Chairman Hua has a problem

“Kinas brytning med Albanien” is a book in Swedish published in 1978 by the local Maoist faithful, the so-called Communist Party of Sweden (SKP). It deals with an event which rocked the Maoist “world movement” a couple of years earlier: the split between post-Mao China and Enver Hoxha´s Albania. The Albanian Communist leadership, probably due to China´s pro-American foreign policy course and the vagaries of Balkan power politics (with the Chinese cozying up to Tito´s Yugoslavia), had broken with Beijing and embarked on a more “leftist” course, verbally attacking both the United States, the Soviet Union and China as “imperialist”. While this gung-ho isolationism attracted hard line Marxist-Leninists fed up with both Soviet and Chinese “revisionism” (and Realpolitik), it repelled pretty much everyone else, soon forcing the Hoxha regime to make some tactical adjustments, usually in the direction of pro-Soviet regimes in the Third World, but also Khomeini´s Iran – regimes Hoxha should logically have opposed if adhering strictly to the anti-Soviet (and anti-everyone) line. But this was still in the future when “Kinas brytning med Albanien” was published.

The book is divided into three sections. The most voluminous one is a collection of angry diplomatic (or not-so diplomatic) notes from the Albanian and Chinese Communist governments regarding the Chinese decision to break off its economic aid to Albania. I only skimmed this section. Please note: Albania was so backward that *Mao´s China* (hardly a power house of advanced technological development) could give it economic aid! This section ends with a sarcastic comment (funny when coming from Maoists) about how Albania sent a delegation to India to request economic aid from them instead… But sure, maybe India was more backward than China back in 1978? The second section contain the famous editorial “The Theory and Practice of Revolution”, published in the Albanian Communist organ “Zeri i Popullit”on June 6, 1977. This, then, gives the official Albanian position on the ideological rift with the Chinese. The final section is a response from the SKP to the Albanian polemic. The SKP doesn´t really argue its pro-Chinese line (really pro-Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping), essentially just repeating all the usual “Three Worlds Theory” talking points. What struck me when reading the article was how brazen it was – the SKP freely admits that in the event of a Third World War, they would support the United States and NATO against the Soviet Union! And the SKP regarded a third world war as inevitable…

Of course, SKP´s weird blend of Stalinistic Maoism and Swedish anti-Soviet nationalism didn´t pay off (as far as I know). The proper Swedish authorities still regarded them as unreliable reds. Today, the ex-SKPers have change their line again, now supporting *Russia* against the Western alliance, presumably confirming the deepest fears of the Secret Service. I suppose the left behind Maoists might still be taking their marching orders from oblique editorials in “People´s Daily”, although I suspect the Chinese no longer give a damn. And I frankly wonder if they gave a damn even back in 1978!