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L-I: Re: Re: Book revirew: Dimitrije Tucovic: Serbia and Albania
For two reasons (can't check out books, till I pay those overdue fines,
youch! and no scanner, anyway) can't do more than drop a reference to a
book. Arshi Piipa, "Albanan Stalinism, "a monograph published around 1980,
if memory serves. Piipa, wrote an excellent chapter in the Tariq Ali edited
collection for Penguin Books on Stalinism. Articles by Deutscher, the
"Secret Speech" by Khruschev to the 20th Party Congress, many others.
Reissued by Lynne-Riener publishers in Boulder, Colorado a few yrs. ago.
Piipa also had a few articles in Telos in the mid-80's.
Michael Pugliese
----- Original Message -----
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 11:01 AM
Subject: L-I: Re: Book revirew: Dimitrije Tucovic: Serbia and Albania
> Johannes posted this:
> >Book review: Dimitrije Tucovic: Serbia and Albania. (Publ.by
Arbeitsgruppe
> >Marxismus), Wien 1999, 91 p., DM 12,-.orders to: AGM,PF 562, A-1151 Wien
or
> >E-Mail <[email protected]>
> <snip>
> >Dimitrije Tucovic is an invaluable spokesman for the internationalist
> >position, otherwise linked with the name of Lenin, which holds that the
> >only possible progressive solution to the problems resulting from the
> >ethnic diversity of the Balkans is unity within a federation of Balkan
> >states on the basis of total free will. He shows how the disregard of
> >such a position by Serbia's ruling class has furthered the national
> >awakening of the Albanians and the interests of imperialism.
> <snip>
> >The Stalinization of the Yugoslav CP, the multinational successor to the
> >SDPS, has unfortunately blocked this perspective.
>
> Since I haven't read _Serbia and Albania_ in its entirety, perhaps I
should
> refrain from commenting on it, but according to Miranda Vickers' _Between
> Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo_, the creation of a "Balkan
> Federation that included Albania and Bulgaria -- with Kosovo becoming part
> of Albania" _was_ contemplated by both Tito and Hoxha (p. 146). The
reason
> why such a Federation didn't come into being, however, had _nothing_ to do
> with the "Stalinization" of the Yugoslav CP, according to Vickers. First
> of all, a good number of Albanians were quite frankly hostile to the
> Communists & rebelled against the new regime after the WW2: "[I]n the
> difficult period immediately after the war the Albanian nationality
> remained 'the most hostile element', and in dealing with them the new
> regime was guilty of extreme measures" (p. 148). Vickers argues that
> various Albanian sources estimate that, during 1944-6, from 36,000 to
> 47,000 Albanians were murdered through the CPY's effort to pacify the
> region full of nationalists -- many of them "the followers of Balli
> Kombetar" (p. 148). You may criticize the CPY for harsh measures it
> employed in quelling the Kosovo Albanian nationalists after the WW2, but
at
> the same time you'd have to acknowledge that rebel Albanian nationalists
> were not at all interested in the Communist Balkan Federation of the kind
> envisioned by Tito & Hoxha. Secondly, the Yugoslav leadership eventually
> broke with Moscow, as you know, and the split was in part motivated by
> different visions that Tito and Stalin had about the future of the Balkan
> communist movements:
>
> ***** Stalin objected to the leading role the Yugoslavs were beginning
to
> play vis-a-vis the other Balkan communist movements, especially in Greece
> where the uprising in 1946 was strongly supported by the CPY. However, it
> was the plans of Tito and the Bulgarian leader Georgi Dimitrov for a
Balkan
> federation that finally precipitated the open rift in Soviet-Yugoslav
> relations....As a result, Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform in
> June 1948....
>
> One of the many consequences of Tito's break with Stalin was the increased
> threat posed by Yugoslavia's Albanian population. Enver Hoxha, having
> foreseen the developing break between Stalin and Tito, decided to throw in
> his lot with the Soviets, and thus Albania became the first of the
> communist states openly to attack Tito. The split between Yugoslavia and
> Albania in 1948, as a result of Yugoslavia's conflict with the Cominform,
> marked the end of speculations that Kosovo might be unified with Albania.
> (Vickers, p.149) *****
>
> In short, pace Tucovic, it was the dream of the Balkan Federation that
> fueled the CPY's resistance to Staliniztion, which in turn caused the
CPY's
> eventual break with Stalin and Hoxha and therefore doomed the idea of the
> Balkan Federation.
>
> Yoshie
>
>
>
>
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