– Ylli Mece –
Don’t be surprised, and no one should be astonished, placing their hands on their cheeks as if some great calamity has occurred, wondering how it is possible that this writer, without a shred of hesitation, especially today as “Albania aspires for democracy,” comes here and spreads Marxist propaganda?!
It is not at all true that I am the one making this propaganda, but rather the capitalist system installed in Albania itself, which fully confirms Marx’s theses on capitalist exploitation. This same system not only fails to hide the wounds leading it towards catastrophe — a catastrophe that history has determined — but it also manifests precisely the traits that Marx predicted a century and a half ago. Professor Yanis Varoufakis, the former Minister of Finance of Greece and a university professor in England, unequivocally states that everything Marx wrote, with very few and insignificant exceptions, has been completely confirmed by time. The middle bourgeoisie are greatly disturbed when they think that capitalism will inevitably be replaced by communism, without understanding the essence of Marxism as a revolutionary theory and practice which overturns capitalist relations, especially in its final phase of imperialism. But why precisely in imperialism?!
Because imperialism not only concentrates commodity-money capital but also creates the conditions of a globally interconnected and interdependent economy. Just as this capital is concentrated, so too are states, forming large continental empires that are sometimes united with each other and other times in sharp contradiction. If world wars occur in the future, they will be caused by these large imperialist empires such as Europe, Russia, America, China, India or others aspiring to be superpowers. The wars are not fought by the presidents of these countries, no matter how aggressive they are, but by the rivalry for markets and zones of influence. The First World War brought about a three-way alliance between Austro-Hungary and Germany (later joined by Italy) on one side and England, France and Russia on the other (although Russia withdrew in 1917 due to Lenin’s Bolshevik Revolution). Thus, this war was an inter-imperialist war for territorial expansion, but from this war emerged for the first time the state of the proletariat, something never before seen in human history. The Second World War was also an imperialist war initiated by German imperialism, which was “punished” during the first war with many restrictions that severely hampered the German economy. It took an Adolf Hitler to scream madly “to restore the honour and dignity of humiliated Germany.” The aim was not simply to restore a nation’s honour but for Germany to become the nation that would rule the world. Yet, surprisingly, the war and victory over nazism and fascism led many countries after liberation to move directly into a different political system, towards people’s democracies and the path to socialism. These are visible and undeniable historical facts. However, the fact that they could not withstand the economic expansion and ideological diversion of the entire capitalist and imperialist world, ultimately, in the struggle for victory between the two opposing systems of capitalism and socialism, the socio-economic order with the highest productivity would triumph. Socialist leaders themselves had declared this. It turned out that capitalism and imperialism had higher productivity in these opposing socio-economic systems. Does this mean that even if an attempt is made again for an equal society, such a step should not be taken because capitalism has higher labour productivity? No! This is a mistaken thesis because the flaws of former socialist countries lay precisely in undervaluing the ideological factor. Entering the arms race, they underestimated the immense political and economic pressure, which led some party leaderships and even the parties themselves to fear and make significant ideological errors. They became bureaucratized and turned from “servants of the masses” into “lords of the masses,” though not true capitalists with inherited properties and factories exploiting the workforce, but with the communist card in their pockets. Through their theory and practice, they drove these countries towards capitalism, leading them to a point where even the working class became so disillusioned that it lost faith in the communist parties. But is this Marx’s communism, and is this how every Leninist revolution would end? If it were so, then fighting for a life without oppression and class exploitation would be in vain. If it were so, to hell with the books of Marxism and Lenin’s revolutionary theories! But it absolutely isn’t so, because the betrayal of ideals or the wrong and unjust paths that might be followed do not mean that Marx’s Capital, nor Lenin’s revolution, are futile, causing bloodshed. Absolutely not! The degeneration of communist parties and their deviation from Marx’s revolutionary path, transitioning “peacefully to the capitalist path,” reaffirms that economic laws are decisive. This means that if these laws are not rigorously adhered to, socialist property degenerates, with the first manifestation of this degeneration being the poor quantity and quality of goods over time, failing to keep pace with the scientific and technical revolution. This is why one after another many former socialist countries collapsed. This is why even Ramiz Alia, as an author and key actor in the “great betrayal,” openly declared the transition to capitalism. The greatest disgrace in history is his statement that “with the transition to a market economy, the new capitalists will be us, the former communists, and we will never surrender power to the class we overthrew.” The hypocrite who shed tears over Enver’s coffin and swore continuity didn’t understand that he and the treacherous caste accompanying him at the 10th Socialist Party Congress overturned all the victories and precisely handed over power to the new bourgeoisie, that bourgeoisie which, as a result of betrayal and moral, material and spiritual degeneration, emerged from communism. Therefore, Marx’s Capital in its philosophical aspect is a great hurricane, a storm warning the inevitable fall of capitalism and imperialism. However, this Capital (the book so cursed that it terrifies the bourgeoisie) not only became a curse for capitalism and imperialism but perhaps unknowingly, for Marx himself, it would also become a curse for all those parties and communists who deviated, betrayed and distanced themselves from the aspirations of their people. More than 150 years have passed since Marx wrote this book. Perhaps he never imagined that there would be communist parties that would trample on his economic and materialist philosophical thinking. He could never have imagined that the most typical country displaying the essential traits of classic capitalism would be Albania, the country which, in the name of “the true democracy that was lacking,” would become an anarchic state where “the dog doesn’t understand its owner,” a state where the overthrown class of former beys and aghas before Liberation or the bourgeoisie of Lumo Skendo or leaders like Rrem Bajraktari and Esad Toptani would be equated with father Sali and his 40+ thieves, with adventurers like narcotic Nano, with wrong-headed people like Meta, with adventurers like corrupt Rama, and so on. For more than three decades, the wound of hemorrhage and the exodus of Albanian youth across Europe has not stopped, just as the killings by the state against its citizens have not stopped. We are the poorest nation in Europe, being robbed day and night, having our blood sucked, being killed in the middle of the boulevard, being drowned in the Otranto as if we were orphaned children, prostituted as they wish and whenever they wish, threatened with two constitutions — one of Sali’s and the other of Leka Dukagjini. We are the only country in Europe where a newborn child cries out because they are born with 5,000 euros of debt. We are a state that has overturned everything because we “were communists,” a state that has no army (strange how these neighbouring countries, which envied us, still maintain their armies?), a state where crime and organized gangs have more power, with completely corrupt justice, medicine, police, administration and many other wounds…! This is the capitalism installed by degenerated former communists (not true and honest communists). Yet, on the other hand, they prove once again that Marx’s Capital is not only not obsolete but remains and will remain a hymn, the song of songs of Marxism, from which all the world’s proletarians will one day come together to overthrow this blood-sucking and cursed system.
Translated from the Albanian original and first published in “Gazeta SOT” on June 29, 2024)
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