“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!
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