It's this man's 110th birthday so let's have a thread dedicated to Albanian communism, I think they achieved some very impressive things. Before socialism, Albania was the single poorest, most backwards nation in Europe and was occupied by the Turks for 500 years, then ruled by a western-backed monarchy, and finally turned into an Italian colony. Hoxha led the communist party against fascism in one of the most effective WWII resistance movements and defeated them in 1944. The communist movement had mass support and was elected democratically into power after a nationwide referendum. They also prevented Albania from being annexed by Yugoslavia, and they fended off some of the earliest ever CIA coup attempts. After gaining power, the Party of Labour of Albania removed all the remnants of feudalism, launched the agrarian reform, started the country's industrialization and the five-year plans in 1951, established universal healthcare, housing and education (Communists built the first university ever in Albania), etc. Albania became one of the fastest growing economies in Europe in the post-war period, had no unemployment, no inflation, no foreign debt and the government abolished taxation in 1967. Of course it had its problems, Hoxha went autistic during his last years, took anti-revisionism too far and this together with his isolationist foreign policy led to multiple economic and geopolitical issues. But overall I think he was one of the best ML leaders after Stalin. It sucks to see how 30 years since his death Hoxha is forgotten in the west and mostly only known for bunker jokes.
Party of Labour of Albania appreciation thread
Other urls found in this thread:
marxists.org
twitter.com
love me some bunkers
Considering that Yugoslavia came under attack a few years later, Hoxha's fear of imperialist aggression wasn't baseless. Though I'm not sure how effective all those bunkers would've been against a military invasion.
His Main Mistake was Splitting the Socialist Camp over petty Reasons (Fueds with Corn / Mao / Supporting EuroCommunism etc) his ideological Brainchild (Hojhaism) has also been used to reverse socialist revolution on more then one Occasion such as in Ethiopia
Honestly lost a bit of respect for him tbh. At least when Stalin advocated working with social democrats during ww2 he had a legitimate reason. I see no advantage to working with EuroComms during the Cold War or how the leader of a Socialist state couldn't see through their obvious opportunism immediately
Hoxha was rabidly against eurocommunism.
Yet he Supported Dubcek who was the Progenitor of EuroCom with his "C.W.A.H.F" and would remain so until Gorbachev's time at bat
He went so far as to severe Military and economic ties with the WP / CMEA over the Czechslovak crisis which hurt the socialist camp and Albania and its people
He was right to split with Khrushchev after the Czechoslovak crises. Anyone with eyeballs could tell the USSR was becoming social imperialist. And he was right to split with China. This "peaceful coexistence" horseshit has led to the present situation, it basically handed the US free reign over the planet on a silver platter.
In what way?
How is preventing Counter-Revolution in a socialist state Imperialistic?
This IS true
Obviously collaboration with Deng and his clique would have been retarded
what did he mean by this
Yeah, this is bullshit. marxists.org
Please read the arguments against this inane thesis, it waters down the term of "imperialism" to "being mean and have soldiers". If you believe what the USSR did was social imperialism, you might as well admit that Maoist China was imperialist as they invaded Tibet and pressured Vietnam - and mind you, Maoist China is the origin of that claim.
There is literally no reason to split with Cornholio over "revisionism" or whatever. If anything, revisionism was a concept that was only affecting the USSR internally, you could easily keep allied with the USSR and not being affected by it - Albania surely wouldn't have been since Hoxha was its undisputed leader. And what happened after his death? Albania turned revisionist faster than anybody in the Eastern Bloc despite severed ties to the USSR and China. So his whole theory of anti-revisionism is has been disproven by history and is completely irrelevant today. Same thing goes for Mao, sacrificing the communist movement over "theory" is absolutely crazy (and let's be honest, the idea that two gigantic powers would split over theory is ridiculous, nationalism was surely involved). That's like suggesting that the US would "split" with the UK over the theoretical conception of the Bill of Rights in the middle of the Cold War.
Why? You wouldn't need to have a high opinion of Dengism to see the obvious advantages an alliance with China would have. Why do you think Cuba and the DPRK are both seeking China's favor today despite both having rather critical relationship with China from a historical perspective (Cuba more than the DPRK)?
Yes but at the same time the USSR stifled support for communist movements in other countries outside the Global South, where socialism was always mixed with national liberation movements. An example would be '68 in France, and the FCP went so revisionist it's not even Eurocommunism anymore. If you really think about it, Krushchev was just continuing the mistakes Stalin made after WWII - believing in peacerful coexistence and curbing the militancy of communists world-wide.
Cornholio literally wasnt even in goverment at this point
Right, but his line in this regard was continued.
Hoxha was pretty based
He was, in the form of Brezhnev
Hoxha was a pretty good leader imo. Yeah like you pointed out he did do some stupid shit but he was definitely someone who improved vastly the conditions of his country. And yes, Hoxha >>>Mao
don't compare corncob to browboy ever again
Most sane thinking people believe the beef China had with Vietnam was bullshit…
Analbanians are literally homo erectus
t. king ZOG Occupied Government
Nani the fuck
Those homo erectus kicked the asses of your beloved aryans
The fact that they've been able to win elections (even though they abandoned communism) shows Albanians KNOW they weren't as bad as capitalist propaganda would lead you to believe.