When the Eighth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in 1956, Mao Zedong met with Enver Hoxha.
The two countries established diplomatic relations on November 23, 1949. Starting in 1954, the People's Republic of China has provided economic assistance to Albania.[2][3]
Albania, which was weak in the socialist camp in Eastern Europe, leaned towards the Soviet Union after the conflict broke out between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, supported Joseph Stalin's policy, and was protected by the Soviet Union. However, after Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev, who succeeded as the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, completely rejected Stalin's policy and fixed relations with Yugoslavia. Albania opposed Khrushchev's approach for its own interests. During the same period, China also criticized the new soviet government of Khruschev and severed diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia.[4]
According to Eugene K. Keefe et al.:
During the 1950s the Albanian leadership, coaxed by Moscow, made some attempts at restoring normal relations with Yugoslavia. After the riots in Poland and the revolt in Hungary in 1956, however, the Albanians raised strident voices against Yugoslavia's so-called revisionism--that is the alleged perversion of Marxism-Leninism--which they asserted was the basis for the troubles afflicting Eastern Europe. According to official Albanian dogma the two greatest evils in the world were revisionism and imperialism, personified, respectively, by Yugoslavia and the United States. Toward the end of the 1950s it became apparent to Hoxha and Shehu that they were closer ideologically to Peking than to Moscow, and only the latter's economic aid prevented an open break.
In 1960, as Khrushchev sought to line up Communist parties for a condemnation of Communist China, Albania refused to participate and, by the end of the year, the Soviet-Albanian dispute was made known openly. By the end of 1961 diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed, Soviet aid ceased, and Soviet advisers and technicians left Albania, to be replaced by those of Communist China. Although not formally breaking off diplomatic relations, the other Eastern European Communist countries also halted aid programs and withdrew advisers. Khrushchev then became the object of violent attacks in the Albanian press, being castigated as more of a revisionist than Tito. Khrushchev counterattacked to defend himself but, in addition, used Albania as a proxy for violent propaganda blasts that were obviously directed against the Chinese Communists.
After the final break with the Soviet Union, Albania entered the third stage of its Communist existence--the alliance with Communist China. Stages one and two had been as a satellite, first of Yugoslavia and then of the Soviet Union. In stage three, if not a satellite, it was a client of a powerful sponsor. Albania, throughout the 1960s and into 1970, continued to require the economic support of an outside power. Communist China has provided that support, though apparently on a much reduced scale.
In return for Chinese support the Albanians accept the Chinese view of world affairs and speak for their sponsor in Eastern Europe and in the United Nations. Albania successfully defied Moscow, but its internal and international positions remained weak. In 1968 Hoxha withdrew his country from the Warsaw Pact in protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia, but this was primarily a symbolic move because Albania had not participated in Warsaw Pact affairs since 1961.[5]
Building a close relationship
After the Sino-Soviet Split, Albania became one of China's closest partners.[6]:204
At the Bucharest Conference held on June 20–25, 1960, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist or Workers’ Party of pro-Soviet socialist countries launched an attack on China. The Party of Labour of Albania, which chose to stand on the same front with the CCP, was also criticized by the Soviet Union.
In early June before the meeting, when the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party met with the leaders of the Party of Labour of Albania, they explained the differences of opinion between the Chinese and Soviet Communist Parties and their own opinions. From June 5 to 9, the eleventh meeting of the Council of the World Federation of Trade Unions was held in Beijing. At the meeting, the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist government had different opinions. On June 17, the delegation of the Council of the Chinese and Soviet Union of Trade Unions met. The representatives of the Soviet Union accused the Chinese Communist government and Albania of opening up the differences between the two parties and attempting to split the international communist movement.
At the Bucharest Conference on June 20, Khrushchev first attacked the policies of the CCP, including "supporting the policies of the Stalin era to subvert the Soviet Union" and "domestic policy errors such as the Great Leap Forward". After the Bulgarian participant's speech in support of the Soviet Union ended, the spokesperson of the Albanian Party stated that the differences between the Chinese and Soviet parties can be resolved in the discussion and should not be discussed in such a meeting. And in the discussion that followed, he clearly supported the CCP.[7][8] Since then, Albania has become more inclined to China. Therefore, the Soviet Union unilaterally tore up the economic and military assistance contract to Albania in 1961, refused its participation in the Warsaw Pact meeting and eventually broke off diplomatic relations with it. The diplomatic relations between China and Albania have been strengthened. When Premier Zhou Enlai visited Albania, Albania held a mass welcome rally of more than 100,000 people every time, and leaders often all welcome them. When the Albanian leaders visited China, all party and state leaders except Chairman Mao Zedong of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party greeted them at the airport. They also organized millions of people in Beijing to welcome them.[3]
Start of large-scale economic and material assistance by China
After the strengthening of the relationship between the governments of the two countries, aid from China increased substantially. Albania was a major recipient of Chinese aid during the 1960s.[9]:53 In 1961, during the Great Chinese Famine, China provided Albania with hundreds of thousands of tons of grain, 250 million yuan in foreign exchange aid, and 19 complete projects. At the request of the Albanian side, the Chinese Communist government ordered the shipment of grain from Canada to Albania.
When Geng Biao was the ambassador to Albania (around 1969) China's economic and military assistance projects to Albania were worth nearly 9 billion yuan, and used inefficiently. The machinery and materials provided by China were used for non-production purposes (such as cement used to make a large number of monuments).
At the same time, China assisted in the construction of chromium and nickel mining projects in Albania, and provided China with chromium, nickel and other strategic materials that were scarce at that time, but it also caused overproduction.[3]
In 1969, Mao Zedong worried about the Soviet Union's invasion of China and began to ease the diplomacy of the United States. In Albania, the meeting between Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union Kosygin reduced the requirements for attending the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, which caused Mao Zedong's dissatisfaction. Relations between the two countries began to cool. During the discussion of the draft joint statement in 1969, the Albanian side did not approve of China's suggestion that the source of revisionism should be written in the statement. Regarding whether there is a class issue in socialist countries, the two sides have different views.[10]
Since 1970, the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and the Albanian Party of Labour has gradually come to a standstill. When China broke its diplomatic isolation in the early 1970s, Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and other CCP leaders began to reconsider aid to Albania. The Chinese ambassador to Albania, Geng Biao, witnessed the current situation in Albania, and wrote about Albania's massive waste of aid to Qiao Guanhua, the Deputy Minister of European Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Qiao forwarded it to Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong praised Geng Biao for reflecting the facts. However, the aid did not stop. In 1970, Albania asked China for 3.2 billion yuan in aid, and finally received 1.95 billion yuan in long-term low-interest loans.[11] On the other hand, Tirana under the leadership of Hoxha, the first secretary of the Albanian Party of Labour, began to improve its international status. Albania started trade negotiations with France, Italy and the newly independent Asian and African countries, and resumed normal relations with Yugoslavia and Greece in 1971. Albania actively reduced its dependence on China by decentralizing trade channels, improving diplomatic and cultural relations (especially with Western European countries). But Albania did not join the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and refused to participate in the Helsinki Conference held in July 1975.
Albanian leaders were dissatisfied that China resumed friendly relations with the United States in the early 1970s. The newspapers and radio stations in Tirana did not report Nixon's visit to China in 1972. However, Albania which was still in the United Nations, submitted a draft resolution critical of the General Assembly, so that the People's Republic of China replaced the Republic of China to exercise power in the United Nations. In October 1974, Albania asked China to provide 5 billion yuan in loans, postpone the repayment of loans from 1976 to 1980, and asked China to provide grain and oil assistance. China was at the end of the Cultural Revolution at this time and only promised 1 billion yuan in loans. Albania has set off a movement to condemn China and refuse to provide the crude oil and asphalt that China needs. In 1975, the two countries signed a batch of long-term interest-free loan protocols.
After Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Hoxha remained optimistic about China-Albania relations. But in August 1977, the newly appointed Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and Premier of the State Council Hua Guofeng stated that he would use the Three World Theory as the basis for his new foreign policy. Hoxha regarded it as a way for China to unite with the United States to fight the Soviet Union and seek hegemony in the third world and non-aligned countries, and expressed firm opposition. From August 30 to September 7, 1977, Yugoslavian President Tito visited Beijing and was welcomed by the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. The Party of Labour of Albania immediately declared China a revisionist country similar to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. China also found it difficult to meet Albania's huge assistance request, and the relationship between the two sides has fallen to a freezing point. On July 13, 1978, China announced the cessation of aid to Albania. In 1978, in accordance with Deng Xiaoping's instructions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China issued the "Notes of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China on Compulsory Suspension of Assistance to Albania and Reception of Experts", which formally terminated assistance to Albania. Enver Hoxha, the top leader of the Albanian government and the first secretary of the Party of Labour, has since fully opposed the Chinese government.
The new pattern of diplomacy
After 1979, Albania suspended all trade, cultural, educational, and technological relations with China, and only retained diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level. This "hibernation" state of China-Albania relations lasted until 1983.[10] On November 23, 1989, the two countries signed an agreement to establish a China-Albania Economic and Technical Cooperation Mixed Committee.[12] In January 1991, Albanian Foreign Minister Malile visited China. This was the first senior official of the Albanian government to visit China since the deterioration of China-Albanian relations in 1978, but at that time the communist regime in Albania was facing disintegration.[13]
Influence on China regarding its aid to Albania
According to Geng Biao's calculation in 1969, the CCP's economic and military assistance to Albania since 1954 was nearly 9 billion yuan. At that time, the total population of Albania was only 2 million, with an average of more than 4,000 yuan per person. At that time, the average annual income in China was only more than 200 yuan. The aid to Albania has actually placed a heavy burden on the government.[3]
The breakdown of relations with China left Albania without foreign protection. Albania rejected efforts to restore normal diplomatic relations by the United States and the Soviet Union, but it expanded its diplomatic relations with Western Europe and developing countries, and it also began to adopt self-reliance as the basic strategy of national economic development. This turmoil and the debate on the three world theories divided the world anti-revisionist movement. Most anti-revisionist parties support the Albanian Party of Labour, while other parties dispute this. This view and the theory which it is based upon are both called Hoxhaism. The Albanian Labour Party's allies are mainly distributed in Africa, Turkey and Latin America, and they include the Communist Party of Brazil and the Tigray Marxist Alliance.
Albania's diplomatic moves regarding the one China policy
Embassy of Albania in China
From the 1960s onwards, the People's Republic of Albania under Enver Hoxha, moved an annual resolution in the General Assembly to transfer China's seat at the UN from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China. On October 25, 1971, Resolution 2758, sponsored by Albania, was passed by the General Assembly, withdrawing recognition of the ROC as the legitimate government of China, and recognizing the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China. China considers Albania an important part of its Belt and Road Initiative.[14]
In 2001, the two countries signed three agreements covering financial, mortgage and technical aspects of constructing a new hydroelectric power facility —to be known as Hydro Central— in northern Albania. China also pledged US$126 million in credit to the project.[17]
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha visited Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in April 2009. Wen put forth a four-point proposal to further cooperation with Albania. It urged both countries to:[18]
increase exchanges at all levels to cement political relations by using the opportunity of the 60th anniversary of China-Albanian ties;
promote substantial cooperation based on equality and reciprocity and put more emphasis on information technology, energy, infrastructure, and mining exploration;
expand cooperation in the areas of culture, public health, agriculture and tourism to enrich bilateral ties;
strengthen coordination in the United Nations and other international organizations to safeguard the interests of developing nations and unity of the United Nations.
Enver Hoxha was an Albanian communist politician who was the ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 until his death, a member of its Politburo, chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania, and commander-in-chief of the Albanian People's Army. He was the twenty-second prime minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times was both foreign minister and defence minister of the country.
Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China and later the People's Republic of China. A difference between Maoism and traditional Marxism–Leninism is that a united front of progressive forces in class society would lead the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than communist revolutionaries alone. This theory, in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. Later theoreticians expanded on the idea that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions, arguing that he had in fact updated it fundamentally and that Maoism could be applied universally throughout the world. This ideology is often referred to as Marxism–Leninism–Maoism to distinguish it from the original ideas of Mao.
In the USSR, during the eleven-year period from the death of Joseph Stalin (1953) to the political ouster of Nikita Khrushchev (1964), the national politics were dominated by the Cold War, including the U.S.–USSR struggle for the global spread of their respective socio-economic systems and ideology, and the defense of hegemonic spheres of influence. Since the mid-1950s, despite the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) having disowned Stalinism, the political culture of Stalinism — a very powerful General Secretary of the CPSU—remained in place, albeit weakened.
The Sino-Soviet split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the Cold War. This was primarily caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Leninism, as influenced by their respective geopolitics during the Cold War of 1947–1991. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sino-Soviet debates about the interpretation of orthodox Marxism became specific disputes about the Soviet Union's policies of national de-Stalinization and international peaceful coexistence with the Western Bloc, which Chinese leader Mao Zedong decried as revisionism. Against that ideological background, China took a belligerent stance towards the Western world, and publicly rejected the Soviet Union's policy of peaceful coexistence between the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc. In addition, Beijing resented the Soviet Union's growing ties with India due to factors such as the Sino-Indian border dispute, and Moscow feared that Mao was too nonchalant about the horrors of nuclear warfare.
The Party of Labour of Albania (PLA), also referred to as the Albanian Workers' Party (AWP), was the ruling and sole legal party of Albania during the communist period (1945–1991). It was founded on 8 November 1941 as the Communist Party of Albania but changed its name in 1948 following a recommendation by Joseph Stalin. The party was dissolved on 13 June 1991 and succeeded by the Socialist Party of Albania and the new Communist Party of Albania. For most of its existence, the party was dominated by its First Secretary, Enver Hoxha, who was also the de facto leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985.
Peaceful coexistence was a theory, developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of primarily Marxist–Leninist foreign policy and adopted by Soviet-allied socialist states, according to which the Socialist Bloc could peacefully coexist with the capitalist bloc. This was in contrast to the antagonistic contradiction principle that socialism and capitalism could never coexist in peace. The Soviet Union applied it to relations between the western world, particularly NATO countries, and nations of the Warsaw Pact.
The Sino-Albanian split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the People's Republic of China in the period 1972–1978.
The Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, or Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance for short, was a bilateral treaty of alliance, collective security, aid and cooperation concluded between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on February 14, 1950. It superseded the previous Sino-Soviet treaty signed by the Kuomintang government.
The Tito–Stalin split or the Soviet–Yugoslav split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World War II. Although presented by both sides as an ideological dispute, the conflict was as much the product of a geopolitical struggle in the Balkans that also involved Albania, Bulgaria, and the communist insurgency in Greece, which Tito's Yugoslavia supported and the Soviet Union secretly opposed.
Sino-Soviet relations, or China–Soviet Union relations, refers to the diplomatic relationship between China and the various forms of Soviet Power which emerged from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to 1991, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
The People's Socialist Republic of Albania, officially the People's Republic of Albania from 1946 until 1976, and from 1991 to 1992 as the Republic of Albania, was the communist state in Albania from 1946 to 1991. It succeeded the Democratic Government of Albania (1944–1946).
The establishment of diplomatic relations between Albania and the Soviet Union happened on April 7, 1924. Both countries were also allies in the Warsaw Pact. Albania has an embassy in Moscow. Russia has an embassy in Tirana.
The Albanian–Soviet split was the gradual worsening of relations between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the People's Republic of Albania, which occurred in the 1956–1961 period as a result of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's rapprochement with Yugoslavia along with his "Secret Speech" and subsequent de-Stalinization, including efforts to extend these policies into Albania as was occurring in other Eastern Bloc states at the time.
Hoxhaism is a variant of anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism that developed in the late 1970s due to a split in the anti-revisionist movement, appearing after the ideological dispute between the Chinese Communist Party and the Party of Labour of Albania in 1978. The ideology is named after Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Party of Labour from 1941 to 1985 and leader of Albania from 1944 to 1985.
Anti-revisionism is a position within Marxism–Leninism which emerged in the mid-1950s in opposition to the reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. When Khrushchev pursued an interpretation that differed from his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, anti-revisionists within the international communist movement remained dedicated to Stalin's ideological legacy and criticized the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and his successors as state capitalist and social imperialist. During the Sino-Soviet split, the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Zedong; the Party of Labour of Albania, led by Enver Hoxha; and some other communist parties and organizations around the world denounced the Khrushchev line as revisionist.
Shi Zhe was a Chinese Communist military officer, diplomat, translator and interpreter. Trained by the Soviet OGPU, he notably served as the main Russian language interpreter for Mao Zedong on many occasions, most prominently for Mao's meetings with Joseph Stalin during the Chinese leader's visit to the Soviet Union in 1949.
An International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties was held in Moscow, Soviet Union, November 16–19, 1957. The meeting was attended by 64 political parties from all over the world. The meeting was the first of its kind, marking a new form of forum for the world communist movement following the disbanding of the Communist International (Comintern) and the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (Cominform). Four additional parties attended clandestinely out of fear of repercussions at home.
Mao Zedong, the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, died on 9 September 1976 at the age of 82, following a period of ill health. The government ordered a week of national mourning following his death.
China–Yugoslavia relations were historical foreign relations between China and now split-up Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. For a long period during the Cold War China was critical towards perceived excessive liberalism, too close cooperation with Western Bloc or market socialism of Yugoslavia, therefore the Chinese communists accused the Yugoslav communists of being revisionists, while the Yugoslav communists accused the Chinese communists of being dogmatics. But, the good relations between both socialist states were restored at the end of the 1960s, and improved even more since the Sino-Albanian rupture occurred, with the trend of improved relations continuing in relations with successor states, particularly Serbia. In the 1980s Deng Xiaoping's foreign policy resembled Yugoslavia's stance of being non-aligned and non-confrontational and with Hu Yaobang’s 1983 appraisal of ‘Josip Tito's principles of independence and equality among all communist parties, and of opposing imperialism, colonialism, and hegemonism’. All six former Yugoslav republics have memoranda of understanding with China on Belt and Road Initiative.
Diplomatic relations between Albania and North Korea were established on November 28, 1948, over one and a half months after the DPRK was proclaimed. The communist governments of Enver Hoxha and Kim Il Sung were often compared for their similarities in their diplomatic isolation and Stalinist-style regimes.
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