By DASHNOR KALOÇI

The glacial island of Greenland, the largest in the world, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, with an area of ​​2.166.086 km² and a population of nearly 70 thousand inhabitants, which for several days has become a "bone of contention" and the headline of most of the world's media, due to the statement of the American President, Donald Trump, to pass it under the administration of the USA, for Albania after the '90s, has been almost completely unknown, or more precisely off the "radar" of its foreign policy. But this cannot be said for Albania before the '90s, when it was led by the communist dictator Enver Hoxha and his successor, Ramiz Alia. This is known from some archival documents located in the Central State Archive (Fund of the former Central Committee of the Albanian People's Party) where Enver Hoxha's political diaries are also found.

If we refer to his political diaries, we will see that the island of Greenland also appears in his memories and this belongs to October 1973, when he (Enver) together with Nexhmije, hosted in a meeting the chairman of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Britain, Rexh Birch (Reginald Birch) and his wife, whom Ramiz Alia had previously hosted. But a few years later, precisely after the breakdown of Tirana's official relations with the People's Republic of China, Rexh Birch would no longer be a "friend" of Enver Hoxha, but an "agent of English imperialism"! For more information about these meetings and the conversations held between them, which also mention Greenland, we can find notes kept by Enver Hoxha in his political diaries, as well as the minutes of Enver Hoxha's meetings with the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Albanian People's Party, which are published for the first time together with the relevant facsimiles and photos, by Memorie.al.

ENVER HOXHA'S POLITICAL DIARY IN OCTOBER 1973, WHERE HE TALKS ABOUT HIS MEETING WITH THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRITAIN REX BIRCH AND THE CONVERSATION ABOUT GREENLAND

WEDNESDAY

SEPTEMBER 26, 1973

REX BERCI CAME

The Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of England, Rexh Birch, came to Tirana for a visit and talks.

Tomorrow, he will hold the first talks with Ramiz.

FRIDAY

SEPTEMBER 28, 1973

NOTE

Comrade Ramiz Aiia reported to me about the conversation he had with the chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of England, Comrade Rexh Birch.

They agreed on all the problems that were discussed.

Next Tuesday, I'll be waiting for him too.

TUESDAY

OCTOBER 2, 1973

MEETING WITH REX BÊRCI

Today I received the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of England, Comrade Birch, who has come to our country for a visit and for talks with us.

The conversation was warm and friendly. He was accompanied by his wife, also a militant. Nexhmija also participated.

Comrade Birch told me that his son, a surgeon and mountaineer, was the first to climb an undiscovered mountain peak in Greenland, planted the Albanian flag there and deposited the History of the Party of Labor of Albania wrapped in cellophane. The Greenland peak was named “Eagle Peak”. I thanked him and invited his son to visit our country and the Northern Alps.

SECRET ARCHIVE DOCUMENT WITH MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF ENVER HOXHA WITH THE TWO SECRETARIES OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE ALP, HEKURAN ISAI AND PROKOP MURRA, REGARDING REXH BÊRC.

After the breakdown of relations between Albania and the People's Republic of China, which became public on July 29, 1978, when the high communist leadership of Tirana published in the newspaper "Zëri i Popullit" a long letter in response to the official Chinese note (announcing the cutoff of aid and loans to Albania), delivered to the Albanian embassy in Beijing on July 7 of that year, many leaders of Marxist-Leninist communist parties from various countries of the world, who until then had had close ties with both the communist leadership of Tirana and that of Beijing, publicly spoke out, siding with the Communist Party of China and openly opposing Enver Hoxha and the PLA.

One of them was Rexh Birch, the chairman of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Britain and at the same time the chairman of the trade unions in that country, who, through an article published in the English newspaper "The Worker" (organ of the party he led), opposed the ideological line and political course that the Albanian People's Party led by Enver Hoxha was following, unmasking them from the positions of a sister communist party.

This is best seen in some archival documents extracted from the Central State Archives (APS Fund), where in a daily meeting with the APS secretaries, Enver Hoxha informs them about the article by Bërç (which defended Mao Zedong), making a detailed analysis of the accusations he raises against him and at the same time opposing him as an “agent of world imperialism”. We are publishing some parts of the minutes of that meeting in this article, where, among other things, Enver Hoxha also expressed his views on the methods of some “Red Brigades”, which entered the Nicaraguan Parliament armed and ordered all parliamentarians to raise their hands. Although the former communist dictator of Albania, at that meeting, spoke out against these terrorist methods, he did the opposite, financing them with hundreds and thousands of dollars, through the Solidarity Fund that he and the ALP had set up years ago specifically for that purpose.

But what is striking in this meeting of Enver Hoxha with the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Albanian People's Liberation Army, Hekuran Isai and Prokop Murra, is the lack of sincerity of Enver Hoxha with his two associates, to whom during the conversation, he does not tell that he has received and met in a special audience, the chairman of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Great Britain, Rexh Birch, on October 2, 1973, but tells them that only "comrade Ramiz" has met him! For more about this, etc., we know the minutes of the meeting of Enver Hoxha with the two secretaries of the Central Committee of the Albanian People's Liberation Army, Hekuran Isai and Prokop Murra, which is published for the first time and with the relevant facsimiles by Memorie.al

COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Last night I read an article in “Zhenmin Zhibao”, in which Lin Biao and the “gang of four” were criticized. In this article it is said that “every sentence is true”. “Every sentence that Chairman Mao says is true and carries the same weight as ten ordinary sentences”. This entire article has been prepared against us, that Lin Biao is used only as a scapegoat and if you read it carefully, you will see that this article completely coincides with Rexh Birch’s article.

COMRADE HEKURAN ISAI: I haven't read the article.

COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Rexh Birç published an article on August 10 of this year in the organ of the party he leads. When he was here, he had talked with comrade Ramiz, who told him his thoughts regarding the remarks Birç had made about the book “Imperialism and Revolution” and when he left, he wrote down his views. Now that I was on vacation in Pogradec, since I was reviewing the book “Imperialism and Revolution”, I asked them to send me the remarks that the comrades of the Marxist-Leninist parties had made about this book, to whom we gave it to read. I read carefully all the remarks made by them. But when I read what Birç had said, I put my hands on my head. It is clear that he is an agent of English imperialism. Birç comes out against the criticism made of Mao Zedong.

“Why are you writing this material,” Birch asks, “it’s up to you to do this,” he says. And below he continues: “I know them because I met Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai and they made a good impression on me.” A little further down, Birch continues: “But why are you dealing with ghosts?” That is, according to him, all of these people, from Stalin, the Comintern to Mao Zedong, whose names he mentions, are ghosts. All of them, according to him, are dead people, etc. The remarks made by Rexh Birxh show that he is a masked man, a revisionist. After I became acquainted with his remarks, I wrote a long letter from Pogradec to Ramiz, saying that he too had not read and analyzed everything that Rexh Birxh had said. So, as I told you above, Rexh Birxh’s article was published in the English newspaper “The Worker.”

What is the content of this reactionary article? At the beginning it is said that the Soviet power was the first power of the proletariat, founded and led by Lenin, whose path was continued by Stalin, who led the working people of the Soviet Union towards socialist victories and the fight against fascism, etc. This was at the same time a great victory for the entire working class and for the world revolution, the article says. Then it rejects the attempts of some bourgeois revisionist intellectuals, the last servants of imperialism, to rehabilitate the group of Bukharin and other anti-Marxists who have tried to obscure the work of the great Stalin, who led the peoples in their struggle for liberation, etc.

And despite the betrayal of the Khrushchevite revisionists, - the article says, - the power of the Soviets and the great work of Lenin and Stalin remains indelible, undeniable. Okay, so far. Another great, undeniable victory for the working class and for the revolution, - it is written further on in this article by Bërç, - is the struggle of the Albanian people, who without anyone's help defeated the enemies, did this and that work, built socialism, so and so. That is gone too. The article talked about China. The Chinese people, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, fought for the liberation of the country from imperialist aggression, made the revolution, and China of 800 million people eradicated hunger, eradicated poverty, diseases and all other evils.

And finally comes the “bouquet”: Considering the situations that have passed, namely the appearance of the revisionists in China, it would be a hostile act to accuse Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai of not having been on the path of Marxism-Leninism. This is a great slander, he emphasizes. They do such a thing, ideologically they enter the ranks of Bukharinist elements, of the revisionist intelligentsia that has been put in the service of capital, etc. And the conclusion of the entire article by Birch is this: The Russian and Chinese comrades have opened new paths for us, along which we will all walk.

LOOK AT THE IRON ISAI: Oh…, this is so mean!

COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Yes, he is very vile. It seems clear, I also wrote to Ramiz about this, in the letter I sent him from Pogradec, that Birch is a variant of Hill from Australia or that both are agents of the "Intelligence Service", because the bourgeoisie needs such people, it is interested in protecting Mao Zedong. Let's go back to the article in "Renminzhibao", which was given by HSINUA. It is the same point of view. The Chinese pose the problem that Marxism-Leninism and the ideas of Mao Zedong are one, that Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong's ideas are a complete and integral system and whoever divides this into phrases and sentences, according to them, is an anti-Marxist.

All this shows that the Chinese are aware of the analysis we have made of these problems in our material and they want to explain this with the antagonistic way of developing things, that is, victory-defeat, defeat-victory, practical experience, make laws, as Mao Zedong said, muddy the waters, etc., etc. Lin Biao and the “gang of four”, - the article continues, - it is true that they did many bad things during the Cultural Revolution. So, for example, Mao’s statement in the fifties that; “the main danger is empiricism”, supposedly to oppose idealist empiricism, they used in the seventies to oppose revolutionary cadres who had great experience. It is clear that by this the Chinese revisionists want to say that the idealist empiricists are not the ones who came to power, but Lin Biao with the “four”, that the pragmatists are not the ones, but Lin Biao with his comrades.

This shows that they are aware of our attacks directed against Mao Zedong's theory, which is eclecticism with horns. The current Chinese leaders are trying to explain things with the processes of development of contradictions, with the famous vulgar contradictions of Mao Zedong! So, these things, in order to grasp the main link in the events that are developing for the progress of the Chinese revolution in this way, until they find a place, according to them, are normal for us. Now, the issue I have here is that Birch takes a stand against the current Chinese leaders, who have deviated from Marxism. He says that they are traitors, but on the other hand he comes out in favor of Mao Zedong and his comrades, who, according to him, are all Marxist-Leninists. Likewise, Lenin and Stalin are great Marxists, while today's Soviet revisionist leaders are traitors, says Birch.

COMRADE HEKURAN ISAI: He makes an analogy with this.

COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Yes, he makes an analogy and continues: Who are those who have cursed Lenin and Stalin? Bukharinists. It is the same now, those who criticize Mao Zedong are Bukharinists!! Yes, we know very well what Bukharinism is and what Lenin says about Bukharinists. But Birch's attack has its source in the issues that we have told him and we have written in the book "Imperialism and Revolution", that the current trade unions in bourgeois countries are under the direction of capital, the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. I do not agree, Birch told us, that is why you are against the organization of the working class, you are Bukharinists, etc. The fight will now be fought around this issue. These, Teng Xiao Pin and his comrades, were burned, therefore Mao Zedong ideology must be defended, because the bourgeoisie needs to preserve this for its own purposes.

COMRADE PROKOP MURRA: Yes, because the Chinese revisionist leaders who came to power were concretely discredited and now efforts are being made to capture and preserve Mao Zedong's ideas.

COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Yes, to preserve Mao Zedong ideology, because this is now the only revisionist theory dressed in Marxist clothes to lie to the proletariat and the world. Soviet revisionism has been unmasked, Titoism has also been unmasked, as has Eurocommunism. Hua Kuo-Fen's revisionism is also being unmasked with all these things that he and his comrades are doing, therefore Mao Zedong ideology must be preserved. This is, therefore, the path of the Americans and of capital. Hill is in a bloc with Hua Kuo-Fen and Mao Zedong. Birch and his clients are divided on this issue, they are for Mao Zedong, so they do not agree with us, they are also against the "four".

COMRADE HEKURAN ISAI: In this case, the bourgeoisie also makes its own policy, that if Hill, who is in a bloc with the Chinese, is burned, then it has Birch and his friends as a reserve to bring against us.

COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Yes, yes, he separated them.

COMRADE PROKOP MURRA: Okay, this is their grand strategy, Maoism must be preserved.

COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: Yes, the Maoist ideology must be preserved and for this all means are being used. A reason will definitely be found, this is how they cling to Mao Zedong. With this they will try to divide the workers' movement and the Marxist-Leninist parties. And they will make absurd parallels for this. Just as the Khrushchevites attacked Stalin, you are also attacking Mao Zedong, they will tell us. Khrushchev was a revisionist, but Teng Hsiao-Ping and Hua Kuo-Fen are also revisionists and this is clear, but after this we part ways with you, they continue, because you attack Mao Zedong, which you should not do. Why do you attack these ghosts, they tell us? Is it up to you to take on such a heavy burden, says Birch. Dale, because you are small! Why do you start attacking Mao Zedong? It's clear that now the Chinese saw that Hilli was burned and no one listens to him anymore, so they told Birch to come out, because maybe the Albanians are restrained, maybe they have you as a friend.

COMRADE HEKURAN ISAI: Apparently, from what he said, he also had his own strategic plan with us. He once said don't attack China, why should you take responsibility? So, Birch must have really hurt us!

COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: One should never think that Birch was saying those things sincerely, that he was crying out for our plight. No, no, he is a man of the bourgeoisie, of the unions run by the English bourgeoisie to achieve its goals! For a moment, to cause a division, to make the other out as if he were a pure Marxist-Leninist, then he does his own thing again, as he is doing for example with Rexh Birch. The bourgeoisie tells this one that there is no way you can oppose Mao, we need him, therefore Mao Zedong must be defended in order to deceive honest people.

Such a thing requires us to be very vigilant, and we comrades of the Marxist-Leninist parties must be very careful, prudent and patient, because among them there are good comrades, but there are also comrades who still do not fully understand the dangerousness of Chinese revisionism. Then there are people like Birch, of whom I am convinced with all my conscience that he is connected to the bourgeoisie, is even an agent of it. But there may also be people who are not agents, but are behind, do not understand the scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism well. We tell them that all these things were done in China, which are not on the Marxist-Leninist path, when Mao Zedong himself was at the head of the Communist Party. So, how were these things done? And they say that in the Soviet Union as well, how were they done?

COMRADE HEKURAN ISAI: Then we take into account that our peasantry had several other characteristics.

COMRADE ENVER HOXHA: That's right, our peasantry had other characteristics. But, even if it had only the national feeling, the revolt against the occupier, the party would still fight to have the peasantry with it, just as it fought to enlighten it with the ideals of the working class, with Marxist-Leninist theory. Therefore, we say that the workers must fight to achieve political and economic victory, but especially in the political field. This is how the workers must act and become aware of their forces, because a great strike of coal workers took place in England and there the whole life of the country was paralyzed. What if other sectors also went on strike, without looking at how the work will be done afterwards.

You, working class, occupy the capitalists' factories and tell them that we will not let them go, without looking at what happens next. In our country, the working class was small in number, compared to the peasantry, while in other countries it was very large, so we must work hard with them. But there is wild terror in the cities, some may say. Of course, you can imagine that there is terror, but we must wage war against terror, against white terror and against "red" terror. Here are two or three red brigades, for example, in Nicaragua they entered the Parliament and ordered all the parliamentarians: Put your hands up! We are against these forms of war, the point is to fight on the basis of a platform and on the basis of a plan.

We must move forward in the war. We must not act as Birch, who is the head of the trade unions in England and the head of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), acts, as Aust in Germany. When Birch is told what Engels said in his time, in a letter to Marx, that the English working class itself is becoming bourgeois, not to mention the aristocracy of this class, he tells us that I do not agree. But we are not against the working class, but against the aristocracy of the working class and against the oppression that capitalism inflicts on that class. Therefore, we say that the workers must fight to achieve political and economic victory, but especially in the political field.

Okay, okay friends, have a good day. / Memorie.al