the Central Committee. Under pressure from Xoxes, Mehmet Shehu was removed from his post, Hoxha himself could only prevent his dismissal through public self-criticism.

procedure

In view of the escalating conflict between Stalin and Tito, Hoxha was able to fight back with Soviet backing: In June 1948 he ordered the closure of the Yugoslav information office, on July 1, 1948 he terminated the economic treaties with Yugoslavia and had the Yugoslav specialists and advisors expelled. The Cominform resolution on “Tito and his clique”, which made the break between Stalin and Tito public, had appeared two days earlier . Directly attacked by Hoxha, Xoxe now self-criticized himself, affirmed his loyalty to the Soviet Union and instructed the State Security Service, which he led, to arrest all "Titoists". But in vain, because he was deposed as Minister of the Interior and lost his influence on the Albanian secret service. The party officials he persecuted were rehabilitated and, in return, Xoxes supporters were removed from their posts. On October 31, 1948, Xoxe, who had initially been transferred to the Ministry of Industry, lost his party and government offices and was expelled from the Communist Party and arrested on November 22, as were several dozen of his supporters headed by the Politburo member and head of the Central Party Control Commission Pandi Kristo . Xoxe's successor as Minister of the Interior and Head of State Security was Mehmet Shehu, who immediately began to rebuild the secret service with the help of Soviet advisors sent by the Soviet chief of security, Beria .

Under Soviet leadership, the Albanian factional struggles within the party were instrumentalized for Stalin's overall plan for a comprehensive purge of the communist movement. Show trials were used to carry out this “party purification” . This approach partially contradicted the previous practice of internal party disputes in Albania, which, in accordance with the country's old vendetta tradition, were always particularly violent. Such was Lazar Fundo , one of the founders of the communist movement in 1944 by line loyal comrades in the eyes of members of the British military mission as " Trotskyite been beaten" to death. And Politburo member Mustafa Gjinishi , who had signed an agreement with the bourgeois resistance groups on behalf of the party, was initially only excluded from the party after the contract was revoked, but was then murdered as a "British agent" by Liri Gega , the only woman on the Albanian Central Committee . Gega herself was shot heavily pregnant in 1956 (which Hoxha vehemently denied) as a " Titoist ".

From November 1948, Xoxe and the officials arrested with him were interrogated under torture on the later charges of conspiracy to overthrow the Albanian government and the murder of the party leaders with the aim of joining Albania to the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia . At the end of March 1949, Hoxha received final instructions in Moscow for the planned show trial of "Koçi Xoxe and his gang of Yugoslav agents and saboteurs," which began as scheduled on May 12, 1949 in camera. Xoxe "confessed" in court that he had been an informer for the monarchist party as early as the 1930s and an Anglo-American agent during the World War and that he had planned an overthrow on behalf of Tito. On July 8, 1949, a brief press release appeared about the judgment of the People's Court: Xoxe received the death penalty and was hanged the same day , Pandi Kristo received twenty years of forced labor, the other defendants were sentenced to long prison terms. In a renewed wave of purges, which also included Politburo member Abediu Shehu , all remaining "Yugoslavia- friendly " elements were removed from the party and hundreds of real or alleged Titoists were tried in several subsequent secret trials. The nationalist wing of Enver Hoxha had thus taken over unlimited power.

On May 18, 1949, while the Xoxe trial was still in progress, the wave of arrests of the Stalinist purge began in Hungary , which led to the trial of László Rajk and others.

analysis

The Albanian communists around Koçi Xoxe were the first victims of a strategy by Stalin aimed at achieving three goals: 1. Implementation of the Stalinist path as the only communist line; 2. “Re-politicization” of all dissenting opinions on criminal acts such as treason and espionage analogous to the Moscow trials during the Great Terror of the 1930s; 3. Unmasking Titos as an agent of Western powers and thus a “ subjective ” traitor to the communist idea. It was therefore not enough to simply liquidate Xoxe, but first had to publicly portray Tito's role as an imperialist agent.

“Stalin could not overthrow or physically liquidate Tito, so Xoxe had to die on proxy. He was not an invented 'Titoist' like his successors on the gallows in Budapest, Sofia, Prague and Bucharest, in the cellars of Warsaw and East Berlin, but a Titoist without quotation marks: Yugoslavia's confidante in the Albanian Communist Party. Xoxe was an exception with which the rule began. "

- George Hermann Hodos

With Enver Hoxha, the Soviets had supported a functionary who had a pronounced nationalistic mindset and was keen on independence (including from Moscow), whose "anti-itoist Titoism" would turn against their claim to leadership a decade later.

Work-up

When Enver Hoxha was asked by the new Soviet leadership to rehabilitate Xoxe in 1960, he vigorously refused. Because Albania was the only socialist state to hold on to Stalinism despite all the political changes in direction . Therefore, until the end of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania in 1991, no victim of the purges was rehabilitated.

literature

  • Robert Elsie : The Albanian Treason Trial (1945) . In: Albanian Studies . tape 3 . Center for Albanian Studies, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-5077-0951-1 .
  • George Hermann Hodos: Show trials. Stalinist purges in Eastern Europe 1948-1954. AtV, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-7466-8051-4 .
  • Enver Hoxha: The Titoists. Publishing house '8 Nëntori', Tirana 1983.
  • Nicholas C. Pano: The People's Republic of Albania. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1968.
  • Miranda Vickers: The Albanians: A Modern History. IBTauris & Co, London 1999, ISBN 1860645410 .
  • Robert Lee Wolff: The Balkans in Our Time. Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1970.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the article follows: GH Hodos: Show trials. Berlin 2001, pp. 27-40.
  2. ↑ nl: Pandi Kristo and sq: Pandi Kristo
  3. ^ Owen Pearson: Albania in the Twentieth Century, a History. Vol. II: Albania in Occupation and War. London 2006, pp. 380f .; Enver Hoxha: The Anglo-American Threat to Albania . Tirana 1982, pp. 173-224.
  4. ^ Enver Hoxha: Reject the Revisionist Theses of the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Anti-Marxist Stand of Krushchev's Group! Uphold Marxism-Leninism! In: marxists.org. Retrieved January 12, 2016 (English, November 16, 1960 speech).
  5. ^ William E. Griffith: The November 1960 Moscow Meeting: A Preliminary Reconstruction . In: The China Quarterly . No. 11 , 1962, pp. 38-57 .
  6. ^ Slobodan Stankovic: Albanian People Struggle Against "Policy Of Terror" Belgrade "Borba" Claims. In: Radio Free Europe. Retrieved January 12, 2016 (Background Report. Yugoslav Special No. 1028/1961 of March 23, 1961).
  7. ^ Carl Gustav Ströhm: Comments on Albania . In: Eastern Europe . tape 2-3 , 1963, pp. 147-150 .
  8. ^ GH Hodos: Show trials. Berlin 2001, p. 27.
  9. ↑ M. Vickers: The Albanians: A Modern History. London 1999, p. 181; Enver Hoxha: Speech in Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Founding of the Party of Labor of Albania and the 44th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution . Speech v. November 7, 1961 (excerpts).