Can someone write a nice, short introduction to Hoxha? What was Albania like during his time (economically, democracy-wise, living standards, etc.)? Did he commit any genocides or anything or was he a good christian boy? Did he have any democratic legitimacy or was he just a dictator? What problem did he have with Mao? I only know the bunker meme.
If you know any good articles or blog posts or something, link that shit.
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articles.chicagotribune.com
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spiralofdialectic.blogspot.com
spiralofdialectic.blogspot.com
espressostalinist.com
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Bunkers are good. Get out Stalin!
Enver Hoxha seemed to like guns and the prospect of arming the whole population. Don't have any quotes handy, but I do have a journalist's report from just after his death that sort of backs it up.
Here's a documentary on socialist Albania: youtu.be
The standard Hoxhaist argument would be that muh revisionism was not caused by Deng, but it was rooted in Mao's ideas and actions. While certain minor disagreements existed even when they were allied against the USSR, it all started going to shit when Albanians found out the Chinese were holding secret talks with the Burgers at the time of Vietnam war. Hoxha was also majorly pissed off by the fact Kissinger paid a visit to China and Nixon announced he was going to do so as well, since both were anti-communists and Mao had no qualms with receiving them. Around that time Mao had also come up with Three Worlds Theory, which for the bunkerman was an anti-marxist concept.
bumping this shit
Literally nothing in that description is wrong tho.
In what way was Mao responsible for Dengist revisionism?
I wrote two blogpost pieces analyzing this and while their not the best in the world they may answer some questions. Mao's capitulation towards the national bourgeoisie, the failure of decentralized planning and the fact that rents and a free-market in grain still existed in China in the early 60s are among the reasons why I see Dengist revisionism as being rooted in Maoism.
spiralofdialectic.blogspot.com
spiralofdialectic.blogspot.com
Hi Hoxha poster. I've seen you in other threads and you seem very smart.
Why do you believe that a highly centralized, undemocratic, one-party government is an accurate interpretation of the DotP when Marx and Engels described the Paris Commune as a close model for what they were talking about when they used that term?
It isn't really though.
It is not less marxist than historical materialism itself, it's a very broad analysis, but it isn't idealism.
There is more than one Hoxha poster on this board. The one you are talking about who only delivered top tier quality was recently banned.
Espresso Stalinist has some good stuff
espressostalinist.com
Also I would love it if someone could translate this documentary
youtube.com
Why was he banned?
You could just read up on him, like, it's not even hard to find that shit…
He said lumpenproletarians deserve gulag, was just a shitpost.
Some mod got triggered by this and banned him.
seeing all those people working and building an industrial socialist state from the ruins of war warms my heart. even more impressive given how albania was pretty much the most stunted european country back then.
Ya the mods are fags but I'm back tho now
What's undemocratic about democratic centralism? Also Marx & Engels supported the commune but also criticized the communards for not using enough terror, believe it or not, and not seizing the state and the banks when they had the chance.
What's unfree about neoliberalism?
I'm being hyperbolic here, but it bears a bit of explanation I think. How was Hoxha's centralism different from other eastern european states? In what sense exactly was it democratic?
It doesn't really take into account the opinions of anyone who isn't part of the upper echelons of the vanguard party, so it can't really be considered democratic.
Centralism, in general, tends to be anathema to democracy it makes power more indirect (and thus less real) for the people.
Also, slightly relevant to this thread,
Holy shit, the media really fucking hates Corbyn over there.
*because it makes power
Well, for starters, Albania wasn't an assembly-shop for Ikea, Fiat, Krupp etc. like certain other East European states. Secondly, Albania had the lowest income inequality in the world, at 2:1–imagine if you lived in a country where the lowest wage paid was $15 dollars an hour and the maximum wage was $30 dollars. That would be Albania and if Scheidel's work on inequality is accurate you could make the case that Albania had lower inequality then some stone-age tribes.
In the West, by contrast, top-pay is typically between 30-300 what the average worker makes and there's no serious barrier to the accumulation of capital in most capitalist states, so no real check against wealth inequality which is far more serious then income inequity. "But hey, everyone gets a vote and there are competing parties lmao!"
If you imagined these states as coops which one would you want to work in? Which would you say is more democratic? Do you think the bosses would be more considerate of the average proles wants and needs in a coop with a disparity of 300:1?
Nothin personnel kid but bourgeois democracy is never anything more then the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
As a burger I really have to disagree anti-centralist sentiment/localism/federalism is always the cri de coeur of the most reactionary segments of the bourgeoisie. What's the point of making democratic decisions if there is no authority strong enough to enforce the will of the people? That's why the bourgeoisie typically prefers a kind of controlled chaos in how they run society. You could say the stock market for instance is a kind of decentralized democracy in the economic sphere but its never even slightly changed the situation of the working class under capitalism except for perhaps nursing some naive illusions
Lenin also noted that bourgeois Switzerland offered its working class even less democracy then France precisely because of its decentralized model of governance.
It's not necessarily that I think there are no problems with centralism or a vanguard party but mainly that that its still better then all the alternatives when it comes to enforcing working class power.
Honestly, it was probably one of the few countries on Earth poorer then China post-liberation. 1/2 of Albanian children didn't survive child-birth and the country didn't have a single university until after the revolution literally created their university system out of nothing; education literally ended in primary school in Albania.
I agree with you entirely. My question wasn't to hold "liberal democracy" up as some gold standard. I just wanted to know what exactly about democratic centralism was democratic. Was it democratic in that the party leaders could be subjected to democratic processes? Parties themselves? Or maybe large amounts of power was vested in workers councils or unions?
I completely believe the stats you posted and to answer your rhetorical question I would much prefer to live in the "albanian coop". I'm mostly really interested in the kind of democracy that democratic centralism proposes.