File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/97-03-22.213, message 21


Date: Wed, 19 Mar 97 13:04:05    
Subject: M-G: Three powers in Albania


International Viewpoint

Arise ye starvelings!

The 20th century ends as it began: with the humiliated and 
exploited masses taking to the streets.

par Georges Mitralias

How exotic Albania seems, dear readers! The mass of analysis
and comment produced by the Western media all leads us to 
one conclusion: Albania is totally unique, and the Albanians
do not belong to the "civilised world". 

>From this point of view, everything seems understandable. 

. The popular upsurge happened because Albanians are so 
naive that "pyramid" schemes separated most of them from 
their savings. Schemes run by financial institutions which 
could never exist elsewhere. 

. The insurrection extended from south to north because of 
the traditional "tribal" confrontation between southerners 
and northerners. 

. The civil war can only lead to a "chaos" which, for 
Albania, has never been far below the surface. 

We are comforted by the suggestion that the Albanian case is
unique in Western Europe, that the popular revolt there has 
no similarity with the revolutions of the past, and order 
can only be re-established from outside. Noble savages, or 
poor bastards, however you see them the Albanians are 
supremely unable to enter the modern world without the aid 
of the civilised world.

Reality check

All this is false. Albanians are no more naive than the five
million Romanians, three million Russians and half-million 
Bulgarians who have "invested" their savings in pyramid 
schemes. Many Macedonians continue to risk their savings in 
this way. 

The schemes in question: Vefa in Albania, MMM in Russia (run
by parliamentarian Sergei Mavrodi) are not a local invention
of the post-communist era. Pyramids were invented in the USA
in the 1930s, and were -- for a while -- fantastically 
popular in Western Europe. 

The real difference between Luxembourg in the 1930s and 
Albania in 1996 is the IMF pressure which obliged Tirana to 
abolish guarantees on bank deposits, and liberalise the 
banking and financial sector to the point that pyramid 
schemes offering monthly interest rates of up to 100% became
legally possible. 

**The IMF demanded the suppression of Article 28 of Law 
7560/1992, and helped draft Law 8075/1996.

This wasn't a "mistake" by the authorities and the IMF, but 
a deliberate attempt to encourage the primitive accumulation
of capital which Albania's fledgling bourgeoisie so badly 
needs. One new banking company, Vefa quickly became a 
holding company controlling at least 240 enterprises, from a
super-market chain to petrol stations, seaside hotels and 
food processing plants. 

The total fraud exceeds US$2 billion, or 80% of the 
country's Gross Domestic Product -- the total value of goods
and services produced in a year. The capitalists would have 
rightly considered this exploit to be a major success  if 
only the armed insurrection had not occurred.

The IMF, World Bank and other international institutions are
not just guilty of "selective blindness" towards the pyramid
schemes. For several years, they had been boosting the myth 
of an Albanian economy growing at an unparalleled rate of 
over 10%/year. Albania was a model, they argued. And 
President Sali Berisha was a true soldier of neo-liberalism.
 

This is another falsification. "They made fools out of us" 
(now) admits an expert at Vienna's prestigious Institute of 
Comparative Studies. In fact, Albania's five years of 
economic reform are "catastrophic". Since the industrial 
base was almost totally destroyed in the early period, "it 
was not difficult to produce high growth rates, stretching 
forward indefinitely". 

Albania's industry has been almost totally dismantled, and a
majority of peasants, particularly in the south, have 
abandoned the agricultural sector. Unemployment affects up 
to 80% of the population. The only fast-growing sectors of 
the economy are those linked to the black market and 
organised crime (smuggling of all types, and marijuana 
cultivation). Berisha's capitalist Albania would have gone 
bankrupt years ago, were it not for the pitiful sums sent 
home by the 500,000 Albanians working illegally, in 
slave-like conditions, in Greece, Italy and other countries.

A nation-wide uprising

The south of Albania is traditionally more prosperous, more 
politicised and more restless, and the north poorer, quieter
and more conservative. But the recent insurrection was a 
nation-wide phenomenon. It started in the towns of the south
(Vlore, Saranda, Gjirokastre, Tepelene, and Delvino). But 
ten days later citizens in the north began to take to the 
streets.  Western media reports of a Northern 
"counter-revolt" in support of Berisha are completely false.
Even in the President's home town, Bajram Curri,  the people
burned all symbols of the detested regime, and chanted "down
with Berisha". 

The western press all talk of civil war. Where is the 
evidence? The army and police literally dissolved at the 
beginning of the insurrection, and the regime sought, in 
vain, to identify and fortify a social base. The civil war 
is an invention of western "Albania specialists". In 
reality, the immense majority of the Albanian population 
rose up. The small bourgeois layers, and the various 
servants of the regime preferred to keep their heads down, 
and wait for better days.

No "tribal" division, no pro-Berisha resistance, no civil 
war, and no massacres. Yes, there was an element of chaos, 
an element of "anarchy". But let's be clear. 

The bourgeois media presented this anarchy as the result of 
the collapse of the Albanian state, the institutions, and, 
above all, the repressive state forces -- the army and 
police. After all, our rulers argue, since order and law 
require a (bourgeois) state, an army and a police force, the
collapse of these pillars of peace can only lead to anarchy.
Right?

Wrong! In only 4-5 days, people in the areas of revolt began
to organise themselves, and create self-management and 
self-defence organs for each town or village. Then 
completely new municipal and district councils were elected.
And the self-defence groups were transformed into fairly 
well disciplined partisan units, with clearly defined 
responsibilities, using former officers, and deserters from 
the Albanian Army.

For two weeks there was no regional co-ordination of these 
local self-management bodies. Then eight southern towns 
agreed to form a "National Committee of Public Salvation", 
composed of representatives of each "autonomous communal 
council". A further five towns quickly joined them. This was
the beginning of a dual power situation. The rebels had 
appropriated almost all the attributes of state power-- 
police, army, and civil administration. 

There is still a shortage of information about the way these
new organs of popular power actually operate. But it is 
clear that important decisions are taken at daily public 
meetings, usually in the town square. A large majority of 
the population participate. In Vlore and Gjirokastre public 
meetings overturned the conciliatory positions of their 
leaders, and re-stated that Berisha's resignation was an 
essential pre-condition to any settlement. On a number of 
occasions since then, local leaders have bent under pressure
>from western ambassadors, and agreed to all kinds of 
concessions, only to fail to win support for these policies 
in the general assemblies. The masses refuse to give up 
their arms until the regime is overturned, and Berisha 
kicked out.

When northern towns joined the revolt, they created similar 
self-management structures. By 12-13 March, there were two 
Albanias. Tirana, the capital, was under Berisha's control, 
with agents of the "Shik" secret police patrolling all 
areas. Outside Tirana, the whole of the county was in 
revolt!

The people, the parties, and the president

No surprise that the insurrection was not led by, and 
declared itself independent from the country's opposition 
parties. There is a huge gulf between the radicalism of the 
demands of the armed populace (resignation and trial of Sali
Berisha, dismantling of the regime and the secret police, 
reorganisation of the state on a new basis, full 
reimbursement of the money stolen from the people through  
the pyramid schemes, punishment of those responsible, as an 
example to the others) and the conciliatory attitude which 
most opposition parties have adapted towards President 
Berisha.

Apart from the Democratic Alliance, Albania's political 
parties have been extremely moderate -- a moderation which 
fails to hide their own fear of a self-managed popular 
movement which, in the final analysis, no longer has need of
their services! Since the insurrection began in Vlore on 
February 28th, opposition leaders have been overtaken by the
events, and have recognised that they are threatened with 
becoming irrelevant. Their own social base was melting away:
the more the rank and file of the opposition parties 
radicalised, the deeper it became involved in the 
transformation of the revolt into an authentic revolution.

Before the uprising, no-one would have imagined that the 
leaders of all opposition parties would accept Berisha's 
authority, and sit down with him to discuss, and express 
support for, his proposals. Yet this is how the "opposition"
has reacted to the uprising. 

While Sali Berisha denounced the "red terrorists" who he 
said were behind the revolt, the Socialist Party 
(ex-Communist) agreed to join Berisha' "National Unity" 
government. As if they didn't realise who's members the 
president was labelling as "red terrorists." The acting 
Socialist Party leader Bashkim Fino even became Prime 
Minister, while the undisputed leader of his party, Fatos 
Nano, remained in the prison cell where Berisha sent him in 
1994!

Total confusion. The rank and file having disappeared, the 
Socialist Party leadership found itself without roots, and 
began to tear itself apart. Bashkim Fino met with leaders of
the insurrection in Gjirokastre (where he used to be mayor),
and recognised the "essential role" of the "people in arms."
Meanwhile, a Socialist Party spokesperson denounced the 
costs of "anarchy" and called for a return to "the normal 
situation which existed before." 

It surely seemed to the insurgent population that the 
opposition parties were, if not allies of Berisha, then 
certainly objectively acting in the President's interest. 
There was only one response possible: the National Public 
Salvation Committee immediately declared itself to be 
independent of all the political parties, and demanded that 
it participate directly in the negotiations, as a "third 
pole."

Unfortunately, without a clear-thinking political 
leadership, the popular movement was torn between its 
spontaneous dynamic, which subverted the old order, and the 
remnants of the population's sympathy for the opposition 
parties. Leading insurgents continued to demand that Berisha
resign, but did not attack, verbally, those who had now 
associated themselves with the president. The insurgents 
"tolerated" Bashkim Fino's new Government of National 
Reconciliation, a government which protected Sali Berisha's 
role as President of the Republic, but at the same time the 
people refused to surrender their weapons, and submit to the
authority of this government. 

As a result, three weeks after the beginning of the 
insurrection, Albania had three centres of power. 

. The remnants of the old Berisha regime, disintegrating, 
but still operative, thanks to the former opposition (now 
government's) refusal to cut its links with "the 
constitutional order", and thirdly the armed population and 
their National Committee of Public Salvation. This 
"independent third pole" declared itself to be completely 
opposed to the old regime, but showed itself willing to make
a deal with the new, Fino government.

The situation was now evolving towards a hybrid, 
intermediary solution, which would delay the final solution 
of the conflict one way or the other.  The ball was in the 
hands of the new government. The old Berisha regime was 
seriously weakened, the westerns embassies had stressed 
their support and understanding and, above all, the popular 
movement had no revolutionary leadership. And so, the Fino 
government took the initiative. A minimal state (police and 
army) was reconstituted, and the government proclaimed 
itself to be the saviour of the endangered motherland.

This government is too varied to represent a long term 
solution. The first public demonstration  in support of the 
new government began with cries of "we want peace," and 
finished with singing of the Internationale! 

Those crazy Albanians again, right? Wrong again! Most of the
several thousand demonstrators were members of the Socialist
Party. Their feelings might be contradictory, but they are 
certainly comprehensible. These people, residents of Tirana 
for the most part, support the government which, in effect, 
has ended the Berisha dictatorship, but they remain 
frightened by the great unknown: the Albanian people in 
arms.  This was not the first time in the 20th century that 
Stalinist bureaucrats, or ex-Stalinist social-democrats, 
sang the Internationale to exorcise the ghost of a 
revolution which they see as a competitor, even a danger. 

Which way forward?

As we go to press (20th March), the situation in Albania is 
more confused than ever. Casualties have been very limited: 
less than 100 deaths during three weeks of insurrection in a
Balkan country where everyone is armed to the teeth. But 
now, for the first time, there is a real danger of anarchy, 
and total chaos. Hundreds of thousands of people are now 
motivated by hunger and desperation. To paraphrase the 
Internationale, "the starvelings have awoken from their 
slumber." Italian television has convinced people that, in 
Western Europe, "even the cats eat from silver plates." 
People will be ready to do almost anything to satisfy their 
basic needs, and their (also modest) dreams.

People of good will in western Europe have been troubled by 
the spectacle of armed insurrection, and the collapse of 
Berisha's regime. 



The combination of economic crisis, fraud during the May 
1996 elections, and the collapse of the financial 
organisations running the pyramid schemes stripped the 
Berisha regime of all legitimacy, and exposed it as the 
number one enemy of the overwhelming majority of Albanians.

The subsequent social explosion quickly threw up a 
fairly-well structured popular administration, which 
challenged the Tirana regime. The balance of forces quickly 
shifted against the Berisha regime, and it was finally a 
third force, the leadership of the Socialist Party and the 
other parties of the old opposition which stepped into the 
vacuum of power, and took up the dominant position. 

After three weeks of general revolt, a precarious 
equilibrium has been installed. It could break down at any 
moment. On the one hand, the popular movement cruelly lacks 
clear perspectives. On the other hand, the remaining 
financial companies will almost certainly collapse. 
Meanwhile, Sali Berisha refuses to resign. There is little 
prospect of stability under the National Reconciliation 
Government. 

Those who wish to defeat the Albanian insurrection will need
time, and all the machiavelian skill of the western powers. 
In the meantime, the armed population may be able to exploit
the hesitation of the west, and the Socialist Party 
bureaucrats, and become even more radical, and more 
explicitly plebeian. It may throw up new leaders, men and 
women who are able to meet the responsibilities and face the
challenges which the dynamic of permanent revolution imposes
in Albania today.

The Albanian insurrection is not the result of exceptional 
circumstances. We may see similar social earthquakes 
elsewhere in the Balkans, particularly in Macedonia or 
Bulgaria. Russian nationalist leader Alexander Lebed 
recently warned that Russia itself could "easily become the 
Albania of 1998" .

END
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