An Open Letter
To the Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The «Naim Frasheri» State Publishing House
Tirana, 1964

Dear Comrades,

A grave situation has been created in the international communist and workers movement. The Soviet Union, the socialist camp, the communist parties, the cause for which the communists and proletarians of the whole world have bravely fought risking their very lives, the cause of socialism and of communism are facing a great danger, are passing through the hardest period of their history. Open revisionism, a full split, treachery and degeneration are threatening them today more than at any other time.

The originators and principal culprits for this grave situation are N. Khrushchev’s group. After having usurped by putschist and plottist methods the leadership of the glorious party set up by the great Lenin and of the first and most powerful socialist state in the world, the Soviet Union, this group have now embarked on the greatest treachery to Marxism-Leninism and to the cause of socialism, have now become the principal bearers and disseminators of the opportunist and revisionist trend that is gnawing today at the international communist and workers movement and is shaking its unity from the very roots.

The Party of Labor of Albania and other Marxist-Leninist parties have time and again urged the leadership of your party, with N. Khrushchev at the head, to give up the line of revisionism and discord, to courageously re-examine their position and return to the road of Marxism-Leninism and of proletarian internationalism, to condemn their chauvinistic conduct and hostile activities towards fraternal parties and fraternal socialist countries and to re-establish relations of friendship and proletarian solidarity with them.

Even after the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union when N. Khrushchev launched his vilest public attacks and most monstrous slanders against the Party of Labor of Albania and its leadership, our party has called to the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to re-examine their line and to take the right road. «The Party of Labor of Albania», Comrade Enver Hoxha said in his address to the solemn meeting on November 7,1961, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Party of Labor of Albania and the 44th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, «appeals to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, appeals to its Central Committee newly elected by the 22nd Congress, soberly and with a clear conscience, to assess the situation created in the relations between our two parties and our two countries, with Leninist justice, objectively and cold-bloodedly, not in a biased way. Our Party has always been ready to settle the existing differences for the sake of the unity of the communist movement and of the socialist camp. But it has always been and continues to be of the opinion that these matters be settled right and in the Marxist-Leninist way alone, under conditions of equality and not of pressure and dictation. We rely on and are convinced of the justice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union».

As late as April 1963 our Party emphasized in an article published in the organ of its Central Committee, the «Zeri i Popullit» daily: «If N. Khrushchev is in favor of settling differences and consolidating unity, he should show this by deeds, he should take real and not fictitious steps to remove all obstacles he has set up in the relations between our two parties and our two countries. Just as he dared to attack in a slanderous way, to intrude into the internal affairs and to undertake hostile activities against our party and our country, he should in the same way take up courage and publicly denounce these anti-Marxist stand and acts and strictly respect the internationalist norms of relations between communist and workers parties and between socialist countries». We will welcome any sincere step in this direction.

But N. Khrushchev’s group did not only fail to lend an ear to the voice of reason and to take to heart the comradely advice of our party, of the other fraternal parties, but they persisted with more vehemence in their treacherous line, increased their assaults and hostile acts against our party, against the Communist Party of China and other fraternal parties, against Marxism-Leninism, against the unity of the socialist camp and the communist movement. Events and facts have gone to prove in an indisputable way that N. Khrushchev is a conscientious traitor and enemy resolved to pursue his counter-revolutionary line to the end.

Their recent decision to call in an arbitrary and unlawful way a separate meeting of the parties that follow on their track is another great plot that goes to show most clearly that N. Khrushchev’s group are the greatest splitters that the history of the international communist movement has ever recorded. N. Khrushchev tries to draw as many parties as he can into this new anti-communist plot which is intended to sanction the full and open split of the socialist camp and of the communist movement. In connection with this he has sent to all parties, and through them to our party as ‘well, a letter informing them that he has decided to call on December 15 of the current year a meeting of the editorial committee and the international meeting of the communist and workers parties towards the middle of the coming year. In this letter our party is invited to send its delegation to Moscow to take part in the proceedings of the editorial committee and to inform the make up of this delegation as early as possible.

The Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania taking into account that N. Khrushchev’s group has definitely betrayed in an incorrigible way, the cause of Marxism-Leninism and of socialism and all efforts and hopes to bring them back to the right way, have totally failed, has decided not to reply to their letter of July 30, 1964. The Party of Labor of Albania has no more to do with N. Khrushchev’s group of renegades.

On this occasion and under these circumstances the Party of Labor of Albania has decided to address this open letter to you, members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, pioneers of the great cause of communism, towards whom we have cherished and continue to cherish a deep sentiment of respect and affection. In this letter we want to tell you with an open heart and fraternal frankness that truth which N. Khrushchev has kept from you for years at a stretch He has humbugged and continues to humbug you. He has denied all rights to you to get acquainted with the materials of our party, of the Communist Party of China and of other Marxist-Leninist parties.

The Party of Labor of Albania turns to you, for it is of the opinion that your responsibility and role are of historic significance in this situation. It pertains to you to say your word. We have full trust in you. In the Soviet Union no other but you can call a halt to N. Khrushchev’s revisionist line of action. You are the sole force to save the Soviet Union, homeland of the great October, and the glorious Party of the Bolsheviks from the blind alley into which N. Khrushchev has led it, to protect Marxism-Leninism, the honor and dignity of the Soviet Union, to raise aloft the revolutionary banner of your party which N. Khrushchev has stained with disgrace.

Dear Comrades,

N. Khrushchev's group are raising a hue and cry about the so-called international meeting of the communist and workers parties. They are trying to persuade you and all the communists of the world claiming that this meeting is called for, that it will allegedly help settle differences and consolidate the unity of the socialist camp and of the communist movement. This is a great humbug, a bluff, a dangerous maneuver.

. As a matter of fact this meeting does by no mean help the cause of Marxist-Leninist unity, both as to the way it is being prepared for as well as to its political platform. It aims at undermining unity, at definitely splitting the communist movement, at consolidating the wavering position 01 revisionism, at intensifying the fight against Marxism-Leninism, doing in this way a good turn to the bourgeois imperialists.

The Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania is decidedly opposed to the discord sowing meeting of the modem revisionists and categorically denounces this further plot of the Khrushchevian clique.

Wherefore does the Party of Labor refuse to take part in this meeting and why does it condemn it?

Firstly, the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania are convinced that the hasty convocation of the meeting of the communist and workers parties under the present conditions and circumstances, when deep divergences on basic and strategical issues exist in the international communist movement, between Marxist-Leninists and revisionists, about which a great polemic is on foot, is not to the benefit of settling differences and of consolidating unity on sound Marxist-Leninist lines, is by no means the «most effective» way to strengthening the compactness of the communist movement, but, on the contrary, it leads to fully undermine it.

Through their views and deeds the modern revisionists have repeatedly aggravated the existing divergences, have ever so much undermined unity, have plunged themselves deeper and deeper into the mire of treachery and discord. Through all these they have made the convocation of the international meeting of the communist and workers parties more difficult, they have moved it further away. Greater efforts and a longer time are now required to prepare the necessary conditions for the convocation of a meeting that would truly serve' the Marxist-Leninist unity of the socialist camp and of the communist movement.

Secondly, the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania declares that the meeting which is now being called on the initiative of N. Khrushchev’s group is an entirely arbitrary and illegal one, since the norms and principles sanctioned in the 1980 Moscow Declaration governing relations between parties have been brutally trampled upon. No one is entitled to call a general meeting of the communist and workers parties to suit his whims without having consulted the other parties and received their consent before hand. We publicly declare that no preliminary consultation on this matter has taken place with the Party of Labor of Albania.

N. Khrushchev has arbitrarily decided to replace the principle of arriving at unification of views through equal and comradely consultations, sanctioned in the 1960 Moscow Declaration, with the principle of subjecting the minority to the majority. The Party of Labor of Albania has opposed and opposes a principle of this kind because this is a flagrant violation of the parity and independence of fraternal parties, it is an attempt to force the will of the so called majority on others. But even if we speak of majorities, the real and hot the false and fictitious majority is by no means, on the side of the revisionists. Opposed to the convocation of the international communist movement under present conditions and circumstances, are definitely a considerable number of fraternal parties whose ranks contain nearly half of the number of communists of the world not reckoning here a whole phalanx of revolutionary communists enrolled in the parties of other countries where the leaders have slipped into revisionist trends and who also condemn the splitting and treacherous deeds of N. Khrushchev.

Thirdly, the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania declare that by organizing in a hasty, arbitrary and unlawful manner the so called international meeting. N. Khrushchev’s group are in fact trying to organize a meeting of fractionists. This is also clearly evident in the July 30 letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which runs: « According to our view the Committee should start work at the appointed time even if any of the 26 Communist Parties fails to send its delegation on time». And the letter continues: «The refusal of this or that party to take part in this collective work could not serve as a justification for further postponement of measures to elaborate the ways and methods of consolidating the international Marxist-Leninist unity of the whole worlds.»

It is thus clear that N. Khrushchev has made up his mind to convene the meeting even without the participation of the representatives of many parties which have already expressed their opposition to the convocation of the international meeting under the present conditions and circumstances. This means that the meeting which is being called now will only be a meeting of the leaders of certain parties and mainly of those who follow N. Khrushchev, a meeting of revisionists. And this fact alone exposes all the demagogy of N. Khrushchev for alleged unity and compactness and lays bare his anti-Marxist and splitting aims.

It is now being made clear to all that by hastily convening the so-called international meeting of the communist and workers parties N. Khrushchev’s group strive to attain two main objectives: on one hand, to intensify their fight against Marxism-Leninism, to condemn certain socialist countries and certain communist parties and «to oust» them from the socialist camp and the communist movement, and, on the other, to strengthen the ranks of the revisionist front, to subjugate all the revisionists to their dictation, to force «a new charter» on them and to bind their hands and feet in fetters.

The attainment of these objectives is decisive for the fate of N. Khrushchev’s revisionist group who are facing grave difficulties. The firm war of principle waged by the Marxist-Leninist parties and the revolutionary communists of the world has not only torn the mask of the Khrushchevian revisionists and is frustrating their hostile schemes, but it has brought about a grave situation within the ranks of the modem revisionists themselves. Trenchant contradictions have arisen between them which are clearly expressed particularly by the tendency to oppose the hegemony and paternity of N. Khrushchev’s group.

Under these circumstances there is no other way left for the Khrushchevian revisionists but: to carry the split with Marxist-Leninists to the end and at the same time to fetter the other revisionists, to force their control and sway over them, to check any attempt on their part for independence be it ever so formal.

These plans which N. Khrushchev aims at attaining in the meeting he is preparing for have come up against the opposition of not only the Marxist-Leninist parties, which have a clear idea of N. Khrushchev’s treacherous aims against communism and the socialist camp, but also on the part of some of his revisionist allies. In the first place it must be said that some of the revisionist opponents to N. Khrushchev’s proposed meeting, in which they are, nevertheless, participating in the preliminary stage, are as revisionist, if not more so, than Khrushchev himself. Their opposition to the holding of the international meeting, is not inspired by any concern about the unity of the communist movement and the socialist camp, but by their objective of effecting the full rift and fight against Marxism-Leninism by different methods from those of N. Khrushchev’s, more efficient, according to them, and with less dangerous consequences for them, trying to prolong their own lives through creating false illusions about their stand and so on. Moreover, their opposition is inspired by the fact that they do not want to be pinned down; they want to gain their «independence» from the Khrushchevian clique, to be free to join themselves with the social-democrats or the imperialist bourgeoisie at their own discretion.

The maneuvers which N. Khrushchev and his followers are now resorting to, the tactics they are using, cannot conceal the anti-Marxist aims of the modem revisionists, their hostility to Marxism-Leninism. They will not succeed in humbugging any one. Whether the revisionists hold their meeting or not, whether they hold it now or later, makes no difference. The true Marxist-Leninists will intensify their fight of principle in exposing the Khrushchevian and other modem revisionists, a war that will bring total defeat to these dangerous enemies of communism.

The Party of Labor of Albania has been and continues to be in favor of the international meeting of the communist and workers parties. But it has been and continues to be in favor of a meeting that would serve true unity of the communist movement on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and of proletarian internationalism, on the basis of the revolutionary principles laid down in the 1957 and 1980 Moscow Declarations. It has been and continues to be opposed to any meeting that would sanction the open rift or that would create a false unity based on anti-Marxist revisionist trends.

The Party of Labor of Albania has already declared before and is now declaring again that in order to prepare for a meeting of Marxist-Leninist; unity of the communist movement it is essential to take into account the present situation of the communist movement, the changes that have taken place and the processes that have gone on in it since the 1960 meeting and conformable with these circumstances and conditions to specify measures and steps that should be taken preparatory to an international meeting which would really express’ the opinion and wishes of all the communists of the world and would achieve and strengthen that militant unity of which our movement stands in greater need than ever before.

The only basis for true unity of the socialist camp and of the communist movement lies in Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. No unity can be achieved on the basis of revisionism; no unity can exist between Marxists and the revisionists who have betrayed the cause of Marxism-Leninism and of proletarian internationalism. N. Khrushchev’s plan to unite the communist movement on the basis of revisionism is a plan to split it and it is doomed to fail with disgrace. Likewise, any attempt, any hope, any illusion of finding an intermediary platform, satisfactory to all, that would unite both Marxists and revisionists is futile and detrimental to the attainment of true unity of principle of the communist movement which is the only possible basis of unity.

The treacherous aims which N. Khrushchev’s group strive to attain at the present meeting are by no means incidental. The Khrushchevian revisionists have always striven towards attaining these objectives. They began their rift by spreading their revisionist line of action. They deepened this rift through their anti-Marxist and anti-socialist activities. And they are now carrying this rift to its logical conclusion. But the revisionists should bear well in mind that heaven will not overturn because of their separatist meeting and because of the «collective» measures that they may take. Their meeting will be very fruitful and very favorable to the international communist movement. The meeting day of the revisionists will remain in history as the day of their full and open betrayal and at the same time the day that will mark their final catastrophe. The revolutionary communist movement will forge ahead, without the revisionists and at battle with the revisionists, and it will for sure arrive at its unity in this combative way. This will be true Marxist-Leninist unity for which the Marxist-Leninists of the world fight with pluck and courage.

Dear Comrades,

N. Khrushchev tries to persuade you, communists of the Soviet Union, the peoples of the Soviet Union and all peoples of the world that with assumption of power by him, starts a new epoch, a great turn in history. The decade of his rule is described as the decade of «the prosperity of the Soviet Union», of the «triumphal march towards communism», as the decade of «the triumph of peace and peaceful coexistence», as the decade of the «consolidation of the communist movement» and of the «creative development of Marxism». The revisionists begin «the real history of the Soviet Union in 1953.

These are all lies and nothing but lies. It is true that an historical turn started when N. Khrushchev’s group took the reins of state into their hands but this is a big retrogressive step, a step that flung the door open .to opportunism and revisionism, to treachery and degeneration, wrecking unity and beginning the rift in the communist movement, a step of getting closer to and uniting with the imperialists and other foes of peoples and of socialism, a step toward sabotaging the revolution and restoring capitalism.

No one and no other group has caused so much harm and so much evil to the Soviet Union, to the socialist camp, to the communist movement, to the cause of socialism and communism, as N. Khrushchev and his group. The history of the Soviet Union and of international communism records no greater renegade, no more frenzied and dangerous enemy than the group of Khrushchevian revisionists.

What the imperialists at their time were unable to do through their armed intervention, what Trotsky, Bukharin and other enemies of the Soviet regime could not do, what the German fascists could not do during the Second World War, N. Khrushchev’s group are set on doing now.

Who has disgraced, who has discredited, who has assailed as vehemently, who has slandered against the Soviet regime, against the Soviet socialist order of things as much as N. Khrushchev has done?

It was N. Khrushchev who crossed out the most glorious period of the Soviet Union, when the Soviet peoples, led by the Party with Stalin at the head, overcame colossal difficulties, faced with pluck and courage the ruthless capitalist encirclement, smashed the counter-revolution, built the first socialist society in the world, reaped the great historic victory in the patriotic war and transformed the Soviet Union into a powerful developed and advanced socialist state with unparalleled authority and role in the international arena. He described the whole of this period as one during which in the Soviet Union there reigned terror and persecutions, jails and concentration camps, violations of lawfulness and democracy, arbitrarily and despotism, poverty and hunger. He rendered great service to the imperialists through these deeds of his by providing them with weapons to attack and discredit the Soviet Union. The infamous «secret» report which N. Khrushchev read at the 20th Congress and his subsequent speeches became the source of food, the mainspring that never went dry for all the most reactionary anti-communist and anti-Soviet propaganda.

Who can lend credit to N. Khrushchev for all the trumped up charges against Stalin and his crimes? Can the trumped up charges concocted by investigation committees appointed by Khrushchev, the writings by Adjubey, the learned Soldjenichin and their ilk, be trusted? Can the imperialists and their agents who could not see eye to eye with the Soviet Union and who tried to strangle it at its infancy, have stayed idle all this time and have done nothing about it? Time past N. Khrushchev himself had said in 1938: «The Jakirs, the Balitsky, the Lypuchenkys, Zatorskyites and other rogues intended to bring back-the Polish pans, to the Ukraine, to bring the German fascists, the landlords and capitalists here.... We have done short work with many foes but not with all yet. Therefore we should be on our guard. We should always bear in mind Comrade Stalin's words that so long as capitalist encirclement exists in our country, there will be spies and deflectors sent over».

The same Khrushchev a year before, in 1937, used to say: «Our Party will crush without mercy the band of traitors, will wipe out of existence all the Trotzkyite corpse of rightists. A guarantee for this lies in the unwavering leadership of our Central Committee, in the unshaken leadership of our leader Comrade Stalin.... We shall crush the enemy from the first to the last and we shall scatter their ashes in the air». But instead of wiping out of existence the Trotzkyite corpse, of making short work of all the foes and of scattering their ashes in the air, the renegade Khrushchev burned Stalin’s remains, scattered his ashes in the air, the ashes of this great defender and leader of the historic achievements of the Soviet Union, rehabilitated from first to last all the counter-revolutionaries, proclaimed them as victims to Stalin and decided to raise monuments to them.

Just who these victims are whom N. Khrushchev takes under his protection, we, Albanians, know too well from our own experience. While N. Khrushchev has named the leaders of the Albanian Party and State who have guided the people in the great war of liberation and in building socialism agents of imperialism sold to them for 30 aspra, he has openly taken under his protection such murderers and terrorists, enemies of our party and of our people as K. Xoxe, P, Plaku, T. Sejko, L. Gega and others dubbing them as true revolutionary communists, as internationalists, patriots and blameless victims.

Only a traitor, an enemy of communism can launch slanders and most monstrous attacks on Stalin, this great leader of the Communist Party, of the Soviet peoples and of the international communist movement. In his anti-communist attacks on Stalin Nikita Khrushchev has surpassed the imperialists, the most frenzied reactionaries and renegades of communism, Kautzky, Trotzky, Tito and Gjilas. And what has he left unsaid against Stalin! He has called him «murderer», an «ordinary criminal», a «despot of the type of Ivan the Terrible», the «greatest dictator in the history of Russia» and so on and so forth, J.V. Stalin who for 30 years led the Party of the Bolsheviki, the Soviet peoples, from victory to victory, who upheld great Lenin’s line with pluck and courage, who inspired Stahanovs and heroes of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, who aroused and led with firmness all the workers and peasants, all the Soviet people in the great Patriotic War, with whose name in their tongues Matrasovs, Kosmodemyanskayas, the heroes of Stalingrad and hundreds of thousands of other heroes and fighters launched their assaults on the enemy and fell in battle.

Have you never stopped to think, Comrades, why such bitter hatred is expressed for Stalin, why he is so madly attacked, why all the glorious period of the Soviet people when Stalin was in the lead is painted so shamefully in black colors? And don’t you see a logical connection between attacks and slanders against Stalin and praises and lauds for the leaders of imperialism, Eisenhower

Kennedy, Johnson and others whom N. Khrushchev has called «men of reason» who «enjoy the absolute trust of their people», who «are earnestly concerned in safeguarding peace» and the death of whom as in the case of Kennedy, he has considered as «a great loss for mankind» and has proclaimed as a day of mourning for communists as well? Only a charlatan, a man lost to shame can behave as N. Khrushchev has done towards Stalin to whom he used to sing dithyrambs, whom he used to call «great Lenin’s close friend and comrade-in-arms», «friend of the people and a beloved father», «the great Marshal of victory over fascism», «the greatest genius and leader of mankind».

How could it have been possible that you, Soviet communists, the Soviet people, achieved such colossal victories of historic significance with your party and state headed by a man who committed only crimes and made all kinds of mistakes? Can there be greater absurdity and more arrant falsification of history than when Stalin’s great merits as the leader of the Party and the Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Army are denied and the role and merits of N. Khrushchev are exalted, who is described as a great strategist not only of the Patriotic War alone but also of the civil war, as the pioneer of the cosmic era and so on and so forth? It is to be regretted that even some comrades-in-arm of Stalin who directed the major operations during the war, with him and under his leadership are now falsifying history, under instructions from Khrushchev, are now denying what they formerly asserted with their own tongues.

Through his base calumnies and attacks against Stalin, worthy only of a street urchin, N. Khrushchev insults the great Soviet people, their party, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet socialist order of things, he insults the glorious Soviet Army, the international communist movement and workers and peoples of the world, he insults socialism and Marxism-Leninism. N. Khrushchev himself used to say: «who raises his hand against Comrade Stalin has raised it against all of us, against the working class, against workers. Who raises his hand against Comrade Stalin he has raised it against Marx’s, Engels’s, Lenin’s, doctrine» (from his speech at the Moscow rally in January 1937).

N. Khrushchev did exactly this. Raising his hand against Stalin he raised it against all, against communism, against Marxism-Leninism.

By raising his hand against Stalin N. Khrushchev raised his hand against the Soviet socialist system itself. He is afraid to affirm this in public in spite of what his most consistent allies advise him to carry the elimination of the consequences of the ~cult» to the end. But the fact remains that by calling the three decades of Stalin’s leadership an anomaly, a departure from the Leninist way, and by wrecking the socialist system N. Khrushchev is actually undermining the Soviet socialist system itself and is leading peaceful evolution to the degeneration of socialism in the Soviet Union. And, o irony! he calls this treacherous social-democratic way a «rectum to Lenin», a «pursuance of the true Leninist way»!

This is the purpose and true significance of all of N. Khrushchev’s noise about the so-called war against the cult of the individual and its consequences.

N. Khrushchev’s group have raised their hand against the most precious thing, the most powerful weapon of the Soviet people to protect the achievements of the revolution and the edification of communism, against the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the communist party. They are trying to disarm the people, to divest it of authority, to degenerate the party. They have trampled upon and rejected the consistent Marxist-Leninist line of the Bolshevik Party, its revolutionary tradition and spirit, they have forced an opportunist and revisionist course on the party in all its fields of life and activity, a course which jeopardizes the historic achievements of socialism in the Soviet Union, for which the party and the Soviet people have struggled with heroism, have made great sacrifices, have shed their blood.

To carry their .course through N. Khrushchev’s revisionist clique have dismissed and continue to dismiss cadres of the party and of the state both from the central and district organs and have replaced them with cadres loyal to their course. Within ten years N. Khrushchev has removed about 70% of the members of the Central Committee who were chosen at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952 and about 50% of the members of the Central Committee chosen in the 20th Congress. In the same way he dismissed under pretext of circulation of cadres 45% of the members of the central committees of the parties of the Federated Republics, of the regional and district party committees as well as 40% of the party committees of cities and regions on the eve of the 22nd Congress. In 1963 he dismissed again, under pretext of reorganizing the party on the basis of production, more than half of the members of the central committees of the Federated Republics and of the regional party committees.

The men around Khrushchev today and who serve him constitute a privileged class, degenerated from the point of view of ideology, who have betrayed the revolutionary cause of the Soviet working class, opposed to Marxism-Leninism and socialism. Their sole preoccupation and concern is to consolidate their economic position and their political sway. Relying on this class N. Khrushchev’s group are turning the glorious Communist Party of the Soviet Union into a revisionist one and the Soviet socialist state into a dictatorship of the Khrushchevian clique.

Their theses on the so called «party of all the people» are a great humbug and serve only to pave the way for the restoration of capitalism. «The way to communism passes through the dictatorship of the proletariat, otherwise it cannot be achieved Lenin has said. By liquidating the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union N. Khrushchev’s group take a very dangerous step backwards towards capitalism. N. Khrushchev’s so called «state of the whole people» is nothing else but a mask behind which lies the dictatorship of his clique directed against the Soviet working class and peasantry, against the Soviet people. N. Khrushchev opposes the dictatorship of the proletariat and upholds state power only in order to use it as a means to attain his counter-revolutionary objectives and to keep the Soviet people and communists subdued. Equally dangerous is also his thesis on the «party of the whole people» which wipes out the proletarian class character of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and opens the way to degenerating the Marxist-Leninist party into a revisionist one. All the organizational and re-organizational steps which N. Khrushchev undertakes now and then serve but this end.

Comrades, the Soviet regime, the first socialist regime in the world which the October Revolution established, the great Communist Party of the Soviet Union, are faced with the grave risk of degenerating into a bourgeois regime and into a revisionist bourgeois party. Passivity at these moments is inexcusable and fatal, it is the imperative, lofty, sacred and historical duty of all the members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, of the Soviet people to defend the dictatorship of the proletariat, to defend the Communist Party founded by Lenin.

Ever since he ascended to power N. Khrushchev has taken a number of steps and has made a number of reforms in the field of economy, particularly in agriculture, about which he has bragged a great deal. But what is the purpose and real meaning of these steps and of these reforms? They are at variance with the principles of socialism and communism, they are an attempt to insert into the Soviet socialist economy such organizational forms and methods of management as has been borrowed from the experience of Titoite Jugoslavia and of capitalist countries. N. Khrushchev’s group have replaced the socialist principle of remuneration according to labor exerted, with the material stimulus absolutized and fetishized: by them, they have undermined plannified and centralized management of economy, they are encouraging the capitalist principle of running after gains, they are giving free play to unrestrained capitalist competition, they are chopping up the common property of all the people as they have done with the Tractor and Motor Stations.

In essence N. Khrushchev’s communism is a variety of bourgeois socialism. His hue and cry about his concern for the welfare of the people, for better living conditions for everyone are hypocritical and demagogical from first to last. What N. Khrushchev’s group are after is to see to it that better living conditions more ease and comfort and more prosperity accrue to the privileged degenerated class who secure fat incomes in the form of high salaries, remunerations and honorariums and through abuses, tips, stealth and so on. N. Khrushchev has reduced the lofty ideal of communism to «a dish of gulash». The United States of America, the experience of the industrialists and recommendations of big ranch holders and farmers, of Eatons and Hearsts & Co. serve as a pattern for his communism. He has gone so far as to stretch his palm to the American imperialists in order to build «communism in the Soviet Union with their dollars and credits.» The Khrushchevian revisionists have flung the door open to the penetration of the bourgeois ideology, of the bourgeois way of life, of bourgeois decadency in art, letters and culture, to the awakening of all kinds of anti-Soviet, antisocialist trends, to the spread of western decadent currents. They propagate aloud sentiments of bourgeois individualism and egotism, bourgeois humanism and pacifism.

Don’t these speak a lot as to where N. Khrushchev is leading the Soviet Union? These are not at all steps ahead towards communism but they all lead backwards to capitalism. Under these circumstances the question arises before the Soviet revolutionary communists, before the Soviet people: will they tolerate that N. Khrushchev’s group realize their criminal, counter-revolutionary work at their ease, or will they rise up in defense of the achievements of socialism and communism in the Soviet Union and call a halt to N. Khrushchev’s anti-Soviet, anti-socialist line?

Dear Comrades,

As long as your party held aloft unstained the banner of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and pursued a consistent revolutionary line in home and foreign affairs the Soviet Union was, for whole decades, the bastion of revolution and of socialism, the greatest protector and mainstay of the freedom and independence of peoples, the great champion of the cause of the emancipation of the working class and defender of peace in the world. The revolutionary communists and people of the world looked up to the great Soviet Union and cherished sentiments of deep respect and sympathy towards it, they looked up to and were inspired by revolutionary stand of principle. The establishment of the socialist camp, the growth of the communist and workers movement, the great impetus of the liberation wars of peoples are closely bound with the internationalist role and contribution of the first socialist country in the world, of the Soviet Union. At this time there was full unity of views and acts in the socialist camp, in the communist movement and in all the international democratic organizations of the world. All the revolutionary forces of the world, with the Soviet Union at the head acted united as a body against the forces of imperialism and of reaction.

But N. Khrushchev undermined the prestige, authority and role of the Soviet Union in the world through his political line of action. In the name of the Soviet Union he splits the socialist camp and the international communist movement, he wrecks and strangles the revolution and the liberation wars of peoples, deceives and intimidates peoples, defends capitalism and imperialism and paints them in gay colors.

See, Comrades, what great tragedy N. Khrushchev’s group are playing with your country of such brilliant revolutionary traditions, of such great historical merits! They are attaching and continually binding the Soviet Union with its most raving enemies, with those against whom the communists and peoples of the Soviet Union« have waged a firm and heroic war.

N. Khrushchev’s group have struck up alliance and friendship with those who intend to bury the Soviet Union. They have struck up alliance and friendship with the American imperialists who are the top head of world imperialism, the hotbed of reaction and mainspring of wars and aggression, exploiters and international gendarmes, enemy NO 1 of the peoples of the world.

They have struck up friendship and fraternity with Tito’s clique who have long since betrayed Marxism-Leninism, who carry on activity to undermine the forces of socialism, of freedom, of peace in the world, who serve the imperialists most zealously, who are maintained on American dollars and whom the international communist movement has unanimously condemned.

They have struck up alliance and made friends with the renegades of the working class, servants of the bourgeoisie and most frantic anti-communists, the reactionary right wing leaders of social democracy like Guy Mollet, Spaak, Wilson and others.

They have struck up alliance and made friends with the Indian reactionary bourgeoisie whom N. Khrushchev is equipping with armaments and whom he is inciting to oppress the Indian people and launch aggression on a fraternal socialist country as the People’s Republic of China.

They have struck up alliance and made friends With the Vatican in Rome, this old center of reaction and obscurantism, with all the counter-revolutionaries of the world including the Bonn revenge seekers with whom N. Khrushchev is trying to come to terms.

N. Khrushchev has turned the sharp edge of his attacks against the true and loyal friends of the Soviet Union. He has launched ferocious attacks against the People’s Republic of China, against the Communist Party and the great Chinese people, he is sowing discord between two great peoples, between the two most powerful socialist countries. It is not the Soviet-American alliance towards which N. Khrushchev is working hard and dreaming day and night to attain, but the Soviet Chinese fraternal collaboration and friendship which the Soviet people, the socialist camp, the revolutionary and liberation movement in the world stand in need of. But instead of this collaboration and of this friendship N. Khrushchev is continually intensifying his unprincipled fight against the People’s Republic of China and its Communist Party. Is this not, Comrades, a major betrayal towards the vital interests of the Soviet Union?

You are informed on the fierce attacks, monstrous slanders and accusations, hostile acts which N. Khrushchev’s group have launched against the Party of Labor of Albania, against the People’s Republic of Albania, against the Albanian people and their leaders. And there is no end to calumnies and trumped up charges he has launched against our party and our people. In his campaign against our party and our people he resorted to threats and pressures, brutal interference in our internal affairs, economic blockades and to the rupture of diplomatic relations. From the rostrum of the 22nd Congress he openly called upon the communists and people of Albania to launch a counterrevolution, to overthrow the leadership of the party and of the state, exhortations which are continually being repeated by the organs of Soviet propaganda and especially by Radio-Moscow in its transmissions for Albania. But why all this resentment, all this hostility towards a socialist country, towards a Marxist party and towards fraternal people, resentment and enmity which even the most frantic imperialist enemies have not expressed towards our country? What was the crime this party and these people committed? Their sole «crime» was their reluctance to submit to N. Khrushchev’s line of betrayal, that they upheld Marxism-Leninism and exposed and opposed the dissentient intensions of the revisionists.

N. Khrushchev’s group wage bitter war against other socialist countries which do not succumb to their dictate as well as towards all the communist parties which oppose revisionism and uphold Marxism-Leninism. They use towards them all the weapons and methods which the class enemy uses. They brutally intrude into their internal affairs, violate their sovereignty and independence, use pressures and blackmail to force them down to their knees, sow dissension and organize plots as they did recently against the Communist Party of Japan, they use the joint organizations of the Economic Council of Mutual Aid and the Warsaw Treaty in order to place the socialist countries under the sway of their group, in order to utilize them for their own egotistic and chauvinistic purposes.

N. Khrushchev has rendered and is rendering good service to imperialism and world reaction and has caused and is causing heavy damage to the cause of socialism, of the freedom of peoples and of peace in the world through his entire course and activity.

Modern revisionism which spread with lightning speed following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, paved the way to the bloody counter-revolution in Hungary, to the counter-revolutionary events in Poland, jeopardized the very existence of certain communist and workers parties as in the United States of America, in Denmark and elsewhere. The Communist Party of India with Dange at its head was transformed into a tool of the reactionary upper bourgeoisie, into a chauvinistic national party that has betrayed the ideals of the Indian working class and people. In Algeria the revisionists alienated the party from the armed resistance together with the people, isolated it from the masses, placed it at the tag-end of things and made it lose its place in the political life of Algeria. A true tragedy came about with the Communist Party of Irak which, having succumbed to pressures from N. Khrushchev’s group, lost vigilance and, as a consequence, received a heavy blow from the reactionaries and the cause of the revolution in Irak suffered a big failure.

Revisionism is gnawing at many communist and workers parties, particularly in Europe which is pregnant with revisionism. They are being transformed from parties of social revolution to parties of social reforms, they are getting closer to and fusing in with the social-democrats, they are departing from revolutionary traditions and the revolutionary spirit, they are being nurtured with the illusions of peaceful parliamentary ways, which the revisionists have raised into a world strategic principle.

For the sake of getting closer to and collaborating with the American imperialists by all means and methods, N. Khrushchev who is really serving them in all fields, through all of his so-called peaceful coexistence, has committed great crimes against the freedom and independence of peoples, against peace, against the Soviet Union itself, against its security. For the sake of this approach and reconciliation N. Khrushchev, following his adventuresome acts, capitulated with disgrace during the events in the Caribbean crisis when he did not hesitate to sacrifice Cuba before the American imperialists. He brought great shame to the Soviet Union, to its armed forces when he allowed the American imperialists to control the Soviet ships in the open sea in a most humiliating way, while Cuba, a tiny socialist country, 90 miles away from the USA, honorably upheld its dignity, did not allow any imperialist control on its territory and even on Soviet ships on Cuban territorial waters. N. Khrushchev sacrificed the national interests of the Congolese people when he voted in favor of the intervention of the troops of UNO under the direction of the American imperialists. This compromise brought tragic consequences to the cause of freedom and independence of the Congolese people as everybody knows. The Moscow Treaty on the partial test ban on nuclear weapons is a major betrayal and deception of peoples, for it is in fact directed against the interests of the Soviet Union itself, of the socialist camp, giving a free hand to the American imperialists to continue in a one-sided way their underground tests and to raise their atomic potentiality, to continue their nuclear blackmail in order to threaten and intimidate peoples.

N. Khrushchev’s negotiations with the imperialists to the disadvantage of peoples are many. In spite of the great noise made for years at a stretch about the signing of the peace treaty with Germany and the settlement of the West Berlin problem, N. Khrushchev has now almost abandoned this matter and, on the eve of his visit to West Germany, he is preparing to make further concessions to the Bonn revenge seekers to the detriment of the vital interests of the German Democratic Republic. While peoples throughout the world raised their voice against the new aggressive acts of the United States of America against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, N. Khrushchev, for fear of losing favor with the Americans, raised a faint voice, could hardly express his regrets in an undertone for the events at Tonkin, at a time when a fraternal socialist country was faced and is still faced with grave danger.

N. Khrushchev has not only given up fighting the imperialists himself but is doing his best to stop other peoples from effecting the revolution and from fighting the imperialists, he is trying to check and strangle the world liberation movement. He spreads all sorts of pacifist illusions about imperialism and its leaders, advises peoples to be docile, not to irritate the imperialists but to submit to them because, according to him, «world conflagration might be kindled by any little spark», he threatens and intimidates them with the horrors of atomic war, he preaches peace under any condition and at any price! He has gone so far as to suggest the setting up of an international police force within the framework of the United Nations Organization

and to become in this way an international gendarme together with the American imperialists in order to suppress any liberation and revolutionary movement of peoples in the world.

It is not incidental that the American imperialists, the right-wing leaders of social-democracy and the reactionaries of all hues, lavish praises on the person of N. Khrushchev, on his policy, on his attitude. They dub him as a «a great realist politician with whom one can come to terms», «the most appropriate man of the West in Moscow», «the Soviet Premier who acts as an American statesman», «the man who is leading the communist world towards a great transformation and evolution» and so on and so forth. They have rested great hopes on him and on his group and that is why they come to meet him half way and give him all kinds of aid and support to enable him to proceed along the road of betrayal on which he has long since embarked. They speak openly of «not allowing this great occasion slip off their hands» and that «the USA should, to a certain extent, make Khrushchev’s task lighter» and so on and so forth.

History has not recorded any typical case of this kind in which the leaders of imperialism, the enemies of the class to have lavished so much praise on a leader of any communist party as N. Khrushchev, to have expressed so openly the approval, the joy and hopes regarding his political course. This fact alone makes it clear as to whose advantage N. Khrushchev’s acts go, whom his views and deeds serve.

Dear Comrades,

In face of the great Khrushchevian revisionist danger that menaces the socialist camp, the international communist movement, the Soviet Union itself, the communist parties that stand on sound Marxist-Leninist grounds, all the revolutionary communists the world over, have risen today in firm battle of principle.

A campaign of historical significance in defense of Marxism-Leninism against modern revisionism is being waged by the glorious Chinese Communist Party. New Marxist-Leninist parties have sprung up in many countries of the world like Australia and Belgium, Brazil and Ceylon, whereas Marxist-Leninist revolutionary groups have been set up in many other countries like Italy and France, Austria and England, India and elsewhere.

And it could not happen otherwise. The communists who have dedicated their lives to the cause of the revolution and of socialism could not have failed and cannot fail to rise up against this great betrayal to the working class on the part of the modern revisionists. We are fully convinced that this campaign will grow from day to day and that it is this fight that will bring about the final defeat to revisionism.

In this great historical battle between Marxists and revisionists on whose outcome depends the present and future of socialism, a great responsibility and role evolves upon you, dear comrades, members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It is precisely in the leadership of your party that the great evil has taken root, it is there that the center of modem revisionism lies. The great danger which revisionism constitutes for the entire international communist movement today lies in the fact that it has manifested itself in the oldest party of greatest authority in the world, in the Bolshevik Party, in Lenin’s and Stalin’s Party,' that it has afflicted the first and most powerful; socialist country, the Soviet Union.

By taking advantage of the authority of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, of the Soviet state and by utilizing the state power with all the colossal means at its disposal N. Khrushchev’s group are trying to deceive the Soviet communists, to force their course of action on them, to waylay the leaders of many parties and to plunge them into the mire of opportunism.

In this grave situation created by N. Khrushchev’s betrayal it is high time for you Soviet communists to carry out your lofty revolutionary duty towards your glorious party, people and country, towards the proletariat and peoples of the whole world, not to allow the treacherous Khrushchevian clique jeopardize the future of socialism and communism. The Soviet revolutionary communists have never taken their ease because of the traditions and merits of the past. Today more than ever before these traditions demand reanimation in the same revolutionary spirit, with the same determination and devotion to principle so that the glorious name of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union may be upheld, so that its revolutionary banner be raised from the mud into which N. Khrushchev has flung it. The vital interests of the Soviet Union, of the socialist camp, of the revolutionary and liberation movement of the world demand this.

You live and work in the country where the leaders of modern revisionism hold sway. Therefore your fight in defense of Marxism-Leninism is; of a decisive importance. No doubt this fight is far from being an easy one to wage. It demands great efforts, it demands pluck and courage and even sacrifice. But the Soviet communists have given ample proof of heroism and self-sacrifice in the name of the great cause of the working class throughout their glorious history. They have never been intimidated, they have never recoiled before any enemy in carrying out their duty with honor even in most critical moments.

The Party of Labor of Albania addresses this open letter to you, members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, because we are heart' and soul with you, because we consider you now just as before, our comrades-in-arms, because we nurture sentiments of love for your party, for the Soviet people, for the Soviet Union. We have drawn and always draw a line between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, between the Soviet Union and N. Khrushchev’s group. The attempts of N. Khrushchev’s group to mar the Soviet-Albanian friendship, to sow dissension and enmity between our peoples will fail. The sentiments of friendship and fraternity of our party and our people towards your party and your people have never been nor will ever be quelled. The Albanian communists and people have been and continue to be friends for life of the Soviet Union. Apart from the fact that a group of renegades stand today at the head of the Soviet Union, the Party of Labor of Albania, the People’s Republic of Albania and the Albanian people will always stand for the Soviet Union, the first socialist state set up by great Lenin in battle with all foreign and internal enemies. We have never forgotten nor will ever forget what the Soviet Union means to: us, we will never forget its internationalist aid in freeing our country and in building socialism.

The attitude of the Party of Labor of Albania has been and remains clear cut: an uncompromising war of principle to crush N. Khrushchev’s revisionist group; friendship, loyalty and full internationalist solidarity and brotherhood with the peoples of the Soviet Union.

Our Party abides strictly by the statement made by Comrade Enver Hoxha after the 22nd Congress in a speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Party of Labor of Albania and the 44th anniversary of the October Revolution in November 1961, when he said: «Our Party and our people will keep intact in their hearts pure sentiments of friendship towards the fraternal peoples of the Soviet Union, regardless of the attacks, slanders and hostile acts to which they have been subjected. Our Party has taught us to love the Soviet Union, the homeland of great Lenin and Stalin both in times of weal and of woe. The glorious Soviet Union and the Soviet peoples, the great Party of the Bolsheviks have been, are and will remain for us the dearest friends of our hearts, our liberators from the fascist yoke, our faithful and resolute allies in the great battle of building socialism in our country. We have been and will be bound for life with the Soviet Union, with the Soviet peoples, with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.»

Guided by these principles, by these sentiments and by this spirit, the Party of Labor of Albania turns to you fully confident that the Soviet communists will know at these historical moments how to fulfill their revolutionary internationalist mission with dignity, will face every storm as worthy sons of their glorious party, of its glorious historic line.

What a multiplicity of plots and hostile acts have been concocted by the enemies of the class, of the Soviet party and people, against the Soviet Union from the time of the October Revolution and onwards! But the enemy has always been crushed. The cause of socialism, the Soviet power has been defended with honor. You, sons of the Bolshevik Party, with Lenin and Stalin in the lead, have smashed the intervention of the imperialist forces that dashed like beasts to drown the revolution and triumphed in the bloody civil war against the reckless enemies of the class. Standing by you with military actions, with heart and soul, were during those days all the revolutionaries and oppressed peoples of the world. You, sons of the Bolshevik Party, fought with unparalleled heroism under the leadership of Lenin’s disciple, J.V. Stalin, during the Patriotic War and bravely vanquished in the field of battle the German fascists and become the saviors of the peoples of Europe. In this war again you had allies in the communist and workers parties throughout the world, the proletariat and all peoples, the          entire progressive mankind.

A great danger is again threatening today the Soviet Union and your party. They are being' menaced from inside and from abroad by the plots that the imperialists together with the modem revisionists are concocting. This plot which is being effected under conditions of peace is, in fact, more dangerous for the future of socialism in the Soviet Union, for all the international communist and workers movement, for the future of revolution as a whole! At the head of this plot are the leaders of American imperialism and of world reaction and N. Khrushchev’s clique. The cause of socialism and of the October Revolution, to which you have dedicated your lives, turns to you once more with an appeal to ward off the great impending counterrevolutionary danger with the same heroism and revolutionary spirit that have characterized ail your militant Leninist life. Just as before, you are not alone in this just war in defense of the Soviet Union. Standing by you are the Marxist-Leninists, communist and worker’s parties, all the revolutionary communists, all the proletariat and peoples of the world, who make up a greater force than the allies you used to have in your battles against the enemy of the class, the enemies of the Soviet Union in the days gone by.

The Party of Labor of Albania which is not accustomed to speaking behind the hedge, but openly and frankly, declares with a clear conscience and firmly that it stands by you. It stands by you because the Soviet Union, the offspring of the Great October Revolution, against whom the imperialists and modern revisionists have pointed their guns, is dear not only to you but to us as well. It is dear to all the revolutionaries and proletarians of the world, to all men of work and of progress. Therefore we consider the war that should be waged against the revisionist and imperialist plot, in defense of Marxism-Leninism, in defense of the Soviet Union, the first socialist country in the world as a lofty internationalist duty. And the Soviet Union cannot be defended by saying: «we are by the side of the Soviet Union even if it is in the wrongs. It is only traitors that think that way. The Soviet Union is not defended in that manner. Betrayal alone can be upheld in that manner. We do not want the Soviet Union to be at the mercy of the revisionist traitors, we do not want to see the revisionists wreck the achievements of the October Revolution driving the country towards the alliance with the imperialists in order to restore capitalism in the land of the country which has been drenched in the blood of the best sons of the party, of the working class, of the Soviet people. We want to see the Soviet Union now as before and hereafter as a powerful bastion of the cause of socialism and communism, of the Revolution and the freedom of peoples, of peace in the world.

We, the Albanian communists, all the workers and patriots of socialist Albania, regardless of our being few in numbers and the object of continuous ruthless attacks on the part of the imperialists and revisionists, are fighting and will be fighting with dogged determination to the end in defense of our great common cause, Marxism-Leninism, in defense of the Soviet Union. In this fight we have assumed and assume all the responsibility accruing to us, and we are of the opinion that it is high time for all true communists and revolutionaries, for all those to whom the cause of Marxism-Leninism, socialism and the revolution are dear, to assume full' responsibility in this situation and to do it with pluck and courage.

We express once again our full confidence and unshaken belief that our comrades, the communists o-f Lenin’s and Stalin’s glorious party, who have been an example of great inspiration for all the communists and peoples of the world, will at present too know how to carry out with a high revolutionary conscience the tasks of great responsibility which history charges them with.

In defense of Marxism-Leninism, in defense of socialism, and communism, in defense of the Soviet Union and under the great banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, the Soviet communists will combine their endeavors, their powerful fight, with those of all the communists and proletarians of all countries to expose and crush modern revisionism and imperialism.

The Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania

Tirana, October 5. 1964
Reproduced from «Zeri Popullit» daily, organ of the C.C. of the P.L.A.

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