Albania :The proletariat confronts
the bourgeois State
* * *
"The atmosphere in Gjirokaster is mad. Popular revolt transforms itself into
total anarchy, there are no more police, no more State, no more rules. The
city is exuding enthusiasm, blossoming, has become excited by rebellion."
(Le Monde - 11/3/1997)
"To have a weapon is a pleasure"... an "indisputable drunkenness that
provokes anarchy in the combatants"... "Pillaging is increasing, carried out
by hordes of the poor or by bandits. No one is hiding and there is sometimes
a party atmosphere."
(Le Monde - 16-17/3/1997)
* * *
A breath of fresh air in the crushing atmosphere of social peace
The struggle of the proletariat in Albania brought a breath of fresh air to the
suffocating atmosphere of social peace which today, still far too often,
anaesthetises the reflexes of the proletarian class. By way of acts clearly
denouncing the whole of the State structures as their enemy, proletarians in
Albania have revived the traditions of struggle by our class, which so many
years of the defence of democracy - be it in the name of anti-fascism or
anti-communism - had thrown to oblivion. It is so rare today to see examples of
rupture from respect for private property, from the settling of conflicts
through the courts, etc.. that we are taking the time and the space here to
relate what happened in Albania and to develop a chronology in order to define
the most important moments in the evolution of the balance of forces between
revolution and counter-revolution in the country.
It is impossible to make a chronology which is not an analysis, which does not
take a stand in relation to events. There is no such thing as a neutral
chronology, known as "objective" by partisans of free will. Clearly, whatever
the media allows to get through is immediately biased (choice of events related,
words given to what is going on...) and expresses, in this case, the bourgeois
point of view, which can only deny the fact that in Albania (in the initial
period anyway) there was confrontation of class against class, outside of and
against all democratic regulations. What is objective is that any view of the
events depends upon the point of view of where one is standing, either that of
the bourgeoisie defending its State and its mercantile system... or the
proletariat whose struggle is the destruction of capitalism and the assertion of
communism (1).
Whilst the bourgeois press was indignant to witness such "barbaric" methods of
struggle, including attacks on banks, burning down police stations, town
councils, law courts, pillaging barracks (food and weapons depots), storming
prisons and freeing prisoners... on our part, it was with a degree of exaltation
that we learned that the movement of struggle in Albania was breaking away from
the never-ending demonstrations put on by the opposition parties of the whole
world (in Albania, the ex-Stalinists, rechristened 'socialist') and
reappropriating the means of struggle of proletarians against the State.
Gjirokaster was won by the revolt on the 9th of March and on the next day the
newspaper Le Monde was surprised that the atmosphere was one of enthusiasm, that
the pillaging was giving a feeling of festivities in the streets, that the fact
of carrying a weapon brought a certain joie de vivre, that the town seemed to
light up whilst the anarchy was total, with no more police, no more State...
Because steeped in their democratic ideal, positioned on the side of the
dominant class, the journalists cannot understand that such movements liberate
in one go generations and generations of deprivation, sacrifices,
assassinations, emprisonments, etc, during which we have submitted, taken blow
after blow. Yes, it is pleasurable to break the chains at last, to reappropriate
all that makes us dream, but which we can never touch because it is padlocked
behind the barriers of money, prison bars... Yes, it is festive to no longer be
afraid and to find oneself in the streets strong and united against private
property and the State, against all this order that kills us - this order that
will only die when the jubilation of these armed proletarians who have at last
found the path of struggle will be shared by proletarians across the whole
world.
* * *
From the collapse of the pyramids to the uprising of the proletariat
From the beginning of January 1997, demonstrations of tens of thousands of
savers who had lost everything in the bankruptcy of the financial pyramids
gathered in Tirana and throughout the country.
The building societies offering mind-boggling interest rates (from 35% to 100%
per month) had attracted even those in the remotest corners of Albania. In order
to invest in Sude, Populi, Xhaferri, Vefa, Kamberi or others, to deposit a bit
more money each month in the kiosks hurriedly set up in the streets, the
Albanians had sold all they could. Flats, cars, herds, land had all been sold
off. The sums paid to the first depositors merely came from the growing
contributions of new deposits and the collapse of these companies was
inevitable. Hundreds of thousands of savers found themselves completely stripped
of everything. 70-80% of Albanian households were affected. Of course the
poorest were, as always, the most badly affected.
The fervour to invest in the financial pyramids expresses the persistence of the
myth which portrays easy money in the West, that merely sleeping on one's income
is enough to wake up rich in the morning...
Up until 1990-91, the need to defend the myth of the existence of a socialist
Albania had kept the borders closed except for exchange and investment with
Eastern bloc countries. Then, as in Russia and the other Eastern countries (the
myth of socialism as a fundamental parameter for maintaining social peace having
served out its time) they began to talk of liberalising the system, of putting
an end to restrictions, of the possibility of everyone growing rich... The wall
was knocked down in Berlin and in Albania they deserted the 700,000 bunkers that
Enver Hoxha (2) had built out of fear of foreign aggression.
As in Russia (3) and elsewhere in the East the extent of protectionist measures,
alterations in imperialist alliances and economic and social reforms marked a
brutal acceleration in the rate of profit and deepened in an even more
phenomenal way the gulf between bourgeois and proletarians. From December 1990
to May 1991, food riots exploded all over Albania. Western investors drew back
in the face of such uncertainty over the perspectives of profit. 1991-92 was
marked by the total collapse of Albanian industry and the persistence of social
unrest. From December 1991 to February 1992 a second wave of riots swept the
country. Each time, the riots unleashed pillaging, arson on police stations,
public buildings, factories, shops and warehouses (4)... Albania, classed as
high risk, was seeped in international aid to avoid a social explosion.
The German, Turkish and North-American States gave financial support to the
Albanian army, to transform it into a powerful army, ready for confrontation.
But despite these bourgeois preparations, the class struggle has shown us once
again how a situation prepared by the bourgeoisie can become uncontrollable.
The attraction of the myth of Western paradise is so strong that the opening of
the borders resulted in a mass exodus that the Albanian State and also all the
surrounding states, in particular Italy, were obliged to curb violently. It was
not a question of an exodus of capital, seeing as Albania is an area of
desertification of capital, but an exodus of proletarians subjugated by the myth
that going to the West will mean the end of all misery. Remember the influx of
some 40,000 refugees disembarking, in spite of everything, in the south of Italy
in March and August 1991. The slightest rumour of a boat leaving or visas being
issued resulted in a gathering of thousands of young people in the ports or in
front of Western embassies, as happened in Cuba. As a consequence, this exodus
continued to be the object of a vile clandestine trade. The smugglers of
clandestine immigrants towards Italy labelled their clients with the term
"walking meat" and the cost of the crossing varied between 450 and 600 dollars
(5).
With the bankruptcy of the financial pyramids, proletarians in Albania were
still paying for the total disillusion which accompanied the gaining of
consciousness that in the East, as in the West, it is money that makes and
unmakes policies, opens or closes borders, accumulates in the pockets of some by
emptying the pockets of others. The myth of easy money is so powerful that it
led proletarians' smallest savings into the financial gulf of building
societies. Disillusion persists when one has staked everything on them and has
to leave all to them.
In May 1996, on the evening of legislative elections which assigned all
parliament's seats to the Democratic Party, the flag of Vefa, the largest
financial company compromised in the pyramids, had pride of place in the
victors' gallery. A journalist commented "Vefa has illustrated the miracle of
capitalism, the Albanian miracle, the miracle of a country finally tearing
itself from poverty." The feeling of betrayal was very strong at the heart of
the population when the pyramids, including that generated by Vefa, collapsed as
they were so linked with Berisha's government and with the Democratic Party (6).
Even more so, given that in 1992 the Albanian people elected with an
overwhelming majority, with cries of "fitoi" (victory!), their new president,
Sali Berisha, as a liberator who, in the name of the struggle against the
tyranny of the Stalinist regime had managed to re-seal national unity. It was at
this time that an appeal was launched for international aid to relaunch the
economy in Albania and that the United States became Albania's main partner.
Today the situation is completely different. The bankruptcy of the building
societies shook up the social climate. Contrary to what happened in Macedonia or
in Bulgaria, where the bourgeoisie boasts that it managed to contain the
discontentment of the "rejects" with meagre compensations, in Albania,
demonstrations and other forms of protest became generalised, showing clearly
that the proletariat had not been put down by the State. In Skopje, the
government and the national bank urgently organised "committees to compensate
injured parties", undertaking inquiries, trials.. Even worse, in Sofia, in
compensation for all, the government erected a monument "to the memory of
victims of the pyramid" (7).
In Albania, the demand was "we want our money, we want to be reimbursed 100%".
All through the month of January, demonstrations became more and more turbulent
and the anti-riot police carried out violent attacks.
When the government did take measures to put an end to speculation it was too
late, it could no longer control the situation. On the 10th January 1997, it
took action against two institutions at the base of the setting up of the
pyramids: Xhaferri and Populi.
Even the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund intervened to put a
limit on this type of enterprise. These institutions emphasised that they are
private companies based only on speculation, allowing some people to get rich
very quickly, but who do not necessarily meet the interests of the development
of capital which is firstly based on the relaunching of production. On the 4th
February, Tritan Shehu, deputy prime minister adopted this viewpoint and
declared (after having amply filled his own pockets with this easy money!): "We
have resolved to destroy these pyramid saving schemes, because the future of
Albania does not lie in them. Our future is production and we are going to work
more and more." He should have said "we are going to make you work more and
more".
The Berisha government was disowned as much by the worldwide bourgeoisie as it
was by the proletariat emerging from its torpor.
In Peshkopija, commiserating greatly, President Berisha asked the large savers
to come forward (tough shit for the small ones!). In response, crowds gathered
in the main street. A hundred people attacked the police station with stones.
Six policemen were injured and then the rioters set fire to the buildings of the
town council. The slogans were: "We want our money!" and "Down with Berisha!"
On the 19th January in Tirana, anti-riot police intervened in force in the
Skanderbeg Square to disperse an angry crowd of 5000 demanding to be reimbursed
for the sums they had put into savings accounts. The Socialist Party was still
in opposition following the (contested) poll in May 1996 and was profiting from
the situation of mobilisation of the proletariat to take revenge on the
Democratic Party. It called for participation in this demonstration, hoping to
put itself at the head of a peaceful protest movement as in Belgrade or Sofia.
But this demo, as well as those that were to follow, rapidly made the Socialist
party and all other bourgeois parties give up all hope of preventing the
explosion of the terrible anger brewing across the whole country, as had already
been witnessed by the confrontations in Berat the same day.
In Berat (100km south of Tirana) stones flew against the buildings of the
police, the courts, ministerial offices and those of the Democratic Party. Two
hundred demonstrators were arrested. The Parliament called for the army to
protect official buildings.
On the 24th January in Lushnjë, 100 km south of Tirana, where the pyramids had
affected the greatest number, demonstrators threw explosive devices up to the
first floor of the Town Hall. It set fire and the two thousand people gathered
in the town centre made a barrage and prevented the firemen from reaching it.
The demonstrators demanded reimbursement of their money, which they had
deposited in the Xhaferri foundation, which had gone bankrupt the week before.
Towards the end of January it seemed that Berisha had not appreciated the scale
of the movement and thought that he could put an end to the disturbances by
giving the secret police, the SHIK (ex-Sigourimi, the secret police of the
Stalinist period (8)) free rein. The more that the gatherings turned to rioting,
the more brutal the police became. The SHIK ruled with its usual terror:
arrests, interrogations, beatings, emprisonments, assassinations,
disappearances...
For its part, the bourgeois opposition, largely grouped around the Socialist
Party, structured itself to lead its campaign against the Berisha government. On
the 30th January, ten opposition parties, the Socialist Party amongst them,
formed a coalition as the Forum for Democracy (FD). The FD demanded the
resignation of the Berisha government which they held responsible for the
economic chaos wreaked by the devastating effects of the pyramid companies and
called for the constitution of a government of technocrats to manage the crisis,
whilst waiting for the anticipated elections to be organised.
On the 30th January still, Koha Jone, the most important "independent"
newspaper, mouthpiece of "independent intellectuals" (one component of the
bourgeois opposition) published a manifesto declaring: "it is clear that the
anger of the people is directed against a State which has set itself up as a
judge after having acquitted the thieves." The opposition knew how to use words
in which proletarians in struggle would be able to recognise themselves. But for
the opposition, the State they were condemning was not the power of the
bourgeois class, it was the Berisha government. Moreover, the editorial members
of this newspaper, the leaders of the Socialist Party and other known figures of
the bourgeois opposition accused of being at the origin of the troubles were
arrested. All the ingredients were there to lock the movement in a bourgeois
alternative: to support the martyr opposition against the new tyrant: Berisha.
On the bourgeois political plan, the picture was like this: in response to
proletarian mobilisation, the opposition designated Berisha as the target,
whilst throwing proletarians in struggle and members of the bourgeois opposition
in prison side by side, thus pushing the former to assemble under the banners of
the latter, whose only goal was to erode the movement by going to the polls.
This plan was intelligent, but did not take account of the revolutionary
potential which this series of demonstrations of proletarian dissatisfaction
contained. It is clear that in the movement proletarians expressed much more
than just lost money and the resignation of Berisha. Discontent still within the
framework of the bourgeois opposition was being taken over more and more by
explosions of class hatred against the State, as witnessed by the frequent
attacks on official buildings.
But the border between proletarian struggle spontaneously directed against the
whole of the structures of the bourgeois State and the battle of the bourgeois
opposition to restructure the State was not yet clear enough in the movement.
This lack of definition expressed itself, for example, in the fact that the
bourgeois opposition was not driven away from demonstrations (and equally in the
fact that one part of the movement was demanding justice from the State to
sanction those responsible for the financial pyramids) still leaving the coast
clear to the opposition to take over the reins of the movement.
At the beginning of February 1997, Berisha promised that all those who had lost
out would be compensated either in cash or in savings books. The reimbursement
should have started on the 5th February thanks to accounts of two of the main
investment funds being seized. However no one had any confidence in bits of
paper that the State would give them again in exchange for promises. On the same
day, the most important of the pyramid companies in Vlorë, Gjallica, declared
itself bankrupt, leaving a deficit of 360 million dollars and declared its total
inability to reimburse anyone.
Following this news, on the 5th February, 30,000 people took to the streets in
Vlorë (a port with between 60 and 80,000 inhabitants, 210km south of Tirana). As
the demo was heading towards the port, the police charged and tried to chase the
demonstrators with water pumps and truncheons. Masked members of the SHIK beat
the demonstrators and took them to their cars. The confrontations resulted in 2
deaths and a hundred injured, most of these on the side of the demonstrators.
However later on, a group of anti-riot police were surrounded. Several of them
were undressed by the demonstrators and ran in the road in their underwear. The
forces of order withdrew!
That day marked the beginning of a permanent mobilisation in Vlorë: every day
started with a big gathering (at around 10 o'clock) which turned into a
demonstration. At about 5pm a further meeting was held to decide what actions
were to be organised for the next day. All the opposition party leaders, present
at these demonstrations, called for calm. After a week of demonstrations, these
calls for calm were still not heeded. Nevertheless, the demonstrators slogan
remained "Down with Berisha!"
The Forum for Democracy called for a gathering in Tepelenë. Only about 60 people
attended, even though the mobilisation was becoming stronger and stronger. The
movement occupied the streets and did not want to allow itself to be distracted
by speeches on democracy.
These examples show that proletarians say "yes" to the opposition when it
demands the reimbursement of money tied up in the building societies and when it
shouts "Down with Berisha!". However, when the opposition calls for calm and
reflection on democracy they say "no". But if "Down with Berisha!" can mean
"Down with the State!" from the mouths of proletarians, then "Down with
Berisha!" means "Down with Berisha's government!" from the mouths of the
opposition and leads to the demand for early elections. The movement carries
these two completely antagonistic perspectives. These yes's and no's expressed
in the movement illustrate again the difficulty the proletariat has in choosing
its camp. It finds it hard to extricate itself from the bourgeois alternatives
and reacts positively or negatively to the commands of the bourgeois parties but
is still not at the point of defining its own direction.
The tactics of the counter-revolution rested on this ambiguity, this lack of
clarity, which pushed the movement to leave the streets and to take up the
straight path of the vote to express its disagreement. This is the well-traced
path of pacification of the movement supported by the world bourgeoisie which,
making reference to similar, albeit less explosive situations in Bulgaria and in
Romania, never stops stressing the "road to salvation via the polling booths".
In many towns the demonstrations, still within the framework of the opposition
parties, became more and more turbulent, there were frequent explosions and the
police became more and more brutal, making massive arrests.
In Tirana, the capital, Berisha's party mobilised itself and a thousand people
participated in a rally for democracy and non-violence (as always, those who are
the most consistent in the organisation of state terrorism prefer the rhetoric
of non-violence, which guarantees them the monopoly of the armed force). The
SHIK continued its reign of terror. Its members frequented cafés in which
animated discussions on recent events had brought people together and beat them
up.
The 9th of February marked an escalation in the violence of repression. In
Vlorë, the police emprisoned at night those they considered to be the leaders.
The demonstrators gathered in front of the police buildings and demanded the
release of the prisoners. The cops fired and at least 26 people were injured.
The next day, the 10th February, still in Vlorë, 40,000 people were
demonstrating and set fire to the headquarters of the Democratic Party. There
were a further 81 wounded, one of whom died from his gunshot wounds. In the
surrounding areas proletarians made solidarity with the struggle of their
companions in Vlorë and came to reinforce their ranks (5000 from Fier, several
hundred from Berat, Tepelenë and elsewhere).
In Tirana the forces of order couldn't manage to prevent rallies. The tension
rose. The demonstrators shouted "Vlorë, Vlorë!".
The confrontations in Vlorë spread like wildfire and became the emblem of revolt
across the country.
Gjirokaster was taken over by the biggest demonstration yet. On the 11th
February in Vlorë, 30,000 people attended the funeral of the demonstrator who
had been killed by the police the day before and the police behaved particularly
discretely that day. But tensions rose, looking like "dangerously uncontrolled"
confrontations could explode at any moment.
Up until this time, the movement was marked by stormier and stormier
demonstrations, leading to serious confrontations with the police forces and the
burning down of state buildings (mainly the headquarters of the Democratic Party
and the council) resulting in massive arrests and many deaths. But the fact of
having made the forces of order retreat several times marked a tendency to break
with the usual pattern of demos (the State maintaining the initiative in any
confrontation) and this constituted a significant qualitative step.
The repression that Berisha thought would decimate the movement actually had the
opposite effect. Far from making the movement withdraw, it stirred up
combativity and reinforced the determination to struggle until the cause was
won. On top of this, the desire for revenge came to light. Not only revenge
against the police who beat, isolate, torture, massacre, but globally against
all that leads to this extreme situation, against all those hard years of
precarious survival without ever knowing what tomorrow will bring, against all
those promises in the name of which we tightened our belts even further, against
the torture of hunger, against intimidation, daily humiliation, against all the
social relationship of wage labour/capital, against the State.
The limits of the movement, however, continued to express themselves in the fact
that the opposition parties had not yet been thrown out of demonstrations and
that proletarians were expecting the State to give them justice and to punish
the fraudulent companies.
On the same day, the 11th February, the government was envisaging declaring a
state of emergency in Vlorë. The Prime Minister, Meksi, announced on the radio:
"We must defend the constitutional order and respond to an extraordinary
situation with extraordinary measures." But the decree submitted to the
parliament met with opposition from the members of the Democratic Party who,
coming from the region of Vlorë, had realised that such a measure would only
increase the tension that had been particularly heightened by arrests and
assassinations over the previous few days. In order to prevent the hatred of the
police turning on the whole of the structures of the State, the government
decided to sack the police Commissioner in Vlorë.
During the week of the 12th February, the movement spread to nearly all the
towns in the South and some in the North. The demonstrations became more and
more widespread and the confrontations stronger and stronger. There was another
death on the side of the demonstrators in Fier.
A further large demonstration took place in Tirana on the 19th February, which
the police were unable to put a stop to. There were shouts of "Vlorë, Vlorë!"
everywhere.
On the 20th February, a group of 40 students started a hunger strike at Vlorë
University. They appealed for non-violence, demanded the resignation of the
Meksi government, the formation of a government of technocrats to ensure the
interim period until new elections could be held, the dismissal of those
responsible for the television and judicial proceedings against those
responsible for police brutality! What a programme! According to these students,
the brutal attack on the standard of living of proletarians who had lost
everything in the bankruptcies, the repression of the struggles, etc, could
merely be put down to the fact of a few villains who had abused their position
of responsibility. To demand a government of technocrats supposes that there
could be a neutral government above the classes! As for all reformists in the
world, it was just a problem of poor management which could be solved by
elections.
With their programme for restoration of the State, these students were clearly
on the side of the counter-revolution. The counter-revolution which materialises
itself in the proposed means of struggle: in the face of ever more ferocious
opposition, they suggested turning the other cheek. Whilst a collective force
was pouring onto the streets and starting to take the upper hand in the face of
murderous assaults by the riot police, they proposed taking to one's bed,
wasting vital energy... Why not get down on one's knees and pray?... to move the
State to pity, the State that at the very same moment was receiving
international support to pay and re-equip its various police forces.
Towards the end of February Berisha sent his Home Secretary to Germany to obtain
an advance with which to pay for new equipment for the police. Other governments
also expressed their support for Berisha's government. The United States had
counted on Berisha's government to make their support for Albania a bridgehead
in the region, estimating that Berisha and his party would have embezzled the
capital first in the contested ballot of May 1996 and then in the collapse of
the speculative building societies supported by the government. Today, concerned
to speed up national reconciliation, the United States have put maximum pressure
on Berisha's government to compel it to engage in dialogue with the opposition
grouped around the Socialist Party.
On the 28th February, the Meksi/Berisha government decided to clear out the
hunger strikers who were occupying the university. A group of plainclothed
policemen, members of the SHIK, prepared to surround the buildings. The reaction
was not expected: many proletarians recognised themselves in all those who are
repressed by the State, despite the reformist demands of the students, and thus
took up position to act in the face of police violence. In fact, the rumour that
the police had been preparing to flush out the hunger strikers by force had led
more than a thousand people armed with knives and guns to gather in front of the
university. The numbers kept on growing and soon there were ten thousand
demonstrators who, from the university, made their way to the SHIK's siege and
attacked it with stones. There were exchanges of gunfire between the
demonstrators and the SHIK, who entrenched themselves in their buildings. Far
from leaving them behind their walls, the demonstrators went on the offensive
and set them on fire, with the aid of grenades. Three SHIK members were set
alight and burned to death. Others who tried to flee were hanged. The total
death toll amongst these SHIK bastards was six. This is not huge when one takes
into account how many class brothers have disappeared, tortured and assassinated
by this elite corps formed by the best bourgeois torturers. Unfortunately, there
were three deaths on our side, as well as thirty wounded.
The demonstrators had got wind of the government's hesitation to declare a state
of siege in Vlorë and marched towards an army barracks, forced open the doors
and took all the arms they could without meeting with the slightest resistance
from the officers and the soldiers inside the barracks. A heavy machine gun was
installed in front of the university. Confrontations continued throughout the
night of the 28th February to the 1st of March.
These struggles marked the end of the initial period in which the waves of
protest and other proletarian expressions were still too much prisoner of the
expectation of compensation by the State and of the illusion that the State,
governed in a different way, could be fairer, more equitable,... and the
beginning of an insurrectional uprising in which the proletariat no longer
expects anything from the government and leads it to open war, taking up the
path of direct action against the State, of the assertion of class against
class. This does not mean that there was not a whole series of ideologies,
traps, bourgeois perspectives (which is inevitable in an international period
like this one), including during this crucial period in which the enemy was
organising itself to recuperate and lead a movement which was slipping through
its fingers.
* * *
The insurrectional character of the uprising in Albania
On Saturday the 1st March the town of Vlorë was in the hands of the insurgents.
The funerals of the three demonstrators killed the previous night passed off
peacefully. However, further confrontations took place over the evening,
resulting in five more wounded. Two other arms and munitions depots were
pillaged. Armed proletarians commandeered cars and left for neighbouring cities
in order to spread their movement.
The gunpowder was already on all the roads, over all the cities, just waiting
for a spark. Those sparks flying from Vlorë spread the explosion at full blast
in the south of the country.
In Vlorë, Sarandë and Delvinë the situation was declared "out of control". Dini,
the Italian foreign minister declared that the revolt was led by "bands of
deliquants stirred up by left-wing extremists with the aim of attacking Tirana."

In Lushnjë, demonstrators intercepted two vans packed full of anti-riot police
and forced them to abandon them, thus disarming 40 or so policemen.
On the same day in Tirana, the parliament was called to a special session in
order to debate the measures necessary to quell the revolt in Vlorë. That same
evening, Berisha announced the resignation of the Meksi government, a decision
which had no impact on the movement whatsoever!
Whilst the Forum for Democracy was denouncing a "further attempt by President
Berisha and the Democratic Party to fool the Albanian People, in order to hold
onto the power resting on the theft of votes, on a speculative financial system,
on violence and terror" and was calling for further "free elections", the
proletariat responded by real practical criticism of electoral perspectives:
Generalised armament of the struggle against the State!
On Sunday 2nd March, in response to the resignation of the government, Berisha's
official residence, situated on the hills of Vlorë, were pillaged and then
burned down!
Near Vlorë's port, ten thousand rebels surrounded the garrison of Pacha Liman, a
strategic base. The soldiers abandoned their positions and, finding himself
alone, the commander opened the doors to the insurgents. He was later to become
the organiser of the defence of Vlorë against a possible intervention by troops
still in Berisha's pay.
During an assault on a barracks the insurgents marched into the soldiers camp,
not to attack the soldiers, but to take arms. Nowhere did the conscripts in the
barracks oppose the pillaging. On the contrary, soldiers everywhere and even the
majority of officers gave the rebels a warm welcome. There was even
fraternisation: proletarians in uniform recognised themselves in the struggle of
their insurgent class brothers and joined the movement armed.
The government had to rapidly acknowledge that it could no longer count on its
army.
In Sarandë (300km South of Tirana) about 3000 demonstrators brandishing sticks
poured onto the streets without meeting any resistance. Struck by the
determination of the demonstrators, the police disappeared surreptitiously from
the area. Proletarians pillaged and burnt down the (empty) police station and
the abandoned police cars. The same fate was reserved for the SHIK buildings.
4000 Kalachnikov rifles fell into the hands of the rebels who, continuing on
their route, attacked the courthouse, the Stock Exchange, the prison, liberating
a hundred or so prisoners. Following this, the insurgent proletarians set
themselves a new objective: to attack the bank, that den of capital where all
their money had been swallowed up, thus abandoning all their illusions regarding
obtaining compensation from the State. The whole town centre was in flames. The
police did not try to intervene at any point.
In Himaren (a coastal town between Vlorë and Sarandë) rioters set the Town Hall
and the Police Station on fire.
In Delvinë, between Sarandë and Gjirokaster, the rioters burnt down the police
headquarters, the public prosecutor's department and also pillaged a branch of
the savings bank.
In Levan (a village situated between Vlorë and Fieri), a group of demonstrators
broke into a barracks and pillaged an arms depot, without meeting with any
resistance.
In Gjirokaster there had already been an unlimited general strike for several
days. Rioters invaded the police station, helped themselves to weapons, freed
the 15 prisoners inside and then burnt the building down. The police did not put
up any resistance. The next day a commercial complex belonging to the Gjallica
savings society was set on fire.
Road blocks were set up by the rebels on the Vlorë-Sarandë road and at Tepelenë.

In Tirana, a further demonstration of six thousand people was marked by violent
confrontations in the course of which cameramen from Italy and Germany were
thrashed. The television was recognised for what it is: a police force serving
the State, policing by selective images which impose on us what we should think
about events, policing by pictures, obtaining photographs of the demonstrators
most involved in confrontations for the cops. The demonstrators went on to
attack police cars, turning them over and setting them on fire. The police force
withdrew.
In the face of this situation, the bourgeoisie imposed exceptional measures and
decreed a state of emergency across the whole of Albanian territory for an
indefinite period, until the "reestablishment of constitutional and public
order". This meant curfew at 8pm, police control with the right to shoot without
warning, prohibition of any gathering of more than 4 people and the right to
open fire to disperse crowds, a law for which the anti-riot or secret police had
not waited before firing into crowds previously!
* * *
---------------------------------
"You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in
your existing society, private property is already done away with for
nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its
non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore,
with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for
whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority
of society.
In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property.
Precisely so; that is just what we intend."
-K.Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848-
---------------------------------
* * *
The members of parliament had adopted this law a few days earlier to allow a
state of emergency to be decreed in the event of an "attempt to overthrow
constitutional order, attacks on arms depots, strategic installations and public
buildings and attacks on economic life and individual liberties". Once again,
the bourgeoisie showed us how they prepare themselves to ensure their social
order. Once again, we can see that when the proletarian struggle is powerful and
determined, none of these measures can manage to stop it.
In Tirana, Berisha was careful to eliminate any situation in which people could
gather and which could "degenerate": markets, rallies, sporting events...
Hundreds of "potential agitators" were thrown in prison.
On Monday 3rd March, despite everything and whilst the south of the country had
taken up weapons against the State, the Parliament renewed Berisha's
presidential term for a further 5 years. Far from realising the magnitude of the
movement, Berisha decided to reestablish order by way of force, far away from
the cameras.
He censored the airwaves and the press. Apart from the official channels, TV
channels, radio broadcasts and newspapers were forbidden. The offices of Koha
Jone, the opposition's most important newspaper, were burned down with the aid
of Molotov cocktails thrown by members of the secret police. Twenty people were
arrested. Only one (pro-governmental) paper, Rijlinda Demokratika, was allowed
and this dedicated all its columns to the reelection of Sali Berisha as Head of
State.
Berisha ordered the military to surround the zone from Vlorë to Sarandë, but the
Albanian army was not trustworthy. Proletarians serving under a flag were not
prepared to turn their arms against proletarians fighting against the State. In
the south of the country desertion and fraternisation was widespread.
For the government, the first issue was to "liquidate the communist revolt" and
only to discuss it afterwards, as Tritan Shehu, Minister of Foreign affairs and
head of the Democratic Party, declared. In order to tighten up discipline in the
heart of the army, Berisha dismissed the chief of the staff of the army,
accusing him of failing to show enough zeal to calm the rebellion and failing in
the security of military posts, barracks and arms depots, allowing the rebels to
invade them and help themselves to weapons. He replaced him by a military
advisor, a member of the SHIK. The government also reminded the military that
they would face penal sanctions if they refused to obey orders.
As a direct confrontation between the army and the rebels risked spreading the
movement of desertion and fraternisation in the north of the country, tanks sent
to the south were finally driven, not by soldiers, but by members of the SHIK.
Behind those soldiers charged with aiming the artillery at the bastions of the
insurrectional movement were surveillance units, military police, the secret
service... all designed to prevent the soldiers from abandoning their posts or
from turning their weapons against their officers.
Berisha called for the rebels to give up their weapons and reminded them that
those who refused were exposing themselves to the risk of being shot at without
warning.
The army regained control of the situation as far as Fier, a hundred kilometers
south of Tirana. Berisha decided to isolate the south of the country by severing
all means of communication, be it telephone, satellite, whatever.
Since the proclamation of the state of emergency, queues had formed in front of
the bakeries in Tirana. Prices rose from 30 to 40%.
In Vlorë the last of the "foreign nationals" and journalists were evacuated by
the helicopters of the Italian army, the anti-riot forces and the army withdrew
and only the plain-clothed men of the secret police remained. Four people were
executed as they attempted to hand back their weapons, following the demands by
the government to do so.
* * *
The polarisation between the two camps reinforced itself but one cannot say that
Vlorë represented the proletarian camp and Tirana the bourgeois camp. It is
clear that the movement was not as strong in Tirana, that it had not taken on an
insurrectional dimension. Tirana was the central seat of all the State's forces.
There was a more powerful control over everything that moved. But just as in
Vlorë, revolution and counter-revolution confronted each other in Tirana. Whilst
all the journalists and government representatives, the police forces and the
army were evacuated from Vlorë, the whole of the counter-revolution organised
around the bourgeois opposition to the Berisha government remained, crystallised
notably in the Committee for Public Safety.
On Tuesday the 4th March, Sali Berisha once again turned down proposals to
broaden the government towards the opposition, in spite of international
pressure to do so. He continued to accuse the Socialist Party of stirring up
"armed rebellion".
The American government was worried about the turn of events. It understood that
allowing financial swindles to run at full pelt and then confronting the
proletariat with a whip could only lead Albania into dangerous waters. But it
also understood that disembarking with NATO forces in Albania could provoke an
extension of the troubles into what the worldwide bourgeoisie call the "powder
keg of the Balkans", whose explosion they dread so much.
From their side, with Berisha's declaration of war, the proletarians responded
by arming themselves!
In Vlorë the arsenals of several barracks were stripped. The rebels prepared for
the army: gunmen took up position on the rooftops of houses, barricades were set
up at the entrance of the city, using the carcasses of cars, look-outs took up
position on the neighbouring hills to watch the outskirts of the town. One
bridge was mined. A few hundred metres beyond the bridge, tanks appeared. A few
minutes later, without engaging in battle, they turned around and left.
The army had to face fierce resistance in Styari. The military offensive was
repelled in 40 minutes. After this first engagement the army withdrew.
In Sarandë also, far from thinking about handing in their weapons, the question
being asked was: where to get weapons to protect themselves? The rebels decided
to go and look in the naval and police buildings. The whole city went -
children, women, men. The police stations had already been Abandoned and in the
Navy there were only a few officers left who had been sent home by soldiers who
had already gone over to the side of the movement. The insurgents got hold of a
battery of artillery, canons and heavy machine guns with the capacity to control
the region within a radius of 30km, as well as six warships. They brought back
large quantities of arms and bags stuffed with munition from the naval base.
Between ten thousand to fifteen thousand armed men gathered in the town centre
to organise barricades, how to guard them and a defence in case of attack.
Groups of youths armed with Kalashnikov rifles and submachine guns attacked
Turkish, Greek and French journalists and demanded that taped recordings be
destroyed.
The army attacked: army units tried to regain the port but armed insurgents
awaited them, firm-footed. Despite tanks being sent in, the naval base of
Sarandë stayed in the hands of the rebels.
In order to prevent any further arrival of army tanks, all routes to the north
were cut. At one roadblock, a member of the secret police was found in an
unmarked police car and was burnt alive, two others managed to escape and the
fourth was taken hostage.
On the road leading to Sarandë, 50 soldiers of the regular army went over to the
side of the insurrection with three tanks.
In Delvinë army divisions shot at the rebels from Mig-15's, resulting in dozens
of deaths. Two pilots who refused to shoot at the population fled in a Mig-15
and asked for political asylum in Italy. The decomposition of the army by the
struggle was such that even the officers refused to shoot at "civilians".
Berisha thought he could count on a real force, but he had to realise quickly
that, in spite of his reorganisations, the army was not prepared to confront the
insurgents.
Faced with the military triumph of the insurrection, the bourgeoisie reorganised
and strengthened its political response. An Autonomous Local Council was set up
in Sarandë, led by officials in the bourgeois opposition, as well as a Defence
Council directed by a retired colonel. These Councils formulated conditions for
the handing over of weapons: early elections, sacking President Berisha and the
formation of a government of technocrats to ensure the transition. One of the
first measures taken by these Councils was to organise teams of "self-defence
against looters" and "protectors of property"! These wheeler-dealing politicos
were in direct contact with Berisha and stressed to him that the army
surrounding Sarandë should abstain from intervening because they knew that, if
it did, they would no longer be able to control anything. The entirety of the
bourgeois fractions were looking for the means to liquidate/control the
movement. In this way, the most capable fraction would go on to improve its
position in the balance of forces compared to other fractions. Thus, in the name
of the battle for democracy, the leader of the Defence Council of the city
ordered the rebels to stop wearing masks (corresponding to the police's need to
identify those heading the movement!). Every day started with a broadcast of the
Albanian national anthem.
It is clear that it was not the proletariat that was expressing itself in these
Councils. Handing back weapons in exchange for a new government, respect for
private property, saluting the flag... it was, without doubt, the bourgeoisie's
programme. These Councils represented a further attempt by the bourgeois
opposition parties to regain control of the movement, reorganise themselves in a
far more pernicious manner than that which aimed its canons on rebel cities.
There was no doubt for the rebel proletarians that the army opposing them was an
enemy to fell (by disarming it, fraternising with soldiers, demoralising it,
pushing for its decomposition...) but they failed to recognise the bourgeois at
their sides, who were also armed and supposedly fighting against a "common
enemy", as being the other face of the same enemy. And yet the opposition
parties were sharpening their knives as much against the Berisha government as
against the proletariat. The bourgeois opposition, which took up arms against
the government, with the aim of directing them principally against the
proletariat, used the fight against chaos and economic disorganisation to
present itself as the only valid alternative, that is the unique alternative
capable of feeding proletarians.
Despite this sabotage, Wednesday 5th March marked a further extension of the
insurrection. The insurrectional movement spread to Memaliaj and Tepelenë, where
proletarians took to the streets, burned down the police station and pillaged
shops. Burnt out carcasses were used to build barricades. The rebels got hold of
heavy weapons from the artillery brigade. Mortars, canons, anti-aircraft
batteries, ground-air missiles all passed into the hands of the rebels who set
them up on the hills over the city.
In Gramsh (15km from Gjirokaster) the insurgents captured a small bridge from
the soldiers who were controlling it and dynamited it in order to prevent tanks
from advancing.
In the north, less affected by the movement, the government distributed five
thousand weapons to members of the Democratic Party in order to confront the
rebels. Solid roadblocks were built at the entrance and the exit of every town,
in order to control all movements.
On Thursday 6th March and the following days, the uprising reached more and more
towns and villages.
In order to fight against the passivity of the army, Berisha announced the
arrest of 4 officers who were accused of failing to defend their barracks
against pillaging. The government also demanded the extradition of two Albanian
pilots who had fled to Italy abord a MIG-15. They were charged with desertion.
However Berisha became obliged to realise that there was no point in continuing
to give orders if these were not followed. He would only add to the ridicule of
the armed forces. Defeatism would spread even more widely.
Finally, in an attempt to decrease tension, as much on the side of the
insurgents as on what was left of his army, he suspended military operations in
the South for 48 hours (until 6am on Sunday 9th March) and promised an amnesty
for those giving up weapons stolen from the army... providing they had not
committed any crime! This reserved the State the right to condemn all those who
had taken up arms!
Apart from this, having refused all collaboration with the opposition up until
then, he was obliged, under pressure from European delegations, a Greek
diplomatic mission, warnings from the American government, events... to accept
an initial meeting. This was a true call by the worldwide bourgeoisie to
reestablish national unity against the proletariat! In the face of proletarian
danger, competing bourgeois parties, the Democratic Party and the opposition
parties felt the need to ally their forces and they called for calm jointly.
In reply, the insurgents reinforced their positions. The timescale for handing
over weapons, the promise of amnesty, calls for calm were all rejected
unanimously.
Vlorë, Sarandë, Delvinë, Gjirokaster and Tepelenë remained in the hands of the
rebels. Anticipating further attacks by the army, the rebels reinforced their
defence systems, put up blocks and control points in order to delay the advance
of the armed forces.
In Sarandë, tanks taken from the armed forces were deployed at the entrance to
the town.
The movement spread to Himaren and Samilia...
It is important to stress here that it was the proletariat, by its will, by its
determination to fight whatever the cost, that defeated the army. It was
proletarian combativity which sowed the seeds of defeatism in the ranks of the
army and which brought about the defeat of movements of troops still faithful to
their posts. In the ranks of the proletariat there were celebrations, euphoria,
their determination had paid off, they had achieved a real victory.
But the proletarians lost everything when they believed the promises of change.
Later they only gave up arms after more than a few threats (instead of
promises), especially now that they know that handing over weapons means letting
the SHIK take charge of repression, which can only be terrible!
At that moment the proletariat was in a position of strength, armed to the
teeth, determined not to be walked over. But this was also the moment at which
the crucial question arose of determining with more clarity which direction to
give to future confrontations.
What to do with this force? What extension and what objectives to give to the
struggle? Against whom to direct all these weapons? Against the governmental
forces alone? What to do with this power it had in its hands? It was controlling
entire towns, the roads leading to them,... food shortages were beginning, there
was a need to organise supplies. On what criteria? Those of the Autonomous Local
Council of Sarandë calling for the defence of private property? What direction
to give all of this?
It seems that the proletariat was not able to answer all of these questions. The
question of which direction to give the struggle was left in the hands of the
bourgeois opposition which, on its part, did not wait for it to decide before
confiscating it from the proletariat. On the contrary, the counter-revolution
profited from this moment of indecision to regain the upper hand.
* * *
---------------------------------
"Revolution"
"The list of words used to define what is happening ('the events') in Albania
is long: there is a refusal to use the word revolution. They had assured us
that there would never be another revolution in Europe: yet here one is. The
'rebels', 'those who have risen up', who produce 'chaos' or anarchy... are
rebels, mutineers. And they pillage.
Yet not one radio, one television, one newspaper has used the word
'revolution'. It does not suit them to do so. It is an event in the face of
which the European editorial writers remain perplexed; particularly the
Spanish, drugged by the Basque issue... like the government, the politicians,
the thinkers who frequently stop thinking...
'Revolution', now defined by Miguel Artola (from the Emeritus Free College)
'is a violent action giving rise to a change in regime and a new society.
Violence is inevitable and it will not be easy to predict or apply which
violence which will be sufficient and which will be unnecessary to conquer the
ruling power'... it started because a democratic bank was created to rob the
people of their savings. Another started when a handful of Black Sea sailors
refused to eat rotten meat. But it is always because of something else.
Albanians lived many years under the oppression of a very particular communist
regime; democracy arrived from the West and stole their savings. They have
loads of good reasons to oppose this order with chaos!"
(Eduardo Haro Tecglen - Visto/oído El País 15/3/1997)
---------------------------------
* * *
Fertile ground to isolate revolution in one region and to impose limits on the
revolutionary action of the proletariat rests always on the belief, carried from
generation to generation, that only the bourgeois order is capable of bringing
about solutions: "we cannot live without money", "the police are necessary",...
"without all of that it would be chaos". Internationally, not only was there no
other important proletarian struggle, but the isolation of the proletariat in
Albania was reinforced by the systematic cover-up of everything that was going
on. The worldwide bourgeoisie ensured that across the world the talk was not of
proletarian struggle, nor revolution in Albania, but of chaos, disorder,
anarchy.
National and international counter-revolution deployed its Defence Committees,
Public Protection, humanitarian aid... if the revolution is incapable of giving
food, then the counter-revolution will do it. Everywhere it was a question of
substituting the real alternative of proletarian revolution versus capitalist
reorganisation for National Salvation versus generalised chaos. Thus they
achieved submission to "public protection", to the "safeguard of the nation",
etc.
The extreme tension that had kept all the armed proletarians alert and ready for
combat gave way to a certain numbness... whilst the others organised themselves!

The same day in Vlorë, a Committee of Public Protection (a cartel of all the
parties of the bourgeois opposition, presided over by the local leader of the
Forum for Democracy) and a Defence Committee (formed by ex-officers thrown out
of the army during the purges led by Berisha in recent years) were created.
During their first press conference the CPP representatives lorded it under a
big Albanian flag. It was the same at Sarandë, where they made conditions for
the surrender of weapons: early elections and the formation of a government of
technocrats to ensure the transition, withdrawal of the army from the hills
surrounding the city. The whole programme of the bourgeois opposition was
asserted once again. This is illustrated by the measures that followed. On the
10th March, the CPP launched an appeal for "all honest policemen" to present
themselves in order to help "reestablish calm and peace". On the 11th march, in
a declaration signed with the Italian embassador to Tirana, the CPP committed
itself to "favorise the immediate handing over of weapons in the possession of
inhabitants" and to "ensure public order and the progressive return to
administrative normality" of the city.
As in Sarandë, these Committees/Councils were guarantors of the disarmament of
the proletariat, the return to bourgeois order, to peace... guarantors of
capital. They meant to defend the State monopoly on arms, respect for the
private property of the rich and the trading of proletarians' labour force
(walking meat to haggle over).
Peace, for them, signifies disarming the proletariat in order to return to
social peace. Peace which is not peace. For the bourgeois State it is a question
of ensuring its monopoly on arms so that, in the perpetual war that it wages on
the proletariat, the proletariat should be dispossessed of any response, by
unable to arm its anger. Their peace is waging their war in peace, against an
enemy without defence. Proletarians muzzled, feet and hands tied, this is the
programme of our bourgeois.
Even the demand for reimbursement of their savings lost in the pyramid
operations took second place.
This demand did, during the strongest moments of the movement, undergo the
revolutionary transformation from a demand for State intervention into a
practical critique of bourgeois economy: the armed proletariat reappropriating
money stashed away in the banks.
Starting from the same demand, the counter-revolution often operated according
to this outline: to neglect so-called economic demands: wages, food prices, here
the savings,... to move onto what it classes as a higher level: the so-called
political demands which all come back to demanding the fall of the ruling
government in the name of a lack of democracy. As in Poland where Lech Walesa,
still at the head of a committee of strikers in Gdansk, said: "It is better to
have rights than a full plate". And the struggle that had started from a
proletarian point of view, against increases in the price of meat, that is
against an increase in the rate of exploitation, was deviated into a struggle
for democratic reforms and finally for a new government (9). In Albania also,
the demand for full reimbursement of the money put in building societies, the
loss of which meant a brutal aggravation of living conditions for most
proletarians, was put to one side in order to emphasise the demand for early
elections and Berisha's resignation.
Through this passage from a so-called economic demand to a so-called political
demand, the counter-revolution organised the abandonment of the class terrain to
the profit of the terrain of bourgeois reform.
Later, once the change in government has been carried out and in the face of the
fact that the State will not reimburse the proletarians (!), the rhetoric will
put all the responsibility on the old government, accusing it of having handled
things so badly that it is difficult to bring things back on track, that
conditions are difficult, that they need time and, above all, that everyone must
set to it to put the economy back on an even keel. Which means, for the
proletarians, tightening their belts further... always in the name of a brighter
future. And as long as proletarians let themselves be fooled by these kind of
promises, this is how it will be!
On Friday 7th March, the insurgents in the south were still refusing to hand
over their weapons. On the contrary, arsenals were still being pillaged.
The EEC called for President Berisha to defer armed intervention for as long as
possible and to convene early elections. However, despite these pressures and
the first step towards joint organisation of the "surrender of rebels" with the
opposition parties, Berisha still refused to envisage elections.
At Tepelenë a similar Committee for Public Protection was set up.
On Saturday 8 March in Gjirokaster the insurrection gained ground. During the 48
hour truce which the government itself had declared, six government helicopters
landed at the town's airport and 65 special service agents from Tirana got out.
A group of insurgents had tried to stop them landing while men, women and
children headed for the barracks to seize arms. They got hold of impressive
reserves of arms and ammunition with the enthusiastic support of some two
thousand soldiers who were happy to desert and join the ranks of the insurgents.
A large quantity of rifles, revolvers, grenade launchers, bazookas, machine
pistols, grenades, ammunition, mines and seven tanks fell into the hands of the
insurgents. The customs office was also attacked.
On the side of the government forces it was every man for himself. Three
helicopters were taken by the insurgents. The others managed to take off with
only the pilot on board. The troops who had landed, deprived of any means of
retreat, fled for the hills. The insurgents chased them with three armoured
cars. Their flight lasted several days across the mountains to return to the
North, avoiding the barricades, villages and other places strongly defended by
the insurgents. It was a shepherd who told them about the collapse of the army
and the official structures.
Barricades were set up at every crossroad in Gjirokaster. All access routes to
the town were soon blocked. The insurgents took possession of the local radio.
The customs buildings were looted and then burned. The insurgents also seized a
frontier post with Greece. Customs officers, government employees and police
officers rallied to the movement. This allowed the insurgents to go and get
supplies in Greece.
Vlorë, Tepelenë, Himaren, Memaliaj, Delvinë, Sarandë and Gjirokaster, the most
important towns of the South, were now in the hands of the insurgents. The
triumph of the insurrection in Gjirokaster meant the loss for the government of
the most important military and strategic point in the region. Some journalists
commented "It is total anarchy, there is no longer any police, no longer any
State".
"The army will never intervene against the civilians. It doesn't exist anymore"
said a former defence minister, Perikli Teta.
A few hours later in Gjirokaster, towards noon, a Committee of Public Salvation
and a Committee of Defence were formed, presided over by General Gozhita, who
had been kicked out by Berisha 18 months earlier. They called for the handing
over of stolen arms and ordered that "shops open their doors" while declaring
that "those who commit pillage will be punished". At the same time they demanded
the return of the soldiers who had fled to the hills... to reestablish order.
The lack of proletarian autonomy was tragic, even the obscure personages who led
the committees complained about it. The basis of the town committees was
obviously the same as those in Sarandë and Vlorë.
On Sunday 9 March the town of Permët fell into the hands of the insurrection.
The insurgents mobilised against government forces who had been dispatched to
the region the previous day. The confrontations left five dead and many others
wounded on the side of the insurgents. An entire brigade of soldiers went over
to their side. Once the attack was repulsed the insurgents attacked, looting and
destroying the police station, the court, the town hall, two banks and many
shops. Barricades were set up at the entrances to the town, notably in the
direction of Korça where the government forces had retreated.
The insurrectional movement seized sixteen other villages in the region of
Permët.
In Permët as well, a Committee of Public Salvation, a cartel was constituted,
representing all the opposition parties and the Democratic Party (prefiguring
the accord which would follow).
The extension of the insurrectional movement and, above all, the fall of
Gjirokaster (an military base indispensable for any military intervention by the
government) was what convinced Berisha. It was without doubt this new element,
dangerously rocking the balance of forces, which persuaded the president to
agree an accord with the Socialist Party, the main bourgeois opposition party.
The accord foresaw the installation of a government of "national
reconciliation", the planning of new legislative elections between then and June
and the enlargement of the promised amnesty to all those, civilians or soldiers,
who had participated in the insurrectional movement. The two parties once again
launched the appeal to hand in arms and this time fixed the waiting period at
one week.
The Committees of Public Salvation and the Committees of Defence where all the
parties sat, including the local representatives of the Democratic Party, and
where the Socialist Party played a key role, welcomed the accord.
The Socialist Party swore that it would dissolve all the insurgent committees of
the movement within three days...
At Sarandë and Vlorë the insurgents expressed their first disavowal of the
politics of the Councils/Committees of Public Salvation. At Sarandë, approving
the accords with Berisha, the president of the Council declared: "Now that the
president will nominate the government and a date for the elections has been
fixed, arms must be handed over." For the first time he was not applauded and
the crowd dispersed in silence. On the following days there were daily
gatherings in the public square which once again took on their role as an organ
of decision.
At Vlorë the daily demonstration happened this time without a flag, nor a
banner, nor an opposition leader and embarked on looting and burning shops. A
few people suspected of belonging to the secret police were arrested. A list of
people to be eliminated in exchange for a certain price was discovered on one of
them.
The same day, in the North, proletarians began to take arms. They expropriated
one of the biggest arms depots in the North of Albania, at Shkoder. At
Peshkopia, Lezha-Kuksi and Lacy the army fell into disorder, in the face of the
generalisation of the expropriations.
On Monday 10 March the Socialist Party's bet that it would have everything in
hand within three days looked seriously compromised, even more so now that the
movement had extended to Skrapari, Malakastra, Kelcyra, Berat, Poliçan, Kuçova,
Gramsh.
In Berat the insurgents emptied three savings banks and plundered many shops,
the state food reserves and the arms factories of three barracks. The garrison
and the police abandoned the town without firing a shot and the insurgents
shared out the arms from the police stations and barracks. A Committee of Public
Salvation was set up with the immediate intention of organising the handing over
of arms! It also demanded the sacking of Berisha. It is obvious that whenever
the bourgeoisie succeeded in imposing this demand it was only making use of the
weaknesses of the proletarian movement and thus preparing its disarmament in
exchange for the dismissal of Berisha and the planning of new elections.
In Gramsh (60 km to the South of Tirana) where there is an important arms
factory, the insurgents seized three barracks and burnt down the police station.
They set out towards Fier, a town situated to the North of the zone taken by the
insurgents. They took control of several routes into the area and beat back the
forces of order who partially lifted their blockade of the region.
In Skrapari the insurgents emptied the army's armouries, attacked the military
airport of Kuçova and took control of Poliçan (between Skrapari and Berat) where
there is an arms and ammunition factory. The clashes led to fourteen wounded.
Faced with the fact that he could no longer count on the army, Berisha armed his
followers. They plundered some major arms depots in Bajram-Curri and Kukes, two
small towns in the North in an inaccessible mountain area.
On Tuesday 11 March the Committees of Public Salvation of eight southern towns
met at Gjirokaster and created a National Front for the Salvation of the People
whose demands were the sacking of Berisha, a profound reorganisation of the
secret police, the return of lost savings and the organisation of democratic
parliamentary elections, thus confirming their function of trapping the movement
in a bourgeois alternative. The President of the CPS of Sarandë confirmed:
"There will be no question of handing over arms until the installation of
democracy is guaranteed."
On the government side, a new Prime Minister, Bashkim Fino, was appointed to
form a government of "national reconciliation". His first action was to recruit
reinforcements for the police and to stop the uprising in Durrës, where three
proletarians had been murdered.
On that day thirteen towns were in the hands of the insurgents: Poliçan,
Kelsyra, Permet, Kuçova, Shrapar, Berat, Gjirokaster, Sarandë, Delvinë, Himaren,
Tepelenë, Menaliaj, Vlorë.
And Kruma, Burrel and Laçi, little towns in the North, can be added to the list.

On Wednesday 12 March the situation was tense. Against all expectations, the
government of "national reconciliation" did not have the desired impact on the
movement. On the contrary, the measures which it took to reorganise the police
hardened the position of the insurgents, whose movement continued to make gains
in the North.
At Elbasan, the last stop before Tirana (coming from the South), the tension was
extreme. While the army and the secret police withdrew to 50 km to the Southeast
and 70 km to the Southwest of the capital, the insurgents reinforced their
positions and seized the armouries left by the army. The arms, ammunition and
explosives factory at Mjeksi (to the South of Elbasan) was also pillaged.
After Elbasan, the army also disappeared from Fier, Cerrick (after fighting with
the secret police) and Gramsh where the insurgents had burned the police station
and plundered three barracks.
Shkoder, the most important northern town, was in turn taken by the uprising.
The besieged barracks were abandoned by the soldiers. The insurgents also
attacked the prisons, there they smashed down the doors and freed the detainees.
A bank branch was dynamited, the court was sacked. Business premises were ripped
open and surgically emptied. After having been ransacked and blazed, the town
hall was now occupied by a few families. Barricades were made of half-burnt
rubbish and car carcasses on a carpet of broken glass.
The important air base of Gjader, near Lehze, 80 km North of Tirana, also fell
into the hands of the insurgents.
It therefore rested with the international bourgeoisie to prevent the
propagation of the movement beyond the frontiers at any cost.
Faced with the danger of the extension of the movement in the North of the
country which borders the Kosovo province of Serbia, where the majority of
proletarians are of Albanian origin (10), the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(Serbia and Montenegro) closed its two main frontier posts with Albania.
The governments of the USA, France and Italy called on their citizens to leave
Albania. Moscow and Belgrade began to evacuate their diplomatic personnel and
their families.
Military units, including a tank regiment, positioned themselves along the
Shkumbin river. But in Sauk in front of the barracks in the suburbs of Tirana an
officer instructor, wearing the insignia of the armoured division on his collar,
declared that the army would not react in the case of an insurrection. "We
cannot fire on our people." This sentiment was shared by almost the whole of the
institution. Both the soldiers and the officers expressed this sentiment on
different occasions.
Berisha's Democratic Party continued to arm its supporters around Tirana,
notably in Kavaja, from then on the only town under government control south of
the capital. From the North of Albania and Kosovo lorries brought well paid
mercenaries. Berisha's supporters also looted arsenals in the towns of the
North.
In Tirana members of the secret police entered the military academy and three
other arms depots in the area, including at the airport, and cleaned them out.
Seven depots of the anti-aircraft defence brigade were emptied, one of which
contained 10,000 light arms. The SHIK distributed assault rifles to its henchmen
and to the loyal supporters of the Democratic Party.
The bourgeoisie made some panicky comments: "A president who has lost all
authority, a government of 'national reconciliation' which has no more of a grip
on events, an army which turns and runs when the first shot is fired... never in
recent history has a country on the old continent known the disintegration in
such rapid succession of all its institutions, of all the instruments charged
with making people respect public order. It is a question of a real collapse of
the State."
The Albanian writer Ismaïl Kadare (who has lived in Paris since 1990) called for
the intervention of a buffer force in Albania. "A international arbiter is
needed when a whole country is heading for a precipice. It's not important what
the forms and procedures are, anything is good if it prevents a tragedy on such
a scale."
Following this, all the bourgeois parties of Albania launched a joint appeal in
favour of an armed intervention of the European powers "so as to restore
constitutional order". The decomposition of the state was such that the
bourgeoisie became more and more favourable to the intervention of other
international authorities so as to reestablish order.
On the 13 March the secret police was all over Tirana, having withdrawn from the
regions in the South, where it had been the only force fighting the insurgents.
A convoy of armoured cars and Mercedes wound its way around the central
Skanderbeg square. The SHIK men let off volleys of automatic rifle fire and
shouted very loudly to show that they were again the masters of the nerve centre
of Tirana. Armoured cars were deployed on Martyrs' Boulevard and Nation
Boulevard where the presidential palace, parliament and other government
buildings are situated.
Most of the ministries and administrations were shut, as well as banks and
businesses. The streets were deserted. The firing of automatic weapons was
incessant. Six people, including two children, were killed, mostly victims of
stray bullets or accidental explosions of mines or grenades. The screws
abandoned the prisons, letting some six hundred prisoners escape.
Despite the omnipresence of the SHIK, Tirana did not escape the frenzy of
pillaging. Masses of demonstrators from the poor neighbourhoods expropriated the
food depots, among others a huge flour warehouse in the suburb of Lapraka. Other
demonstrators plundered and expropriated the Police School, and in the
residential district of Tirana, where there are several embassies, they
succeeded in appropriating Kalashnikovs and canisters of butane. The sentries at
the National Guard Headquarters (which was only 300m from these targets) didn't
lift a finger in the face of this action. The barracks were pillaged as much for
arms as for the supplies they were stocked with, furniture, bathroom fittings,
heaters... There was nothing left of the barracks but a boneless carcass.
In the centre of Tirana the favourite targets of the proletarians were public
buildings and the enterprises where work was so detestable and badly paid.
Workshops, buildings... nothing was left. Even the roof beams and steel rods
from the frames were taken. There was no more furniture or machinery, no more
tiles or cornices, no more door frames, no light fittings. All the electric
wiring and switches had been torn out, just like the wash basins and heaters,
down to the smallest bit of piping. There was no more glass or sills, just holes
where the windows used to be.
From now on almost every person had at least one gun, a Kalashnikov or some
other type.
"There is no army," a journalist commented, "the soldiers are abandoning the
barracks and going home. The police, many of whom have exchanged their uniforms
for plain clothes, are limited for the moment to looking after the prisons and
official buildings. But this hasn't prevented a massive flight: in three
penitentiaries the prisoners have succeeded in escaping and more than a thousand
prisoners are now enjoying unexpected freedom..."
The chief administrator of Tirana launched a televised appeal for calm in the
name of all the political parties. But at the end of the afternoon Tirana seemed
to be on the brink of revolt.
The loyal employees in the ministries stuffed computers and files into their
vehicles, recognisable from the yellow government number plates. Soldiers and
policemen deserted their posts and went home. Even the big shots of the SHIK
disappeared from the scene.
The bourgeoisie abandoned Tirana.
The embassies circulated a general evacuation order. A company of Marines was
deployed in front of the American embassy. An air bridge was established between
Italian navy units patrolling the Gulf of Tarente and the port of Durrës. Three
Super-Pumas from the French airforce and two Cougars from the army, six
helicopters from the German army sent from the NATO Stabilisation Force (S-FOR)
in Bosnia, Cobra helicopters from the US army... and fifteen Albanian naval
ships and even others from the Greek fleet were pressed into service to evacuate
their respective "foreign nationals", protected by units of paratroopers and
marines. On many occasions the operations were interrupted by rifle fire,
anti-aircraft cannon and portable ground to air missiles.
On the evening of Wednesday 13 March, the historic town of Korça (in the
southeast of the country) was looted. Proletarians went to the barracks of
Poceste where they took arms and four armoured cars.
At Lezha proletarians attacked the office of the secret police (whose members
had disappeared) and the State Bank where they dynamited the safe.
The worthies of the town immediately created a Committee of Safety of Lezha to
try to calm down the movement. They went through the town by car making appeals
for calm through a megaphone. They were drowned out by fusillades of bullets.
"The army has collapsed, the state has faltered"... said a journalist before
leaving Tirana.
* * *
That moment marked the high point of the movement. From the South to the North,
the insurrectional movement generalised itself, shaking even that bastion of the
state, the capital. But if the forces of the bourgeoisie withdrew from Tirana it
was so as to reorganise themselves better on a national and international level.
While on the side of the proletariat they again tasted the cruel lack of
perspective and of a classist direction in the midst of isolation and
international incomprehension.
In effect, if the struggle in Albania marked, like the struggle in Iraq (11), a
moment of rupture with the international situation of social peace, it is
precisely this context of international non-struggle which prevented the
movement from going further. International social peace weighs heavily on the
extraordinary movement of the proletariat in Albania, just like it previously
weighed on the proletarian insurrection in Iraq. The proletariat in Albania
needs to extend the struggle internationally but it finds neither the support
nor the necessary comprehension from the rest of the world proletariat who,
stupefied by the international campaign of the bourgeoisie, don't recognise
themselves in the struggle of their class brothers and sisters in Albania and
imagine even less the real force of the ruptures which have taken place.
This lack of international support calls for an even clearer affirmation of
revolutionary perspectives in Albania than the proletariat has set out. But if
in the course of the confrontations the proletariat has recognised the whole of
its enemies, it is more difficult for them to affirm now the levels of
organisation capable of thwarting the successive changes of political spare
parts which allow the bourgeoisie to regain control of the situation.
When the proletariat makes an attack on the whole of the structures of the
bourgeois state and defeats the army... when to private property it opposes
collective appropriation, pillaging banks, warehouses, shops... when to a
Justice which consecrates the omnipotence of the bourgeoisie, isolates the
proletariat and leads it, riddled with rights, right to prison, it opposes
collective class force, burning police stations and courts and opening the
prisons... when to the peaceful protests organised by the opposition, it
responds by the generalised taking up of arms... it affirms practically the
spontaneously revolutionary nature of its struggle.
But to give force and continuity to these confrontations it is vital for the
proletariat to build up qualitatively superior levels of organisation capable of
pushing things in a clearer direction and thus assuming a well-defined break
with the bourgeois alternatives. Not doing this means surrendering the ground
which has been gained. Unhappily, we have to state that the proletariat in
Albania does not appear to have produced regroupments, associations, organs or
whatever, which are true to its nature, which call for class actions, which
express, by their very existence, the necessity of organising outside and
against the bourgeois state, which clearly call for the destruction of the
state, the international generalisation of struggle, the affirmation of the
communist movement (12). In the course of the revolutionary process, the point
always comes where a qualitative jump is indispensable in direction, in
internationalism. If the proletariat does not provide one, the bourgeoisie will
just use the circumstances to reorganise itself.
Thus, once the anger had exploded, the army had been defeated, the bourgeoisie
of Tirana had fallen prey to panic, the question was posed of what to do with
this position of strength acquired in the course of the confrontations. What was
at stake at that moment was the need for a much clearer definition and
delimitation of our enemies. Without this, the opposition movements which the
bourgeoisie had created to give a political direction to the conflict ­
oppositionists who had habitually marched next to the proletariat in
confrontations with the state ­ succeeded in confining it to a simple opposition
to the government of Berisha.
When the proletariat made a critique of the electoral point of view by taking
over the streets and attacking all the structures of the state, when the
proletariat shouted "Down with Berisha!", a slogan which in a limited and
confused way said "Down with the state!", the opposition transformed everything
into a demand for the anticipated elections, a solution advocated by the world
bourgeoisie to negate the initial critique made by our class.
The sort of qualitative jump which would exclude the democratic trap would have
consisted of translating into slogans or, to put it another way, inscribing on
the banners of the movement, the strict reality of what was happening in the
streets! "Down with Berisha!" would then have been replaced by slogans
reflecting the real movement: "Down with the state, its cops and its politicians
in the government and in the opposition!", "Down with parliament!", "Down with
elections!", "Long live the generalised arming of the proletariat!" Of course,
it isn't just a question of words. It's a matter of making conscious what is
going on in reality, of consciously taking on the revolutionary direction that
the struggle of the proletariat naturally takes (13) of clearly brandishing the
flag of communism. Throughout the history of our class, even in the strongest
moments of the struggle, it happens that what the proletariat says about its own
struggle remains behind its real practice. Thus in Albania, the unifying flag of
the movement remained an extremely poor one which never really went beyond the
conservative slogan "Down with Berisha!", a slogan which gave the Socialist
opposition all the arms it needed to recuperate the movement.
Sticking to the slogan "Down with Berisha!" meant accepting (as the opposition
avidly hoped) that once Berisha was discarded there would be no more reason to
struggle. In fact, the sacking of Berisha did become the condition for handing
over arms.
As is often the case in any movement of struggle, it happened once again that it
is not combativity which is lacking but the clear definition of class
objectives. Here, again, it is not arms or courage which proletarians lack (as
is generally believed by militarists and guerrilla-ists of all kinds) but a
clear definition of what to turn their arms against.
It is that which was the limit of the break which proletarians made with the
counter-revolution. At that high point, while the proletariat didn't do anything
to take the movement forward, the international bourgeoisie beat out a call to
organise support for the Albanian state in its struggle against the
insurrection. On one side was the unified world bourgeoisie, and on the other
was the proletariat in Albania ­ isolated. The bourgeoisie possesses a very long
experience of how to defeat the proletariat country by country. And what is most
tragic is that it will continue to be this way as long as the proletariat does
not organise itself as an international force and does not give itself a
revolutionary centralisation/direction.
* * *
The Restructuring of Bourgeois Order in Albania
On Friday 14 March the European Union assured Albania of its support in the form
of humanitarian aid. A member of the Defence Commission of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Western European Union (in a word: a bourgeois) declared:
"We have all the military capacity needed to calm things down and take control
of this matter. On condition that we hit hard and fast."
"The Eurocorps comprises 50,000 fully operational men. A force of some 10,000
soldiers, hardly a fifth of the effective number, heavily equipped and
armoured, would be sufficient to take the situation in hand."
"And to contain the insurgents and make them hand over their Kalashnikovs? The
means of pressure that we have are largely sufficient. For example,
establishing a sort of exchange: the handover of stolen arms against the
provision of food."
Here we have a good description of what the bourgeoisie intend to do by means of
humanitarian aid: the disarmament of the proletariat by military intimidation
and the threat of starvation!
On 15 March Berisha launched an appeal to volunteers wanting to maintain order
in the capital to join the Albanian army or police in return for a salary of
four hundred dollars a month, which is equivalent to four times the average
salary. The government also promised to triple the wages of police officers who
returned to their posts. More than a thousand former officers presented
themselves at the Ministry of Defence so as to patch up the army whereas
thousands of young people joined the ranks of the police ­ without any need to
show their papers when enroling! Rifles and ammunition were distributed to them.

On 16 March the Albanian state received the support of its Italian and Greek
brothers who were ready to send experts to advise the Albanian police and army
and to help them reestablish order.
On 17 and 18 March some experts from the EU came to Tirana to talk to the
Albanian government with the aim of evaluating the importance and scope of a
humanitarian aid mission.
While these gentlemen discussed how to "normalise the situation in Albania",
what was happening in the streets changed its character little by little.
Whereas before it came alive, full of proletarians discussing the next action,
whereas before it was a place for all the assaults, looting, burning, barricades
step by step the street was given up to confrontations of a completely different
nature.
To explain this, we are going to take a little detour.
The capitalist mode of production places each unit of production in opposition
to the others and thus generates a perpetual war of all against all. The opening
of Albania's borders cruelly laid bare these contradictions and made them
explode. This was not in the sense that these contradictions were a novelty for
Albania - the laws of capitalism have always reigned there! - but because the
attempt to run the Albanian economy in a protectionist way imposed until then a
certain discipline on the bourgeoisie, a discipline made possible by relatively
low real wages (compared to other countries). But this only postponed the
bursting forth of all these contradictions, and it was precisely this
postponement (a practice inherent in any kind of populist and protectionist
capitalism) which aggravated the explosion when it became inevitable. It is also
for that reason that the permanent war which the bourgeoisie dedicate themselves
to was conducted in such a chaotic manner when everything exploded.
When Albania opened its frontiers a mob of young and ruthless capitalists piled
in and took over whole sectors, attracted by the low level of wages and avid to
enrich themselves rapidly on what they thought was an innocent, naive and
domesticated proletariat. But this only exacerbated the competitive struggle for
a quick profit and before long the situation transformed itself into a war of
plunder concretely expressed by innumerable armed confrontations within the
bourgeoisie, ending up as a chaotic struggle between enterprises and rival
mafias (just like in other countries such as the ex-USSR).
In this framework the Berisha government itself seems to have obeyed its private
interests, concentrated around the Democratic Party, rather than the more global
interests of the bourgeoisie in its entirety. As a general rule, the sectors of
the bourgeoisie which control the central apparatus of the state are assured of
that hegemony precisely because they have proved their capacity to put their
private interests to one side for the profit of the general interests of their
class. It seems that here Berisha, notably through the pyramid companies, was
rather more occupied with his personal fortune than with the interests of the
bourgeoisie in general and the cohesion of the state. It is that which also
explains without doubt why bourgeois fractions could be found behind the slogan
"Down with Berisha!".
In the month of March 1997, in the midst of the insurrectional movement of the
proletariat, and taking part in the destabilisation of the state, various
fractions of the bourgeoisie benefited from the passage to military action and
settled some accounts. Apart from the followers of Berisha who took advantage of
the situation of general illegality to pillage the barracks so as to arm
themselves, others profited from this same situation to arm themselves and
militarily protect their factories, shops and other businesses. Thus a good many
bosses (14) who yesterday had come to Albania because the workforce there was
available at a good price and because the laws allowed them to run their affairs
a little more to their liking, without caring about taxes or social protection
laws, today found themselves no longer able to count on the police to protect
their private property. These big bosses and owners therefore surrounded
themselves with private militias, surveillance squads, vigilance committees,
"armed bands" to save their business activity from generalised looting - a task
which these militias had never been able to practically assume elsewhere in the
course of the movement.
Groups of armed proletarians were more and more caught between the armed bosses'
militias, the Councils of Public Salvation, Committees of Safety, Committees of
Defence... which also armed themselves to reestablish order.
With the aim of delivering a coup de grâce and adding to the general confusion
which would succeed in disarming the proletariat, the media put into the same
bag the actions of the armed proletariat and the actions of the militias
defending private property. "Armed bands" (15) became the name used to
amalgamate actions of a completely different nature solely on the basis that
they were armed.
Looting, for example, can have a completely different class nature depending on
who does it and what the content of their action is. When proletarians loot
goods or arms depots, it is our class which is criticising private property, the
state and the whole of the capitalist social relation. This expropriation
expresses the interests of humanity. It is a matter of collective appropriation,
of a reappropriation of what proletarians have produced but of which they are
always deprived. It is the proletariat which is feeding and arming its struggle
against the state and the reign of commodities.
When other apparently similar looting of arms and goods depots is carried out,
whether by merchants who are organising a traffic in foodstuffs which have
become scarce by selling them to proletarians at outrageous prices... whether
they are militias engaged in protecting capitalist enterprises... whether they
are the lackeys of Berisha... it is clear that the criteria are not the same. It
is not the interests of humanity which are being expressed here, but rather
those of profit, those of the age-old tyranny of the rate of profit against the
human being. It is a matter of private appropriation, for the private interests
of groups of bourgeois who struggle to impose their fractional interests and who
aim to improve their position in the war of competition between capitals. It is
the perpetuation in arms of the capitalist system.
Another example is the attacks on police stations, which can also take on
completely different natures. When merchants attack police stations because the
police try to take control of their commerce, or demand a percentage, they are
leading an inter-bourgeois war for control of the market. This attack is
completely integrated into the reproduction of the capitalist system. On the
other hand, when the proletariat attack a police station, liquidate its
occupants and burn the buildings of repression, they are attacking their mortal
enemy, which represses them directly and which keeps them deprived of all
property, the capitalist state. Their action is an integral part of the process
of destroying the bourgeois State.
The "armed bands" who plunder goods depots and barracks and attack police
stations so as to carry on their own war of competition constitute the armed
wing of the counter-revolution, that which restores terror against the
proletariat.
Thus, a road block installed in Vlorë extorted money from all the car drivers
who passed by. If they didn't obey they were simply riddled with bullets.
Again, while the proletariat in arms have organised road blocks to stop the
advance of troops, to arrest members of the secret police, to defend their
struggle, including to obtain funds for this, those who extort money from car
drivers ­ an a-classist category ­ have nothing in common with this struggle and
put themselves completely on the side of the State, which carries out this kind
of intimidation every day. The newspapers referred to the extorters as
"bandits", "rebels", "Mafiosi", "scum"... the same title they gave to any
proletarian who takes up arms against the state. It is clear that here we are
talking about a private militia in the service of capitalist order. This armed
band (a boss and his lackeys) which rampaged around Vlorë in competition with
the Committee of Defence, called like everyone else for the sacking of Berisha
(but with the aim of doing some good illegal business), and little by little
took over the control of defence groups and the circulation of arms. They coldly
assassinated those who did not obey their orders. To defend their private
mercantile interests this armed band imposed the usual bourgeois terror and, in
that way, defended private capitalist interests in general. A journalist's
description: "Criminal organisations have taken advantage of the situation of
disorder in Albania to do some business, notably in the traffic of drugs and
arms. Italian businessmen have continuous business relations with their Albanian
colleagues."
And, to complete the description of the eminently counter-revolutionary role of
this "armed band", here is a proclamation by its leader on the arrival of the
Italian troops: "The Italian soldiers are our brothers... If anyone touches a
hair on their heads they must do it over my dead body."
Other examples:
On the Greek border an "armed band" took control of a crossing point and
extorted from proletarians who were going to stock up with supplies in Greece.

In Tirana, a bus was machine gunned to force it to stop so that the assailants
could rob the passengers.
But there were also proletarian responses against these armed bands which aimed
to rob proletarians.
On 27 March, for example, there was a class response to a band who came to
extort from a village. Strongly armed from looting an important barracks, the
inhabitants refused the racketeers, defended themselves and avenged their
eighteen dead.
Traffickers in "meat on the hoof" also hoped to do some good business from the
new wave of emigration. Thus more than ten thousand refugees clandestinely
arrived on the Italian coasts (a smaller number than in 1991 when it had been
more than forty thousand). They were rapidly repatriated to Albania (16).
Diplomats, ambassadors and company managers were not considered to be "foreign
nationals" ­ ships, helicopters and planes were chartered for their evacuation.
On the contrary, here we are talking about simple proles who fled to Italy
either because they were attracted by the myth of the Western paradise or
because they wanted to escape repression. They paid between 500 and 1000 dollars
for a place on an old tub that might not even get there (17). At Durrës those
who ran this commerce in meat on the hoof knew how to be efficient! A fleet of
more than a hundred speed boats allowed them to control the whole coast and
organise their commerce, particularly with Italy and Greece. On the coast they
touted for business and gathered their candidates, carefully avoiding telling
them what was waiting for them in Italy! At sea they threatened fishermen and
captains of boats so as to keep control of the traffic. The police were
complicit and did not stop them from giving themselves over to their smuggling.
On the basis of these examples we can understand the ease with which the
bourgeoisie have amalgamated proletarian actions with those of armed bands of
unscrupulous merchants without any criteria apart from those of the bourgeoisie:
profit and the war of all against all. It is the bourgeois themselves who call
proletarians in arms mafia, gangsters, savages, rapists... cannibals! We can
also understand why proletarians felt more and more trapped between these "armed
bands", one lot, responding strictly to their private interests, going around
with the immediate aim of grabbing as much cash as possible, and the others (the
Committees of Defence, Safety or Public Salvation) whose aims corresponded more
to the general interests of the world bourgeoisie: the reestablishment of the
social peace in an area where proletarian anger had been expressed the most
strongly.
Such are the bases on which the confrontations at the beginning of the movement
progressively gave way to confrontations of a completely different nature. We
will now return to the unfolding of actual events.
On Monday 19 March, representatives of the government and of international
organisations discussed the objectives of the intervention and how to dispatch
the humanitarian aid. The North American state was opposed to a military
intervention by NATO (18), the German state defined the conflict as "an internal
affair". The experts agreed in rejecting direct military intervention to
reestablish order in Albania (they were aware of the danger of generalisation)
and considered it more effective to help the army and the police, so that these
institutions could reestablish the authority of the state, and to assure the
protection of airports, embassies and the main official buildings. In other
words the bourgeoisie knew that they must not make the mistake of carrying out
an overt repression, as Berisha had done, because this had only had the effect
of galvanising the combativity of proletarians in struggle. The bourgeoisie knew
that to reestablish social peace the stick was not enough, the carrot was also
vital. It would be much more effective to present their intervention as
humanitarian aid. They knew that it had to be presented as something which fed
proletarians and therefore constituted the only solution to the problem of
survival. It only remained to decide on the means. Meanwhile, the government of
Bashkim Fino, supported by the EU, was invited to take urgent measures of
"social and humanitarian assistance" to pacify the country. The forces of the
world bourgeoisie then arranged an intervention where the unified foreign
presence would support the local repressive forces and use humanitarian action
as a shopfront.
On 20 March the Italian army carried out its first operation on Albanian soil.
Marine infantry from an élite unit landed on a beach close to the port of
Durrës.
On 25 March 40 tonnes of French aid in the form of food and medicines arrived at
Tirana airport.
On 26 March the negotiations of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) finally led to the creation of a "humanitarian mission protected
by a multinational force under the UN mandate". "It will be an escort mission, a
humanitarian mission, not a mission for maintaining order." "The OSCE plan will
attempt to create the political conditions appropriate for holding general
elections this summer. But the policing mission will be essential to assure
close protection for the aid convoys of food and medicines for which the
municipalities and the sacked and looted hospitals have a pressing need."
It was clearly a question of a mission to maintain order but the OSCE did
everything to appear as saviours and not as aggressors. The great fear of the
bourgeoisie remained the danger of internationalisation of the conflict. At any
price the OSCE had to stop the always armed proletariat from continuing its
struggle, not only against the Albanian army but against all the armies of
Europe. This extension of the struggle would have led to the recognition of the
class enemy in a much larger collection of bourgeois fractions, including those
that support the OSCE plan: the Committees of Defence, of Safety or of Public
Salvation, the Bashkim Fino government, the whole of the Albanian and
international bourgeoisie.
Despite the necessities of world capital and despite the accords concluded
around the strategies to use in Albania, no top officials were prepared to send
soldiers to the South of Albania where the situation remained explosive. One
combatant affirmed: "I am warning the Italian soldiers. I advise them not to
come to Vlorë. If they do we will kill them". In Spain, El País carried the
headline "Fear in the South" and stressed that "the lack of availability of
forces to deploy in the South of Albania manifested by the dozen countries who
sent the representatives of their respective high commands to the meeting called
in Rome yesterday constitutes the main obstacle to getting the International
Protection Force underway." The newspaper added: "none of the eight countries,
amongst those participants in this meeting prepared to cooperate in the military
part of the plan, seemed willing to send soldiers into that zone."
More globally the bourgeoisie were afraid that their true objectives would come
to light. In this sense they insisted: "The multinational military force will
stick to its humanitarian mandate and refuse to interfere in internal policing
matters which could very quickly expose it to terrorist attacks."
On that day of 12 April, a contingent of 6,000 soldiers had to be landed in
Albania. The primary objective of the mission was to secure the ports of Durrës
and Vlorë, Tirana airport and the principal communication routes between the
North and the South of Albania.
On 9 April a boat containing a hundred members of the SHIK arrived at Brindisi
to closely control the movement of Albanian refugees. Prospective migrants were
ejected severely from Italy, but it wasn't the same for all those who
collaborated in safeguarding the State. Whether they were "foreign nationals" or
members of the secret police, they received a good welcome in Italy. Faced with
a proletarian threat the bourgeoisie knew to put its war of competition to one
side so as to better wage its war against the proletariat. The financiers of the
bankrupt pyramid savings companies had, as elsewhere, loyal colleagues in Italy.
For example, a chain of supermarkets in Pouilles belonged to the, up until then,
celebrated Vefa.
On 12 April the Jaubert commando came to Durrës to secure the landing area for
the troops of the French Army.
On Monday 14 April, an air bridge between Pisa and Tirana was put in place so as
to send material and equipment there. Several C-130s from the Italian Army had
already landed in Tirana.
The 15 April marked the beginning of Operation Alba. The 6000 soldiers of the
multinational force arrived at the ports of Durrës and Vlorë. A cargo sent by
the World Food Programme unloaded 360 tonnes of flour and 36 tonnes of
vegetables.
The more frightened the bourgeoisie was to see the extent to which the
proletariat was armed, the more impressive the arrival of the multinational
forces. The size of the boats, the tanks and other vehicles, the sophisticated
armaments... were plenty to intimidate! The voices of proletarians which were
raised against this intimidation were few, which again shows the isolation of
the extraordinary struggle of the proletariat in Albania - an isolation which
the world bourgeoisie succeeded in imposing. On the spot, faced with this
impressive military invasion, only a few insults could be heard: humanitarianism
dictatorially imposed its terror.
In Tirana the situation returned to normal. Newspapers came out as usual, the
shops were stocked, traffic was heavy. The only arms visible were those of some
cops leaning on their armoured car.
On 17 April, a delegation from the OSCE met the representatives of the Committee
of Public Salvation in Vlorë. The president of the Committee confirmed his
counter-revolutionary role when he said: "Operation Alba may degenerate if it is
given the mission of forcibly entering our homes to take our arms", reflecting
100% the preoccupations of the emissaries of the OSCE. We can see here that the
fears of the bourgeoisie in Albania are exactly the same as those of the
international humanitarians.
From the first to the seventh of May, the police reappeared on the streets of
Shkoder, Berat, Burrel, Kukes, Kruje. But the institutions of Justice were not
operational. Police stations, prisons, courts... weren't there any more. Before
leaving the buildings the escaping prisoners had made sure to burn their files
and then burn the buildings themselves... A few days before you could read in
the press: "The chief of prison administration in Albania announced yesterday
that the country had no more than 27 prisoners in gaol against the 1,300 who
were there before the massive flight of convicts on 13 March. Of these 27
prisoners, 9 had returned to the cells of their own free will."
An astonished magistrate said: "After an interlude of 45 years we have taken
care to make good laws. We have a constitutional charter defining human rights.
There is a Minister of Justice, private associations of magistrates, the right
of appeal, a new criminal code... But we have neglected to educate the people in
this new spirit. What are the insurgents doing with it?" asks this devoted
magistrate who would like us to believe that there has been no system of
repression in Albania since the death of Enver Hoxha. As if good laws and a good
functioning of the judiciary change the nature of State terrorism. "Instead of
taking legal action, they have taken the direct route: plundering the banks.
They have no confidence in the State and its laws. Even the factory owner in
Shkoder: the law had made him special offers of protection of his business but
he preferred to take on his own vigilantes."
On 14 May, the opposition parties threatened to boycott the elections scheduled
for the 29 June 1997. They were calling into question the electoral law which
foresaw a mode of scrutiny based on majoritarianism. The polarisation of
attention around this polemic was an attempt to install more and more strongly
the idea that the solution to all the issues raised in the movement was to go
and vote to sanction the policies of Berisha. Despite having spontaneously taken
on the State and all its structures: its banks, its police stations, its courts,
its prisons, its barracks, its storage depots... proletarians allowed this
totalising struggle to be confiscated in return for finally just demanding the
head of Berisha, and that by means of a democratic vote.
If, at the beginning, the demand for the head of Berisha could still signify
Down With the State!, now, with the recuperation carried out by the Socialist
opposition, the call for his sacking was just the political solution approved by
the whole of the world bourgeoisie as a means of disarming proletarians and
taking up negotiations along paths which would ensure them regaining the
monopoly of arms.
On 21 May, the general accord agreed between the ten parties foresaw in
particular the nomination of a new chief of the secret police. This partially
realised one of the demands of the Committees of Public Salvation who had called
for a profound reorganisation of the secret police.
On 4 June, the president Sali Berisha escaped an attempt on his life during an
electoral meeting of the Democratic Party, three weeks before legislative
elections, planned for the 29th June. This event illustrates the tension which
still existed in the country despite the electoral promises.
Apart from rare exceptions, nobody handed over arms stolen during the looting of
the barracks. The state of emergency and the cease-fire remained vigorously in
force.
On 27 June, a convoy of international observers set out from Tirana escorted by
Italian and Romanian soldiers. They went towards the Southwest as far as
Gjirokaster, passing through Memaliaj and Tepelenë ­ areas which, in March, had
been completely in the grip of the insurrectional movement marked by the looting
of barracks and the generalised arming of the proletariat. Proletarians saluted
the vehicles with a few insults but the convoy went through without any
problems. This example shows the general state of the struggle at that moment:
decomposition of the force of the insurrection, hatred of the new proposals for
installing order but the predominance of powerlessness... resignation had made
its appearance once again.
Two days from the anticipated legislative elections scheduled for 29 June, the
observers decided that the conditions for a free and democratic scrutiny had not
been achieved. But on 29 June, the bourgeoisie were finally able to salute
Albania's effective "salutary passage to the polling booth" which, in Bucharest
as in Sofia, had allowed that sudden "metamorphosis" from the danger of
revolution to a citizenry obediently queuing for the democratic carve up. What
can the isolation of the polling booth (19) create, other than isolation? The
spectre of revolution was provisionally banished from Albania with the return of
a situation where all attention is focused on political wheeling and dealing.
On 23 July, a few months after having been elected for a second presidential
term, Sali Berisha sent a letter of resignation from the presidency of the
Albanian republic, a post he had occupied for five years. Thus the spectacle of
national reconciliation was accomplished. It was the last act arranged by the
opposition to make the insurgents hand over their arms. The aim ­ "to stabilise
the situation, to restore the much mocked authority of the State, to give the
legitimacy which has been lost to a future government and encourage an
indispensable climate of national reconciliation" ­ was finally attained.
On 12 August 1997, the six thousand men of the "multinational protection force"
left Albania.
"Internationally, not only was there no other important proletarian
struggle, but the isolation of the proletariat in Albania was reinforced by
the systematic cover-up of everything that was going on. The worldwide
bourgeoisie ensured that across the world the talk was not of proletarian
struggle, nor revolution in Albania, but of chaos, disorder, anarchy."
"International social peace weighs heavily on the extraordinary movement of
the proletariat in Albania, just like it previously weighed on the
proletarian insurrection in Iraq. The proletariat in Albania needs to extend
the struggle internationally but it finds neither the support nor the
necessary comprehension from the rest of the world proletariat who,
stupefied by the international campaign of the bourgeoisie, don't recognise
themselves in the struggle of their class brothers and sisters in Albania
and imagine even less the real force of the ruptures which have taken
place."
* * *
By Way of a Conclusion
In August 1995 we published a text ("General Characteristics of the Struggles of
the Present Time" ­ in Communism No. 9) globalising, as the title implies, the
general characteristics of the struggles of recent years. Faced with the
enthusiasm-generating dimensions of the struggle in Albania, we must reflect on
the dimension and depth of the ruptures contained in this struggle. Do they
represent a qualitative jump in relation to the general characteristics of
struggles at the present time or not?
To answer this question we can recall the characteristics set out in August 1995
and look at them in connection with the events in Albania so as to verify their
similarities and differences.
This text first of all emphasises the violent and decisive actions of the
proletariat who take over the streets, directly confronting the structures of
the State, its buildings, its police stations... and tearing down the barriers
of private property in a general movement of expropriation and reappropriation.
The events in Albania strongly confirm this characteristic. The proletariat
attacked police stations, secret police buildings, barracks, courts, prisons,
local offices of the government party, warehouses, branches of banks, the houses
of the bourgeoisie, commercial centres, businesses... fires aimed at the
destruction of centres of repression, capital accumulation, organisation of the
counter-revolution... looting gave way to collective appropriation and
reappropriation.
Our text on the general characteristics of struggle makes the remark: "The
direct occupation of the streets tends to break violently with all the
categories into which capital divides proletarians: the narrow confines of the
factories, mines or offices smash into pieces. Unemployed, women condemned to
housework by capital, elderly people, children... are unified in direct action."
As in Burma roughly ten years ago, these barriers were blown apart in Albania
and the struggle became generalised to all sectors throughout the country.
The looting was first of all aimed principally at the barracks because the main
objective of the movement, as it went from simple protest to insurrectionary
uprising, was to be armed. Following this it was aimed at the banks because it
was there that their savings had been swallowed. Then, faced with poverty, they
went for the food warehouses. Finally, the looting generalised to shops, public
buildings and factories, that is to say all the places where commodities of
every kind are stored, taking away everything, right up to the walls, beams and
roofs.
The text also emphasises the form of an unstoppable conflagration that takes
over these revolts, without a quantitative progression of partial struggles
before the explosion, a characteristic accompanied by the fact that the old
arsenal of social democracy has no effect in the face of the violent and
decisive action of the proletariat and that trade unionism is completely
incapable of responding by limiting the generalisation of proletarian violence.
The reformist framework which normally controls attempts at struggle is rapidly
left behind.
In Albania it is notable that policemen and soldiers (except for specialist
units and élite troops) refused to fire on proletarians in struggle. It is also
remarkable that the turn taken by events created a brilliant element of surprise
which was undeniably an obstacle in the way of the rapid mobilisation of the
forces of counter-revolution.
There were quite a few attempts to channel the more and more pressing rumbling
discontent into peaceful demonstrations and hunger strikes. But these attempts
were brutally swept away by the sudden and general explosion of
quasi-insurrectional movements. The use of arms became generalised and the armed
forces normally sent to put down revolt had to retreat. More than this, many
soldiers cast off their uniforms and joined their class brothers and sisters,
opening the barracks and contributing to the appropriation of arms.
Another characteristic outlined in the text of August 1995 is the fact that:
"These revolts generally break out without precise and explicit aims and rarely
put forward anything positive."
In Albania we can see this absence of concrete positive demands, even if the
point of departure was the massive financial crookery which had dispossessed the
proletariat of its few savings. What was behind all this was a situation which
was totally precarious for the proletariat, an ever more acute dispossession of
its means of life. In Albania the cause was clear but the rage which expressed
itself on that occasion was a rage against poverty in general. Moreover, the way
in which this rage was carried by the proletariat into a generalised revolt
attacking not just the savings companies but the whole of the structures of the
bourgeois State, expresses the much more total dimension taken by the struggle
in Albania.
Faced with the bourgeoisie's attack, in the concrete form of financial crookery,
what the proletariat did was to say NO! It is a question of an explosion of rage
which said NO and demanded back what had been stolen, something which does not
constitute a positive demand and is therefore much harder to transform into a
reformist proposition. During the whole time of the social conflagration it was
characterised by this intransigent NO, and therefore by the absence of concrete
positive demands.
It is the bourgeois opposition which, in so far as the proletariat was not able
to give the revolt its own objectives, had breathed into the movement the
limiting demand for the dismissal of President Berisha, channelling the movement
of struggle against the State into a bourgeois policy of replacing one
government by another. It is precisely the question of the "resignation of
Berisha" which constitutes the passage from the proletarian NO confronting a
bourgeois order imposing an increase in misery to a recuperator's YES making
itself concrete in the political reform of the bourgeois State. This demand
appeared each time more opposed to the proletarian NO and finally supplanted it
and even made people forget the question of recovering the money deposited in
the banks.
So far the movement in Albania corresponded generally with the characteristics
of the struggles of the present period set out in August 1995.
But one characteristic which we stressed was that even in intense and acute
moments the power of bourgeois ideology is so strong that it is only a minority
which participates in direct action. The situation in Albania was quite
obviously different from this.
The taking up of arms and participation in direct action were generalised. It
was the same for the settling of accounts with identified members of the SHIK,
the sacking of public buildings, town halls, courts, police stations, prisons,
the seizure of barracks, looting... While some acted more directly, others, and
sometimes many others, acted to prevent the forces of order arriving on the
scene of the real action. Proletarians in arms organised themselves to block the
roads, organised the defence of their bastions... It is undeniable that in
Albania the participation in direct action was not just the act of a minority.
It became massive, general.
Our text stressed elsewhere that once it gets over the element of surprise, the
bourgeois counter-offensive regains the upper hand and, with a great blow of the
bludgeon, makes order return. Here also the situation is notably different.
In Albania the movement went further than most of the confrontations which have
happened in the present period (Los Angeles, for example) in arming itself in a
generalised fashion and making its struggle last longer than a bolt of lightning
in the sombre sky of extreme and general austerity that capital imposes in an
ever more crushing fashion across the world. Between the moment when the
struggle went beyond the suffocating framework of peaceful demonstrations to
become quasi-insurrectional, and the propagation of the movement in the North of
the country culminating in the evacuation of Tirana by the bourgeois forces, two
weeks of radicalisation and generalisation of the movement had occurred.
But this generalisation took place without the organisation of links between the
different areas touched by the movement. The insurrectional movement embraced a
third of Albania's territory like a trail of gunpowder. That is to say that it
was sufficient for a spark in one place to spread the fire without any other
effort, the echo of a victorious battle was sufficient to encourage others to do
the same. It is neither the lack of enthusiasm nor of arms which can explain the
fact that the insurgents remained cantoned in their respective towns without
trying to centralise the struggle. It is once again the lack of perspectives, of
the determination of class objectives, which left them in the care of the
Committees of Defence, of Safety, of Public Salvation which took charge of links
by means of the usual channels which the State always has in place: democratic
representations of various bourgeois parties, starting with the Committees of
the eight towns then through the organisation of national elections.
As is stressed in the text of August 1995, in Albania the fact was verified that
the absence of revolutionary direction allows the bourgeoisie to regain control
of the situation.
The bourgeoisie will always deny the class nature of confrontations and by that
their internationalist dimension. That is they will do everything to hide the
fact that what expressed itself in Albania is a moment of a single global
struggle of the proletariat. The danger for the bourgeoisie being precisely that
proletarians across the whole world recognise themselves in the struggle of
their class brothers and sisters in Albania (and elsewhere) and decide
themselves to take up arms against the whole democratic apparatus which has up
till now made all the running! What the bourgeoisie say about the events in
Albania (like all the others which shake the world) is that they obviously have
no link with any of the others. In their eyes these events can only be the
result of particularisms.
In this sense the main weakness of the proletariat in Albania finds its source
in the present day weakness of the struggles of the world proletariat. To put it
another way, the main weakness of the proletariat of that region is its
international isolation, the fact that elsewhere the proletariat remains
dominated and weak to the point that it is incapable of developing similar
actions to those of its class brothers and sisters in Albania. Worse, it was
incapable of understanding that it was its own class which was fighting in
Albania!
There is another constant in the present day situation. This is the lack of
leadership and of revolutionary programme. These are decisive questions in the
course of action and are complementary to the absence of international
consciousness of the struggle. These two things which are lacking in the world
proletariat reinforce each other reciprocally. The tragedy of the proletariat
whose struggle in a region goes much further than in the others, is a question
which is as much historic as geographical and concerns its program as well as
its isolation. In this tragedy converges the lack of theory and of revolutionary
direction and the lack of struggle of the proletariat in other regions of the
world.
It is thanks to this present day weakness of the world proletariat that the
bourgeoisie has been able to isolate "the Albanian question" as a particular
issue (as they have done with "the Kurdish question"). Thus the bourgeoisie
presents a spectacle of commiseration and compassion and the press talk, in
a-classist terms, of "Albanian" (national division gives good results), of
"victims" and of "the despair which has lead to such excesses", of "abuses of
power", of "parasites on democracy" and of "corrupt enterprises". They put
forward particularisms such as the "difficulty of the poorest, most tribal
country in Europe, most marked by half a century of Stalinism... to come to
terms with freedom and the market economy"... the "difficulty of a people who
don't know the taste of work, of effort, of the spirit of sacrifice, well
enough... to take on the democratic apprenticeship" (20). Social democracy
always defends the coexistence of different modes of production (capitalist,
socialist, feudal), different worlds (developed, under-developed, third world,
fourth world), different regimes (democratic, totalitarian) so as to blame the
"catastrophes", "dramas", "tragedies", "genocides" on a lack of capitalist
development and a lack of democracy. Never, of course, are these events related
to anything global, fundamental, common; in the explanations of the media none
of the present day catastrophes are linked to the nature of this social form of
production. It is a question of particular problems which can be attributed to
such and such a personality, to such and such an irregularity or bad management.
The most important thing for the bourgeoisie is to impose a vision according to
which each struggle is the result of something different which has nothing to do
with their global system of exploitation. They must prevent proletarians in
another part of the world becoming aware that those who struggle are also
proletarians. They must prevent them understanding that it is the dictatorship
of capital which inevitably exacerbates exploitation and creates poverty and
wars, and that it is our struggle, the struggle of proletarians in arms against
the state, which will bring about the end of all this inhumanity.
The bourgeoisie even has other particularisms in reserve, to put in place to
undermine the ground on which the proletariat in struggle might be able to
relaunch itself. Existing events have already allowed them to realign the border
conflicts with Greece, permitting the bourgeoisie to play on the Greek
nationalist/secessionist sentiment amongst the Greek minority living mostly in
the South of Albania (21). As long as the proletariat struggles - a struggle
which in its essence is unificatory and destructive of all nationalist sentiment
- the bourgeoisie cannot articulate its attack on this level but, as we can see
in the propaganda of different factions, they have not moved away from the
possibility of using a pro- or anti-Greek sentiment to create separatist
movements in the South of Albania in the near future.
Other fractions have launched the idea of an "Ethnic Albania", that is an
Albanian state enlarged to Kosovo and Macedonia. They will then try to mobilise
the Albanian people in a struggle for national liberation/reunification.
Another bourgeois polarisation that the journalists have put forward to explain
the difference in the strength of the movement in the South and in the North is
to divide the people of Albania into two big ethnicities: the Guègues in the
North and the Tosques in the South (22). Through all these particularisms it is
a question for the bourgeoisie of foreseeing class confrontations and enclosing
any movement in polarisations whose two poles are bourgeois.
With the first phase of the movement over, commiseration gave way to
condemnation of "excesses". All the misery in the world evidently never
justifies, in the eyes of the bourgeoisie, proletarians taking up arms. The
words which they then used to describe proletarians were no longer "the Albanian
poor" but "cannibals", "savages", "drunken louts", "uncontrollables",
"gangsters", "Mafia", "criminals", "bandits", "profiteers"... Some journalists
and Latin American members of parliament went so far as to say that the
situation in Albania was characterised by the presence in the streets of masses
of rapists escaped from the prisons. And of course, as we have already stressed,
by all these means they try to create an amalgam between the armed actions of
the proletariat and the armed actions of fractions of the bourgeoisie defending
their particular interests, however much the criteria (ends and means) are
completely antagonistic.
By taking control of the situation the bourgeoisie always tries to transform the
struggle against the whole of the system into a struggle for reform of
institutions, to break the class strength, the links of solidarity, the
collective consciousness which develops in the struggle, and to lead
proletarians back on to the electoral path. To class strength the ballot box
opposes the isolated individual. To collective consciousness, they reimpose a
free will which necessarily reproduces the dominant ideology. To direct links
between proletarians in struggle outside and against the structures of the
bourgeois state, elections reimpose mediation by the ballot paper.
Finally, one last important characteristic that we set out in our text on the
characteristics of present day struggles was: the big difference between the
strength of proletarian action and the lack of proletarian consciousness of this
action.
Despite the scale of the movement and the clarity of the class objectives
affirmed in the content of the actions themselves, there did not seem to be any
movement of minorities setting out the eminently classist content of these
actions which convey all the determinations of the struggle of the proletariat
against this deadly system, for the communist revolution. It is obviously
difficult to affirm the perspective of communism in a country where exploitation
has been carried on for decades in the name of communism. But it is not
fundamentally a question of a name. From the revolutionary point of view, what
is important is the development of avant-garde minorities which proclaim the
revolutionary significance of the movement and its attachment to the world-wide
struggle of a proletariat breaking from all the traps of democracy. It is tragic
that in Albania these minorities do not exist or do not have in any case
sufficient strength to make themselves known and to try to give another
direction to the revolt. And this is obviously not a weakness specific to the
proletariat in Albania, but a characteristic of the world proletariat which,
while it has received so many blows and suffered so many defeats, has not even
achieved a minimum of revolutionary internationalist organisation.
* * *
While these latter remarks rather underline the limits of the movement, they
mustn't make us forget the moments of strength of the struggle of the
proletariat in Albania, a struggle which constituted a sudden break in the ocean
of social peace. The struggle of the proletariat in Albania reminds us that the
real critique of private property and the state, of exploitation, of misery, of
war... that is to say of the society of capital, is the proletariat in arms
against all the structures of the bourgeois state. This struggle shows that when
the proletariat decides to struggle it makes use of a wonderful force which even
the army cannot conquer.
Everywhere the producers of all the world's wealth - the proletarians! - allow
themselves to be locked up in negootiations with the capitalists whose only
essential criteria is that of profitability. Everywhere the democratic traps
still lead proletarians by the nose to work or to slaughter. Everywhere we hear:
"there's nothing to gain from struggle, nothing will change". And even worse
"tragedies", "genocides", "dramas", "catastrophes", sow the seeds of death on
all sides. The good citizen still concludes: "that's life"!!!
Proletarians have thus been kept at heel so much over the last few years that
their anger has too often remained profoundly hidden (23). So when some of our
class brothers and sisters finally let it explode and fight, weapons in hand,
against the capitalist State it really warms our hearts.
By the actions which they have taken, proletarians in Albania have expressed
what proletarians throughout the entire world feel and, in that, they place
themselves in the avant-garde!
The proletariat in Albania has made an echo of what all proletarians carry
within them: the struggle against capitalist exploitation, for communism. This
echo is such that, for example, in a village in Hungary, the workers in a small
construction company who hadn't received their wages marched towards the boss'
house shouting: "it's time to do what they did in Albania here!" It was the same
in Poland during a demonstration, angry workers chanted: "Albania, Albania!" In
other towns in Europe they also shouted: "Vlorë! Vlorë!"
The struggle of the proletariat in Albania has given renewed confidence to the
historic strength of the world proletariat.
For struggle outside and against all the structures of the bourgeois State.
Down with private property, money, wage labour, capital!
For the realisation of human needs:
Long live Communism !
* Novembre 1997 *
* * *
Notes :
1. In this sense, yes, both points of view are subjective. But here the
comparison ends, because whilst it is in the interest of the bourgeois point of
view to hide anything announcing the end of capitalist social order and it is
thus logical that it would neglect and hide anything revealing the obituary of
its system, the point of view of the proletariat, the point of view of
communism, of the historical overtaking of capitalism, has every interest in
recognising the objective reality as it is, to unveil the class contradiction
which leads to the destruction of the capitalist mode of production. This
results in the subjective position of the dominant class leading it to distance
itself from objective reality, whereas our subjective position as exploited
pushes us to know and to make known the objective reality.
2. Enver Hoxha, historical stalinist leader and President of Albania whose end
in 1985 constituted the prelude to the death of "socialism in one country".
3. On this subject read the text "Situation actuelle de la restructuration
capitaliste en Russie" [The current situation of capitalist restructuration] in
Communisme No.44, December 1996.
4. Each time, the bourgeoisie tries, by way of elections, to turn the anger
directed against the very essence of its domination, money, commodities,
capital, by exposing one or other party, one or other government to popular
condemnation. In March 1991, the electoral comedy gave the Socialist Party
(rechristened ex-Stalinist party) the star part. In March 1992, it was the
Democratic Party's turn, a new party founded in 1991 by Berisha (also a
rechristened ex-Stalinist), to take the leading role in the electoral mascarade.

5. In 1995, the turnover of this trade in "walking meat" of not only Albanian,
but also Kurdish, Chinese... origin reached 380 million dollars.
6. These links were extremely personal: a whole series of government and
Democratic Party members were linked to these societies.
7. Neighbouring Macedonia went through a similar situation with the collapse of
a speculative financial society, the TAT, which ruined thirty thousand savers,
to the tune of 80 million dollars. Another example is Russia in 1994, S.Mavredi
who, initially possessing just 50 dollars, promised interest rates of 600% per
year. He quickly managed thousands of dollars before declaring himself bankrupt
and ruining thousands of people. On his release from prison, he got himself
elected to the Duma! The oldest example in the memory of the press dates back to
1919 in Boston, USA, where Ch.Ponzi promised rates of 50% in 90 days. He thus
collected 20 million dollars, paid out 15 million and pocketed the other 5.
8. Just as they repackage commodities, rethink publicity to sell it better, the
old secret police of the Stalinist period, the Sigourimi, were given a new label
and a new uniform. A few of the too-well-known leaders were retired out, others
reorientated towards employers' militias to watch over the workplaces, cover the
workers' assemblies... here was the SHIK ready to recommence its nasty job.
Nothing new! History repeats itself all over the world and during every period:
when a secret police force has become too well-known for its repressive
practice, its name is changed, as are some of its members to enable them to
assume their task more effectively. This is particularly useful when they change
the form (or rhetoric) of domination and the State requires a bit of a
clean-out. In general, the same structure is maintained, the same files, the
same buildings, the same methods and they use the same prisons... except, of
course, if the proletarian revolt manages to wipe all of this out!
9. On this subject read the articles that we have written at that time:
"Pologne: 'Solidarité'... avec l'économie nationale" [Poland: 'Solidarity'...
with the national economy] and "Pologne: quelle victoire?" [Poland: what
victory?] which were published in Le Communiste No.8 in November 1980; "Pologne:
des accords de Gdansk au massacre" [Poland: the Gdansk agreements to massacre],
Le Communiste No.12, December 1981 and "Leçons des événements de Pologne"
[Lessons of events in Poland] in Le Communiste No.13, March 1982.
10. During the war in Yugoslavia the proletarians of this region engaged in a
very important struggle. Read on this subject the article: "Yugoslavia:
Imperialist War Against the World Proletariat" in Communism No.9, August 1995.
11. Cf. our articles "About the class struggle in Iraq" in this review:
"Additional notes on the insurrection of March 1991 in Iraq" and "Nationalism
and islamism against the proletariat"; read also "War or revolution" and "A
comrade's testimony: a journey to Iraq" in Communism No.7.
12. We don't want to prejudge here whether minorities have adopted a communist
practice which situates them in the historic line of the party, or whether this
type of group will develop in the immediate future on the basis of lessons
learned. What we have to assert again is the lack of strength of the
revolutionary perspective, the small amount of organisation and the absence of
revolutionary propaganda proportional to the force and massive scale of the
movement in Albania.
13. It should be very clear that we never use the term "revolutionary
leadership" in the immediate and restricted sense of a precise collection of
people, of a group or a "party". By revolutionary leadership we mean the
historic trajectory of the proletariat aiming at the realisation of its
revolutionary programme, looking to define the whole of the necessary strategy
which it must develop to destroy capitalism, looking to assert the programmatic
whole contained in its very existence as the opposition to the society of
capital, a programmatic whole which determines every tactic and function of the
revolutionary objective: communist society. Thus the movement for the
revolutionary destruction of capitalist society can only develop itself in
opposition to democracy which is the mode of organisation of capital in all its
forms. Cf. our "Theses of Programmatic Orientation". As for people, groups and
"parties", if they take on revolutionary leadership it can only be in the
historic sense.
14. There are around 400 enterprises between Tirana, Durrës, Lushnjë and Fier.
Some are the product of French and German initiatives and capital but the
majority are Italian. The most important 120 enterprises constitute a mass of
investments of 200 to 250 million dollars and comprise 30,000 jobs. In 1994, for
example, the implantation of a bottling industry by Coca-Cola necessitated an
investment of 20 million dollars and a hundred workers, in the high season!
15. In exactly the same way that in Italy, the State created a category of
a-classist "armed band" with the ultimate aim of condemning class violence! You
can read about this subject in: "Italy: the Repression is Reinforced" in
Communism No.10, May 1997.
16. On 19 March the Italian government decreed a state of emergency over the
whole territory of Italy until 30 June 1997. This involved the reinforcement of
controls exercised by the patrolling forces of order not just on the frontiers
but across the whole country. The decree also called for the immediate
repatriation of those who, linked in one way or another to criminality, were
considered to be undesirable ­ a category which, as we know from experience, is
extendable to the all proletarians who have taken up arms against the state. The
same day, 289 people of Albanian origin and considered dangerous were taken
under heavy guard to Tirana on board Italian army helicopters. Others received
the status of "refugees" and had the right to a resident's permit for 60 days,
extendable to 90 days, the time taken to "normalise" the situation in Albania.
Independent of the content of their respective ideologies the collaboration
between police forces was total, as always!
17. On 20 March 400 refugees whose boat was on the point of sinking into the
Adriatic were led back to the port of Durrës by the Italian army. On 28 March,
following an intervention on the high seas by an Italian army motor launch to
force a boat full of migrants to change direction, the overfull boat sank,
leaving 87 dead and/or disappeared. On 4 May, 1223 migrants who had arrived in
the Italian port of Bari piled on board a tanker were returned to Albania. The
first group of 180 men was immediately returned under strong escort to Durrës.
The boat had been bought for 100,000 dollars and each passenger had paid between
500 and 600 dollars for the trip. The greater is the scale of human misery, the
higher is the rate of profit; in this case capital recovered the whole of its
investment in a single cycle!
18. We have already stressed the kind of intervention policy of the US state as
well as its fundamental orientation. Cf. "L'armée et la politique militaires des
Etats-Unis d'Amérique" in Le Communiste No.12 and 13. The Albanian example
clearly expresses the understanding of this state, with regards to which action
to take when the proletarian struggle attacks the State.
19. The word for polling booth is "isoloir" (isolator) in French!
20. In the present day world you can't talk about the proletariat anymore, or
about revolutionary struggle, or about revolt against capitalism and its state
but always about the struggle of "Kurds", "Islamists", "employees", "disaster
victims", "peasants", "Palestinians", "the starving", "those who are owed 5
months wages", "miners", "Latinos", "the poor", "Basques", "unemployed",
"blacks", "students", "Indians", "ecologists"... They use these terms to the
point of absurdity to show these situations as anachronistic particularisms due
to a lack of capitalism and democracy.
21. The Greek minority represent around 12% of the Albanian population, more
than 500,000 people living principally in the villages of Southern Albania.
Until 1913 this region was part of Greece and is still called the Empire of the
North by Greeks today.
22. Read on this subject the article denouncing the polarisation between Hutus
and Tutsis imposed by force by the bourgeoisie in Rwanda and in the surrounding
countries: "Les campagnes humanitaires contre le prolétariat, l'exemple du
Rwanda" appearing in Communisme No.41.
23. Worse still, the rage caused by all these miseries and fed by the
competition intrinsic to bourgeois society is frequently drained towards "the
other worker", towards the immigrant, towards the "black"... towards women,
children, such and such an ethnic group... then, finally, organised by
capitalism and transformed into a racist military force in imperialist war.
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Communism No.11
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