The Class Struggle Within the Party – A Guarantee That the Party Will Always Remain a Revolutionary Party of the Working Class

By Ndreçi Plasari — Member of the CC of the PLA and Vice-Director of the Institute of Marxist-Leninist studies at the CC of the PLA.

From Albania Today, 1978, 1

The class struggle within the party of the working class is a reflection of the class contradictions which exist and the class struggle which goes on in society.
 
The party is the leader of the class struggle for the destruction of the old world and the construction of the new socialist and communist society. As such it stands in the forefront of the battles with the class enemy. On its ideology and policy, on its ability in leadership, depends the fate of the revolution, of the great struggle between socialism and capitalism, between the socialist and capitalist roads of development of society. Hence it is natural that the attacks and counter-attacks of the enemy are directed at the party in the first place.

Apart from this, the communists are not completely free from or invulnerable to the old concepts, customs and habits carried by the social environment in which they have lived or are living, the social class or stratum to which they belong, either by origin or current status. The communists, like all our working people, are on the one hand, under the pressure of the blemishes of the old society, and on the other, under the pressure of the bourgeois and revisionist ideology and policy from abroad, hence are faced with the dangers of bourgeois-revisionist degeneration.

The dangers that threaten the party are overcome through a correct, determined, and ceaseless class struggle within its ranks. “The struggle within the party gives the party strength and life”. With this epigraph Lenin began his famous work “What Is to be done?" in which he elaborated the Marxist-Leninist ideological foundations of the workers' party of the new type. 

The class struggle within the party is directed against enemies and traitors; against deviations, distortions and violations of party decisions and directives; against shortcomings, mistakes and gaps in the work of the leading organs and basic organizations of the party; against opportunism, dogmatism, sectarianism, and any kind of alien, anti-Marxist views.

The class struggle within the party is, in the first place, an ideological struggle for the Marxist-Leninist purity of its theory, of its general line, and of the communists themselves. 

But itis also a political struggle. The fight against traitors and hostile activity in the party ranks cannot be confined to the ideological field alone. Every enemy of the Marxist-Leninist party is also an enemy of the people and socialism. Therefore, the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat attack these enemies like all the other enemies.

All the experience of the struggle within the PLA has confirmed that this struggle is correct and complete only when it is waged as a combined ideological and political struggle, and is accompanied with the appropriate organizational measures. 

Only through such a struggle can the party work out, preserve and apply a correct Marxist-Leninist line; preserve and strengthen its proletarian unity, without any breaches, ensure the proletarian qualities of the communists, realize its undivided leadership in the revolution and the construction of socialism.

The main reflection of how the Marxist-Leninist party wages the class struggle is its political line, embodied in its practical revolutionary activity and tested by the results of this activity. 

Those parties of the working class which have been unable to work out and implement a correct revolutionary line, and as a consequence, have not succeeded in placing themselves at the head of the masses in revolutionary situations, in preparing them and leading them in revolution, are by no means few. Other parties, although at given moments or periods they have followed a correct course and have shown themselves capable of leading the masses in revolutionary struggle, of ensuring them great political and social victories, have not gone to the end of this road, have changed course, have departed from Marxism-Leninism and turned into bourgeois-revisionist parties, betraying the cause of the working class, the revolution, and communism. Such parties have capitulated to the pressure and attacks of the class enemy, to the tidal wave of petty-bourgeois psychology, have allowed the enemy to penetrate their ranks, and eventually, even to seize the reins of leadership.

Although younger than many other parties, the PLA has been able to work out and implement a correct Marxist-Leninist line at all the periods of its existence and to ensure victories of vital importance to the Albanian people, because, in its faithful implementation of Marxism-Leninism, as was stressed at the 7th Congress of the PLA, “it has resolutely upheld the line of the class struggle and consistently waged it against internal and external enemies, as well as among the people and in its own ranks”. [1]

The steel-like ideological and organizational unity of the PLA, which has characterized it all through its existence, is linked with this correct and resolute struggle. The enemies' plans to destroy the PLA, or to turn it into a bourgeois-revisionist party, have failed because they have not found, and have been quite unable to create, breaches in the Party in general and in its Central Committed in particular. In the Soviet Union and other countries the revisionists split their respective communist and workers' parties, which facilitated the destructive work for the liquidation of their proletarian character. 

The communist qualities of members of the party have always been ensured through class struggle. This struggle has kept them pure as vanguard revolutionary fighters, has protected them from bourgeois degeneration and capitulation to the pressure of the enemies, or in the face of difficulties and obstacles.

The struggle for a correct Marxist-Leninist line, for a steel-like unity, for the communist qualities of the party members, the entire class struggle in the Party, has had as its major objective to ensure its undivided leadership, which constitutes the key to the solution of all problems, all the tasks of the revolution, the construction of socialism, and the defence of the Homeland. After it succeeds in becoming the leader of the masses in the revolutionary situation, the party can preserve and play its leading role up till the complete victory of the socialist revolution only through a persistent ideological and political class struggle for the implementation of its general Marxist-Leninist line, and its proletarian principles and norms. 

As was stated at the 7th Congress of the PLA, precisely such a determined and consistent struggle, waged with organically linked revolutionary Marxist-Leninist methods for its line, for the unity and the communist qualities of its members, has enabled our Party “to ensure its leading role throughout its whole existence, to ensure the hegemony of the working class in such a complete monolithic, and effective manner”. [2]

The edge of the class struggle in the Party is, first of all, directed against the enemies and the enemy activity in its ranks

As is known, enemies and traitors have emerged from the ranks of the Party from time to time. They have been very few in numbers, but the danger they posed was very great. This danger was linked neither with their number, nor with their support in the Party and among the people, because they have enjoyed no such support. They endangered the Party, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the socialist order as a whole, because of the important positions and functions they had managed to occupy in the leading organs of the Party, the state, the economy and the army. They were dangerous, also, as agents of external enemies. Abetted, supported and assisted by the imperialists and revisionists, they intended to take the fortress from within, by trying to divert the Party from its Marxist-Leninist course, to eliminate its revolutionary line and leadership, to liquidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, to make the country dependent on one or the other bourgeois-revisionist and imperialist state. 

To the extent they were able, the traitors have carried out hostile, disruptive, undermining, anti-Party activity to achieve this aim. In general, however, they have not dared to oppose the line of the Party openly, because they have always found themselves faced with its monolithic unity which has suppressed them, and with its steel-like links with the people, which have terrified them. For these reasons they have tended to work surreptitiously, have tried to distort the line of the Party in one field or the other, on one question or the other, in the field of its implementation, in order to create confusion, disruption, disorder, to prevent the implementation of decisions and directives, on political, economic, cultural, military and other tasks, to create the impression that the policy of the Party was not correct. In order to disguise themselves, and at the same time, to exploit the great authority of the Party for their own benefit, the enemies have tried to pose as if they were doing everything in the name of the Party. They have used all sorts of tactics and wiles to develop the cult of their own personality, to win personal prestige so that their words would carry weight and to gain credit and support.

Working mainly surreptitiously, the traitors have awaited the favourable moment of a “crisis”, in order to strike with all their might. However this moment has never come, for they have been uncovered in time, have been smashed ideologically, politically and organizationally, and their views and activities have been liquidated. The enemies have shown especially great concern to establish links with one another, to gather supporters around themselves, to create first groups and then factional trends and lines opposed to the line of the Party. They are well aware that only by uniting, by organizing themselves and working out a political platform opposed to the Marxist-Leninist line of the Party can they attain their goal, and alter its course towards revisionism. But this can happen only in certain conditions, when the Party falls asleep, is infected by dangerous bourgeois diseases, becomes sclerotic, and thus, loses its ability to fight and liquidate the enemies that emerge from, and operate in, its own ranks. Such were the conditions in which revisionist trends took shape in many former communist and workers' parties, and succeeded in transforming them completely into bourgeois-revisionist parties. 

Revisionism has been unable to strike root and triumph in the PLA, because the bourgeois-revisionist diseases have been systematically combated in a struggle which prevented them from invading and overwhelming the organs and organizations of the Party, because the hostile activity has not been allowed to develop, nor have the views and activities of traitors been allowed to destroy the unity of the Party.

It is known that, by linking up with one another, enemy elements have, indeed, managed to create a number of factional groups within the ranks of our Party. However, these hostile groups have been smashed before they could take the form of trends in the sense that Stalin gave them, as “a party within the party”, and come out with an anti-party opposition line. 

Koçi Xoxe's group was extremely dangerous. The hostile activity of this group extended to many fields. Nevertheless, the anti-Marxist views that were the foundation of this activity did not succeed in crystallizing as an independent line. The 11th Plenum of the Central Committee {September 1948) and the 1st Congress of the Party {November), which made an assessment of the political line over the period 1945-1948, came to the conclusion that there were not two lines in the Party, but only one, which on a whole was correct, although there were a number of distortions in it. These distortions were some erroneous anti-Marxist theses and practices smuggled into the line and activity of the Party by the traitor group which represented theses and practices from the Yugoslav Trotskyite-revisionist ideology and policy.

In recent years, the Party uncovered and liquidated the hostile groups of F. Paçrami and T. Lubonja, of B. Balluku, P. Dume and H. Çako, and of A Këllezi, K. Theodhosi and K. Ngjela. These groups, which operated in close connection and collaboration with one another and in coordination with some foreign revisionist states, made up “a major and extremely dangerous conspiracy, as the 7th Congress of the Party defined them. With the first group operating in the field of ideology and culture, the second in the army, and the third in the field of the economy, the enemies intended to destroy the Party, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the socialist economic-social order, and to turn Albania into a bourgeois-revisionist country. To achieve this objective, they had reckoned on organizing an armed putsch, through the traitors in the Army, which was to be backed up by foreign military intervention. 

Hence the danger was extremely great. Before they were uncovered, the traitors caused all the damage they could in the sectors where they were working, taking advantage of manifestations of liberalism and bureaucracy, the slackening of vigilance and control, the incomplete implementation of communist principles and norms, the shortcomings and errors in the work of Party organizations and state organs in the relevant sectors. Nevertheless, the latest hostile groups, like the former ones, were uncovered and smashed before they succeeded in crystallizing into revisionist opposition trends and lines in the Party. As soon as they were uncovered and attacked by the Central Committee they were attacked and crushed by the whole Party and the people. All the communists and all the working people to a man were in solidarity with the decisions of the Central Committee, with comrade Enver Hoxha, and rose against the traitors and their anti-Party, anti-socialist, and anti-national activity.

This experience of the struggle against enemies and their traitorous activity within the Party shows that, objectively, there is a great and continuing danger of the creation of factional trends and anti-Marxist opposition lines in the ranks of the party of the working class. At the same time, it shows that the emergence and crystallization of these trends and lines is not decreed by fate to be inevitable. They can be stopped in their tracks, and unity can be preserved and strengthened. 

Hence, the class struggle within the ranks of the Marxist-Leninist party cannot be called a struggle between opposing lines, and even less can such a “struggle of lines” be considered an objective phenomenon. The class struggle in the ranks of the party is, truly, an objective phenomenon like the class struggle in general, but it is not necessarily a struggle between two opposing lines. The experience of the struggle within the PLA confirms this very well: this struggle has always been waged for the defence, implementation and enrichment, in the heat of revolutionary action, of a single Marxist-Leninist line, and has not been a struggle between two lines. The struggle between two roads should not be confused with the struggle between two lines. The struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road of development, which includes the struggle between the proletarian ideology and the revisionist ideology, is an objective law, whereas the struggle between opposing political lines is a subjective phenomenon, which emerges and develops only in certain conditions, when the party allows factional trends and anti-Marxist lines to be created in its ranks. Such opposing revisionist trends and lines usually manage to crystallize when the party of the working class does not wage a correct, determined and consistent class struggle within its ranks all the time.

How has the PLA succeeded in preventing the crystallization of factional trends and opposing revisionist lines, and been able to uncover in time, and smash the enemies and enemy activity in its ranks?

“A self-respecting Marxist-Leninist party”, says comrade Enver Hoxha, “cannot permit the existence of two lines within the party; it cannot, therefore, allow the existence of one or more factions. And if such a thing does show up, the party cannot and must not tolerate the existence of factions, even for a short period”. [3] Guided by this Marxist-Leninist principle, our Party has, in the first place, waged a preventive struggle to bar all the paths to these dangers, to cut off the roots and sources of factions and opposing lines, and of enemies and enemy activities. 

The PLA has always been consistent in its Marxist-Leninist course. Before setting its programmatic tasks, before deciding its attitudes on the fundamental problems of its internal or foreign policy, it has considered them thoroughly, has not been hasty nor has it procrastinated. It has acted with maturity and the greatest sense of responsibility towards the Albanian working class and the Albanian people, as well as towards the world proletariat and the revolution, always in the light of Marxist-Leninist principles. After it has taken its decisions, it has fought unhesitatingly for their implementation, fully convinced of the correctness of its revolutionary line. Vacillation and uncertainty in decisions, attitudes and slogans, unprincipled changes of position on questions of internal and foreign policy, by making this policy subject to developments of the moment or to simply utilitarian and pragmatic motives, always cause confusion and disorientation, create suitable soil for factions and opposing lines, for hostile activities in the ranks of the party.

The PLA has not allowed itself to be carried away by success, to become swell-headed and over-confident on account of its firm unity, its correct line, its sound links with the masses and great victories achieved under its leadership. To combat self-satisfaction, conceit and over-confidence means to destroy the breeding ground for the petty-bourgeois and revisionist maggot, so that it is unable to get into the Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat, to destroy them from within. 

But loss or weakening of revolutionary vigilance, whatever the cause, are just as dangerous. “The vigilance of the Party, its great experience, revolutionary acumen and coolheadedness”, says comrade Enver Hoxha in connection with the uncovering and liquidation of the latest groups of traitors and conspirators, “brought about that the full extent and danger of this enemy activity was uncovered”. [4] Revolutionary experience teaches us that the Party must never forget or underrate the great dangers that threaten it from the intentions and activities of external and internal class enemies, from the imperialism-revisionist encirclement. Only by remaining constantly vigilant, by having a thorough knowledge of the enemies and the methods, forms and means of their destructive work, can the dangers be avoided and the ways be closed to the penetration of opposing revisionist trends and lines.

The PLA has been able to smash the enemy activity, to follow a consistently correct line, to preserve and constantly strengthen its unity, also, because of the principled revolutionary attitude it has always maintained towards shortcomings and mistakes. A proletarian party is not afraid to recognise the mistakes and shortcomings in its line or practical activity. Bui however important it is to recognise your mistakes and shortcomings, it is just as important to be determined and to know how to fight to the end to eliminate them. Mistakes, weaknesses, deviations, that are not detected and combated in time and with revolutionary methods, create favourable soil for the activity of the enemy, become the source of revisionist groups, trends and platforms. “Any laxity, any misuse, any liberalism, any underestimation of mistakes and shortcomings,” teaches comrade Enver Hoxha, “causes incalculable damage, creates a rotten situation. No one, apart from enemies, wants such a thing. But it could come about if all of us do not rally to a man around the Party... to fight these manifestations.” [5]

The consistently revolutionary and clear cut stand of the Party against anti-party groups has been decisive for its Marxist-Leninist line and unity towards anti-party groups, when such groups have managed to form themselves within its ranks. The danger they represent has always been properly appreciated and they have been fought and completely smashed in order to prevent them from turning into opposing trends and lines. 

There is no doubt that, the struggle against anti-party elements, groups and views, like the entire class struggle within the party, is an ideological struggle in the first place. Through this struggle, which has continued even after the smashing of one or the other group, their anti-Marxist views have been exposed and refuted, and profound convictions have been created among the communists and working people about the hostile character of these views which have led the traitors into activity against the party and the socialist order. But the ideological struggle never fully achieves its purpose if it is not accompanied with organizational and political measures. As comrade Enver Hoxha tells us “The Party has never failed to use the means of patient explanation and conviction towards all those who betrayed and embarked on the anti-party and anti-people road, but when the cup was full and facts were obvious, it threw them out of its ranks unhesitatingly, and those who had conspired were handed over to the courts which even condemned some of them to death. The enemies wept over them, while the people rejoiced at having settled accounts with these traitors”. [6] This is a profoundly revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist stand. The revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot fail to use violence against the enemies of the Party, the people and socialism. The contradictions between us and the enemies cannot be resolved otherwise. To try to resolve these contradictions in the way the contradictions among the people are solved means to fall into idealism, into religious indulgence, to renounce the class struggle.

The main thing is that in the PLA the struggle against hostile elements and groups has always been a principled struggle and it has never been allowed to degenerate into a struggle between individuals. This struggle has not been waged by the Central Committee alone, but by the entire Party and the whole people who have always had their say, assisting the Party to expose and utterly smash the anti-Marxist and anti-socialist activity and views of one or other enemy or traitor group. That is why this struggle has had such great success. 

The PLA has been protected from the danger of disastrous splits, of the creation of hostile lines and trends, also, by its revolutionary, determined and consistent stand towards any interference from outside. Only such a stand brought about the defeat of the attempts of the Yugoslav revisionists to turn the Koçi Xoxe group into an anti-Marxist trend on an all-Party scale, after this group had become a faction at its head, and then to ensure that this Trotskyite-revisionist-trend would liquidate the Marxist-Leninist line of the Party. The efforts which the Khrushchevite revisionists made directly and through Liri Belishova and Koço Tashko, to split the Central Committee and the Party, in order to be able to impose their anti-Marxist course on it were smashed in the same way. The external enemies of Marxism-Leninism have always abetted and supported the traitors in the ranks of our Party, in order to use them to sow the seed of disruption and revisionism in the Party, as was confirmed also in the case of the discovery and smashing of the latest enemy groups. But each time, faced with the determination of the Party to permit no sort of foreigninterference and always to follow a single Marxist-Leninist line, the enemies have had their fingers burnt. This determined stand and this struggle have developed the vigilance and class intuition of the Party, have taught it that the only sure way to follow a consistently correct revolutionary line is to work out and implement this line in an independent manner on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, which is the only compass for every genuine party of the working class. Irrespective of what the enemies say, the PLA has never been the “gramophone” of one or other foreign party, but a faithful follower of Marxism-Leninism. “When a party is not guided by Marxism-Leninism”, said comrade Enver Hoxha at the meeting of the party activists of the Vlora District, “it cannot have a clear, decided strategy”. [7]

What were these enemies who emerged from the ranks of the Party? The 7th Congress defined the traitors of the latest groups as “politically and morally degenerate elements who had become bourgeois and capitulated to the pressure of the external and internal enemies, to the ideological encirclement and aggression of international imperialism and revisionism”. [8] And in general this is what all the enemies, uncovered and smashed within our Party, have been.

Since it has always been clear about these main causes of betrayal, and the close connection of betrayal with the hostile pressure exerted on the Party by enemy forces within and outside the country, our Party has at all times linked the struggle against enemies and hostile activity within its ranks with the struggle against the class enemies in general both internal and external, against imperialism and social-imperialism, against reaction and revisionism, on an international scale. 

At certain moments, the pressure and activity of the enemies from outside, as well as the hostile activity in its ranks have faced the Party with difficult situations. They have been and are very dangerous to it. But these difficulties and dangers have failed to make it yield, have never made it capitulate and give up its Marxist-Leninist general line, its determined revolutionary stands on different questions in the fields of internal and foreign policy.

The class struggle within the party is waged against every kind of manifestation alien to its ideology, policy and communist norms

The class struggle the Party has waged and continues to wage unceasingly within its ranks against manifestations alien to its ideology, line and proletarian norms, expressed in the stand, behaviour and activity of the communists, in the work of one or the other basic organization, or leading organ, has always had and continues to have great importance, to guarantee an always correct Marxist-Leninist line, a steel-like ideological and organizational unity and the communist qualities of its members.

It must be said from the outset that it is impossible to avoid having some alien manifestations, some negative phenomena within the party branches or leading organs or among the ranks of the communists, as long as the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road, between socialism and capitalism, over the question of which will win, is raging fiercely on an international scale. The aim of this struggle is that the alien symptoms must not become predominant, must be wiped out and not turn into sicknesses, and the sicknesses must not become incurable diseases which would overwhelm the party of the working class and transform it into a bourgeois-revisionist party, as happened with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and other former communist parties. This aim can be achieved only by combating every alien manifestation, together with the causes that give birth to it, with revolutionary methods.

Since the main objective of the class struggle within the party is the implementation of the line of the party, the correctness of which has been and is being confirmed in practice, the main blow should be aimed against any stand, activity and anything else that impedes the implementation of the decisions and directives of the Party, and harms its policy.

Our Party is in leadership. This leadership “is achieved”, stressed the 7 Congress, “only when its Marxist-Leninist ideology and policy, its decisions and directives are implemented successfully in all fields and in all directions, in the state organs and the economy, in culture and the Army, when all the state institutions and social organizations, all the cadres and working people, are guided in all their activity by this ideology and policy and these directives and decisions.” [9]

The communists are answerable for the attainment of this goal. On the one hand, each of them is required to be exemplary in the implementation of the line, decisions and directives, and no violation, however unimportant it may appear, is permitted. On the other hand, each communist is duty bound to combat any infringements he may observe in others, whoever they may be, persistently and without making any concession.

This is a fundamental characteristic distinguishing the overwhelming majority of the members and almost all the organizations of our Party in all the periods of its existence.

However, at given moments, a number of individual communists and organizations, have violated this or that directive themselves or have failed to wage an irreconcilable struggle against violations of the line, deviators, or anti-party elements.

In each historical period, every party organization or leading organ has encountered mistaken views and stands opposed to one or other directive of the Party.

Closely linked with the struggle against violations, distortions and falling short in the implementation of the line of the party is the struggle waged against violations, distortions, falling short in the implementation of the Constitution of the Party, which embodies the Marxist-Leninist principles and norms which regulate its life. These two struggles merge into one. There can be no party of the working class with a correct Marxist-Leninist line without communist organizational principles and norms. When the Communist Party of the Soviet Union deviated from the Leninist-Stalinist ideology and policy, at the same time it also renounced the revolutionary implementation of the Marxist-Leninist principles and norms of the party, which were transformed into lifeless formulas.

Therefore, the 7th Congress of the PLA stressed again that, in order to achieve the indisputable leadership of the Party, faithful revolutionary implementation of both its political line and its Leninist principles and norms has decisive importance.

Like the political line, the principles and norms, too, can find such application only through the class struggle within the ranks of the; Party.

The continuous strengthening of the leading role of the party basic organization in order to apply the Marxist-Leninist teaching: “The basic organization must lead in everything so that we may conform to the principle that the Party leads everything,” [10] has been and will continue to be achieved through class struggle.  

An incessant struggle has been and is being waged in our Party against various manifestations which weaken the leading role of the plenums of party district committees and party committees in the Army, in order to ensure that this role is always safeguarded and perfected. To this end, the 7th Congress of the Party demanded, in particular, that the erroneous tendency, manifested in some instances, to put the bureaus above the plenums, to overrate the role of bureaus and to underrate the role of plenums, as well as to attribute to the apparatus of the party committee functions that belong to the elected organs, must be done away with. The essence of this struggle has been and is to ensure the fullest collective spirit in the activity of the leading party organs. As comrade Enver Hoxha put it at the 7th Congress, “the collective spirit plays the decisive role in achieving the leadership of the Party, because it avoids bureaucracy and arbitrarity, avoids distortions and grave violations of the line of the Party, ensures the best and most complete implementation of its decisions and directives.

The PLA has achieved marked successes in the ceaseless strengthening of the proletarian composition of its membership. In the conditions of our country, which embarked on the road of socialist development with a very backward social-economic and cultural-educational situation, the fact that, in 1970, worker communists emerged as the biggest group, and the rapid increase of the number of women in the Party, who today make up more than 27 per cent of its members, are truly great victories. The continuous increase in the number of cooperativist peasant communists, who are militating in a sound revolutionary spirit for the cause of communism, just like their worker comrades, is no small victory, either. There could be no thought of such successes and victories without class struggle within the ranks of the Party. Struggle has been required to overcome the retrogressive attitudes of a number of communists and some basic organizations, especially over the admission of young workers and cooperativists, and in particular, of young women, in whose revolutionary determination and abilities there has not always been complete confidence. 

The struggle has been, and on the instructions of the 7th Congress, always will be concentrated against manifestations that affect the fundamental question of admissions to the Party: quality.

Our Party has never seen the quality of the candidates for membership as consisting only in their worker or cooperativist status. It has linked this question with a series of other very important questions of a class character, which make the communist a proletarian vanguard fighter, loyal to the end to the cause of communism, indomitable in the face of enemies, difficulties, obstacles and sacrifices, and determined to implement the political line of the Party at any cost. Such questions are the ideological and political preparation of candidates for party membership; their being outstanding in the performance not only of their technical-professional tasks, but also of their political and social tasks, in their revolutionary attitude and behaviour at work, in society, and the family; their being tested through hard work, on difficult fronts, in revolutionary activity in general, in class struggle, etc. 

The Party has waged systematic and incessant struggle against manifestations that sully the purity of the moral figure of communists, in order to ensure that they always remain vanguard revolutionary fighters, and to implement the Marxist-Leninist principle, which was stressed once again at the 7th Congress of the Party, that “without the vanguard role of individual communists there can be no vanguard party of the working class, there can be no party to lead the masses of the people”. [11]

Our Party can never reconcile it to such manifestations, which blemish the pure moral figure of the commmunists, and it has not done so. Through the example of its members as vanguard revolutionaries in struggle at work, in their conduct in society, facing hardships and obstacles, facing sacrifices, confronting enemies, and everywhere, it has always won the hearts of the people, has always created and maintained close links with the broad masses of the people, has mobilized and is mobilizing them in revolution, in the construction of socialism and in the defence of the Homeland.

The alien manifestations, whatever their nature, which have been observed and continue to be observed in some party organizations or individual communists, have their roots in concepts alien to the proletarian ideology of the Party, to Marxist-Leninist philosophy. 

Hence, in the course of the struggle against the concrete alien manifestations observed in the stands of basic organizations and party members it is necessary at the same time, to uncover, hit and smash the essentially reactionary alien concepts and their ideological roots, that exist in the heads of communists and give rise to those manifestations. Moreover, this class struggle within the ranks of party organizations is linked, and cannot but be closely linked with the class struggle in the ranks of the people against the blemishes from the old society, against the petty-bourgeois psychology and all the remnants of old reactionary ideologies, against backward customs, as well as with the struggle against the bourgeois-revisionist ideological aggression. Only such an organic linking gives our class struggle against reactionary ideologies, old and new, all the force, destructive, on the one hand, and transforming and constructive, on the other, necessary to protect the Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat against the evils which seized the Soviet party and state by the throat and strangled them, following the death of Stalin, when that party and state, grown sclerotic and bureaucratic, gave up the fight against the reactionary old, and the revolutionary class struggle in general.

If it is to be fruitful, the class struggle within the Party, like the class struggle in general, requires another condition, also: it must be always on the offensive, it should not wait for alien manifestations to appear and then combat them, but should prepare the communists well, ideologically and politically, for such a struggle, so that they see and judge matters, solve problems, always from the proletarian class standpoint, on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist ideology and policy of the Party, of dialectical materialism, so that nothing can slip past them “unnoticed” and uncombated. 

The best means to prepare the communists so that they wage the class struggle, within and outside the ranks of the Party, correctly and consistently is to ensure that they are thoroughly acquainted with and assimilate every directive and norm of the Party, that they study and master the Marxist-Leninist theory, linking it closely with the teachings of the Party, and temper themselves as revolutionaries in the school of the working class. The more thorough and complete the ideological and political communist formation of the party members, the greater is their determination and the better their ability to defend and apply Marxism-Leninism and the line of the Party, to be vanguard fighters to the end, to wage the class struggle in all fields and directions.

The communist formation of the party members is an extensive and complex job which, like any other, is carried out through stubborn persistence, overcoming various difficulties and obstacles, and here, too, breaking down regressive, inhibiting concepts. 

At the centre of the work for the communist formation lies the study of the Marxist-Leninist theory, without the mastery of which no party of the working class can play its leading role in the revolution and the construction of socialism.

Stressing once again the absolute necessity of studying the Marxist-Leninist theory and condemning any manifestation of underestimation and neglect of this matter, the 7th Congress of the Party declared: “Nobody should say that he has no time to study. The communist who is not interested in study and broadening his horizon, who makes no effort to try to acquaint himself with, and master the rich experience of, the Party will run out of steam and will not be up to the mark in his task as a vanguard fighter”. [12]

An indispensable prerequisite for mastering Marxism-Leninism is the method of assimilating it in the irreconcilable clashes between the revolutionary materialist-dialectical theory and the proletarian policy of the Party and bourgeois theories and policies of every type, as well in the struggle against any kind of old idealist and metaphysical concepts which manifest themselves in the attitudes and activity of communists. 

Another indispensable condition is the application of the method of linking theory closely with practice, with revolutionary action.

The PLA has always put these two revolutionary methods at the foundation of its work for the communist formation of its members, combating any departure from this road — the one correct road for the true assimilation of Marxism-Leninism. 

Our Party has always stressed, and its 7th Congresses stressed it once again, that the communists need the Marxist-Leninist theory not for erudition's sake, but so they will be able to fight intelligently and with determination to carry out the revolution, to complete the building of socialist society, to wage the class struggle correctly and courageously, and not yield to the pressure of enemies and in the face difficulties. Criticism and self-criticism is a powerful and tested weapon for the successful waging of the class struggle the ranks of the Party. This weapon serves to detect and correct shortcomings and errors, to prevent or smash manifestations alien to the ideology, line, and norms of the Party. Thus, it also supplements the communist education of the party members.

Criticism and self-criticism are a very good indicator in assessing how the class struggle is being waged within the Party. Where there is correct, principled, severe criticism and self-criticism without fear and hesitation about every communist, there the diseases that threaten the Party cannot get established, the work of the class enemy makes no headway, and the implementation of decisions and directives, the vanguard role of the communists, the leadership of the party basic organization and of the plenum of the party committee are ensured. 

“The situation is in order in the party organizations”, comrade Enver Hoxha instructs, “only when there is the thrashing out of ideas, criticism and self-criticism from correct party positions, when opinions are expressed about work, when proposals, suggestions, etc., are made, in a word when life is seething there, not when there is ‘tranquillity’". [13]

When it is based on the policy and interests of the Party, of the working class, and socialism, the clash of opinions is never harmful. On the contrary it is necessary and useful, because it strengthens the militant revolutionary character of the unity, makes it easier to uncover and combat mistakes and shortcomings, violations and distortions of the line, and to take more correct decisions.

The correct waging of the class struggle within the Party requires that the course of the correction of the erring communists must be followed with revolutionary justice and severity, and not with opportunist indulgence, that every communist towards whom disciplinary measures are taken should be put to the test, more than any other communist, and that the party basic organizations should guide this testing directly. The class struggle also makes the differentiation: on the one hand, it corrects the majority of those who waver or lag behind their comrades, on the other, it separates out the incorrigible. The latter are people who have smuggled themselves into the Party, who have not had and have not been able to acquire, all the qualities of the communist, or have lost these qualities on the uphill pull of the revolution, that is to say, have capitulated to the pressure of the enemy or difficulties. 

There is only one measure for the incorrigible: expulsion from the ranks of the Party. Great as the need of the Party is for transfusions of new and pure blood into its body so that it will always remain a Party of revolutionary action, a proletarian leading Party, its need to purge itself of all those who lose the qualities of the vanguard proletarian fighter is just as great. It is no accident that Lenin calls purging a law of the development of the revolutionary party of the working class. Our Party has never allowed opportunist softness, liberalism and sentimentality in the implementation of this law.

There is also another very important feature in the practice of the purging carried out in our Party. Unlike many other parties, with us no mass purges have taken place. This is connected with the fact that in the ranks of our Party no factional trends and opposition lines, the struggle for the smashing of which would have entailed mass purges, have succeeded in taking shape. The purging of our Party has been carried out routinely, in the process of the implementation of the principles and norms of its Constitution.

In our Party, purging is a revolutionary class process that is carried out on the basis of the internal democracy of the Party as well as by drawing in the opinion of the masses of the working people, who make the assessment of this or that party member. 

Dangers that threaten the Party and the fight against them

What are the dangers that threaten the Party, against which it has fought and is fighting ceaselessly so that it will always remain a revolutionary party of the working class? 

The 7th Congress of the Party stressed that “the class struggle waged during the whole existence of the Party, as well as recently, has shown that the main danger and enemy to our Party, as well as to the entire international revolutionary communist and workers' movement, has been and still is right opportunism, revisionism". [14]

All the enemies and traitors who have emerged from the ranks of the Party have been rightists. In the hostile rightist views and activities we see reflected the pressure of the internal and external class enemy, according to concrete historical periods and conditions.

With the frontal class struggle which the Party has waged unceasingly within and outside its ranks, it has never allowed the creation of the soil in which right opportunism, revisionism could thrive. It has combated right opportunism, in the first place, in the views and activities of its enemies. But the Party has also fought opportunist symptoms which have appeared in the work of our people. 

Liberalism, as a marked expression of opportunism, has been dealt hard blows.

The fact that liberalism has never been able to strike root and become a disease in our Party confirms how correct and fruitful the struggle waged against it has been.

The powerful blows of the Party have been and are aimed against bureaucracy, too.

The bitter experience of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union proves that bureaucracy is just as great a danger to the party of the working class in power as liberalism. What happened in that party? Gradually, the basic organizations and organs of the party were displaced from their leading role as organs of collective leadership. All leadership was concentrated in the hands of the notorious “apparatchiki”, thus it became bureaucratic from the centre to the base. Everything was decided by the apparatuses which rode roughshod over the entire party and the working class. Khrushchev and company took advantage of this to carry out the counter-revolution, while the party and the working class were in no position to prevent the traitors from seizing state power and restoring capitalism. 

On the face of it, bureaucracy passes itself off as “leftist”, if it is considered from the angle that it tramples underfoot democracy in the party and state, the role of the mass of the communists and the people, allegedly in the name of the “implementation of the directive, principle, law, or order”. But this appearance does not alter its rightist content, its nature as the offspring of capitalism and revisionism, as an enemy of the Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the proletarian ideology, as a danger that, like liberalism, leads to the transformation of the party and the socialist state into a bourgeois-revisionist party and state. It fact, liberalism and bureaucracy, as ills and dangers to a party of the working class in power, never present themselves separately, but always entangled with each other. The one supplements the other, they are branches of the same tree. The liberal is also a bureaucrat, just as the bureaucrat is also a liberal, according to the occasion, for neither the one nor the other is guided by revolutionary principle, but by the interests of the moment, by personal interests. Either of them, according to the occasion, is a servile toady, a pragmatist, a compromiser, arrogant and so on. The Party teaches us that we should look for right opportunism and fight it not only in manifestations of liberalism and bureaucracy, but also in their offspring, such as technocratism, intellectualism, conformism, servility, indifference, etc. Opportunism presents itself and operates in all sorts of forms and shapes.

While combating right opportunism, the PLA has not neglected and never will neglect the struggle against the dangers which leftism, sectarianism and anarchism, present not only because, if they are overlooked and not combated, these dangers may have consequences just as harmful as right opportunism, liberalism and bureaucracy, but also because right-opportunism often presents itself in “left” attire. 

We see leftist, sectarian attitudes, also, in the practice of some opportunist elements so they can appear as “revolutionaries”, “men of principle”, “rigorous” in the implementation of principles and directives. This kind of “left” opportunism is just as harmful as liberalism, bureaucracy, and conservatism.

For all these reasons, while always bearing in mind that the main danger and enemy is right opportunism, revisionism, and while combating this danger in all its various forms and manifestations, our Party also resolutely fights “left” opportunism, sectarianism. 

The fight on the two flanks is the only correct method of the class struggle of the revolutionary party of the working class. One-sidedness is incompatible with Marxist-Leninist dialectics, which is the foundation of the line and practical activity of the Party.

By implementing such revolutionary principles, methods and practices in waging the class struggle within its ranks, the PLA will always remain a revolutionary party of the working class and lead the Albanian people with sure steps to the complete construction of socialist society and communism. 

Sources

1. Enver Hoxha. Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 109 (Eng. ed.).
2. Enver Hoxha. Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 79 (Eng. ed.).
3. Enver Hoxha. Reports and Speeches, 1967-1968, pp. 39-40.
4. Enver Hoxha. Closing speech at the 7th Plenum of the CC of the PLA, May 29, 1975. Central Party Archives.
5. Enver Hoxha. Reports and Speeches, 1972-1973, p. 284.
6. Enver Hoxha, Reports and Speeches, 1968, p, 39.
7. Speech held on March 21, 1977. Central Party Archives.
8. Enver Hoxha. Reports to the Congress of the PLA, p. 123 (Eng. ed.).
9. Enver Hoxha, Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 77 (Eng. ed.).
10. Enver Hoxha. Contribution to the discussion at the Political Bureau of the CC of the PLA, March 5, 1975. Central Party Archives.
11.Enver Hoxha. Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 84-85 (Eng. ed.).
12. Enver Hoxha. Report to 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 144 (Eng. ed.).
13. Enver Hoxha. Reports and Speeches, 1972-1973, p. 52.
14. Enver Hoxha. Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 109 (Eng. ed.).