Home › Features › Essays › Albania and the Sino-Soviet Conflict

Albania and the Sino-Soviet Conflict

By Stavro Skendi
April 1962
Article Summary and Author Biography

The conflict between little Albania and the Soviet Union is today at the center of the Soviet-Chinese rift. This first became apparent at the Bucharest Congress of June 1960, when of all the heads of Communist Parties of Eastern Europe only Enver Hoxha was absent. However, the clash between the two countries had been proceeding undercover for a long time. To understand its roots, let us first turn to Albanian-Jugoslav relations.

Print Email
Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

The conflict between little Albania and the Soviet Union is today at the center of the Soviet-Chinese rift. This first became apparent at the Bucharest Congress of June 1960, when of all the heads of Communist Parties of Eastern Europe only Enver Hoxha was absent. However, the clash between the two countries had been proceeding undercover for a long time. To understand its roots, let us first turn to Albanian-Jugoslav relations.

Contrary to what has recently been published in some American newspapers, the Albanian Communist Party was founded and organized in November 1941 by the Jugoslav Communist Party. It was brought under the control of the latter during the war, and there it remained until the Tito-Cominform break in 1948. When the Albanian Communist Party was freed from the Jugoslav grip, it began attacking Tito and the Jugoslav leaders as "deviationists" and "traitors." This continued up to Khrushchev's visit to Belgrade in June 1955. The Soviet leader's efforts to reëstablish friendly relations with Jugoslavia acutely disturbed the Albanian Communists. They feared that this might lead to a restoration of Jugoslav control in Albania, endangering not only their positions but perhaps also their lives. They moderated their attacks, but were cautious in expressing satisfaction at the reconciliation.

This is a premium article

You must be a logged in Foreign Affairs subscriber to continue reading. If you wish to continue reading this article please subscribe , or activate your online account to get full online access.

Buy PDF

Buy a premium PDF reprint of this article.

Related

Essay, Oct 1968
Force and Counterforce in Eastern Europe
James H. Billington

Astonishing events in Czechoslovakia were only the latest in a series of changes in the communist world that took the outside world by surprise. The thaw and Hungarian rebellion of 1956, China's break with the Soviet Union and immersion in internal convulsion, and even the rejection of Russian control in Rumania-all were largely unforeseen (with only a few exceptions) even by expert opinion in the West, Like military planners who prepare for the last war, commentators on communist affairs in their preoccupation with accounting for the last surprise have often left the public unprepared for the next one. The concept of monolithic totalitarianism, based on parallels between Hitler and the later Stalin, ill prepared us to expect rebellion in Hungary; preoccupation with the Sino-Soviet split (which was only belatedly thought to be important, and then rapidly promoted into being the controlling factor in the divided communist world of the sixties) distracted us from any expectation of liberal deviation in Czechoslovakia.

Read
Essay, Oct 1963
The Chinese-Soviet Rift: Origins and Portents
Philip E. Mosely

The long-heralded and twice-postponed conference between the Chinese and Soviet Communist spokesmen, held at Moscow in July, was overshadowed, at least for the outside world, by the dramatic publication of the exchange of letters between the two Central Committees. The breakup of the conference was hardly softened by halfhearted assertions of a mutual intention to continue the discussions. It is hard to discern any useful topics for new negotiations until one or another or both parties to the quarrel have made some rather drastic changes in their ideological claims or their practical policy aims. The two facets are inseparable, of course. Quarrels among Communists have been a recurring feature of a movement that claims political omniscience and a monopoly of messianic foresight, and are normally clothed in recondite scholastic terms. But their ideological disputes are always waged over real questions of power and policy.

Read
Essay, Apr 1963
Threat and Opportunity in the Communist Schism
Zbigniew Brzezinski

In ten short years since Joseph Stalin's death a once potent revolutionary force has disintegrated into two mutually hostile phalanxes linked only by ritualistic proclamations of unity: an orthodox international Communism headed by Mao Tse-tung, and a revisionist international Communism led by Nikita Khrushchev. There is no coöperation between the Soviet and the Chinese leaders; no collaboration in actual policies; no coördination of a general outlook. The alliance as an active political force is dead.

Read