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

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.