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Previously posted on Amazon, which recently purged me, Albania Stalinist style, and deleted all my reviews. So I repost them here, at my own blog! The photo above is of Edvard Kardelj, mentioned in the review.
This small booklet was actually published in Communist Albania in 1978. It
cost 3.50 Lekë, which I presume was the local Albanian currency. The author was
none other than Enver Hoxha himself, Communist leader of Albania from 1944 to
1985. In Sweden, Hoxha's little book was distributed by a small pro-Albanian
Communist group. In the United States, it's still being distributed...by
Amazon! The world is strange.
"Yugoslav Self-Administration: A Capitalist Theory and Practice" is an attack on the economic and political system of Tito's Yugoslavia. More specifically, it's a polemic against a book by Edvard Kardelj, often regarded as the chief ideologist of the Titoist regime. Kardelj's work had been translated to Albanian in Kosovo, then under Yugoslav control, and somehow Hoxha procured a copy of it. The system Hoxha calls "self-administration" is more widely known in English as "workers' self-management".
Hoxha has little problem proving that Kardelj is indeed a "renegade", a "revisionist" and so forth. The partially decentralized economic system of Tito's Yugoslavia was indeed very different from the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism as laid down by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin! Hoxha also easily proves that Yugoslavia is really controlled by "the Tito clique" rather than by the workers, that there is an "elite" in Yugoslavia, and that the Yugoslav economy is becoming progressively more decrepit and heavily in debt.
The Albanian Communist leader has some difficulty making up his mind whether Kardelj is an "anarchist", "Euro-Communist" or "Social Democrat", but he is sure of one thing: Yugoslavia is "capitalist" and the bourgeoisie, kulaks and international capital exploit the Yugoslav workers. Of course, he also protests Yugoslavia's control of Kosovo, without mentioning the upgrading of Kosovo's status within the Yugoslav Federation to a near-republic. (Of course, the Kosovar Albanians wanted more, so Hoxha was playing it safe here, as well.)
For rather obvious reasons, Hoxha's booklet is decidedly less convincing when talking about Albania... But yes, it was genuinely Communist, at least we can grant Hoxha that much! :D
(This is the fourth book by comrade Enver I'm reviewing here on Amazon. Do I have an unhealthy obsession with this guy, or what?)
"Yugoslav Self-Administration: A Capitalist Theory and Practice" is an attack on the economic and political system of Tito's Yugoslavia. More specifically, it's a polemic against a book by Edvard Kardelj, often regarded as the chief ideologist of the Titoist regime. Kardelj's work had been translated to Albanian in Kosovo, then under Yugoslav control, and somehow Hoxha procured a copy of it. The system Hoxha calls "self-administration" is more widely known in English as "workers' self-management".
Hoxha has little problem proving that Kardelj is indeed a "renegade", a "revisionist" and so forth. The partially decentralized economic system of Tito's Yugoslavia was indeed very different from the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism as laid down by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin! Hoxha also easily proves that Yugoslavia is really controlled by "the Tito clique" rather than by the workers, that there is an "elite" in Yugoslavia, and that the Yugoslav economy is becoming progressively more decrepit and heavily in debt.
The Albanian Communist leader has some difficulty making up his mind whether Kardelj is an "anarchist", "Euro-Communist" or "Social Democrat", but he is sure of one thing: Yugoslavia is "capitalist" and the bourgeoisie, kulaks and international capital exploit the Yugoslav workers. Of course, he also protests Yugoslavia's control of Kosovo, without mentioning the upgrading of Kosovo's status within the Yugoslav Federation to a near-republic. (Of course, the Kosovar Albanians wanted more, so Hoxha was playing it safe here, as well.)
For rather obvious reasons, Hoxha's booklet is decidedly less convincing when talking about Albania... But yes, it was genuinely Communist, at least we can grant Hoxha that much! :D
(This is the fourth book by comrade Enver I'm reviewing here on Amazon. Do I have an unhealthy obsession with this guy, or what?)
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