Date: Tue, 18 Mar 97 12:45:44    
Subject: M-G: Albania: Analysis of the Revolt


Albania:
Spontaneous 
revolt against 
anti-communists

	Albania is becoming Europe’s hot spot. The imperialist media is 
showing its concerns about this “lawless” and “chaotic” country. Albania, 
which was the fastest growing European economy in 1993 and 1994 and a model 
of Tory fast capitalist restoration, is facing civil war.  The state, the 
army and the police have collapsed. In the south every family has a gun. The 
insurrection is now spreading into the north and has arrived in the Capital 
Tirana.
	The Albanian rebellion is marking a new step in the post-Cold War 
world. It is the first popular revolution against an open anti-Communist 
capitalist regime in one of the post-Stalinist countries. 
	Since 1989 many  upheavals have shaken China, the former Soviet 
Union and eastern Europe. The people rose in anger against the Stalinist 
regimes and a significant proportion of the population had illusions in the 
western model of parliamentary democracy  plus market. Since 1989 all the 
collapsing Degenerated Workers States in the former Soviet Union and Eastern 
Europe have been transformed into incipient capitalist states. 	A social 
counter-revolution has occurred under a “democratic” and neo-liberal cover 
and was supported by considerable layers of the population which wanted to 
achieve the standard of living and bourgeois-democratic rights of the 
Western imperialist countries. Everywhere the bureaucracy decided to abandon 
their previous regimes and to dismantle the nationalised and planned 
economies and the state monopoly of foreign trade, finances and big 
industries. The bourgeoisie, which was forbidden to be a ruling class for 
four or more decades, has been allowed to  accumulate as much money and 
property as it can. The state apparatus and ideology became servants of 
imperialism and the new emergent property class. 
	In every country the Stalinists supported  that project. They only 
put up some resistance to the most savage capitalist measures. The former 
“Communist Parties” were re-created as social-democratised “Socialist” 
parties committed to a market economy. The working class, ideologically 
disarmed and very confused, was incapable of stopping the return of the 
capitalists to  power. The reintroduction of the bourgeois system created 
terrible consequences: massive unemployment, the destruction of industries, 
the liquidation of job security and many social benefits, and the increased 
social polarisation between a minority of new great riches and millions of 
people living below the poverty line. 
	In many places national and ethnic conflicts erupted. With the 
liquidation of the central plan economies every national region wanted to 
link directly to the foreign markets and their elites wanted to became the 
new bourgeoisie. Workers from different ethnic groups were mobilised to kill 
their brothers and sisters from other communities with the aim of creating 
new mini semi-colonial states. Their anger against the effects of capitalist 
restoration was badly diverted into ethnic communalism. Imperialism also 
connived at popular demonstrations against Stalinists which were incapable 
of applying full-IMF shock therapy programmes.
	In countries which where the vanguard of the new right wing 
neo-liberals,  like Poland, Hungary or Lithuania, the discontented 
population was able to peacefully elect post-Stalinist governments. None of 
these wanted to re-create the bureaucratic workers states. On the contrary, 
they are continuing with the market reforms albeit trying to avoid the most 
radical  neo-liberal “excesses”. 
	Albania is something different. It is a spontaneous insurrection 
against a former popularly elected “democratic” president. Berisha, won his 
first  presidential elections in March 92 by a  landslide (63% of the 
votes). He was considered the “Balkan Havel”. He was presented as a cult 
leader which led a “velvet revolution” which overthrew Hoxha statues in 
Tirana in 1991-92. For the west he was the man which establish “democracy” 
in a country which had nearly five decades of Stalinist rule and was under 
the rule of the Axis powers, a monarchy and Turkey. Like Yeltsin, he was 
also a former Secretary of the Stalinist ruling party who became a 
born-again anti-Communist neo-liberal.
	These are not demonstrations led by the pro-imperialist opposition 
and the church against the “Socialists”, like in Serbia. Rather  it is a war 
against one of the most pro-Western post-Stalinists regimes. It is a 
subversion against the anti-Communists; a spontaneous anti- Anti-Communist 
revolution. It is the first European mass armed general mobilisation which 
is officially being labelled as led by “red terrorists”, “far left” and 
“communists”.

Albanian February
	The Albanian revolt was not organised by any political force and no 
one political party is leading it.  It is an spontaneous explosion similar 
to the revolutions of Russia in February 1917, Bolivia in 1952 or Rumania in 
1989. The toilers are not mobilised around any socialist demand. 
	Their main concern is that they want their money back. Most of the 
Albanians invested their savings in get-rich-quick investment pyramids set 
up by the regime but approved by the IMF. The pyramid schemes — the various 
pseudo-banks that succeeded in sucking in funds from almost every Albanian 
household with the promise of exorbitant interest payments before going bust 
— is part of the most barbaric form of finance capital exploitation of the 
savings of the people. Many of the poor Albanians sold their houses or farms 
and have now lost everything. 
	The big problem is that it would be very difficult for any new 
government to guarantee to return money back to them. The amount of money 
invested in  that financial societies is more or less the yearly national 
Albanian  product. The rebellion is targeting one of the most horrific 
aspects of capitalist restoration. Everywhere privatisation and investment 
pyramid are creating a new bourgeoisie which is connected to the Mafia and 
which uses the worst methods of primitive capitalist accumulation.  
	These financial institutions were used by the regimes to appease the 
population and to try to show to many poor people that they could overcome 
poverty or the lost of their jobs with these fabulous ways of savings. The 
collapse of such institutions created similar problems in many regimes from 
the Andes to the former Soviet bloc. The Albanian case is the first one 
which has produced a revolution. In neighbouring Macedonia, where one third 
of its population are oppressed for being ethnically Albanians, there are 
also problems with investment pyramids. This explosion could spread to all 
the region.
	An article published in the New York Times (15 March) suggested that 
“the people rampaging through Albania’s streets and displaying captured 
Kalashnikovs are not “The People” who toppled Ferdinand Marcos in Manila or 
the velvet revolutionaries of Prague in 1989. Rather, they are driven by an 
unlikely coalition of unreformed Communists and the Albanian Mafia that 
threatens to plunge the country into civil war.” Berisha and many 
imperialist papers are accusing the revolution of being a Mafia-Marxist 
plot. 
	In every insurrection it is inevitable that the organise crime wants 
to take advantage of the situation and that the lumpen-proletariat would 
make looting. However, around one million Albanians were defrauded by the 
semi-banks which Berisha used to financed his campaign and to pay for the 
privileges to his collaborators. It was the Albanian regime and police which 
had several links with the Mafia. 
	Italy’s chief anti-Mafia prosecutor, confirmed a report that 
Italian-organised crime groups had sunk money into the pyramid schemes for 
money-laundering and to raise startup capital for new ventures; and that 
Albania had become a significant producer of marijuana and was dabbling in 
the cultivation of coca, the raw material for cocaine. Shqiponja, a company 
run openly by Berisha’s Democratic Party, was used to run guns and drugs, 
and these rackets are continuing in other forms. 
	The areas under rebel control are not in a state of barbaric 
anarchy. Local councils are being formed and they are organising militias 
and the distribution of basic goods. The people there are more free and safe 
than the ones who are living in Tirana. 
	There are many former Stalinist officers and cadres which are trying 
to capture the leadership of the spontaneous revolt. Many of them would have 
links with the Mafia, were involved in the Hoxha’s security police and would 
like to make good deals with imperialism and the new bourgeoisie. 
	However, we can not judge a movement by its episodic leaders. We 
need to see the mass movement itself and in which direction it is going. The 
rebels are not raising US flags or demanding concessions to the market. They 
are fighting against neo-liberal measures and a right-wing regime. The 
rebellion, despite all its great limitations, started in the most 
pro-Socialist areas, are using red flags and is under attack for being “far 
left”. 
	The Albanians are using the classical proletarian insurrection 
methods: strikes, mass demonstrations, disarming the police and the army, 
assaulting barracks and create local councils and militias. Marxists have to 
intervene in this process trying to prevent the new dual power bodies from 
becaming bureaucratised, destroyed, dissolved or re-integrating into the 
system.  
	All their delegates have to be elected and recallable in rank and 
file assemblies. The armed militias should only recognise their authority. 
The new bourgeoisie and former security agents have to be expelled from 
them. 

Stalinists ‘reconcile’ with Berisha
	The Stalinists are showing once again their counter-revolutionary 
role. They have decided to join Berisha’s regime and to rearm the repressive 
forces.
	On March 2, Berisha declared a state of emergency, one day later he 
was re-elected nearly unanimously for a new five-year term and he launched a 
military offensive against the rebels. However, he failed and was forced to 
ask his opponents to rescue him. 	Berisha had banned the “Communist” 
Party of Labour and put in jail the leader of the Socialist Party, former 
prime minister Fatos Nano. When the insurrection begun he accused the 
“Comunists” of being the instigators and that he would not deal with them.  
The Socialist Party didn’t allow their deputies to attend the parliament. 
	Despite all of this hostility, the Socialists and all the opposition 
parties created with Berisha a “government of reconciliation” on Sunday 9. 
Berisha already sacrificed the man who had been his prime minister since he 
made his government in April 92. The new cabinet is led by Bashkim Fino, a 
leader of the SP and a former major of Gjirokasta (one of the leading rebel 
cities), and is composed by 5 members of the DP, 5 from the SP, 4 from the 
Social Democrats and one each for other five minor opposition parties. 
	Berisha has capitulated to almost all the opposition demands. He 
called for general elections in June, he made a national unity government 
and he declared amnesty to the rebels. His chief of security, Bashkim 
Gazidede, resigned. 
	However, the insurrection was not stopped. The rebellion which 
started in the southwest corner of Albania, from the Adriatic ports of Vlore 
and Sarande to the inland towns of Delvine, Gjirokaster, Tepelene, Permet 
and Berat, took control of Berat, Elbasani, Lushnja and the Tirana airport, 
in central Albania, and later Durasi, the country’s main port, and Shkodar, 
the main northern city. About 300 prisoners from the Central Jail were 
released during a mayhem, including two archenemies of Berisha, the leader 
of the Socialist Party, Nano and the last “Communist” chief of Albania, 
Ramiz Alia.

“Berisha accepted that he has no institutional control,” Skender Gjinushi of 
the opposition Social Democrats reported after meeting with the president. 
“He has no army, no police, Tirana is in total anarchy.” 

	Berisha tried to play off the ancient rivalries between the 
southerners, which speak the Tosk dialect and are relatively more develop, 
and the northerners, which speak the Gheg dialect, and have more mountaneous 
tribal traditions. Berisha came from the north and he put his follow 
countrymen in top executive positions in the police and the government. 
However, the north is now shaken by the insurrection. In Shkodar all state 
institutions were set on fire, the armoury emptied, and the headquarters of 
the secret police and a local bank were destroyed.
	The new “socialist” premier said that the reorganisation of police 
and army would be a top priority of his emergency government and he promised 
to triple the salaries to the police forces, and to campaign to hire new 
staff for the now powerless ministries of interior and defence.
	The SP is desperate to re-establish order. They had also been 
involved in dirty business. They begun the return to the new savage 
capitalist economy. One of the main pyramid schemes was controlled by them.  
Fino said that the government would work closely with the political parties 
and the local committees in the insurgent Albanian towns to stabilise the 
country.
	In the first weekend of March masked police controlled Tirana. Many 
Albanians, including criminals, were allowed to be conscripted in 24 hours 
as new policemen. The Socialists are re-creating the bourgeois repressive 
institutions with the aim of disarming the insurrections or smashing its 
most intransigent wings.
	A leader of the European Security Council, Vanitsky, after meeting 
with Fino and officials from local committees in insurgent-held towns in 
southern Albania, said that the Albanians are asking for military 
intervention and that it could be a possibility to send 4,000 troops. 
Already, Italy, Greece and other European countries are moving in that 
direction. 
	In mid-March, Fino’s main aim was to try to make agreements with the 
rebel cities. Many southern city councils created a “National Committee for 
People’s Salvation” which is not part of the new national unity government. 
Already more than 150,000 weapons, including tanks and planes, are in 
rebel’s hands. The Socialists wants to re-create the bourgeois state 
apparatus and to use the elections to form a new legalised regime.
	The elections are seeing as a distraction manoeuvre to appease and 
divide the rebels.  However, one of the leaders of the new ruling coalition, 
Nerita Ceka, recognised that it would be impossible to convene elections 
while there are so many armed groups and he would like to extend the period 
of the new government.  Some insurgents declared “We are not interested in 
elections or in a provisional government. Albania’s south and very soon the 
rest of the country would not depose their weapons until Berisha have to 
leave” (El Pais, 10 March)
	For revolutionaries the main task is to maintain, democratise, 
consolidate and centralise the new local power councils. We have to demand 
no conciliation with Berisha or any of the bourgeois parties! Transform the 
councils and militias into working class alternative power!
	It is possible that Berisha could resign. Italian Foreign Minister 
Lamberto Dini told the newspaper La Repubblica that Fino had to decide 
whether Berisha’s presence was “an obstacle to pacifying the country or not, 
and whether his continuation in the role can be accepted at least to prepare 
elections or not.” The west and the government could sacrifice him with the 
aim of integrating several southern forces into the reconstruction of the 
state. However, there is also the risk that Berisha’s gunmen could create a 
military focus in the north. 

Revolutionary way
	Albanian workers have have a big problem. There is no revolutionary 
party. The few Albanian trotskyists were heavily persecuted by the Fascist 
occupation forces and by Hoxha’s Stalinists. The only “Marxist” tradition is 
the one created by Hoxha who imposed a model of complete autarky and 
isolation even against the rest of the so-called “socialist” states. 
	In August the former Hoxha party, the “Socialists” dropped the term 
“marxism” from their programme. It is indispensable to create the first 
nucleus of genuine Marxists who should advocate the strategy of an 
internationalist revolution of workers councils and militias.  In these 
actions many radicalised workers and young people should try to fine answers 
and revolutionary alternatives. Trotskyists needs to participate in this 
process. 
	Two important questions are being raised with the Albanian uprising. 
First, it is showing that capitalist restoration can not be a peaceful 
process and that it is the first signal that spontaneous insurrections could 
be the answer to many years of market experiments. What is happening today 
in Albania could happen tomorrow in Russia. Second, it shows to the workers 
of France, Britain and Germany and other European countries which are ruled 
by right wing governments which were part of the same international as the 
Albanian “Democratic” Party, that there is a revolutionary way to react 
against so many attacks.


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