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Albania
Albania and China
Albania played a role in the Sino-Soviet conflict far outweighing
either its size or its importance in the communist world. By 1958
Albania stood with China in opposing Moscow on issues of peaceful
coexistence, de-Stalinization, and Yugoslavia's "separate road
to socialism" through decentralization of economic life. The Soviet
Union, other East European countries, and China all offered Albania
large amounts of aid. Soviet leaders also promised to build a
large Palace of Culture in Tiranė as a symbol of the Soviet people's
"love and friendship" for the Albanians. But despite these gestures,
Tiranė was dissatisfied with Moscow's economic policy toward Albania.
Hoxha and Shehu apparently decided in May or June 1960 that Albania
was assured of Chinese support, and they openly sided with China
when sharp polemics erupted between China and the Soviet Union.
Ramiz Alia, at the time a candidate-member of the Politburo and
Hoxha's adviser on ideological questions, played a prominent role
in the rhetorical.
The Sino-Soviet split burst into the open in June 1960 at a Romanian
Workers' Party congress, at which Khrushchev attempted to secure
condemnation of Beijing. Albania's delegation, alone among the
European delegations, supported the Chinese. The Soviet Union
immediately retaliated by organizing a campaign to oust Hoxha
and Shehu in the summer of 1960. Moscow cut promised grain deliveries
to Albania during a drought, and the Soviet embassy in Tiranė
overtly encouraged a pro-Soviet faction in the APL to speak out
against the party's pro-Chinese stand. Moscow also apparently
involved itself in a plot within the APL to unseat Hoxha and Shehu
by force. But given their tight control of the party machinery,
army, and Shehu's secret police, the Directorate of State Security
(Drejtorija e Siguimit te Shtetit--Sigurimi), the two Albanian
leaders easily parried the threat. Five pro-Soviet Albanian leaders
were eventually tried and executed. China immediately began making
up for the cancellation of Soviet wheat shipments despite a paucity
of foreign currency and its own economic hardships.
Albania again sided with China when it launched an attack on
the Soviet Union's leadership of the international communist movement
at the November 1960 Moscow conference of the world's eighty-one
communist parties. Hoxha inveighed against Khrushchev for encouraging
Greek claims to southern Albania, sowing discord within the APL
and army, and using economic blackmail. "Soviet rats were able
to eat while the Albanian people were dying of hunger," Hoxha
railed, referring to purposely delayed Soviet grain deliveries.
Communist leaders loyal to Moscow described Hoxha's performance
as "gangsterish" and "infantile," and the speech extinguished
any chance of an agreement between Moscow and Tiranė. For the
next year, Albania played proxy for China. Pro-Soviet communist
parties, reluctant to confront China directly, criticized Beijing
by castigating Albania. China, for its part, frequently gave prominence
to the Albanians' fulminations against the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia,
which Tiranė referred to as a "socialist hell."
Hoxha and Shehu continued their harangue against the Soviet Union
and Yugoslavia at the APL's Fourth Party Congress in February
1961. During the congress, the Albanian government announced the
broad outlines of the country's Third Five-Year Plan (1961-65),
which allocated 54 percent of all investment to industry, thereby
rejecting Khrushchev's wish to make Albania primarily an agricultural
producer. Moscow responded by canceling aid programs and lines
of credit for Albania, but the Chinese again came to the rescue.
After additional sharp exchanges between Soviet and Chinese delegates
over Albania at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Twenty-Second
Party Congress in October 1961, Khrushchev lambasted the Albanians
for executing a pregnant, pro-Soviet member of the Albanian party
Politburo, and the Soviet Union finally broke diplomatic relations
with Albania in December. Moscow then withdrew all Soviet economic
advisers and technicians from the country, including those at
work on the Palace of Culture, and halted shipments of supplies
and spare parts for equipment already in place in Albania. In
addition, the Soviet Union continued to dismantle its naval installations
on Sazan Island, a process that had begun even before the break
in relations.
China again compensated Albania for the loss of Soviet economic
support, supplying about 90 percent of the parts, foodstuffs,
and other goods the Soviet Union had promised. Beijing lent the
Albanians money on more favorable terms than Moscow, and, unlike
Soviet advisers, Chinese technicians earned the same low pay as
Albanian workers and lived in similar housing. China also presented
Albania with a powerful radio transmission station from which
Tiranė sang the praises of Stalin, Hoxha, and Mao Zedong for decades.
For its part, Albania offered China a beachhead in Europe and
acted as China's chief spokesman at the UN. To Albania's dismay,
however, Chinese equipment and technicians were not nearly so
sophisticated as the Soviet goods and advisers they replaced.
Ironically, a language barrier even forced the Chinese and Albanian
technicians to communicate in Russian. Albanians no longer took
part in Warsaw Pact activities or Comecon agreements. The other
East European communist nations, however, did not break diplomatic
or trade links with Albania. In 1964 the Albanians went so far
as to seize the empty Soviet embassy in Tiranė, and Albanian workers
pressed on with construction of the Palace of Culture on their
own.
The shift away from the Soviet Union wreaked havoc on Albania's
economy. Half of its imports and exports had been geared toward
Soviet suppliers and markets, so the souring of Tiranė's relations
with Moscow brought Albania's foreign trade to near collapse as
China proved incapable of delivering promised machinery and equipment
on time. The low productivity, flawed planning, poor workmanship,
and inefficient management at Albanian enterprises became clear
when Soviet and East European aid and advisers were withdrawn.
In 1962 the Albanian government introduced an austerity program,
appealing to the people to conserve resources, cut production
costs, and abandon unnecessary investment.
In October 1964, Hoxha hailed Khrushchev's fall from power, and
the Soviet Union's new leaders made overtures to Tiranė. It soon
became clear, however, that the new Soviet leadership had no intention
of changing basic policies to suit Albania, and relations failed
to improve. Tiranė's propaganda continued for decades to refer
to Soviet officials as "treacherous revisionists" and "traitors
to communism," and in 1964 Hoxha said that Albania's terms for
reconciliation were a Soviet apology to Albania and reparations
for damages inflicted on the country. Soviet-Albanian relations
dipped to new lows after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
in 1968, when Albania responded by officially withdrawing from
the alliance.
Data as of April 1992
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