The Cultural and Ideological Revolution () was a period of political and social change in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, launched in 1966–1967 by Enver Hoxha, the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania (PPSH) at the time. The most aggressive phase of the revolution lasted from 1966 to 1969, but the campaign itself lasted even longer, until at least 1975. The authorities of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania chose to echo the Cultural Revolution in China, and were inspired by its effects. It originated through a speech held on February 6, 1967, aiming at radical changes in the military (known as the Albanian People's Army), bureaucracy and religious life. During the Cultural and Ideological Revolution, traditional kinship links in Albania, which were centered on the patriarchal family, were shaken by the postwar repression of clan leaders, collectivization of agriculture, industrialization, migration from the countryside to urban areas, and suppression of religion.Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity; by Miranda Vickers & James Pettifer, 1999 ; p. 138.Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity; by Miranda Vickers & James Pettifer, 1999 ; p. 2.The Greek Minority in Albania – In the Aftermath of Communism It also encouraged communist students and workers to use more forceful tactics to discourage religious practices, although violence was initially condemned. Hoxha also feared the weakening of ideology and during the campaign he directed significant efforts towards the destruction of revisionism and capitalism. As a result of the Cultural and Ideological Revolution, the ruling party's influence greatly increased within Albania.
Background
Troubles in society and economy
In the mid-1960s, Albania's leaders grew wary of a threat to their power by a burgeoning bureaucracy. Party discipline had eroded. People complained about malfeasance, inflation, and low-quality goods. The end of support from the Soviet Union and the Comecon countries dealt a severe blow to the Albanian economy, which was only able to recover in 1964 with the support of China - for example, China supplied Albania with approximately 90 percent of the spare parts previously promised by the Soviet Union during the Third Five-Year Plan (1961–1965). But due to parts shortages, labor productivity fell by more than 12 percent between 1960 and 1963. The problems were so severe that in 1962 the government introduced a policy of austerity. In an attempt to develop agriculture, a new wave of peasant collectivization began, along with the expansion and qualitative improvement of arable land through terracing hillsides and draining swamps - by 1959, almost all artisans were members of cooperatives already. Despite these measures, agriculture grew by only 22 percent (despite the planned 72 percent). Industry also grew very poorly: in 1964 and 1965, it grew by only 14 percent. In general, the economic policy of the Albanian communists was aimed more at expanding production capacity than at making the most efficient use of existing capacity.
At the same time, a government program of "popular consultation" was announced, during which ordinary citizens could propose options for achieving an even greater level of autarky. The program was not as effective as planned due to years of state terror under the communist regime and, as a result, the unwillingness of citizens to take personal responsibility. In 1965–1966, the country was engulfed in protests over falling living standards.
Fourth Congress of the Albanian Party of Labor In 1960, it was stated that Albania had managed to create the economic basis for building socialism in a short period of time and had already entered the final phase of building a socialist society. However, in fact, politics of communist Albania remained uncertain and insecure, and these factors worsened over time. On the Fourth Congress of the Albanian Party of Labor in February 1961, Enver Hoxha said: On the basis of the magnificent successes and profound revolutionary transformations that have occurred in all countries of the world socialist system, the complete and final victory of socialism has now been assured not only in the Soviet Union, but also within the framework of the entire socialist system. The internal economic and social conditions for the restoration of capitalism have now been eliminated.After the Fourth Congress, Hoxha strengthened Albania's ambition to become a model communist state and was convinced that he was an important ideologist of communism.
Fifth Congress of the Albanian Party of Labor On the Fifth APL's Congress in November 1966, Hoxha was more uncertain: As long as the complete victory of the socialist revolution in the fields of ideology and culture has not been assured, neither can there be any security or guarantee of the gains of the socialist revolution in the political and economic fields. That is why the struggle on the ideological front, for the complete destruction of the bourgeois and revisionist ideology, at bottom concerns the question: can socialism and communism be constructed and the restoration of capitalism be evaded.Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu told the Fourth Congress, that the question "Who shall win?" between socialism and capitalism in the country has been "irrevocably resolved in favor of socialism." However, at the Fifth Congress he said that "the class struggle will continue not one or five years but throughout the entire historical epoch of the construction of socialism." Shehu also called the Cultural Revolution in China "the most important historical event of our time," and the "broadest, most profound and most gigantic revolutionary mass movement history has ever known."
Albanian-Soviet split and moving towards China
In the period between the Fourth and Fifth party congresses, Albania's relations with the Soviet Union and the Comecon countries worsened in favor of rapprochement with Maoist China and, ultimately, achieving a high degree of economic (and ideological) dependence on it - these countries became close due to the similarities in their ideology and history. Although Hoxha respected Mao Zedong and Maoism, Albanian communists never elevated Mao Zedong too highly in their propaganda and certainly did not compare him to Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. However, their inspiration for his Cultural Revolution was quite strong. Hoxha, an ideological Stalinist, was irritated by Khrushchev's revisionism and his de-Stalinization policies. He believed Khrushchev had betrayed Albania by leaving it alone, surrounded by a "capitalist-revisionist-fascist encirclement." At the same time, a split between China and the USSR was brewing. Albania ultimately ceased participating in Comecon in 1961.
Introduction
Writers strayed from the orthodoxy of socialist realism, which demanded that art and literature serve as instruments of government and party policy. As a result, even before Mao Zedong unleashed the Cultural Revolution in China in May 1966, Hoxha launched his own Cultural and Ideological Revolution in February 1966. Hoxha's main goals were the modernization of the Albanian People's Army, public administration and the economy, formation of a new political base, and a comprehensive "revolutionization" of life in communist Albania. The government attempted to present the campaign as a continuation and deepening of the communist processes and policies that had already been underway in the country since independence.
Even before the official start of the Cultural and Ideological Revolution campaign, party officials announced the start of a government campaign to introduce Marxist–Leninist values into society: that was a preparation for a future "Revolution." The foundations of the "new communist order" had indeed already been laid, but in Hoxha's view, they had not been fully completed. He believed it was necessary to complete the formation of the Albanian nation by eliminating everything that (in his view) hindered it—religion, old traditions, and the influence of the "revisionist Soviet Union" in the army, party and society. Both the campaign and state propaganda promoted the struggle against "the three great stumbling blocks on the path of Albania's economic and social development" - struggle against bureaucracy, struggle for the full emancipation of women, and struggle against backward customs and religious beliefs. The idea was that the cultural and ideological revolution would further promote the comprehensive development of communist Albania and protect it from the revisionism of the USSR and Eastern Europe. At the Fourth Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party in 1973, Hoxha declared that it was necessary to "deepen our ideological struggle against foreign influences and liberal attitudes towards them."
Impact on the Albanian state
Railing against a "white-collar mentality," the authorities slashed the salaries of mid- and high-level officials, ousted administrators and specialists from their desk jobs, and sent such persons to toil in the factories and fields. Six ministries, including the Ministry of Justice, were eliminated. During the campaign, there was a large-scale reduction and weakening of the bloated bureaucracy, as well as active opposition to any ambitions of civilian or military bureaucrats to exercise more power than they had already been granted. Farm collectivization even spread to the remote mountains. In addition, the government attacked dissident writers and artists, reformed its educational system, and generally reinforced Albania's isolation from European culture in an effort to keep out foreign influences. Over the course of a year, the country received only 5,000 tourists from abroad - even at the border, government officials confiscated all "Western clothing" (jeans, miniskirts, etc.) and almost all literature from them. From 1974 to 1976, a series of major political purges took place. During the campaign, travel outside Albania was almost completely banned, and a massive construction campaign began to build hundreds of thousands of bunkers across the country in case of an external invasion. Essentially, only party officials or limited sports/educational delegations had the right to travel abroad; anyone else who tried to escape could be shot by border guards or sent to prison or hard labor. The policy of autarky was justified by the historical situation of Albania, which its neighbors, such as Greece or Yugoslavia, wanted to divide/annex, and it was proved to be relatively effective, since Albania was able to build a sufficient industrial base and had enough fossil resources (including oil) to provide itself with energy.
Economic changes In the mid-1960s, the Enver Hoxha regime finally agreed to adjust its Stalinist-style economy. In early 1966, the structure of economic planning was changed, allowing slightly greater worker participation in this process and reducing the national economic plan's targets by 80 percent. Some decentralization of economic management was introduced in relation to local branches of ministries and "people's councils," and some part of the investment funds was transferred under the control of enterprises directly. By the end of the 1960s, during the Fourth Five-Year Plan (1966–1970), despite early difficulties, the government still managed to achieve significant economic growth and many of the plan's indicators were even exceeded: for example, between 1965 and 1973, production volume in the mechanical engineering sector tripled.