Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 00:22:51 -0500 From: Vladimir Bilenkin <achekhov-AT-unity.ncsu.edu> Subject: M-G: Albania: Revolution or Ignorance? Some comrades on this list have been too quick to announce a revolution in Albania and to offer the rebels a correct political line and meticulously tailored slogans. Yet, there is no indication whatsoever that what we have in Albania is an anti-capitalist revolution or has any chance to become such. I found the proclamations, "analyses," and slogans on Albania that have been coming from European trotskyist organizations an example of wishful thinking, to put it mildly. What is immediately obvious from reading the reports by LCMRCI and the IEB of Social Appeal is that they do not have any independent sources of information in Albania and no political connection with the insurgency whatsoever. Yet the LCMRCI calls the Albanian insurgents "For a revolution based in workers council and militias!" This is a very serious slogan. The revolution based on and led by workers councils is the highest form of revolution imaginable, and one can add, the one that so far exists only in our imagination. Yet the LCMRCI admits that even if the rebels move radically to the left they will most certainly put at their helm some of the former stalinist leaders. But if this is so, the above slogan is nothing but pure rhetoric and dangerous nonsense. Unless we think, of course, that our slogans do not have to relate to concrete social- political situation. And the situation in Albania shows no sign of a socialist revolution, let alone a revolution led by workers councils. Not only both reports fail to produce any evidence that such councils exist in Albania, but LCMRCI tacitly acknowledges that *so far* the rebellion remains within strictly bourgeois demands. Reading the IEB materials, I was amazed by their gross twisting of facts in order to produce a "revolution" on paper. They write re Western coverage of the events: <<The mass movement and the arming of the people are played down for the simple reason that the revolution is against Capitalism. However Berisha's accusations of a Left wing conspiricy has been echoed in the Western Press without making the slightest attempt to show that the allegations are an absolute lie>>. They claim that it is a revolution "against Capitalism." Yet it is unique in history since there has been no Left "conspiracy" in it!! Anybody has ever heard about anti-capitalist revolutions without left political organizations? They also claim that <<...the leading political forces supporting the revolution inside Albania include an association of former political prisoners from the time of Enver Hoxha. Who believe that Berisha and Capitalism are far worse than Hoxha>>. Remarkably, but also somewhat insultingly for our intelligence, they publish the Prisoners' appeal to Western democracies that contain the following: <<The communist rule of Sali Berisha, the former secretary of the Albanian Workers Party, is not only subjecting us to physical terror, using every method of violence, but is obliging us to appeal to you for the security of our lives. We who came out alive from the communist prisons now declare publicly that the neocommunists are trying to take our lives, which does not worry us if we give these lives in the service of the nation. We declare that we are defenseless in this situation of civil war to which the state is reducing Albania>>. This is something very different from saying that "Berisha and Capitalism (sic) are far worse than Hoxha." The Prisoners' appeal is an anti-communist document that presents a thinly veiled invitation for political and perhaps military intervention by the NATO. What kind of heated imagination could read it as anti-capitalist statement?! Ironically, while IEB is inventing a socialist revolution without left organization, the LCMRCI claims some mysterious role in it: <<The Albanian “red” uprising doesn’t have an ethnic symbol and is directed straight against one of the most pro-western and anti-Communist models. The extreme left has to be proud to be associated with that uprising and we need to avoid the conciliatory policies of the former nomenclature>>. But every word in their analysis and demands contradicts this claim. Just one example. <<In the last two months of mass demonstrations and during the insurrection the workers and poor created new organs to control the distribution of food and basic goods and to defend themselves. It is indispensable to maintain, democratise, expand and centralise them. So, they should be the basis for a new workers council regime.>> If indeed, the "workers and poor created new organs" for all this, why do they need to be democratised? And even less clear is why to "centralise" them? What will happen with "centralised" organs, who will control them? Albanian Bolsheviks? They do not exist presently. As I have said, the LCMRCI believes that the Stalinist remnants are waiting on the wings to take leadership of the rebellion and they mention no other left force in the country who could present an alternative to them. It follows that the proposed "centralised" organs can fall only under the control of Hoxa's heirs. I could list many more absurdities from these two reports of international trotskyist organizations. They show the apalling lack of any touch with reality and the irresponsible use of words and concepts that constitute the heart of revolutionary theory. I just want to hope that this ignorance and irresponsibility are exceptions and limited to the small and little-known Albania. Vladimir --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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