Hoxha is Exposed by his Own Explanations for his Change of Course

In an open letter to the Central Committee of the PLA (published in China aktuell, No. 3) dating from January 1979, the Central Leadership of the KABD already pointed out the following contradiction:

We have shown that you do not differentiate between the leadership of the CP of China in Mao Tsetung's lifetime and the present leadership.
For example, you maintain:
'This course of the Chinese leadership, which has gone through a zigzag process, has come up against the constant opposition of the Party of Labour of Albania which cherishes the cause of socialism, the revolution and the liberation of the peoples above everything else. This accounts for the emergence of serious ideological and political contradictions which have been gradually growing between the Party of Labour of Albania and the Communist Party of China'.
We are emphasizing these last words because we think that they have key meaning. You see a continuous line in the course the CP of China has taken and in its internal development from 1960 up until the discontinuation of aid in the present. This way of looking at it is not dialectical. All you see is a quantitative increase in the contradictions, but not their transformation into a new quality…. Either the contradiction between the PLA and the CPC is only non-antagonistic today, or there has been an antagonistic contradiction from the beginning of this process. In the first case, the step you have taken with this letter would be wrong: in the second case, it would have been your duty to openly take up the ideological struggle years ago. This is an evident contradiction at the base of your letter."(20)

This fact is that the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania has undergone a turnabout of 180 degrees in its verdict of Mao Tsetung Thought after Mao's death. That's why Hoxha denounces Mao Tsetung's struggle against modern revisionism and socialist China's aid to Albania.

The fact is that the works of Mao Tsetung were translated into Albanian in the early sixties and Hoxha even quoted from them in various speeches.

Even a textile factory in Albania was named after Mao Tsetung. How then can Hoxha explain his sudden change of view without losing face?

In Imperialism and the Revolution, he puts forward some "reasons" for this:

"we Albanian communists have gradually formed our opinions and convictions about the danger presented by 'Mao Tsetung thought'.…
By analysing the facts, our Party arrived at some general and specific conclusions, which made it vigilant, but it avoided polemics with the Communist Party of China and Chinese leaders, not because it was afraid to engage in polemics with them, but because the facts, which it had about the erroneous, anti-Marxist course of this party and Mao Tsetung himself, were incomplete, and still did not permit the drawing of a final conclusion.…
Besides this, we did not have full knowledge about the internal political, economic, cultural, social life, etc. in China."(21)

If Hoxha wants us to believe that from 1949, the foundation of the People's Republic of China, until Mao Tsetung's death in 1976, he was in no position to judge China's internal life, where did this sudden enlightenment come from which enabled him to form an objective opinion today? Hoxha has neither found the philosopher's stone, nor can his two-volumed so-called diary of 1600 pages cover up his basically petty-bourgeois way of thinking.

The basic question of political line and the principles of Marxism-Leninism is not just a matter of knowing the complete facts and figures. If Hoxha within 30 years is not able to make a difference between a Marxist-Leninist line – which he calls revisionist and "devoid of the features of Marxism-Leninism" – and a truly revisionist line, he proves himself incapable. Hoxha and the leadership of the PLA are well aware of this problem. That's why this so-called diary Reflections on China tries in vain to prove Hoxha's "principled stand". The publisher's note announces:

"'Reflections on China' consists of excerpts from the Political Diary of Comrade Enver Hoxha.… In these notes the zigzags of the Chinese leadership, its revisionist, anti-socialist and anti-Albanian course, are revealed. From these notes and others which may be published later, the reader will be able to see the analysis the PLA has made and the principled stands it has taken in defence of Marxism-Leninism." (From the inside cover of the English edition)

Unluckily, his "diary" renders him a bad service. Given, everything written was true, it would have been Hoxha's duty to begin the ideological debate long ago. Then it would not make any sense that he stated completely opposite views at the 5th, 6th, and 7th Congress of the PLA and in countless other speeches and writings. For example, in the 'History of the Party of Labour of Albania', published by the Central Committee of the PLA, it says:

"The PLA has acknowledged the victory of the great Chinese revolution as the greatest victory of the international working class and the proletarian world revolution since that of the Great Socialist October Revolution. Out of the Chinese revolution emerged the PR of China under the leadership of the CP of China with Comrade Mao Tsetung at its top, the bastion of socialism, the mighty base of world revolution."(22)

And in a speech given by Enver Hoxha, we are assured:

"The Albanian Communists and the whole Albanian people will never forget that their Chinese brothers stood side by side with them in times of joy as well as in moments of hardship. They will never forget the generous aid of the Chinese brothers, who shared their rations with our people. They will never forget that the CP of China always protected the Party of Labour like the apple of its eye."(23)

These are undeniable historical facts that allow only one conclusion: Hoxha's so-called diary was manipulated afterwards to fit his present views. Its purpose is to slander Mao Tsetung and the CP of China in the eyes of the Albanian working class and the Marxist-Leninist world movement. It is an attack on Mao Tsetung Thought and Marxism-Leninism!