From Albania Today, 1978, 3
The Leninist theory of the revolution and historical experience show that socialism does not triumph simultaneously in all countries. After its birth, it is encircled by enemies. Between victorious socialism and dying capitalism, a stern and irreconcilable struggle goes on in the ideological field, on a national and international scale
As in all the other problems of the theory and practice of scientific socialism, the PLA has a rich experience, also, in the questions of the class struggle. Its generalizations in this field are a valuable contribution to the enrichment of the Marxist-Leninist theory, a new illumination and further development of the theses of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin at a new stage of the socialist revolution.
The PLA upholds the Marxist-Leninist theses that the class struggle in socialism is waged simultaneously on all fronts and in all directions, in the political; ideological, economic and military fields. The struggle on the ideological front, as comrade Enver Hoxha stressed at the 7th Congress of the Party, constitutes one of the principal directions of the class struggle.
In socialist society, the ideological struggle is an objective phenomenon, which is conditioned by the development of the socialist construction and by its relationships with the surrounding world.
Along with the destruction of the capitalist political and economic order, the socialist revolution also overturns all the ideological and cultural institutions which support and defend this order. Socialist ideology, as the ideology of the class in power, becomes the dominant ideology. However, its extension in breadth and depth is an uninterrupted process. In socialism, the hang-overs of the old ideology, the petty-bourgeois psychology and the force of habit linger on for a long time. The socialist construction is in direct conflict with these hang-overs, which constitute a serious obstacle in its road of development. Lenin has emphasized that “when the revolution is carried out, what takes place is not the same as when a man dies, and is put away after his death. When the old society dies, its corpse cannot be put in a coffin and taken to the graveyard. It decomposes amongst us: this corpse putrefies and contaminates us all". (1) That is why the Marxist-Leninist Party wages a ceaseless all-round ideological struggle in order to liberate the working masses from the spiritual enslavement of alien ideologies.
In socialist society, new relations of production are built. But because socialism “cannot be fully mature from the economic view” (2) these relations still retain traces of capitalist society, such as "bourgeois right”. On this basis, it comes about under certain conditions, not only that the remnants of the alien ideology in the consciousness of the working people are revived but also that new negative phenomena emerge if the Party of the working class does not wage a consistent struggle to restrict their emergence for the gradual narrowing of distinctions.
The Leninist theory of the revolution and historical experience show that socialism does not triumph simultaneously in all countries. After its birth, it is encircled by enemies. Between victorious socialism and dying capitalism, a stern and irreconcilable struggle goes on in the ideological field, on a national and international scale. Socialism has to cope with the all-round ideological aggression of the bourgeois and revisionist world.
The defence of Marxism-Leninism has been and remains an imperative task of the Marxist-Leninist parties. However, in the conditions of the victory of socialism, this task assumes special significance and breadth. In socialist society, the laws and the principles of the Marxist-Leninist theory find a wide field of application, its various aspects come into operation and their correctness must be confirmed in the practice of socialist construction. This task is accompanied with an all-round struggle for the defence and further development of the Marxist-Leninist theory on the basis of the new experience, in struggle against anti-Marxist theories and practices and all the anti-communist propaganda.
In these conditions, not only is the ideological struggle in the period of socialist construction unavoidable, but it also has a very sharp character. Led by the Marxist-Leninist party, the, working class and the working masses wage the ideological struggle against bourgeois and revisionist ideology as a whole, against all remnants and blemishes from the old society and against any other negative phenomenon which may emerge on the basis of them as well as in defence of the victories achieved in the political, military and economic fields, to ensure victory in the ideological field, too, and to build the classless society. The overthrown bourgeoisie, the internal and external enemies of socialism, wage their ideological struggle in order to return to capitalism. “In the final analysis,” says comrade Enver Hoxha, “the ideological struggle has to do with the question of whether socialism and communism will be built and the restoration of capitalism averted, or whether the door will be opened to the dissemination of bourgeois and revisionist ideology and the return to capitalism will be permitted.” (3)
The struggle in ideology is all-sided. It is waged against enemies as well as among the people. It is a struggle for the resolution of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. Our Party has been and is opposed to the narrow one-sided concepts of the class struggle in ideology, which reduce it to a struggle that is waged mainly among the people. It has stressed that this struggle is directly connected with the defence of the dictatorship of the proletariat, with the preservation, strengthening and development of the socialist economic order, with the strengthening and revolutionization of the party, with the uninterrupted development of the revolution. The contradiction between the Marxist-Leninist proletarian ideology and reactionary bourgeois and revisionist ideology, in every form and wherever it shows up, is an antagonist contradiction. This contradiction finds its expression both in the direct clash with the bourgeois and revisionist ideology and in the struggle which goes on amongst the people to liberate them from the remnants and influences of alien ideology. Even when the struggle is waged among the people, it contains the two kinds of contradictions. Whereas the contradiction with the bearers of alien ideologies is non-antagonistic, the contradiction with the remnants and the influences of the alien ideology, themselves, is antagonistic. When they are obliged to speak about the need to wage the ideological struggle in socialist society, the revisionist theoreticians treat this struggle in a one-sided manner, as a struggle which is waged only amongst the people and only against certain unimportant remnants of the alien ideologies in the consciousness of the working masses, which do not constitute any danger to the socialist order. By minimizing the importance of the ideological struggle under socialism, in fact, they negate the necessity for it, just as they negate the necessity for the political and economic struggle.
The ideological struggle has its own features which distinguish it from the political and economic struggle. But this fact does not divorce it from them, they act in unity. As early as 1905, Lenin described the efforts to separate the main forms of the class struggle, to oppose them to one another, as wrong from the theoretical standpoint and absurd from the practical standpoint.
Basing itself on the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and on the national and international experience, the 7th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania stressed that under socialism, too, the class struggle goes on fiercely in its three forms simultaneously, because the slightest weakening of one front is a deviation from the Marxist-Leninist theory, causes the weakening of the class struggle as a whole, and brings incalculable harm to the cause of the working class and socialism.
The class struggle is .complex. It is impossible to find a purely political, purely ideological, or purely economic struggle.
For the final triumph of the proletarian ideology over the bourgeois and revisionist ideology, not only the ideological struggle but also the political and economic struggle are necessary, just as the tasks on the political and economic front are inconceivable apart from the world outlook, the proletarian ideology of our Party.
The PLA has waged the ideological struggle consistently at all stages of the revolution. However, after the seizure of the power, in the period of the socialist conduction, this struggle became more organized, deeper-going and more perfected.
The ideological struggle under socialism is broad. It is waged simultaneously against the remnants of alien ideologies and against the pressure of the bourgeois and revisionist ideology, against conservatism and against liberalism, against all the manifestations of idealist and reactionary world outlooks. It is waged on a national and international level. It covers all fields of life: political, social and economic. It is a complicated struggle, because it is waged against enemies, but it is also waged amongst the people, amongst the classes and strata of our own society, including the working class and the Party itself. In the struggle for the construction of socialism, the working class and the masses of working people transform themselves, too.
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The ideological struggle constitutes one of the most important and difficult fronts of the struggle against the overthrown bourgeoisie and international imperialism. In 1920, V. I. Lenin stressed: “Our task is to overcome all resistance of the capitalists, not only military and political but also ideological resistance, which is the most deeply-rooted and stubborn resistance”. (4)
Today, in the conditions of the increasing severity of the class struggle on the national and international level, the struggle of the enemies on the ideological front has assumed the form of an organized, large-scale, ideological aggression. In the global policy of imperialism and social-imperialism against Albania, this aggression has a special place. The all-round strengthening of its economic, political and military power, the enhancement of its international prestige, and the repeated defeats of the schemes and attempts of the enemies against socialist Albania, make them change tactics frequently. Along with their political and military aggression, they have intensified the struggle on the ideological front with the aim of creating breaches, favourable soil, and support-points for the achievement of their aims by means of the bloodless war. The ideological degeneration of the Soviet Union, and the other revisionist countries aroused the hopes of the enemies and encouraged them to use ideological aggression on a broad scale against us, too. Today this aggression is greater and more dangerous, because the ideological pressure of the revisionists, which acts in the most subtle forms and is cloaked as “Marxist” has been added to it.
Any political and military aggression is necessarily accompanied by ideological aggression, which serves as a precursor, as a means to prepare the terrain for the armed attack.
The long experience of the struggle between socialism and capitalism confirms this completely and this is borne out by the experience of our struggle in defence of the victories achieved.
However, the bitter experience of the degeneration of the Soviet Union and the former socialist countries into bourgeois states of the new type proves that the ideological aggression does not serve only as an associate element of military aggression, which prepares the ground for its action. Under given conditions it may also serve as a direct means for the realization of the peaceful counter-revolution.
In the armed counter-revolution, armed actions are the main struggle which the enemy uses, while in the peaceful counter-revolution the main form of struggle is that in ideology. In the former case the enemy uses violence as the chief means, in the latter, the degeneration of the party, the cadres and the masses.
The essence of the ideological aggression, as comrade Enver Hoxha has said, lies in the encouragement of liberalism on the whole front. “By instigating liberalism,” comrade Enver Hoxha stressed, “our enemies want us to renounce our principled stand and struggle against modern revisionism, to give up our determined struggle against imperialism, and to open our borders ‘to the free circulation of people, ideas and culture’. They want to spread a liberal and anarchic concept of socialist democracy so as to disrupt our proletarian discipline at work, and undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat. They want our people of culture and the arts to abandon proletarian partisanship in order to open the way to the blossoming of all sorts of decadent bourgeois and revisionist trends. They want all our people, our youth, and all the working people to embrace the degenerate ways of behaviour, tastes and mode of life of the rotten bourgeois-revisionist world.” (5)
Any political and military aggression is necessarily accompanied by ideological aggression, which serves as a precursor, as a means to prepare the terrain for the armed attack.
The long experience of the struggle between socialism and capitalism confirms this completely and this is borne out by the experience of our struggle in defence of the victories achieved.
However, the bitter experience of the degeneration of the Soviet Union and the former socialist countries into bourgeois states of the new type proves that the ideological aggression does not serve only as an associate element of military aggression, which prepares the ground for its action. Under given conditions it may also serve as a direct means for the realization of the peaceful counter-revolution.
In the armed counter-revolution, armed actions are the main struggle which the enemy uses, while in the peaceful counter-revolution the main form of struggle is that in ideology. In the former case the enemy uses violence as the chief means, in the latter, the degeneration of the party, the cadres and the masses.
The essence of the ideological aggression, as comrade Enver Hoxha has said, lies in the encouragement of liberalism on the whole front. “By instigating liberalism,” comrade Enver Hoxha stressed, “our enemies want us to renounce our principled stand and struggle against modern revisionism, to give up our determined struggle against imperialism, and to open our borders ‘to the free circulation of people, ideas and culture’. They want to spread a liberal and anarchic concept of socialist democracy so as to disrupt our proletarian discipline at work, and undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat. They want our people of culture and the arts to abandon proletarian partisanship in order to open the way to the blossoming of all sorts of decadent bourgeois and revisionist trends. They want all our people, our youth, and all the working people to embrace the degenerate ways of behaviour, tastes and mode of life of the rotten bourgeois-revisionist world.” (5)
The aim of the enemies is to encourage liberalism, in the first place among those strata of the population which are most susceptible to ideological pressure, especially in the ranks of the youth and the intelligentsia.
Our Party has taken many measures to close the roads to ideological aggression and has carried out an all-sided activity for the revolutionary education and tempering of the masses of working people, in general, and of youth and the intelligentsia, in particular, in order to make them active forces of the revolution, and protect them from the designs and attacks of enemies. In its activity for the education of youth and the intelligentsia, the PLA has taken account of their nature and social position, and has not allowed them to be transformed into reserves of the counter-revolution, as occurred in the revisionist countries.
The enemy groups of the recent years, which were the offspring of the ideological aggression, relied on liberalism and fostered it in every way for their own hostile aims.
While combating liberalism, the PLA has never underrated the struggle against conservatism. Its history is the history of the simultaneous struggle on the two flanks. Liberalism and conservatism are expressions of alien ideology. Although liberalism constitutes the essence of the ideological aggression, this aggression relies equally on conservatism, exploits the backward customs and all the blemishes of the old society, which still linger on in socialism.
Liberalism is an expression of ideological and political opportunism. Under the mask of the new, the modern, it opens the way to concessions to the class enemy, to conciliation with the influences of alien ideologies, with weaknesses and shortcomings. It is acceptance of peaceful coexistence with the enemy ideology.
Conservatism has its origin in the old ideologies which come from past centuries, but it may also draw its source from some practices and forms of work which were correct in their time, but which the progressive development of our life has cast aside. Conservatism hinders our advance and opposes the socialist construction and our ideology.
It hinders when what is outdated does not give way to the new. It opposes in all those instances when it expresses itself through the remnants of alien ideology or puts itself in the service of that ideology.
All the experience of the struggle of our Party against liberalism and conservatism shows that they are two sides of the same medal. Liberalism is essentially an expression of conservatism in other forms to make it more acceptable. Therefore, the struggle against them constitutes a single front against hostile ideology and activity.
Also merging with this front is the struggle against bureaucracy, as a form of thinking and acting in opposition to the interests of the people and socialism, which is founded on idealist concepts and bourgeois ideology. Bureaucracy does great damage to the socialist order and has an extremely dangerous influence on the cadres. Comrade Enver Hoxha says: “Bureaucrats create a way of thinking and life in the family and society, of a new bourgeoisie within our people's democracy. (6) The struggle against bureaucracy, says Lenin, is just as complicated as the struggle against the spontaneous petty-bourgeois tide, because bureaucracy infects the working people, and especially the cadres, with all the evils which flow from the bourgeois ideology. Therefore, our Party wages an uninterrupted, all-sided ideological struggle to root out bureaucracy, accompanied with concrete revolutionary measures, directed against both liberalism and conservatism, because, in practice, they do not appear and do not act separately.
Our Party has taken many measures to close the roads to ideological aggression and has carried out an all-sided activity for the revolutionary education and tempering of the masses of working people, in general, and of youth and the intelligentsia, in particular, in order to make them active forces of the revolution, and protect them from the designs and attacks of enemies. In its activity for the education of youth and the intelligentsia, the PLA has taken account of their nature and social position, and has not allowed them to be transformed into reserves of the counter-revolution, as occurred in the revisionist countries.
The enemy groups of the recent years, which were the offspring of the ideological aggression, relied on liberalism and fostered it in every way for their own hostile aims.
While combating liberalism, the PLA has never underrated the struggle against conservatism. Its history is the history of the simultaneous struggle on the two flanks. Liberalism and conservatism are expressions of alien ideology. Although liberalism constitutes the essence of the ideological aggression, this aggression relies equally on conservatism, exploits the backward customs and all the blemishes of the old society, which still linger on in socialism.
Liberalism is an expression of ideological and political opportunism. Under the mask of the new, the modern, it opens the way to concessions to the class enemy, to conciliation with the influences of alien ideologies, with weaknesses and shortcomings. It is acceptance of peaceful coexistence with the enemy ideology.
Conservatism has its origin in the old ideologies which come from past centuries, but it may also draw its source from some practices and forms of work which were correct in their time, but which the progressive development of our life has cast aside. Conservatism hinders our advance and opposes the socialist construction and our ideology.
It hinders when what is outdated does not give way to the new. It opposes in all those instances when it expresses itself through the remnants of alien ideology or puts itself in the service of that ideology.
All the experience of the struggle of our Party against liberalism and conservatism shows that they are two sides of the same medal. Liberalism is essentially an expression of conservatism in other forms to make it more acceptable. Therefore, the struggle against them constitutes a single front against hostile ideology and activity.
Also merging with this front is the struggle against bureaucracy, as a form of thinking and acting in opposition to the interests of the people and socialism, which is founded on idealist concepts and bourgeois ideology. Bureaucracy does great damage to the socialist order and has an extremely dangerous influence on the cadres. Comrade Enver Hoxha says: “Bureaucrats create a way of thinking and life in the family and society, of a new bourgeoisie within our people's democracy. (6) The struggle against bureaucracy, says Lenin, is just as complicated as the struggle against the spontaneous petty-bourgeois tide, because bureaucracy infects the working people, and especially the cadres, with all the evils which flow from the bourgeois ideology. Therefore, our Party wages an uninterrupted, all-sided ideological struggle to root out bureaucracy, accompanied with concrete revolutionary measures, directed against both liberalism and conservatism, because, in practice, they do not appear and do not act separately.
The PLA has appreciated the danger posed by these enemies correctly and has combated any sort of distortion or underestimation of its instructions to ensure a consistent ideological struggle against liberalism, bureaucracy and conservatism.
The struggle against the bourgeois-revisionist ideological aggression is a protracted one; therefore it must be waged consistently and continuously. The experience of the ideological struggle which the PLA has been waging shows that the ideological aggression can be overcome and that the restoration of capitalism is not decreed by fate to be inevitable. Socialism has great economic, political and ideological, spiritual and material, potential. If the party of the working class is capable of appreciating and using this potential, it is transformed into indomitable strength. The correct and uninterrupted waging of the class struggle and the leadership of this struggle by the Marxist-Leninist party are the guarantee that the imperialist-revisionist encirclement and its all-round aggression will be coped with. In this struggle, the activity of the party and of the working masses to block the roads to the ideological aggression and to avoid any influence from it is of very great importance. This is the course the PLA has followed. It attaches very great importance to ensuring a correct understanding of the imperialist-revisionist encirclement, to uncovering the ways and main directions it uses against Albania and to the organized struggle in all directions, and has never allowed this encirclement to endanger our socialist order or hinder its advance.
The struggle against the bourgeois-revisionist ideological aggression is a protracted one; therefore it must be waged consistently and continuously. The experience of the ideological struggle which the PLA has been waging shows that the ideological aggression can be overcome and that the restoration of capitalism is not decreed by fate to be inevitable. Socialism has great economic, political and ideological, spiritual and material, potential. If the party of the working class is capable of appreciating and using this potential, it is transformed into indomitable strength. The correct and uninterrupted waging of the class struggle and the leadership of this struggle by the Marxist-Leninist party are the guarantee that the imperialist-revisionist encirclement and its all-round aggression will be coped with. In this struggle, the activity of the party and of the working masses to block the roads to the ideological aggression and to avoid any influence from it is of very great importance. This is the course the PLA has followed. It attaches very great importance to ensuring a correct understanding of the imperialist-revisionist encirclement, to uncovering the ways and main directions it uses against Albania and to the organized struggle in all directions, and has never allowed this encirclement to endanger our socialist order or hinder its advance.
* * *
The Party of Labour of Albania has always considered the struggle against the remnants of alien ideologies, against backward customs and the petty-bourgeois psychology, as one of the most important tasks of the socialist revolution. Its whole history provides the clearest evidence of this concern. The all-round development of the ideological and cultural revolution, led by the PLA, has served directly the struggle to uproot the hang-overs of alien ideologies.
Due to the socio-economic conditions of Albania, the struggle against the influences of alien ideologies has been an extensive and difficult one. Before liberation, Albania was a backward country, with a very low economic and cultural level. Small-scale private property was the predominant form in Albania and there were pronounced survivals of feudal relations. The foreign invaders had left deep imprints of their ideologies and remnants, of their economic and political forms of state organization in the socio-economic life of Albania.
Led by the PLA, the Albanian people rose in struggle and destroyed the old economic and political organization, but they could not free themselves completely from the remnants of the alien ideologies, from the force of backward customs of the canon law and religion, or from the petty-bourgeois psychology. In the period of the national liberation revolution, some of these survivals were dealt a heavy blow, but the decisive struggle against them was to be waged after the establishment of the people's power, in the process of the socialist transformation of our entire reality. The struggle for socialism shows them up more clearly and makes them more intolerable.
This struggle has gone on during the whole process of the socialist revolution, but after the construction of the economic base of socialism it gained in depth and included all fields of socialist life. The great movements to put the general interest above the personal interest everywhere, the movements against religion, religious prejudices, and backward customs, for the complete emancipation of the woman, etc., constitute a great qualitative leap forward in the struggle against the ugliest manifestations of old ideologies.
These movements were conscious actions on the part of the working masses under the leadership of the PLA, which were determined by the level of maturity of the objective and subjective factors, the result of the deep socialist transformations, and especially of the all-round work of the Party for the communist education of the working people.
It is a fact that these movements and their results marked an important victory of the proletarian ideology over the alien ideologies in the consciousness of the masses of working people. In the course of this profound revolutionary process, some of the alien manifestations were eliminated. But those which are left are not few, and they act with different intensities and forms in different strata and zones and in given circumstances. They still remain a major retrogressive force and constitute a real danger to our socialist society. Therefore, the struggle against them continues. Comrade Enver Hoxha instructs us: “The hang-overs from the past in people's consciousness, in their world outlook, cannot be wiped out so easily and quickly; some of them are wiped out or weakened, but others survive and spring up again in new forms if they are not combated.” (7)
Due to the socio-economic conditions of Albania, the struggle against the influences of alien ideologies has been an extensive and difficult one. Before liberation, Albania was a backward country, with a very low economic and cultural level. Small-scale private property was the predominant form in Albania and there were pronounced survivals of feudal relations. The foreign invaders had left deep imprints of their ideologies and remnants, of their economic and political forms of state organization in the socio-economic life of Albania.
Led by the PLA, the Albanian people rose in struggle and destroyed the old economic and political organization, but they could not free themselves completely from the remnants of the alien ideologies, from the force of backward customs of the canon law and religion, or from the petty-bourgeois psychology. In the period of the national liberation revolution, some of these survivals were dealt a heavy blow, but the decisive struggle against them was to be waged after the establishment of the people's power, in the process of the socialist transformation of our entire reality. The struggle for socialism shows them up more clearly and makes them more intolerable.
This struggle has gone on during the whole process of the socialist revolution, but after the construction of the economic base of socialism it gained in depth and included all fields of socialist life. The great movements to put the general interest above the personal interest everywhere, the movements against religion, religious prejudices, and backward customs, for the complete emancipation of the woman, etc., constitute a great qualitative leap forward in the struggle against the ugliest manifestations of old ideologies.
These movements were conscious actions on the part of the working masses under the leadership of the PLA, which were determined by the level of maturity of the objective and subjective factors, the result of the deep socialist transformations, and especially of the all-round work of the Party for the communist education of the working people.
It is a fact that these movements and their results marked an important victory of the proletarian ideology over the alien ideologies in the consciousness of the masses of working people. In the course of this profound revolutionary process, some of the alien manifestations were eliminated. But those which are left are not few, and they act with different intensities and forms in different strata and zones and in given circumstances. They still remain a major retrogressive force and constitute a real danger to our socialist society. Therefore, the struggle against them continues. Comrade Enver Hoxha instructs us: “The hang-overs from the past in people's consciousness, in their world outlook, cannot be wiped out so easily and quickly; some of them are wiped out or weakened, but others survive and spring up again in new forms if they are not combated.” (7)
The struggle against all ideological remnants must be waged; none of them must be underrated. But this does not mean that at a given moment the blow should not be levelled against the one which constitutes the greatest danger and the main link with which all the other remnants are connected. One of the most dangerous enemies of socialism is the sense of private property and the petty-bourgeois psychology. “We have an extremely hidden enemy, which is more dangerous than many declared counterrevolutionaries... this enemy is the instinctive force of the small proprietor”. (8)
Guided by the teachings of Lenin, the PLA followed the road of the liquidation of small-scale private property and the transformation of the small proprietor into a participant in the socialist collective property. Today the socialist attitude to property and work is characteristic of the Albanian working people.
Nonetheless, even at the present stage of the development, the psychology of the private property has not been completely done away with. Now it is expressed in the mania to take from society more than one contributes to it, to ensure high income at the expense of society and the socialist property.
The sense of private property has the quality that it can infect not only the former small owner, but also the other classes or strata of society which were divested of the means of production, such as the working class, but it is mostly preserved and has the greatest influence among peasantry and the intelligentsia.
In the countryside, it is fostered among other things, by the existence of the cooperativists' personal plot. In our conditions, the personal plot does not constitute private property. It is meant to help satisfy some economic needs of the cooperativist family. But it carries the danger of the birth of private property if it is transformed into a source of market commodities, a source of trade and speculation. The private property mentality, which is still very strong in the peasant, increases this danger.
Although it does not constitute a class directly linked with one of the forms of property, the intelligentsia does not escape its influence. Even under socialism, the intelligentsia is not free from the sense of the private property. On the contrary, it constitutes a great and special danger to the intelligentsia. This feeling is fostered both by the petty-bourgeois psychology, which does not disappear at once, and by economic factors, especially by the existence of "bourgeois right”, which cultivates the feeling of interest in greater gains.
Under socialism, the differences in rewards between workers of physical work and those of mental work are preserved. If these differences escape the control of the Party and the working class and begin to increase, they lead to the creation of privileged individuals and strata and stimulate the revival of the feeling of private property in other forms and ways, which, under given circumstances, can assume great and extremely dangerous proportions. This is why the Party has devoted special attention to the reduction of pay differentials.
The struggle for the eradication of the sense of private property is waged in the ranks of the working class, too. The waging of this struggle correctly is an indispensable condition for the enhancement of the leading role of the working class. It cannot lead the struggle for the liberation of the working people from alien ideologies without first freeing itself from them, without first accomplishing its own re-education. In Albania, important successes have been achieved in the struggle for the revolutionary education and tempering of the working class. Many hangovers and prejudices which afflicted it in the past have now taken heavy blows. This has contributed to the ever greater enhancement of the leading role of the working class in our socialist society. However, even among the ranks of the working class there are manifestations of the feeling of the private property, and individuals who do not fully live up to the obligations and tasks of their class.
The sense of private property is often entangled and acts jointly with other remnants of old ideologies, such as backward customs, religious prejudices, and others, which, while being products of given economic relations of the past, in the conditions of the liquidation of these relations, are still based on the sense of private property and are reactivated together with and alongside this feeling. As a special expression of reactionary ideology, they constitute another great danger to socialism. “The remnants of the alien ideologies, the feeling of private property and the placing of personal interests above the general interest,” said comrade Enver Hoxha at the 7th Congress of the Party, "constitute that hot-bed in which bourgeois degeneration and revisionist and capitulationist views are born and fostered." (9)
This conclusion is the result of a thorough analysis of national and international historical experience.
Marx finds one of the main causes of the defeat of the French Revolution of 1848 and the re-establishment of the Bonapartist police regime in the fact that the revolution did not manage to paralyse the retrogressive force of the petty-bourgeois tide, the ignorance and conservatism of the petty-bourgeois strata, especially in the countryside. Marx sees the patriarchal and petty-bourgeois remnants as a terrible force which leads to the reversing of historical development.
Immediately after the victory of the October Revolution, and bearing in mind the experience of history, Lenin, too, drew the attention of the Party and the working class to the danger which threatened the Soviet state from the petty-bourgeois tide. “If we fail to defeat it,” he stressed, “then, we are doomed to failure, like the French Revolution... and we must look this right in the eye, without comforting ourselves with empty words.” (10)
The history of our own days provides other significant examples about the danger of vestiges of alien ideologies. The transformation of the Soviet Union into a capitalist state demonstrated that the revival of vestiges of alien ideologies, and especially of the petty-bourgeois mentality, the sense of private property and putting personal interests above the general interest, are extremely dangerous enemies on which the peaceful counter-revolution is based.
At the same time, however, the history of our days also confirms the teaching of Marx that the revolutionary awakening of toiling masses makes the socialist revolution invincible. The construction of socialism in Albania, the all-round activity of our Party for the tempering of the revolutionary consciousness of the masses against all reactionary ideologies, old and new, provides an example of this.
Although a continuous and persistent struggle is waged in our country against ideological hangovers to prevent the bearers of them from putting themselves in opposition to our socialist order, there are occasions when they are reactivated and even transformed into antagonistic contradictions.
Gossip, grudges, bickering and quarrels, which stem from these ideological remnants are expressions of the aggravation of the contradiction between us and the bearers of these hangovers, which, if we do not intervene to resolve it in time, is liable to turn into an antagonistic contradiction.
Some of the various crimes against socialist property, which are punished by the organs of the dictatorship, are open manifestations of the transformation of non-antagonistic contradictions into antagonistic ones. The most dangerous manifestation of this is the emergence of the enemies of socialism, who act against the Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The transformation of alien remnants into active forces of regression does not occur spontaneously. The class enemy inside and outside the country encourages and supports them, while carelessness by the Party and the working class leaves the way open for their reactivation.
The PLA has never permitted the remnants of alien ideologies to be transformed into soil for the birth of revisionism and to endanger the victories of the socialist revolution. It has always fought them sternly and in a well-considered way. At every stage of this struggle it has always taken into consideration the level of the maturity of the objective and subjective conditions. The PLA has waged the struggle against the alien remnants in unity with the masses, and in the course of this struggle, the masses have been further tempered ideologically, have emerged from it stronger and more revolutionary.
Guided by the teachings of Lenin, the PLA followed the road of the liquidation of small-scale private property and the transformation of the small proprietor into a participant in the socialist collective property. Today the socialist attitude to property and work is characteristic of the Albanian working people.
Nonetheless, even at the present stage of the development, the psychology of the private property has not been completely done away with. Now it is expressed in the mania to take from society more than one contributes to it, to ensure high income at the expense of society and the socialist property.
The sense of private property has the quality that it can infect not only the former small owner, but also the other classes or strata of society which were divested of the means of production, such as the working class, but it is mostly preserved and has the greatest influence among peasantry and the intelligentsia.
In the countryside, it is fostered among other things, by the existence of the cooperativists' personal plot. In our conditions, the personal plot does not constitute private property. It is meant to help satisfy some economic needs of the cooperativist family. But it carries the danger of the birth of private property if it is transformed into a source of market commodities, a source of trade and speculation. The private property mentality, which is still very strong in the peasant, increases this danger.
Although it does not constitute a class directly linked with one of the forms of property, the intelligentsia does not escape its influence. Even under socialism, the intelligentsia is not free from the sense of the private property. On the contrary, it constitutes a great and special danger to the intelligentsia. This feeling is fostered both by the petty-bourgeois psychology, which does not disappear at once, and by economic factors, especially by the existence of "bourgeois right”, which cultivates the feeling of interest in greater gains.
Under socialism, the differences in rewards between workers of physical work and those of mental work are preserved. If these differences escape the control of the Party and the working class and begin to increase, they lead to the creation of privileged individuals and strata and stimulate the revival of the feeling of private property in other forms and ways, which, under given circumstances, can assume great and extremely dangerous proportions. This is why the Party has devoted special attention to the reduction of pay differentials.
The struggle for the eradication of the sense of private property is waged in the ranks of the working class, too. The waging of this struggle correctly is an indispensable condition for the enhancement of the leading role of the working class. It cannot lead the struggle for the liberation of the working people from alien ideologies without first freeing itself from them, without first accomplishing its own re-education. In Albania, important successes have been achieved in the struggle for the revolutionary education and tempering of the working class. Many hangovers and prejudices which afflicted it in the past have now taken heavy blows. This has contributed to the ever greater enhancement of the leading role of the working class in our socialist society. However, even among the ranks of the working class there are manifestations of the feeling of the private property, and individuals who do not fully live up to the obligations and tasks of their class.
The sense of private property is often entangled and acts jointly with other remnants of old ideologies, such as backward customs, religious prejudices, and others, which, while being products of given economic relations of the past, in the conditions of the liquidation of these relations, are still based on the sense of private property and are reactivated together with and alongside this feeling. As a special expression of reactionary ideology, they constitute another great danger to socialism. “The remnants of the alien ideologies, the feeling of private property and the placing of personal interests above the general interest,” said comrade Enver Hoxha at the 7th Congress of the Party, "constitute that hot-bed in which bourgeois degeneration and revisionist and capitulationist views are born and fostered." (9)
This conclusion is the result of a thorough analysis of national and international historical experience.
Marx finds one of the main causes of the defeat of the French Revolution of 1848 and the re-establishment of the Bonapartist police regime in the fact that the revolution did not manage to paralyse the retrogressive force of the petty-bourgeois tide, the ignorance and conservatism of the petty-bourgeois strata, especially in the countryside. Marx sees the patriarchal and petty-bourgeois remnants as a terrible force which leads to the reversing of historical development.
Immediately after the victory of the October Revolution, and bearing in mind the experience of history, Lenin, too, drew the attention of the Party and the working class to the danger which threatened the Soviet state from the petty-bourgeois tide. “If we fail to defeat it,” he stressed, “then, we are doomed to failure, like the French Revolution... and we must look this right in the eye, without comforting ourselves with empty words.” (10)
The history of our own days provides other significant examples about the danger of vestiges of alien ideologies. The transformation of the Soviet Union into a capitalist state demonstrated that the revival of vestiges of alien ideologies, and especially of the petty-bourgeois mentality, the sense of private property and putting personal interests above the general interest, are extremely dangerous enemies on which the peaceful counter-revolution is based.
At the same time, however, the history of our days also confirms the teaching of Marx that the revolutionary awakening of toiling masses makes the socialist revolution invincible. The construction of socialism in Albania, the all-round activity of our Party for the tempering of the revolutionary consciousness of the masses against all reactionary ideologies, old and new, provides an example of this.
Although a continuous and persistent struggle is waged in our country against ideological hangovers to prevent the bearers of them from putting themselves in opposition to our socialist order, there are occasions when they are reactivated and even transformed into antagonistic contradictions.
Gossip, grudges, bickering and quarrels, which stem from these ideological remnants are expressions of the aggravation of the contradiction between us and the bearers of these hangovers, which, if we do not intervene to resolve it in time, is liable to turn into an antagonistic contradiction.
Some of the various crimes against socialist property, which are punished by the organs of the dictatorship, are open manifestations of the transformation of non-antagonistic contradictions into antagonistic ones. The most dangerous manifestation of this is the emergence of the enemies of socialism, who act against the Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The transformation of alien remnants into active forces of regression does not occur spontaneously. The class enemy inside and outside the country encourages and supports them, while carelessness by the Party and the working class leaves the way open for their reactivation.
The PLA has never permitted the remnants of alien ideologies to be transformed into soil for the birth of revisionism and to endanger the victories of the socialist revolution. It has always fought them sternly and in a well-considered way. At every stage of this struggle it has always taken into consideration the level of the maturity of the objective and subjective conditions. The PLA has waged the struggle against the alien remnants in unity with the masses, and in the course of this struggle, the masses have been further tempered ideologically, have emerged from it stronger and more revolutionary.
* * *
Literature, art, education and science, develop and are strengthened through the consistent waging of the class struggle.
The class struggle in each of these fields has its own specific features and manifests itself in various forms, but its main directions are common to all of them.
The PLA activates literature, art, education, and science directly in the class struggle as important auxiliaries for the revolutionary education of the masses of working people and as powerful weapons for the construction of socialist society. But the class struggle is also waged in the very bosom of these spheres of spiritual culture against bourgeois and revisionist ideology, against its pressure, influences and remnants. This struggle has an all-round character. It is waged among the people to overcome the blemishes and influences of alien ideologies, lack of clarity and vacillations, in order to form healthy concepts and put the workers of literature and art, education and science, in militant positions. It is waged, also, between us and the enemies, in order to cope with the bourgeois-revisionist pressure and to block the way to the penetration of their culture and ideology and rout all their agents in the ranks of the people and the Party.
Through the class struggle, literature, the arts, education and science are strengthened ideologically, are matured and raised to new levels and increase their ability and effectiveness, to act as real auxiliaries of the Party in the construction of socialist society.
After 1960, with the open betrayal by modern revisionism, the class struggle in these fields assumed greater proportions and a more acute character. Apart from the revival and re-activation of old concepts, under the all-round revisionist pressure, other alien concepts began to appear and to be cultivated.
Although the class struggle in the field of culture as a whole became more acute, it was not waged in the same scale, with the same intensity in all directions and sectors of culture. In the beginning, the enemies attacked literature and the arts directly.
Having an all-round knowledge of the nature of literature and arts, as a complicated sector of the ideological front, which constitutes a very delicate terrain, and valuing their role and place in society, the PLA has given them special care, has consistently put the people working in literature and art in militant positions and has never permitted them to be turned into a basis for the counter-revolution.
The struggle in the field of literature and arts has been waged continuously throughout the whole period of socialist construction. For them, as for the entire ideological front, the main danger has been the rightist danger. Albania entered the period of socialist construction with a literature of a new type, which had been born in the heat of the National Liberation War, but was still incompletely formed. Besides this, in the field of literature and the arts, many old concepts and practices from various western bourgeois trends which exerted a powerful influence, were inherited in the field of literature and the arts. Which course were they to take? This question was now placed squarely before them. The PLA gave powerful support to the new literature and arts which were born in the course of the war, and guided them to advance on the road of socialist realism.
Along with the struggle in the field of literature and art, the PLA has waged the class struggle, also, in education and science, considering the entire ideological front as a single front, on which the slightest relaxation of the struggle in one direction causes great harm to the work in the other sectors, too.
In the conditions of the complete construction of socialist society, education and culture are charged with a special role. They cannot play this role properly outside the class struggle.
The major socio-economic transformations and the all-round deepening of the ideological and cultural revolution also made the further revolutionization of our school system indispensable.
The class struggle in each of these fields has its own specific features and manifests itself in various forms, but its main directions are common to all of them.
The PLA activates literature, art, education, and science directly in the class struggle as important auxiliaries for the revolutionary education of the masses of working people and as powerful weapons for the construction of socialist society. But the class struggle is also waged in the very bosom of these spheres of spiritual culture against bourgeois and revisionist ideology, against its pressure, influences and remnants. This struggle has an all-round character. It is waged among the people to overcome the blemishes and influences of alien ideologies, lack of clarity and vacillations, in order to form healthy concepts and put the workers of literature and art, education and science, in militant positions. It is waged, also, between us and the enemies, in order to cope with the bourgeois-revisionist pressure and to block the way to the penetration of their culture and ideology and rout all their agents in the ranks of the people and the Party.
Through the class struggle, literature, the arts, education and science are strengthened ideologically, are matured and raised to new levels and increase their ability and effectiveness, to act as real auxiliaries of the Party in the construction of socialist society.
After 1960, with the open betrayal by modern revisionism, the class struggle in these fields assumed greater proportions and a more acute character. Apart from the revival and re-activation of old concepts, under the all-round revisionist pressure, other alien concepts began to appear and to be cultivated.
Although the class struggle in the field of culture as a whole became more acute, it was not waged in the same scale, with the same intensity in all directions and sectors of culture. In the beginning, the enemies attacked literature and the arts directly.
Having an all-round knowledge of the nature of literature and arts, as a complicated sector of the ideological front, which constitutes a very delicate terrain, and valuing their role and place in society, the PLA has given them special care, has consistently put the people working in literature and art in militant positions and has never permitted them to be turned into a basis for the counter-revolution.
The struggle in the field of literature and arts has been waged continuously throughout the whole period of socialist construction. For them, as for the entire ideological front, the main danger has been the rightist danger. Albania entered the period of socialist construction with a literature of a new type, which had been born in the heat of the National Liberation War, but was still incompletely formed. Besides this, in the field of literature and the arts, many old concepts and practices from various western bourgeois trends which exerted a powerful influence, were inherited in the field of literature and the arts. Which course were they to take? This question was now placed squarely before them. The PLA gave powerful support to the new literature and arts which were born in the course of the war, and guided them to advance on the road of socialist realism.
Along with the struggle in the field of literature and art, the PLA has waged the class struggle, also, in education and science, considering the entire ideological front as a single front, on which the slightest relaxation of the struggle in one direction causes great harm to the work in the other sectors, too.
In the conditions of the complete construction of socialist society, education and culture are charged with a special role. They cannot play this role properly outside the class struggle.
The major socio-economic transformations and the all-round deepening of the ideological and cultural revolution also made the further revolutionization of our school system indispensable.
The revolutionization of our school was, at the same time, a deepening and broadening of the front of the class struggle in the field of education. It represented a new attack by the proletarian ideology on all the hangovers and influences of the old bourgeois and revisionist school, on concepts which kept the school isolated from life, from production, and its aim was to further strengthen the socialist content of the Albanian school. This attack was supported by the broad masses of working people, but it was opposed by the enemies and encountered resistance from old and new alien concepts.
As a result of the class struggle which has been waged by the PLA in these fields, the Albanian school has achieved great successes and has been shaped as a new type of school, with original features and a popular character. The further revolutionization of the school, however, is a protracted process, just as the struggle for the final victory of the socialist ideology is a protracted one. In practice there are still unsolved problems. Therefore, the implementation of the program of revolutionization will be carried on through a consistent class struggle against bureaucratic, liberal and conservative, technocratic and intellectualist concepts and practices, against the influences of the bourgeois and revisionist schools.
In science, too, the class struggle is an all-sided struggle to ensure that our sciences serve the construction of socialism, the defence of the Homeland, and the communist education of the working masses directly and well. This struggle has been waged against the reactionary influences and concepts of science for the sake of science, of the science for narrow interests. In the course of the revolutionary development of the Albanian science, the struggle has been waged against influences of idealist philosophy as well as against the hangovers and influences of the methodology and methods of reactionary, bourgeois and revisionist science, against liberal, bureaucratic and technocratic concepts. In this struggle, a heavy blow has been struck at manifestations of objectivism and subjectivism, technocracy and intellectualism. However, the struggle goes on.
The heavy blow which has been struck at these negative phenomena should not be considered the end of them. They continue to operate and at given moments they become active and pose a serious danger.
Parallel with the struggle to overcome the remnants and influences of alien ideology in the field of science, in order to cope successfully with the pressure of the bourgeois and revisionist ideology, there must be ceaseless struggle to strengthen the feeling of national pride in science, too, to further strengthen its proletarian partisanship and class tendentiousness, so that it does not remain a simple recorder of the facts, but a powerful weapon which serves the revolutionary action of the working masses.
The class struggle in literature, the arts, education and science has been directly linked with one of the main characteristics of them in socialism – that art, literature, education and science in socialist Albania have become the property of the masses and serve them directly. Their transformation into the property of the people constitutes a vital, but very complicated problem. Many obstacles and difficulties have had to be overcome; many reactionary or inhibiting concepts have had to be resisted.
The aim of bourgeois and revisionist ideology and the activity of enemies has been to withdraw literature, the arts, education and science from under the leadership of the Party and keep them remote from the working masses.
Intellectualist and technocratic concepts shut science within the walls of scientific institutions, reduce its breathing space, keep it far removed from the great problems of the time.
Meanwhile, the old concepts and practices about education, which considered it as the exclusive field of the teacher, the pedagogue, on their part, hinder the realization of the leadership of the Party in the field of education and the direct participation of the masses in the solution of its problems.
Today, in literature and arts, the struggle is going on to raise the level of participation of the working class and the other masses of working people in the solution of problems which have to do with the strengthening of its class content and tendentiousness; in education and science it is to finally smash the intellectualist, technocratic and bureaucratic concepts which hinder the involvement of the masses in studies, and restrict the participation of the working masses in the solution of the problems linked with the further revolutionization of our school.
As a result of the class struggle which has been waged by the PLA in these fields, the Albanian school has achieved great successes and has been shaped as a new type of school, with original features and a popular character. The further revolutionization of the school, however, is a protracted process, just as the struggle for the final victory of the socialist ideology is a protracted one. In practice there are still unsolved problems. Therefore, the implementation of the program of revolutionization will be carried on through a consistent class struggle against bureaucratic, liberal and conservative, technocratic and intellectualist concepts and practices, against the influences of the bourgeois and revisionist schools.
In science, too, the class struggle is an all-sided struggle to ensure that our sciences serve the construction of socialism, the defence of the Homeland, and the communist education of the working masses directly and well. This struggle has been waged against the reactionary influences and concepts of science for the sake of science, of the science for narrow interests. In the course of the revolutionary development of the Albanian science, the struggle has been waged against influences of idealist philosophy as well as against the hangovers and influences of the methodology and methods of reactionary, bourgeois and revisionist science, against liberal, bureaucratic and technocratic concepts. In this struggle, a heavy blow has been struck at manifestations of objectivism and subjectivism, technocracy and intellectualism. However, the struggle goes on.
The heavy blow which has been struck at these negative phenomena should not be considered the end of them. They continue to operate and at given moments they become active and pose a serious danger.
Parallel with the struggle to overcome the remnants and influences of alien ideology in the field of science, in order to cope successfully with the pressure of the bourgeois and revisionist ideology, there must be ceaseless struggle to strengthen the feeling of national pride in science, too, to further strengthen its proletarian partisanship and class tendentiousness, so that it does not remain a simple recorder of the facts, but a powerful weapon which serves the revolutionary action of the working masses.
The class struggle in literature, the arts, education and science has been directly linked with one of the main characteristics of them in socialism – that art, literature, education and science in socialist Albania have become the property of the masses and serve them directly. Their transformation into the property of the people constitutes a vital, but very complicated problem. Many obstacles and difficulties have had to be overcome; many reactionary or inhibiting concepts have had to be resisted.
The aim of bourgeois and revisionist ideology and the activity of enemies has been to withdraw literature, the arts, education and science from under the leadership of the Party and keep them remote from the working masses.
Intellectualist and technocratic concepts shut science within the walls of scientific institutions, reduce its breathing space, keep it far removed from the great problems of the time.
Meanwhile, the old concepts and practices about education, which considered it as the exclusive field of the teacher, the pedagogue, on their part, hinder the realization of the leadership of the Party in the field of education and the direct participation of the masses in the solution of its problems.
Today, in literature and arts, the struggle is going on to raise the level of participation of the working class and the other masses of working people in the solution of problems which have to do with the strengthening of its class content and tendentiousness; in education and science it is to finally smash the intellectualist, technocratic and bureaucratic concepts which hinder the involvement of the masses in studies, and restrict the participation of the working masses in the solution of the problems linked with the further revolutionization of our school.
* * *
The struggle in defence of the Marxist-Leninist theory is one of the permanent manifestations of the struggle of the working class for the triumph of the socialist revolution and the construction of socialist society.
In 1847, speaking of the necessity for the three forms of the struggle of the working class, Engels called the ideological struggle a “theoretical struggle”. Engels used this term for a definite reason and not merely for ease of formulation. This constitutes the most important aspect of the ideological struggle. The entire ideological struggle serves the victory of Marxism-Leninism over the bourgeoisie and revisionism, but if the opponent is not defeated in the theoretical field, it is impossible to win the ideological struggle in the other fields.
The struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism is permanent. Capitalism, the bourgeoisie, whether in power or overthrown, and all the enemies of socialism, link their struggle for survival directly with the struggle against the Marxist-Leninist theory, which becomes a weapon in the hands of the working class and the other masses of working people for the revolutionary transformation of society. This struggle against the Marxist-Leninist theory is waged by its enemies in general, it is intensified in given directions and against the fundamental laws of this theory and is concentrated and concretized in the struggle against the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist parties which defend their revolutionary theory consistently, and which through their activity, confirm its strength and vitality, as well as the brilliant prospects which it opens to social development.
The struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism is a struggle which is waged inside the Marxist-Leninist party of the working class as well as outside it, a struggle which is waged around the problems of the revolution and the socialist construction inside a country and around the fundamental problems of the international communist movement and the victory of the socialist revolution on a world scale.
For this reason, that Marxist-Leninist party which is in a position to apply the Marxist-Leninist theory in a creative manner, to work out and apply a scientific revolutionary general line on this basis and to smash any deviation from the Marxist-Leninist theory and from its general line at any moment and in whatever form it may appear, and which is able to demonstrate the superiority of the communist order over the capitalist order, in theory and practice, carries out its tasks in this field well.
The success and the merit of the PLA are based on the fact that throughout its existence it has been able to grasp the dialectical unity between the external and internal front of the struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism, has known how to link them on a single front, and to fight on the national and international level simultaneously.
The PLA has closely linked the struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism on an international level with that to defend its own Marxist-Leninist line and keep it pure, and preserve its unity. This has helped our Party to temper and arm itself with rich experience, to place itself in the forefront of the struggle for the defence of Marxism-Leninism on an international level and to achieve important victories for itself and for the entire movement.
The continued struggle which the PLA has waged against all anti-party elements and groups and against any deviation from its correct line, has been at the same time, a defence of the Marxist-Leninist theory, too.
In the socialist countries, Marxism-Leninism is defended not only through the struggle to strengthen the Party, but also in the whole practice of socialist construction. The construction of socialism is not only a confirmation of the correctness of the fundamental laws of scientific socialism, but also a direct defence of it. Under socialism, these laws find an extensive and all-round application. But socialism is built in concrete conditions, therefore it is the duty of every party to apply them in a creative manner, in conformity with these conditions. The creative application of these laws brings new experience, a new contribution to the Marxist-Leninist theory.
With their theories of specific socialism, the modern revisionists make a distorted interpretation of the demand for the creative implementation of the Marxist-Leninist theory with the aim of denying the necessity for the operation of its universal laws in all countries. In reality, the so-called creative implementation of the Marxist-Leninist theory by the revisionist parties in power, their theories and practices, as well as their all-round failures in the fields of the economy and culture, have provided imperialism with the weapons which are used as means to discredit the Marxist-Leninist theory and scientific socialism.
Therefore the faithful and creative application of the laws of the Marxist-Leninist theory in the socialist construction is a defence of Marxism-Leninism by each revolutionary party of the working class.
A dialectical connection exists between the creative implementation, development and enrichment of Marxism-Leninism, and defence of it. The creative implementation assures the defence of Marxism-Leninism, while real defence of Marxism-Leninism from the attacks and the danger of revisionism ensures its further development and enrichment.
The entire activity of our Party is a heroic struggle for the defence of Marxism-Leninism, for the victory of socialism and communism.
Revisionism, which emerged in and eroded the foundation of certain parties, was transformed into a strong reactionary international trend. Its activity against Marxism-Leninism on all fronts did great damage to the international communist and workers' movement. A characteristic of the class struggle in the theoretical field on an international scale today is that it is being waged in the conditions of unprecedented ideological confusion which the different variants of revisionism have sown. This confusion is hindering the development of the international communist movement and disrupting the understanding of fundamental questions of the strategy and tactics of the revolution. In these conditions, the PLA stresses that its responsibilities and tasks in defence of the Marxist-Leninist theory have increased. It made an invaluable contribution through its 7th Congress, which supplied the answers, from the Marxist-Leninist standpoint, to the most complicated problems of the present-day development of the socialist revolution and the revolutionary movements in the world, refuting all the revisionist and pseudo-revolutionary theories with scientific argument.
In 1847, speaking of the necessity for the three forms of the struggle of the working class, Engels called the ideological struggle a “theoretical struggle”. Engels used this term for a definite reason and not merely for ease of formulation. This constitutes the most important aspect of the ideological struggle. The entire ideological struggle serves the victory of Marxism-Leninism over the bourgeoisie and revisionism, but if the opponent is not defeated in the theoretical field, it is impossible to win the ideological struggle in the other fields.
The struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism is permanent. Capitalism, the bourgeoisie, whether in power or overthrown, and all the enemies of socialism, link their struggle for survival directly with the struggle against the Marxist-Leninist theory, which becomes a weapon in the hands of the working class and the other masses of working people for the revolutionary transformation of society. This struggle against the Marxist-Leninist theory is waged by its enemies in general, it is intensified in given directions and against the fundamental laws of this theory and is concentrated and concretized in the struggle against the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist parties which defend their revolutionary theory consistently, and which through their activity, confirm its strength and vitality, as well as the brilliant prospects which it opens to social development.
The struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism is a struggle which is waged inside the Marxist-Leninist party of the working class as well as outside it, a struggle which is waged around the problems of the revolution and the socialist construction inside a country and around the fundamental problems of the international communist movement and the victory of the socialist revolution on a world scale.
For this reason, that Marxist-Leninist party which is in a position to apply the Marxist-Leninist theory in a creative manner, to work out and apply a scientific revolutionary general line on this basis and to smash any deviation from the Marxist-Leninist theory and from its general line at any moment and in whatever form it may appear, and which is able to demonstrate the superiority of the communist order over the capitalist order, in theory and practice, carries out its tasks in this field well.
The success and the merit of the PLA are based on the fact that throughout its existence it has been able to grasp the dialectical unity between the external and internal front of the struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism, has known how to link them on a single front, and to fight on the national and international level simultaneously.
The PLA has closely linked the struggle in defence of Marxism-Leninism on an international level with that to defend its own Marxist-Leninist line and keep it pure, and preserve its unity. This has helped our Party to temper and arm itself with rich experience, to place itself in the forefront of the struggle for the defence of Marxism-Leninism on an international level and to achieve important victories for itself and for the entire movement.
The continued struggle which the PLA has waged against all anti-party elements and groups and against any deviation from its correct line, has been at the same time, a defence of the Marxist-Leninist theory, too.
In the socialist countries, Marxism-Leninism is defended not only through the struggle to strengthen the Party, but also in the whole practice of socialist construction. The construction of socialism is not only a confirmation of the correctness of the fundamental laws of scientific socialism, but also a direct defence of it. Under socialism, these laws find an extensive and all-round application. But socialism is built in concrete conditions, therefore it is the duty of every party to apply them in a creative manner, in conformity with these conditions. The creative application of these laws brings new experience, a new contribution to the Marxist-Leninist theory.
With their theories of specific socialism, the modern revisionists make a distorted interpretation of the demand for the creative implementation of the Marxist-Leninist theory with the aim of denying the necessity for the operation of its universal laws in all countries. In reality, the so-called creative implementation of the Marxist-Leninist theory by the revisionist parties in power, their theories and practices, as well as their all-round failures in the fields of the economy and culture, have provided imperialism with the weapons which are used as means to discredit the Marxist-Leninist theory and scientific socialism.
Therefore the faithful and creative application of the laws of the Marxist-Leninist theory in the socialist construction is a defence of Marxism-Leninism by each revolutionary party of the working class.
A dialectical connection exists between the creative implementation, development and enrichment of Marxism-Leninism, and defence of it. The creative implementation assures the defence of Marxism-Leninism, while real defence of Marxism-Leninism from the attacks and the danger of revisionism ensures its further development and enrichment.
The entire activity of our Party is a heroic struggle for the defence of Marxism-Leninism, for the victory of socialism and communism.
Revisionism, which emerged in and eroded the foundation of certain parties, was transformed into a strong reactionary international trend. Its activity against Marxism-Leninism on all fronts did great damage to the international communist and workers' movement. A characteristic of the class struggle in the theoretical field on an international scale today is that it is being waged in the conditions of unprecedented ideological confusion which the different variants of revisionism have sown. This confusion is hindering the development of the international communist movement and disrupting the understanding of fundamental questions of the strategy and tactics of the revolution. In these conditions, the PLA stresses that its responsibilities and tasks in defence of the Marxist-Leninist theory have increased. It made an invaluable contribution through its 7th Congress, which supplied the answers, from the Marxist-Leninist standpoint, to the most complicated problems of the present-day development of the socialist revolution and the revolutionary movements in the world, refuting all the revisionist and pseudo-revolutionary theories with scientific argument.
1) V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 27, p. 501
2) V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 25, p. 559
3) Enver Hoxha. Report to the 5th Congress of the PLA, sec. ed. p. 124
4) V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 31, p. 423.
5) Enver Hoxha. “We must deepen the ideological struggle against the alien manifestations and liberal stands towards them”, Tirana 1973, p. 14
6) Enver Hoxha. Speeches, 1967-1968, p. 56
7) Enver Hoxha. Speeches, 1967-1968, p. 89
8) V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 27, p. 256
9) Enver Hoxha. Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 136
10) V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 32, p. 329
2) V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 25, p. 559
3) Enver Hoxha. Report to the 5th Congress of the PLA, sec. ed. p. 124
4) V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 31, p. 423.
5) Enver Hoxha. “We must deepen the ideological struggle against the alien manifestations and liberal stands towards them”, Tirana 1973, p. 14
6) Enver Hoxha. Speeches, 1967-1968, p. 56
7) Enver Hoxha. Speeches, 1967-1968, p. 89
8) V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 27, p. 256
9) Enver Hoxha. Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 136
10) V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, vol. 32, p. 329
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