COMMUNISM AND NATIONALISM IN ALBANIA – A FLEXIB-LE RELATION BETWEEN RULE AND EXCEPTION

Year 2015, Volume: 6 Issue: 2, 9 - 28, 30.12.2015

Sonila Boçi

Abstract

The article deals with the rapport between
nationalism and communism in Albania after WWII. Dogmatically, both communism
and nationalism as ideologies are incompatible with each other. That is because
the first one considers as primary important the Marxist ideology of the
proletarian internationalism, which means the world proletarian state, while
the second one is focused on the supreme sovereignty of the nation;
indivisibility of the political unity with the national one, or the individual
awareness that his loyalty belongs to the nation.

According to orthodox Marxism, the communist
are internationalists. However, Marx was initially revised on
this matter by Lenin, and later on, by Stalin. They identified several cases when communists may refer to their
national feelings, and yet again they considered as “a high priority task of
the communist parties” to confront nationalism and preserve peoples from its
general epidemics.

Considered as rival ideologies, communism and
nationalism in Albania have had quite different
histories. The former was a new experience, imported and with no strong social
foundations. The latter was born, grown up, and rooted in for more than a
century; it was even consolidated during the resistance against the invaders,
throughout the Second World War. For the communist leaders, it was clear that
the traditional nationalism was an ideology from which it was very difficult to
give up. For that reason, they attempted to adapt it to the needs of the
communist ideology. Depending on the regime requirements for an internal social
and political cohesion, the creation of alliances and support to the
consolidation of international positions of the Albanian state, and last but
not least, the preservation of power by the highest ranking political leaders,
over time, we have witnessed consolidation or reduction of the intensity of
nationalist efforts.

Keywords

Albania, Communism, Albanian Nationalism

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