– Qemal Cicollari, Chairman of the Communist Party of Albania –
Capitalist Albania is experiencing a month of fires.
As the print and broadcast media report every day, outbreaks of fire are burning across the country and the damage caused by the fires is extensive.
Television footage shows Albania in flames every day.
Domestic and foreign media report that fires have also engulfed many other capitalist countries throughout the world.
The Consequences of the Fires in Capitalist Albania
Capitalist Albania is experiencing a month of fires.
As the print and broadcast media report every day, outbreaks of fire are rapidly increasing throughout the country and the damage they have caused is extensive.
Television footage of the fires shows an Albania in flames.
According to Google, the fires in Albania during 2026 have had the following consequences:
— the destruction by fire of 2,300 ha of forests and pastureland;
— damage to agricultural areas;
— homes and livestock endangered in the areas of Kruja, Dajti, Patos, etc.;
— the evacuation of dozens of families.
The financial cost of the damage caused by this year’s fires has not yet been announced by the government but, according to Google, it is thus far estimated at several tens of millions of euros.
According to Google, the financial damage caused by fires in Albania in 2025 amounted to €77 million.
Responsibility for this tragic situation in Albania lies with Edi Rama’s bourgeois Socialist government, which has failed to take the necessary infrastructural and financial measures to prevent this catastrophe caused by the fires that are consuming the property of the people and of Albania.
It is sufficient to note, by way of example, that Edi Rama’s bourgeois government has only one firefighting aircraft with which to “save” Albania from the fires!
Edi Rama’s bourgeois government is attempting, through demagogy, to deceive and mislead the people by declaring that it has taken the necessary measures to protect the country from fires while, according to the government, the blame supposedly lies solely with global warming, arsonists, pyromaniacs, etc.
The Consequences of the Fires in Capitalist Europe
According to Google, the fires in Europe (particularly in Spain, France, Greece, etc.) have had the following consequences (AI summary):
— €19.1 billion in economic damage, according to AccuWeather and the Financial Times;
— half a million ha of land, forests and pastureland burnt;
— destruction of infrastructure;
— mass evacuations of residents and tourists;
— severe air pollution.
The Consequences of the Fires in Capitalist America
According to Google, the fires in America have had the following consequences (AI summary):
— 32 lives lost;
— thousands of buildings destroyed;
— $394–900 billion in financial damage each year, according to reports by the U.S. Congress;
— $2 billion in California;
— severe air pollution across extensive regions.
Thus, capitalism is burning and destroying Albania and the world through fire as well.
The Causes of Fires Throughout the World
In such a tragic situation, in which fires are burning capitalist Albania and the capitalist world, it is extremely important to understand the principal causes of these fires.
According to Google, the principal cause of wildfires globally is human activity, which accounts for approximately 85–90 per cent of fires in various regions of the world.
According to Google, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that 37 per cent of the area burnt by wildfires in the West — nearly 19.8 million ha since 1901 — was attributable to fossil-fuel activities by companies including ExxonMobil and BP, among others, which warmed the planet by 0.5 degrees Celsius, nearly half of the global increase during that period.
Carly Phillips, a research scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Science Hub for Climate Litigation and a co-author of the study, said:
“Many of these companies, we know, have known for decades about the climate consequences. But instead of sharing this information with the public, they engaged in this deliberate disinformation campaign to deceive the general public and cast doubt on climate science,” Phillips told CNN.
Thus, climate science identifies monopolistic fuel companies as the principal cause of global warming and, consequently, of the creation of optimal conditions for the outbreak of fires in countries throughout the world.
Why have the monopolistic fuel companies concealed the consequences of their economic activities for the climate and nature and, consequently, for the people and mankind?
Marxist-Leninist science has revealed the essential truth concerning this question.
The great Marx, the father of scientific communism, emphasised:
“The production of surplus-value, or profit — this is the absolute law of this mode of production.” (Karl Marx: Capital, Volume One, Book 3, Tirana, 1971, p. 81)
Thus, under the capitalist and imperialist system, as the history of capitalism demonstrates, the ruling bourgeois class, the capitalists and monopolistic companies have only one objective: to produce surplus-value, or profit, by mercilessly oppressing and exploiting the working class (the proletariat), the working masses and the people. This is the fundamental economic law of capitalism.
The capitalist hydrocarbon monopolies and the capitalists who own hydrocarbon enterprises have likewise had, and continue to have, the production of surplus-value, or profit, as their objective.
According to the findings of climate science, their economic activity has created the “greenhouse effect” as a result of large-scale carbon emissions into the atmosphere, thereby causing global warming and becoming the principal cause of fires on the planet, as noted above.
Capitalist monopolies in general, including oil monopolies in particular, do not adopt technical measures or invest in new technologies to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere, etc., because this would increase production costs and consequently reduce the amount of surplus-value and profit obtained by these capitalist monopolies.
Thus, the phenomenon of fires under capitalism is unavoidable.
The principal party responsible for fires under capitalism is therefore the ruling capitalist class, whose objective is to secure maximum profit by mercilessly oppressing and exploiting the working class (the proletariat), the working masses and the people.
The principal party responsible for the tragic situation caused by fires under capitalism is the bourgeois state.
The capitalist state, as the servant of the ruling capitalist class, not only fails to terminate the economic activities of capitalists and capitalist monopolies that harm the lives and health of the working class (the proletariat), the working masses and the people and that destroy the climate and nature, but has also assisted, and continues to assist, capitalist monopolies and capitalists in various ways, through loans, subsidies, etc.
Furthermore, the capitalist state does not adopt comprehensive measures to prevent fires and extinguish them as rapidly as possible because the capitalist state’s budget for this sector is extremely small in terms of securing the necessary human, material and technical resources (fire engines, firefighting aircraft, etc.), particularly in comparison with the colossal expenditure devoted to militarisation, armaments, etc.
Thus, the capitalist state bears principal responsibility for the phenomenon of fires under capitalism.
Thus, under the capitalist and imperialist system, the ruling bourgeois class, the capitalists and monopolistic companies are concerned solely with surplus-value and profit, rather than with the adverse consequences of their economic activities for the people, the climate and nature, including the extensive damage caused by fires as a result of those activities.
Thus, capitalism and imperialism constitute a socio-economic system that stands in antagonistic contradiction not only to the lives of the working class (the proletariat), the working masses, the people and mankind, but also to nature.
Thus, the old capitalist system is responsible for the oppression and exploitation of the working class, the working masses and the people, as well as for the destruction of nature.
Therefore, the overthrow of the old, oppressive and exploitative capitalist and imperialist system through proletarian revolution is an essential and inevitable necessity for the social liberation of the proletariat and the working masses from capitalist oppression and exploitation and for the preservation of nature and the climate.
Under Socialism
During the period of socialism and Enver Hoxha, as the history of socialism demonstrates, the objective of socialist production was to satisfy to the fullest possible extent the continually increasing material and cultural needs of the working class, the working masses and the people.
This was achieved by expanding and perfecting socialist production on the basis of more advanced technology.
During the period of socialism and Enver Hoxha, socialist economic enterprises (factories, industrial plants, etc.) operated in accordance with all the technological standards of the time, with the aim of protecting the lives and health of the ruling working class, the working masses and the people while simultaneously safeguarding the climate and nature.
During the period of socialism and Enver Hoxha, fires were isolated occurrences, without serious consequences for the lives, health or property of the people and did not harm or endanger nature and the climate, as occurs under capitalism.
The socialist state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, led by the Marxist-Leninist Party of Labour of Albania and Enver Hoxha, adopted all necessary measures and deployed the requisite human, material and technical resources, such as fire engines, aircraft, helicopters, etc., with the aim of preventing and extinguishing fires as rapidly as possible, giving absolute priority to saving human lives.
During the period of socialism and Enver Hoxha, as soon as a fire broke out anywhere, the entire people, the Party of Labour of Albania and the socialist state of the dictatorship of the proletariat were immediately mobilised and would “snuff the life” out of the fire before it had even had an opportunity to take hold.
During the period of socialism and Enver Hoxha, the lives and property of the people, as well as the climate and the beautiful natural environment of socialist Albania, were safeguarded.
(Translated by The Voice of Albania from the Albanian original)
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