I
The present international situation is characterized by the adventurous, criminal policy of American imperialism, aimed at fomenting war, at establishing U.S. domination over the world and at enslaving the peoples. But at the same time events of recent years testify to the weakening of the capitalist system, to the growing contradictions within this system leading it to inevitable catastrophe. The forces of the camp of peace, democracy and Socialism, headed by the Soviet Union and the great Stalin, are steadily growing and are more numerous than the force of the imperialist camp of war and enslavement of the peoples. Imperialism seeks to halt this mighty movement along the pathway to Socialism by fire and sword.
The use of the bacteriological weapon in Korea in an attempt to break the will of the Korean people to resist American aggression, is a manifestation of evil impotence on the part of American imperialism. It aims at sowing fear, uncertainty and panic among ordinary people, to make them think that it is absolutely useless to resist war. But the peoples are confident that war can be avoided, that it can be averted. Comrade Stalin’s words that “peace will be preserved and consolidated if the peoples take the cause of preserving peace into their own hands and defend it to the end”, have come the banner of struggle of the peoples for peace. All progressive mankind, all free peoples and peoples enslaved by imperialism, see their salvation in the Soviet Union and in the Stalin peace policy which they have taken as their banner in the struggle for peace, revolution and victory.
But the peace policy of the Soviet Union is reflected not only in a correct stand in struggle on the international arena. It is also reflected in the great cause of preserving peace, in the great constructions of Communism, in the flowering of the socialist country. The splendid achievements of Communism in the Soviet Union fill the hearts of all honest people in the world with joy and great hope. The Soviet Union fulfilled and over fulfilled the post-war Five-Year Plan. The successes of the Soviet Union in economic construction and in cultural development, the 1952 budget, recently approved by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., testify to the tremendous strength of the Soviet social system and the Stalin peace policy. Therein lie the invincibility of the socialist system and its superiority over the capitalist system. In the Soviet Union and in the great Stalin, the peoples of the countries of people’s democracy and all peoples, see their saviours, their glorious defenders. The Soviet Union and the great Stalin also saved our people from bitter enslavement. The people of Albania will never let the U.S.-British aggressors and their henchmen encroach on their precious freedom. The freedom of the people of Albania is now guaranteed since they rely on alliance and friendship with the Soviet Union, with the fraternal countries of people’s democracy and because all progressive mankind is on the side of our people. The Soviet Union has highly respected the sovereignty of the Albanian people, has never interfered in their internal affairs. The people of Albania have become master of their fate, established their people’s democracy and carried out considerable economic, social and cultural transformations.
Seen against the background of this genuinely friendly and fraternal attitude of the Soviet Union towards our country and our people, the machinations of U.S.-British imperialism in relation to the People’s Republic of Albania are particularly vile and cynical. The U.S.-British imperialists are constantly organising incidents on the borders of our Republic, fostering aggressive designs for enslaving Albania in close collaboration with Tito, the Greek monarcho-fascists, the Italian fascists and Albanian war criminals who not only were not handed over to the Albanian people on the basis of the peace treaty, but who are maintained, trained, armed and prepared for subversion in order to disorganize the peaceful, creative life of our people.
It is quite clear that the Belgrade fascist clique, the monarcho-fascist rules of Greece and the rulers of Rome have openly transformed their countries into colonies of American imperialism, into dangerous seats of war. The estimate of the situation given by the Information Bureau of Communist and Workers’ Parties has been fully confirmed: a fascist regime dominates Yugoslavia with power in the hands of the big bourgeoisie while the people are brutally oppressed, the country is in the grip of a regime of terror, unemployment, hunger, prisons and concentration camps filled to overflowing with Yugoslav patriots. Ties between the fascist Belgrade gang and the American imperialist are now maintained quite openly. Americans have become masters of Yugoslavia and American trusts have become owners of the wealth of the Yugoslav people. The Americans are equipping the Yugoslav army with a view to utilising it against the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies. The people of Yugoslavia are bravely resisting colonisation and destruction. They are fighting against the treacherous Tito-Rankovic gang and will find the way to salvation.
The Titoites pursue a policy of rabid terror against the Albanian national minority in Kosovo and Metohia. They murder Albanian residents by the thousand, jail and deport them. The Albanian people raise their voice in defence of their brothers in Kosovo and Metohia and call on progressive mankind to stay the criminal hand of the Belgrade fascists.
II
Our internal position has become much more stable in the period covered by the report. Since the First Congress the national economy has been reinforced in all sectors, including industry. By the end of 1950 value of the gross output in industry and producer co-operatives reached 3,266 million lek, exceeding the pre-war level (1938) 73 times. As a result of the carrying out of the Two-Year Plan (1949-1950) industrial output registered an annual increase of 10.5 per cent. Considerable successes have also been recorded in construction, which overfulfilled the Two-Year Plan. However, due to the dire consequences of the Yugoslav sabotage directed against our country right up to 1948, and because of hostile action by Titoite agents and a number of organisational and other shortcomings, the Two-Year Plan as a whole was fulfilled by approximately 91 per cent.
Not for a single moment was our country deprived of the all-round and generous aid of the Soviet Union, and this aid is the decisive factor for all the victories of our people. It also received substantial aid from People’s Democracies. This aid was granted in the form of numerous credits which enabled us to restore the old industry, to develop the oil and ore-mining industries, to build such combinats, and factories as the textile, sugar refinery and timber combinats, cotton ginning mills, a hydro-electric station, railways and partly to mechanise agriculture.
Speaking about the development of agriculture it is impossible not to note the lag in the tempo of developing agricultural production compared with the tempo of development in industry. Whereas industrial output nearly trebled compared with 1938, agricultural production increased by approximately 30 per cent compared with 1950. The final solution of the problem of agriculture is collectivisation. However, Lenin and Stalin, and the experience of the Soviet Union, teach us that we must move along this pathway with great care, creating the necessary conditions for preparing and extending collectivisation. At present we must follow the path of consolidating the existing cooperatives, of strengthening and extending the machine-and-tractor stations and of mechanizing agriculture.
Our paramount task in agriculture is to work for raising yields. Special attention must be devoted to industrial crops, above all, cotton, sugar-beet, tobacco, etc.
Transport has improved as a result of carrying out Two-year Plan. Trade turnover in 1950 increased by 59 per cent compared with 1947. The national income grew. The material conditions of the working people have improved. The Party and Government devoted greater attention to raising the cultural level of the working masses. Successful fulfillment of our first Five-Year Plan will be based on the successes of the Two-Year Plan and on the numerous achievements in all spheres of state activity. Successful fulfillment of the Five-Year Plan is not only ensured by the conditions of the people’s democratic system of Albania but also by the particularly generous aid rendered us, in the first instance, by the Soviet Union and personally by Comrade Stalin, and also by the peoples and governments of the People’s Democracies.
The Five-Year Plan provides for capital investments in the national economy to the amount of 21 milliard lek. This is three times the amount invested in the period 1946-1950. The value of gross output of industry and agriculture in 1955 will exceed 19 milliard lek, or 416 per cent compared with 1938, while the national income will increase two fold compared with 1950.
The basic political task of the Five-Year Plan is to consolidate the alliance between the working class and the working peasantry, to enhance the leading role of the working class in this alliance, restrict capitalist and speculator elements in town and countryside, raise the cultural level of the working masses, deepen the socialist consciousness of the working class, revolutionary vigilance and the patriotism of the working masses. The basic economic task of the Five-Year Plan is to accelerate the laying of the economic foundations of Socialism, so that by the time the plan is completed, Albania is transformed from an agrarian and backward country into an agrarian-industrial country.
III
The leading role in the struggle for laying the foundations of Socialism is played by the Albanian Party of Labour. Our Party fulfilled its tasks and correctly led the people. Our party eliminated the menace of Titoism and Trotskyism in the person of Koci Xoxe and company, it understood and correctly carries out the Lenin-Stalin teaching. In the course of the period covered by the report the Party was vigilant and ruthlessly rebuffed all alien and hostile trends within its ranks. It fought for its line, upholding Marxist, Lenin-Stalin principles, and fought against opportunism. Carrying out the line of the First Congress, the Party fought to improve its composition, to strengthen the leading organs and their bonds with the basic organisations. At this Congress 44,418 members and probationers are presented. Prior to the Congress a struggle was waged to improve the quality of the Party membership at the expense of numerical growth. As a result of the verification of documents 3,776 persons were expelled from the Party. In addition, 2,220, found unworthy of the name of Communist, were expelled in the course of the verification in the ordinary way. Since the First Congress and up to the end last year, 3,909 members and 7,127 probationers were admitted into the Party.
The social composition of the Party has improved in the period covered by the report. The task confronting the Party is to continue strengthening its ranks with people originating from the working class. The number of branch organisations increased by 30.8 per cent. In this way the Party established closer and firmer links with the people.
As a result of the verification of Party documents, 8 per cent of the verified members and probationer were expelled for hostile activity in the past or present, for concealing from the Party their shady past, for shirking Party work, etc. These undesirable elements wormed their way into the party in its most critical period, at the time of the hostile activity of the Titoites. The verification had profound educational significance for the members, it enhanced the vigilance of the Party organisations and raised the militancy of the Party. The Marxist-Leninist principles of building the Party helped to reinforce unity within the Party, to strengthen the ties between branch organizations and leadership.
The Party rooted out the Trotskyite-Titoite methods which prevented the carrying out our political and organizational policy. Discipline has improved, criticism and self-criticism have become more effective and inner-Party democracy has developed and strengthened. But we have serious shortcomings which must be subjected to ruthless criticism. Plenums and meetings of Party activists are held irregularly, not properly prepared and, very often, carried out in a formal way. Not infrequently, leading Party organs violate the principles of collegiate leadership and the principle of reporting back to the Party, become engrossed in circulars, overburden themselves with trifling economic matters, substitute themselves for the organs of administration, deprive themselves of the possibility of concentrating on the major tasks, of giving due attention to mass-political work and questions of inner-Party life. In a number of instances the Party organs do not function property, preferring declarative and noisy methods of work. In the sphere of theory and practice distortion of the principles of democratic centralism and inner-Party democracy is tolerated.
Criticism and self-criticism from bottom to top are inadequately developed and are not always correctly understood and conducted. It is necessary for the Party and its leading organs, both at the centre and in the districts, to spare no efforts in improving methods of work and leadership. It is necessary to devote greater attention to holding plenums, meetings of activities, conferences, and seminars; to intensify to top, regardless of individuals, and to strengthen discipline. The leading Party organs must pay special attention to raising the theoretical and political level of the functionaries in their apparatus. Ruthless struggle must be waged against bureaucratism and bureaucrats.
The Belgrade fascists headed by judas Tito are most vicious and perfidious enemies of our Party. We must not forget that Titoism aims its blows against the honest elements in the Party, against Bolshevik unity, against the principles and organisational foundations of the Party and against the political line and ideology. The Titoites vilify the Soviet Union and its peace policy. We must enhance our vigilance tenfold since the Titoites and their agents seek to penetrate into the Party with the help of unstable elements. The Party must work for the re-education of these elements and unhesitatingly expel the incorrigible. Our Party is strong in its solidarity, its singleness of will, action, irreconcilability towards those who violate its rules, programme and discipline, towards factious grouping, opportunism, sectarianism, hypocrisy, etc.
The danger of the Right deviation in the Party did not disappear with the liquidation of Titoism. Bourgeois pressure exerted against the Party is a serious menace and we must persistently and consistently combat it. Hence the revolutionary scale of the Party must grow continually, revolutionary vigilance must be daily enhanced and the fight against opportunism must be ruthless and unconditional.
The bearers of the Right deviation in our Party were Seifula Maleshova and the group of Abedin Shehu. Opportunism and survivals of the Right deviation were manifested even in later periods. The Party was not afraid to lay bare these mistakes, to liquidate them on the basis of criticism and self-criticism, and, precisely because the Party acted in this manner, it was not weakened, it became more tempered.
Marxist-Leninist education of Party members and high-quality Party propaganda are immense significance in the struggle for Party unity, for ideologically consolidating its ranks and for enhancing its influence among the working masses. Hence, the Party regards the matter of raising the ideological and political level of Party members and probationers as a vital task. The number of Communists embraced in the various forms of Party education grows from year to year. After the First Congress, seven times more members were drawn into Party education than in 1944-1948. In 1951-1952, 18,568 members are studying in the system of Party education.
However, serious shortcomings still prevail in the matter of organising Marxist-Leninist education, particularly in the countryside, where far from all Communists have been drawn into study, especially in the northern districts; the level of tutors as yet is none too good, etc. As yet Party committees and branch organisations do not consider the ideological-political education of the membership their most important task. In propaganda work, formalism is tolerated, theory is divorced from practice, the role of the press in the matter of helping the Party masses to study Marxism-Leninism underestimated, etc. Not all members are aware of the importance of mastering Marxist materialist philosophy and dialectical method, of the great significance of Marxist-Leninist theory and, in the first instance, of the “Short Course of the History of the C.P.S.U. (B)”, for the practical work of the Party.
IV
A tremendous advance has been effected in the countryside since the liberation. Life has improve for the peasantry, the economy has developed, seven-years and elementary education has spread, a successful struggle is being waged against illiteracy, and new labour methods are gradually but steadily incorporated into production. Agrarian reform, new Soviet agro-technical methods and the constant aid given to the peasants by the State have substantially strengthened peasant farming. We have won the first battle in the countryside and now the task confronting the Party is, without undue haste, to transform agriculture, take it onto the path of the general system of economic development towards Socialism. This is the long-term programme, the goal of our first Five-Year Plan and our further plans.
In this connection a major task confronting us is to improve Party work in the countryside, to secure better leadership of this work. Some of the district leaders must immediately shed their disdainful attitude towards Party work in the countryside. It is necessary immediately to reinforce rural councils with persons elected by the people, strengthen democracy in the councils and abolish the methods of command. It is necessary to work persistently to enforce compulsory elementary education, to liquidate illiteracy among the broad rural masses, and to give the most serious attention to circulating periodicals and literature. In order to activate the broad masses, to educate them politically, it is necessary to enliven the activity of the Democratic Front.
The Party leadership must rely on the mass organizations – the Democratic Front, the youth and women’s organisations. The task confronting the Party is to secure consolidation of the existing co-operatives, their development, so that they prosper and serve as models for the individual peasants.
It must not be forgotten that reorganisation of the countryside is proceeding in conditions of a sharpening class struggle. At the moment the Party is conducting a policy not of abolishing but of restricting the kulaks. The Party draws the attention of members to the need for a ruthless and all-round struggle against the class enemy not only in the countryside but in the town too.
We must spare no effort to consolidate the power of the people. The pathway of people’s power is the pathway of strengthening this power. The masses know and feel that this is their own power.
Incidentally, a number of Party functionaries, not adequately understanding the democratic essence of the people’s power, violate state laws and the principles upon which the people’s council are founded.
Our cadres working in Party and State organs must diligently master the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the state and utilise, not mechanically but consciously, the rich experience of Soviet power. Comrades must be warned against underestimating the role of the people’s councils and replacing them by Party organs, against underestimating the great role of the mass public organizations, against inattention to the needs of the population, etc. We must spare no effort to strengthen and democratise our people’s power and to activate the people’s councils.
Our task is to reinforce the apparatus of the state and public organisations, to raise the ideological-political level and professional training of the personnel, more boldly to advance new, young cadres. Another vital task of the Party organisations in the state apparatus and in the enterprises is to inculcate in the working people a feeling of responsibility, patriotism and respect of laws and state discipline.
* * *
Our heroic Party has grown stronger and become tempered. We are
indebted to the Party for the brilliant successes registered in the
economic, social and cultural spheres. Thanks to our glorious Party,
our People’s Republic has become stronger, has reinforced the defence
capacity of the country and Albania has become a granite rock which has
withstood and will successfully withstand any threat of the
imperialists and their lackeys – Titoite and other fascists. Our Party
will, as before, successfully cope with all the tasks assigned to it
because the people love it boundlessly and have absolute faith in it,
because our Party and our people have boundless love for their glorious
saviours – the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik Party and the great Stalin.
Comrade Stalin is with us, and where Stalin is there is victory!
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