Socialism in action

Albania’s Ideological and Cultural Revolution and the Lessons from History

Authors

  • Ylber Marku

Abstract

Based mainly on Albanian primary sources, this article is a comparative analysis of the Ideological and Cultural Revolution in communist Albania in the mid 1960s. The article emphasizes the importance that the regime placed on the historical tradition of mass mobilizations accumulated in other communist countries before, primarily Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China in the mid 1960s, and the Cultural Revolution in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. The article argues that the Cultural Revolution in communist Albania created new forms of legitimacy and strengthened the continuation of the policies that the communists had implemented since their coming to power. This differed from similar movements in the Soviet Union where the Cultural Revolution had a foundational aim, and also from the Chinese Cultural Revolution which resulted in a chaotic and disruptive movement. The article also argues that the regime had to resort to the revival of local traditions – carefully selected – and the people’s cultural production to forge forms of legitimacy that would allow the regime to mobilize a large part of the population around the Party’s political line. The carefully controlled mass movement targeted the country’s religions, transforming Albanian into the first official atheist state in Europe, the emancipation of women, and the increase of economic outputs through mass actions of volunteering work in specific economic projects. The movement nonetheless created spaces for personal affirmation, new cultural expressions, and often agency for the people involved. Finally, the article argues that the Cultural Revolution in Albania rather than emulating the Chinese and the Soviet experiences, responded to the ruling party’s necessity to further its political and economic aims, while also strengthening and deepening the control of the party over the society.

Keywords:

Albania, Ideological and Cultural Revolution, Soviet Union, China, socialist construction

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References

  1. Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-1931, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978.

  2. Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship and Beyond, trans. Charles Rougle, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992, p. 3.

  3. For the Soviet cultural revolution, see: Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-1931, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. Hundreds of publications exist on the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Among many, see: Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006; Jicai Feng, Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China’s Cultural Revolution, San Francisco: China Books, 1996; Barbara Barnouin and Changgen Yu, Ten Years of Turbulence: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, London and New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1993; Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008; Joel Andreas, Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of China’s New Class, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009; Yiching Wu, The Cultural Revolution at the Margins: Chinese Socialism in Crisis, London: Harvard University Press, 2014; Dongping Han, The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Educational Reforms and Their Impact on China’s Rural Development, New York: Garland Publishing, 2000. More recently, see: Tania Branigan, Red Memory: Living, Remembering, and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution, London: Guardian Faber Publishing, 2023. See also the excellent contribution by sociologist Guobin Yang, “China’s Zhiqing Generation: Nostalgia, Identity, and Cultural Resistance in the 1990s”, Modern China vol. 23, no. 3 (2003): pp. 267-296. A different light on the Cultural Revolution in China has been shed recently by Alessandro Russo, who outlines the egalitarian drive of Mao’s campaign, and Mao’s fear that the mass campaign might be defeated, resulting in the restoration of capitalism. See: Alessandro Russo, Cultural Revolution and Revolutionary Culture, Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. The French philosopher Alain Badiou wonders if the Chinese Cultural Revolution was the last revolution during the twentieth century; see: Alain Badiou, The Communist Hypothesis, London and New York: Verso, 2010, pp. 101-167. Both Badiou and Russo see the Chinese Cultural Revolution as an important political movement among many in the twentieth century that sought egalitarianism and fought against war. They also conclude that the revolution failed, eventually succumbing to the power of global capitalism.

  4. Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia.

  5. Alexander C. Cook, ed., Mao’s Little Red Book: A Global History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

  6. On the preparation of the public letter addressed to the Party, army, and the people, regarding the importance and the understanding of some revolutionary measures that the Party has undertaken, in Records of the Politburo, 9 February 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.9, f. 1-16; Tirana, 4 March 1966. Letter of the Central Committee addressed to communists, workers, and soldiers, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.9, f. 34-62; Tirana, 4 March 1966. Minutes of the party plenum meeting, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.9, f. 128-213. See also documents of the politburo, March 1966, in Arkivi Qëndror i Shtetit (Central State Archive, hereafter AQSH), (Fondi/Folder) F.14, AP-OU, (Viti/Year) V.1966, (Dosje/Dossier) D.10. The main historical documents cited in this article regarding Albania and its communist period are at the Central State Archive, in Tirana, Party’s Archive/Arkivi i Partisë (hereinafter AP), Leading Organs/Organet Udhëheqëse (hereinafter OU), and the Ministry of Education.

  7. Chen Yi, Ziying Fan, Xiaomin Gu, and Li-An Zhou, “Arrival of Young Talent: The Send-Down Movement and Rural Education in China”, American Economic Review vol. 110, no. 11, (2020), pp. 3393-3430. The authors estimate that in China 16 million young students were sent to rural areas to help with local tasks. They assess the impact on rural education that this movement had.

  8. “Mësuesi – përçues i politikës së partisë në fshat, misionar i kulturës së re socialiste”, Zëri i Popullit [The People’s Voice], 8 May 1966.

  9. Report of Enver Hoxha at the Fifth Party Congress, 1 November 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.1/18, (fletë/page) f. 213-256. See also, Politburo records, 10 and 11 October 1966. Report on the work of the Central Committee that will be held at the Fifth Party Congress, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 126-151.

  10. “Mbledhje e përbashkët e organizatave-bazë të Partisë të Minierës së Qymyrgurit të Krrabës, Uzinës ‘Enver’, Kooperativës Bujqësore ‘Vilhelm Pik’, Repartit Ushtarak nr.5009, dhe Universitetit Shtetëror të Tiranës. Shoku Enver Hoxha, Sekretar i Parë i Komitetit Qendror të PPSh, trajtoi temën: ‘Revolucionarizimi i mëtejshëm i partisë dhe i pushtetit’” [“Joint Meeting of the Party’s base-organizations of the Coal Mines of Krraba, of the ‘Enver’ Plant, of the ‘Vilhelm Pik’Agricultural Cooperative, of the Military Garrison nr.5009, and the State University of Tirana. Comrade Enver Hoxha, First Secretary Of The PLA Central Committee, examined the issue: ‘The Further Revolutionization of the Party and Power’”], Zëri i Popullit [The People’s Voice], 7 February 1967.

  11. Ylber Marku “Shifting Alliances: Albania in the Early Cold War”, Journal of Cold War Studies vol. 24, no. 3, Fall 2022, pp. 80-115.

  12. Yang Jiaqi and Gao Gao, Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution, trans. D. W. Y. Kwok, Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press, 1990, pp. 93-100.

  13. Ana Lalaj, Pranvera e rrejshme e ’56-s [The Deceptive Spring of 1956], Tirana: Infbotues, 2015; Elidor Mëhilli, “Defying De-Stalinization: Albania's 1956”, Journal of Cold War Studies vol. 13, no. 4, Fall 2011, pp. 4-56.

  14. “‘Letërsia jonë duhet të ndjekë rrugën e realizmit socialist’: Diskutime në takimin e Byrosë Politike të KQ të PPSH” [“‘Our Literature Should Follow the Road of Socialist Realism’: Discussion at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CC of the PLA”], in Enver Hoxha, Vepra të zgjedhura, Vëll. 2: nëntor 1948 – nëntor 1965, Tirana: Shtëpia Botuese “8 Nëntori”, 1975, p. 179. The discussion here mentions earlier events and meetings.

  15. Ylber Marku, “Preparing for an Alliance: China’s Socialist Model and Albania’s Economic Design in the Early Cold War”, European Review of History vol. 30, no. 3, July 2023, doi:10.1080/13507486.2023.2188581.

  16. On the Soviet policies under the rule of Nikita Khrushchev see, among many: Melanie Ilič and Jeremy Smith, eds., Khrushchev in the Kremlin: Policy and Government in the Soviet Union, 1953-1964, New York: Routledge, 2011; William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, New York: Norton, 2003; William J. Tompson, Khrushchev: A Political Life, Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1995; Donald A. Filtzer, The Khrushchev Era: De-Stalinization and the Limits of Reform in the USSR, 1953-1964, Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1993; Aleksandr Stykalin, “The Hungarian Crisis of 1956: The Soviet Role in the Light of New Archival Documents”, Cold War History vol. 2, no. 1, October 2001, pp. 113-144; and Csaba Békés, “The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and World Politics”, CWIHP Working Paper no. 16, Cold War International History Project, Washington, DC, 1996.

  17. A document was discussed in the Politburo in early February 1966 regarding a letter from a military official who anonymously had attacked the Albanian regime for “following the Chinese”. See AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.9, f. 27-30.

  18. Ylber Marku, “China and Albania: The Cultural Revolution and Cold War Relations”, Cold War History vol. 17, no. 4, 2017, pp. 367-383.

  19. Politburo records, 10 and 11 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 376-408; For an analysis of the reception of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by the Albanian leaders see Marku, “China and Albania”.

  20. Tirana, 7 March 1966. Decree of the People’s Presidium to remove ranks in the army, in AQU [Arkivi Qendror i Ushtrisë/Central Military Archive, hereafter AQU], V.1966, D.3, f. 4-9.

  21. AQSH, Ministry of Education, F.511, V.1966, D.66.

  22. Politburo records, 11 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 83.

  23. Tirana, Politburo records 10 and 11 October 1966. Report on the work of the Central Committee that will be held at the Fifth Party Congress, in AQSH, F.14, OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 122. For Hoxha’s speech at the Fifth Party Congress where he criticized the justice system see AQSH, F.14, OU, V.1966, D.1/18, f. 205-206.

  24. Politburo records, 11 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 83.

  25. Ibid., f. 126-151.

  26. Ilic and Smith, eds., Khrushchev in the Kremlin; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era; Tompson, Khrushchev: A Political Life; Filtzer, The Khrushchev Era: De-Stalinization and the Limits of Reform in the USSR, 1953-1964. For the speech against Stalin see: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress, February 14, 1956, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1956, pp. 30-47; and Johanna Granville, “Reactions to the Events of 1956: New Findings from the Budapest and Warsaw Archives”, Journal of Contemporary History vol. 38, no. 2, 2003, pp. 261-290.

  27. Politburo records, 11 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 129.

  28. Marku, “China and Albania”.

  29. Politburo records, 11 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 84.

  30. Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism, trans. George Shriver, revised and expanded edition, New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, pp. 99-100.

  31. Fitzpatrick, Cultural Revolution in Russia, p. 38.

  32. Tirana, 10 October 1966. Transcript of the Politburo meeting, “Remarks of Enver Hoxha on the Chinese Cultural Revolution”, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 376-408; Marku, “China and Albania”.

  33. On the further development of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Enver Hoxha, June 1967), in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1967, D.1, f. 192 & f. 211.

  34. Ibid., f. 192 & f. 213.

  35. Ibid., f. 192 & f. 217.

  36. Politburo records, 10 and 11 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 394-396.

  37. Politburo records, 10 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 396.

  38. Politburo records, 11 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 134-135.

  39. Ibid., f. 138-139; See also Report of Enver Hoxha at the Fifth Party Congress, 1 November 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f.1/18, f. 234.

  40. Politburo records, 11 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 141.

  41. Raino Isto argues that Albania’s shifting alliances caused an attempt to create original art that would be less influenced by the Soviet Union (where many of those artists were educated) while attempting to connect to other realities such as China and the Far East in general. See: Raino Isto, “Between Two Easts: Picturing Global Socialism in Albanian Post-War Art, 1959-69”, Art History vol. 45, no. 5, November 2022, pp. 1058-1077, doi: 10.1111/1467-8365.12686.

  42. In Albania many paintings of the period between early 1960s and late 1970s can be seen at the National Gallery of Art. For an interesting publication with illustrations of the painting in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s time, see Gleb Prokhorov, Art Under Socialist Realism: Soviet Painting 1930-1950, Roseville East, Australia: Craftsman House, 1995.

  43. Hans Günther, “How Socialist Realism was Exported to Eastern European Countries and How They Got Rid of It”, in Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Jonsson-Skradol, eds., Socialist Realism in Central and Eastern European Literatures. Institutions, Dynamics, Discourses, New York: Anthem Press, 2018, pp. 21-23. For a comprehensive study on the vast Soviet literature that exemplifies socialist realism, see Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1981; for an earlier study of socialist realism in literature in the Soviet Union, see C. Vaughan James, Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins & Theory, London and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1973.

  44. Clark, The Soviet Novel. “Socialist Realism”, Clark affirms, “is essentially a name applied to Soviet culture’s literary system rather than to a way of writing that is particularly ‘socialist’ or ‘realist’” (p. 9). The theory of Socialist realism appeared for the first time in 1932 in the Soviet Union and became a theory during the period 1932-34.

  45. An interesting and original piece about socialist realism as an archive in Albania is Raino Isto’s contribution, “Is Socialist Realism an Archive? Some theoretical notes on Aesthetics and Accumulation”, Art Studies no. 19, 2020, pp. 9-44. Boris Groys asserts that despite its claims as deriving from the masses and for the masses, socialist realism “because it was meant to educate, was unappealingly didactic, devoid of entertainment value and divorced from real life no less completely than Malevich's Black Square”. See: Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism, p. 8. For Groys, Stalinism (or socialist realism under Stalin) was a continuation of avant-garde modernism. The limit of this theory was underlined briefly by Petre M. Petrov, Automatic for the Masses: The Death of the Author and the Birth of Socialist Realism, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 4-7. Similar connections, but also shifts, between avant-garde and socialist realism are discussed by Imre József Balázs, taking Hungary and Romania as case studies. See: Imre József Balázs “From Avant-Garde to Socialist Realism: Continuities and Discontinuities in Hungarian and Romanian Literature”, in Dobrenko and Jonsson-Skradol, eds., Socialist Realism in Central and Eastern European Literatures, pp. 147-164. Vladislav Zubok argues that since the 1920s the Soviet Union organized a number of institutions to “peddle the socialist realist picture of the Soviet Union to Western leftist intellectuals… this ‘socialist realism for export’ was effective because it responded to the ideas and aspirations of the Western intellectuals… In a sense socialist realism was a bizarre spin-off of Western culture and art practices”. See: Vladislav Zubok, “The Demise of ‘Socialist Realism for Export’ in 1947: Voks Receives John Steinbeck and Robert Capa”, in Dobrenko and Jonsson-Skradol, eds., Socialist Realism in Central and Eastern European Literatures, p. 71.

  46. Karolina Kluczewska and Niso Hojieva “Socialist in Form, ‘National’ in Content? Art and Ideology in Soviet Tajikistan”, Nationalities Papers vol. 50 , no. 2, March 2022, pp. 372-394.

  47. Raino Isto, “Weak Monumentality”, RACAR: Canadian Art Review vol. 46, no. 2, 2021, pp. 34-50.

  48. Jonida Gashi, “Communist Noir: The Hunt for Hidden Traitors, Saboteurs, Spies, Revisionists, and Deviationists in Albania’s Revolutionary Vigilance Films of the 1970s and 1980s”, in Sarah Delahousse and Aleksander Sedzielarz eds., Transnational Crime Cinema, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023, pp. 125-139; forthcoming also by Jonida Gashi, Kinemaja para gjyqit: Nga kinokronikat dhe dokumentarët e gjyqeve të popullit te filmat e vigjilencës revolucionare të masave [Cinema on Trial: From the Newsreels and Documentary films of the Communist Show Trials to the Revolutionary Vigilance Films], Tirana, 2024.

  49. Gashi, “Communist Noir”.

  50. Albania had not been a unique case of Western musical influences during the Cold War, perhaps so only in the ruling party’s reaction to such influence. See: Yvetta Kajanova, Gertrud Pickhan, and Rudiger Ritter, eds., Jazz from Socialist Realism to Postmodernism, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016, pp. 13-198. For the festival of 1972 see: Nicholas Tochka, Audible States: Socialist Politics and Popular Music in Albania, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 90-94, and pp. 101-103.

  51. Tochka, Audible States, p. 46. Tochka has also outlined the differences that the Ideological and Cultural Revolution brought to music production in Albania (pp. 72-78). One such impact was the thematic change, foregrounding, among others, songs with lyrics highlighting the material building of socialism, positive heroes, Second World War heroes, and patriotic songs.

  52. Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism, p. 76.

  53. Tochka, Audible States, pp. 61-67.

  54. Zëri i Popullit [The People’s Voice], 7 February 1967.

  55. Transcript of the second party plenum of the first party congress, 28-30 April 1949 in Tirana, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1949, D.1, f. 13-14.

  56. Transcript of the second Party Plenum of the first Party Congress, 28-30 April 1949 in Tirana, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1949, D.1, f. 14.

  57. Party of Labor of Albania, Central Committee, Tirana, 27 February 1967. To the District Party Committees, in AQSH, F.511, Ministria e Arsimit dhe e Kulturës [Ministry of Education and Culture], V.1967, D.20, f. 2.

  58. Ibid.

  59. Ibid.

  60. Artan R. Hoxha, Communism, Atheism, and the Orthodox Church of Albania. Cooperation, Survival, and Suppression, 1945-1967, London & New York: Routledge, 2022.

  61. Tirana, 27 February 1967. Ministry of Education and Culture. Informative report and letter of the Central Committee regarding the struggle against religion and measures to further deepen it, and the new socialist festivities, in AQSH, F.511, V.1967, D.20, f. 12-20.

  62. AQSH, F.511, V.1967, D.20, f. 10.

  63. Ibid., f. 2-8.

  64. Informative Report, 7 July 1967, Ministry of Education and Culture. On the first results in the struggle against religion and some measures to further deepen it, in AQSH, F.511, V.1967, D.20, f. 22; Decree Nr. 4263 of the Presidium of the National Assembly, in AQSH, F.511, Ministria e Arsimit dhe e Kulturës [Ministry of Education and Culture], V.1967, D.20, f. 20.

  65. AQSH, F.511, Ministria e Arsimit dhe e Kulturës [Ministry of Education and Culture], V. 1969, D.66, f.18-20.

  66. Ibid., f. 73-80.

  67. The culture houses (culture halls, pallatet e kulturës) were spaces dedicated to artists’ performances – mainly singers, dancers, and theater troupes – where people would usually gather after work. These performances served as part of the Party propaganda, showing the greatness of socialist life and paying tribute to the homeland. They were widespread all over the country, and even the small communes used to have one.

  68. Letter of Thoma Deljana to Comrade Enver, Tirana, 24 June 1969, in AQSH F.511, Ministria e Arsimit dhe e Kulturës [Ministry of Education and Culture], V.1969, D.66, f. 67-68.

  69. Tirana, 11 February 1969. Ministry of Education and Culture. Report and final list of the religious monuments that remain under state preservation, in AQSH, F.511, V.1969, D.66, f. 7-16 and f. 57-66.

  70. Monumentet was published by the Instituti i Monumenteve të Kulturës (Institute of Cultural Monuments). Its issues, from the first one in 1971 to the eighth in 1974, are available in PDF format at: http://iktk.gov.al/site/rreth-nesh/revista-monumentet-1971-1974/ [last accessed 8 May 2023].

  71. “Frymëmarrja e fundit e një mbeturine të së kaluarës” [“The final breath of a piece of refuse from the past”], Zëri i Popullit [The People’s Voice], 9 February 1967.

  72. “Gratë – Forcë e madhe shoqërore në ndërtimin e socializmit” [“Women – A Great Social Force in the Construction of Socialism”], Zëri i Popullit [The People’s Voice], 19 February 1967.

  73. Sheila Fitzpatrick and Yuri Slezkine, eds., In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, pp. 167-434.

  74. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 142-156.

  75. Luljeta Ikonomi and Shannon Woodcock “Imoraliteti në Familje: Nxitja e Ankesave të Grave për të Përforcuar Pushtetin e Partisë në Revolucionin Kulturor Shqiptar” [“Immorality in the Family: Eliciting women's complaints to further Party power in Albania's cultural revolution”], Përpjekja vol. 20, no. 32-33, 2014, pp. 155-182.

  76. Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, p. 16.

  77. Politburo records, 11 October 1966, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.21, f. 48.

  78. Ibid., f. 136-137.

  79. Tirana, 4 March 1966. Minutes of the meeting of the Party Plenum, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.9, f. 133.

  80. Ibid., f. 134.

  81. Tania Branigan, Red Memory. Living, Remembering, and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution, London: Guardian Faber Publishing, 2023; Guobin Yang “China’s Zhiqing Generation: Nostalgia, Identity, and Cultural Resistance in the 1990s”, Modern China vol. 23, no. 3, 2003, pp. 267-296.

  82. Tirana, 4 March 1966. Minutes of the meeting of the party plenum, in AQSH, F.14, AP-OU, V.1966, D.9, f. 129.

  83. Tirana, 6 July 1966. Ministry of Education and Culture – Directorate of physical culture and sports. Letter to all districts regarding the method and style at work, in AQSH, F.511, Ministry of Education, V.1966, D.48, f. 2-15.

  84. Ministry of Education and Culture, 6 July 1966. Report on method and work style sent to all districts, in AQSH, F.511, V.1966, D.48.

  85. Gail Warshofsky Lapidus, “Educational Strategies and Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Soviet Development”, in Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia, pp. 78-104 (p. 80).

  86. Decades ago, Kenneth Jowitt argued that all Leninist systems, “are interested in the selective reintegration of tradition only after the political relevance of tradition has been decisively altered”. See: Kenneth Jowitt, Revolutionary Breakthroughs and National Development, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971, p. 115. Cited in Gail Warshofsky Lapidus “Educational Strategies and Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Soviet Development”, p. 100.

  87. Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, pp. 45-54.

  88. Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Kotkin’s study is focused on the building of the new city of Magnitogorsk in the Urals, and the associated steel plant – one of the greatest industrial centres of the time in the Soviet Union.

  89. “Të gjithë me të gjitha forcat për revolucionarizimin e mëtejshëm të Partisë dhe të pushtetit” [“All Together with All Our Might for the Further Revolutionization of the Party and People’s Power”], Zëri i Popullit [The People’s Voice], 11 February 1967.

  90. “Iniciativë revolucionare e nxënësve dhe pedagogëve të shkollës ‘Naim Frashëri’ në Durrës. Në shpatën e mprehtë të ideologjisë së partisë kundër ideologjisë fetare, paragjykimeve, bestytnive e zakoneve prapanike” [“Revolutionary initiative of the students and teachers at the ‘Naim Frashëri’ school in Durrës. On the sharp sword of the Party’s ideology against religious ideology, prejudices, superstitions and backward customs”], Zëri i Popullit [ The People’s Voice], 8 February 1967; regarding the phenomenon of dazibao in China, see the recent contribution of Xing Lu: Lu Xing, Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication, Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2004, pp. 28-50; For a quick view and explanation of the dazibao please see the accurate information at the website of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University:

  91. https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/research/exhibitions/dazibao-and-woodcuts-from-1960s-china/.

  92. “Ti bëjme fletë-rrufetë një mjet të fuqishëm për edukimin ideopolitik e moral të masave” [“Let’s make the lightning-sheet a powerful tool for the ideological-political and moral education of the masses”], Zëri i Popullit [The People’s Voice], 1 April 1967.

  93. Zëri i Popullit [The People’s Voice], 7 February 1967.

  94. I want to thank the editor of the journal Art Studies, Jonida Gashi, for her insightful comments and the review of the several versions of the article. I am grateful to Raino Isto for his generous help with the many sources used here and for his comments on the first and second versions of the article. Many thanks also to Anxhela Çikopano for her help with the translation of the article into Albanian.

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Published

2023-11-16

How to Cite

Marku, Y. (2023). Socialism in action: Albania’s Ideological and Cultural Revolution and the Lessons from History. Art Studies, (21), 39–87. Retrieved from https://albanica.al/studime_arti/article/view/3013

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No. 21 (2022): Art Studies

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Articles