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Hoxha, Reminiscent of Trotsky's "Leftism"

Eighty-five years ago, in the face of World War II, Leon Trotsky worked hand-in-glove with the Hitler fascists. He attacked the antifascist front from the "left" while the ruling circles in the West attacked it from the right.

Enver Hoxha’s legacy continues to be used to push a divisive agenda amid the increasing threat of global conflict. His book, Imperialism and the Revolution, still circulated in the U.S. by a handful of Hoxhaist groups, works to steer the working class away from solidarity with the Global South, including socialist China. It attacks the growing united front against the dominance of the world’s two superpowers. Using ultra-"left" rhetoric, sophistry, and pseudo-Marxist arguments, Hoxha lays the theoretical foundation that continues to justify support for the Soviet Union’s past expansionist actions in Asia and around the world.

Among the main points of Hoxhaism to be found in Imperialism and the Revolution are the following: The super "leftism" goes on and on, but in the end it all amounts to little more than a subtle defense of the then Soviet position in the world. Any force that dares to stand up to social imperialist hegemonism is the target of Hoxhaism, from the Kampucheans to the late people of Zaire. The latter, claims Hoxha, were simply defending tyranny when they resisted the Soviet-backed invasion of Kampuchea in 1979. Hoxha came out and openly defended the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Kampuchea, after initially pretending neutrality, the real aims of Hoxha's polemic can be more clearly seen.

But Hoxha's book, which was initially planned as a manifesto around which to form a "new Comintern" of anti-China splitters, had barely any influence among the Marxist-Leninists around the world. Many groups who were initially taken in by his ultra-"left" verbiage eventually grew further disenchanted, while what praise his writings got came largely from Radio Moscow.

Even the anti-China "leftists" in the U.S., like the Revolutionary Communist Party, found Hoxha's open attacks on Mao Zedong and on the whole history of Chinese revolution too blatant for them. The RCP was forced to disassociate themselves from the book admittedly before even reading it. If they had read it, they would have found some common ground with their own version of Trotskyism, such as their joint attack on Mao Zedong's theory of three worlds.

Perhaps the thing that confuses those who still follow Hoxha is the positive role Albania and the Party of Labor played in the fight against Khrushchev revisionism in the '60s. (Hoxha, by the way, takes complete credit for this fight in his book, claiming that the Chinese were "vacillators" in the struggle.)

I would only advise those who are confused to study the writings and speeches of Mao Zedong from 1956 and after regarding the revisionist line of the 20th Congress of CPSU. Compare them with Hoxha's own outspoken support for the line of "peaceful transition to socialism" and a world "without war" under imperialism and see who the real vacillator was.

It is true that the PLA belatedly took up the struggle in 1960, but in no way can it be claimed that Hoxha was the "leader" or that the Chinese wavered. The problem is that when the PLA finally did oppose Khrushchevism, it did so from a shaky theoretical foundation. This, under the conditions of the present period, has led them down the road of super-"leftism," a road which while differing outwardly from Moscow, found a common meeting ground. Today that meeting ground is hysterical anti-"Maoism" and backing for Imperialist aggression.