– Excerpt from “Our Enver” –
The 1st Congress of the Anti-fascist Albanian Youth Union (AAYU) was held in August 1944. This event played a very important role in the movement of the Albanian youth. I shall return again to this major event, but first I want to speak briefly about the impressions I had from my meeting with Comrade Enver after the Congress.
One day after the Congress of the AAYU in the village of Helmës, district of Skrapar, where the General Staff of the National Liberation Army was located, a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth was held. Comrade Enver Hoxha, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Albania, was present at this meeting, which analysed the tasks facing the organization of the communist youth for the implementation of the decisions of the 1st Congress of the AAYU and the further mobilization of the youth in the war for the liberation of the Homeland. Thus I had a chance to speak directly with him again.
We met before the meeting. He asked me for my impressions about the youth congress, then inquired about the situation in the 7th Brigade after the June Operation, asked about its cadres and then he informed me that I had been appointed to work in the political section of the 2nd Division, which had been formed in those days and was located in Northern Albania. He explained to me the great political importance that the dispatch of partisan forces to the North had. As is known, for various reasons, the National Liberation Movement in the northern districts had not assumed the same proportions or developed as rapidly as it had in the south of the country.
“The dispatch of divisions of the National Liberation Army there,” Comrade Enver said, “will be of great assistance to the party organizations in the regions of the North, for the mobilization and engagement of the masses in the war. And the results are already evident,” he continued. “The 17th, 18th, 22nd and 23rd Brigades have been or are about to be formed.”
Comrade Enver Hoxha’s assessments of the situation in the North were characterized by an unshakeable belief in the patriotism of the people of those regions who, despite the great influence of reactionary elements, were closely linked with the Party and the National Liberation Movement. In Shkodra and Tropoja, the work of the Party was never interrupted, and the partisan rifle was never silent. The people of Dibra, Kukës, Mat, etc., displayed their fighting spirit and great patriotism.
“The dispatch of partisan divisions to the North,” he pointed out, “has as its special aim the foiling of the plans of enemies of the freedom and future of the new Albania.”
Both external reaction, especially the British and the Americans, and internal reaction, the Ballists and the Zogites, aimed to hold the North as their zone and to set up a government there which would oppose the people’s government elected by the Congress of Përmet. If they did not succeed in having this accepted as the only government of the country, they would try to impose a compromise, the formation of a “government of national unity,” which would emerge from the National Liberation Movement, which, according to them, held only the South, and from reaction which, allegedly, held the North. So the camp of reactionary forces calculated.
All the enemies of Albania were set in motion to implement these plans. The Ballists and Zogites, the British and Americans, bayraktars and reactionaries of a hundred-and-one flags were openly collaborating. Even the German nazis, who could see the end approaching for them, were aware of these plans, encouraged them and collaborated for their accomplishment.
The enemies were working, but the people were not asleep. They were fighting and had wise, far-sighted men, like Enver Hoxha, who “read” the plans of reaction and took the decisions which were necessary to ensure the victory of the people and their war, and to defeat the enemy’s plans.
“Therefore, bearing in mind these complicated circumstances,” Comrade Enver concluded the conversation, “you must strengthen the work of the Party and the youth not only in the National Liberation Army, but also among the people, with whom you must work tirelessly to popularize the war and expose the aims and propaganda of the enemies.”
In the meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth, Comrade Enver also spoke about the numerous tasks ahead of us. What impressed me particularly there, as it had done in March in Panarit, was his ability to think far ahead. He spoke about the immediate tasks, about the need to mobilize the youth in the war for the complete liberation of the Homeland. But he also spoke about the reconstruction of the country, the mobilization of the youth in work, as active supporters of the new people’s power. Comrade Enver summed up his ideas in one phrase:
“State power and the army — this must be the motto of the Communist Youth today.”
It was decided that we members of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth who had been elected at the same time to the Secretariat of the AAYU should go immediately to the base zones and to the partisan units. Besides my work with the youth of the 2nd Division which included the 6th, 7th and 22nd Brigades, I would also be responsible for helping the civilian youth in the regions of Mirdita, Puka and Shkodra, where the forces of our division were operating.
Together with Comrade Nexhmije Xhuglini (Hoxha) and two other members of the Central Committee of the Youth, I set out from Helmës in the direction of the North. We travelled through Tomorrica, to Gramsh, to Gjinar of Shpat, to Polis, and after crossing the Shkumbin River, climbed up to Labinot village. There we met the partisans of the 6th Shock Brigade and the Staff of the 2nd Division. I stayed with the partisans of the 6th Brigade, while Comrade Nexhmije went on to the village of Shenmëri, district of Tirana, where she was to make contact with the Staff of the 1st Army Corps and later proceed to Peshkopia. We were to meet again at Priska of Tirana, where the Conference of the youth of Central and Northern Albania was held on October 2, 1944.
At this meeting I first met Comrade Hysni Kapo, who at that time was political commissar of the 1st Army Corps. He greeted the Conference on behalf of the Central Committee of the Party. Very friendly, comradely relations were established between us from this first meeting. Hysni won my respect and admiration with the attention and care he showed for the comrades, with his behaviour and characteristic wisdom, and his modesty. We stayed together only a short while, but to me it seemed we had known each other for a long time. Thus there was born that close friendship and sincere comradeship between us which was never shaken in any situation, that communist collaboration which, from the time we first met, grew and intensified during 35 years of our joint work and struggle for the cause of the people and the Party, always beside our great teacher, Enver Hoxha.
From the Conference at Priska I have another very dear memory. It was there that I met my unforgettable comrade, Semiramis, for the first time. She had come to Priska as a youth activist from Elbasan. As I write these notes I can see her in my mind’s eye just as she was in those days: her hair in plaits but not very long, lively, delicate and gay.
Later after the Liberation of the country, we got to know each other better and married. I write these lines with nostalgia for they remind me of the one most dear to me with whom I lived the happiest years and shared the greatest joys of my personal life. I write with nostalgia remembering the fine communist who was my life’s companion. Together we shared the good and the bad, together we worked and fought for the cause of the Party, together we raised and educated our children who have now become my comrades and co-fighters. But I write these lines also with a heavy burden of deep grief, because I lost Semiramis too soon, lost her at a time when I needed her, her friendship and love, more than ever.
I beg the reader to forgive me for this digression of a strictly personal character.
The meeting of Priska having ended, I set out for Mat, where the forces of the division were located. From there we went to Lura and then entered Mirdita. After that region was completely liberated, we moved into Puka and from there marched in the direction of Shkodra. The 6th Brigade crossed the Drin River and, passing through Lekbibaj and Dukagjin, arrived in the zone of Upper Shkodra. Shkodra was liberated on November 29, 1944 and thus the whole of Albania was cleared of foreign armies.
With the liberation of Shkodra, the heroic National Liberation War was crowned with complete victory; the bloodshed, the innumerable sacrifices of the people and the heroism of the partisans were rewarded; and the consistent line of our Communist Party, the organizer and leader of the National Liberation Movement of the Albanian people, triumphed.
The role of Enver Hoxha in the achievement of this historic victory was decisive. From its very founding, the Party chose Comrade Enver as its head. In the heat of the war, he won the complete trust and support of the entire people, who saw in Enver an outstanding leader who responded to their aspirations. And the people and the Party were not mistaken: Enver Hoxha guided them wisely and led them from victory to victory. He placed all his revolutionary activity in the service of the liberation of the country and, later, of the socialist construction, in the service of the happiness of the masses and the progress of Albania.
A genuine Marxist-Leninist and a great strategist, Enver Hoxha reached the historic conclusion that the people could not triumph, that freedom could not be secured, without creating the organized political force and the military force of the movement. And consequently, if for the first time in history our people achieved a militant unity, which to this day constitutes one of the basic factors of the mobilization of all the energies of the working masses, this is due to the persistent work of Enver Hoxha who, as a true communist and ardent patriot, fought with all his might for the creation of the National Liberation Front, the great organization which united all Albanians to whom the freedom and independence of the country were dear.
Enver Hoxha was the organizer of the National Liberation Army. As Political Commissar and Commander-in-Chief, he led it in all the decisive battles. Thanks to the correct leadership of the Party, the scientific strategy and tactics worked out by the General Staff and Comrade Enver Hoxha personally, our war — which began as a partisan war — very quickly was turned into an organized war with a regular, disciplined army, which operated according to a well-thought-out, unified plan. As a result, our war was waged correctly, the military operations ended with success, and our people liberated the country from the nazi-fascists and traitors with their own forces.
We have said and say again that the National Liberation War is our greatest war, although our people have waged many wars, have shed torrents of blood and have suffered incalculable devastation and hardships. But the National Liberation War, led by the Party with Enver Hoxha at the head, is great not only on account of its dimensions, but also on account of the ideas that inspired it and, above all, its results.
Right from the outset, Enver Hoxha made it clear to the Party and the working masses that their sufferings and misfortunes came not only from the foreigners, the fascist occupiers, but also from the exploiting classes, who had ruled Albania up till that time and had always collaborated with and submitted to the foreigners. Without fighting simultaneously and with equal determination against both these hostile forces, true freedom could not be achieved, national independence could not be realized and the social aspirations of the masses could never be fulfilled. Our National Liberation War triumphed because the people, with the Party at the head, fought consistently on both fronts, against the foreign occupiers and against the local traitors, because the line of the Party was clear and overcame any attempt at sectarian or opportunist deviations.
In Albania, the war for national liberation was transformed into a broad popular revolution. This great, creative revolutionary idea, which Comrade Enver Hoxha made the foundation stone of the line of the Party and the platform of the National Liberation War, led not only to securing genuine national freedom and the complete independence of the Homeland, but, above all, to the establishment of the people’s state power, and made the people masters of their destiny.
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