~-. Vysokoostrovsky
: MOSCOW.
* heard a lot about
tthe Albanians when
®@we were in Belgrade.
@ ery where, in villages
‘my units, wherever
e< turned on the fight
' the Germans, these
fous and_ energetic
fwere spoken of with
B sympathy. On the
-and in mountain
sve were shown places
| Albanian partisans
operating in conjun-
th Marshall Tito’s
individual heroes
amed and their ex-
ecounted.
we had the chance to
mia itself and make the
mee of its people.
' ly, the capital of Al-
s a population of 40,-
ey say that over 60,-
ns are living in Tirana
its population is con-
growing. Since the
liberation from Ger-
1 Italian
been a steady influx
owns. For nearly five
sy Albanians and their
took refuge in the
3% to escape the Ger-
“tw they are returning
many of them have no
--return to: the Italians
- ans burned down the
“ind towns abandoned
“ihabitants. The people

ng down from the
ito Tirana, Durazzo,
and other large in-

* laces, where there is
@ ikelihood of finding
id receiving aid from
“ian government, the

at of the People’s
©.c Front. ‘
@

Pers of old Albania
F willing to sell their
| foreign imperialists.
3st of the traitors was
', who just before the
a deal with the It-
saw his palaces. He
al: in Tirana, Dur-
| ther places. They say
-oalace in Tirana cost
' nia’s annual revenue.
s the city of the new,
Albania. It is the
~.e Anti-Fascist Com-
_ the supreme legisla-
- Its chairman is Dr.
-CUhe Council of Min-
sieaded by the young
setie Enver Hodsha,
© o the Commander-in-
# the country’s armed

-vanian people’s demo-
-ernment was formed
| tse of the struggle of
f from the Germans
-Ds. It enjoys the wid-
tt and has really suc-
‘uniting the people.
vident on every hand.
rsed with representa-
he most diverse poli-
‘ids, parties and re-
= ll of them—Moslems,
Christians and Catho-
Jwners, cattle breed-
fhants and intellectu-
firy men and civilians
the government.

£ the Moslem and Or-
hurches officially as-
i2 Premier and they
‘to the platform of the
nt and intend to co-
ith it and support its
The Catholic clergy
€ opposition, but the
®S_ of the Catholic

occupation

Albania-Land Of Heroes

peasants are clearly wéh the
government.

We talked to Lieut. Koichi
Dodi, Assistant to the Command-
er-in-chief. He told us that the
Albanian army was formed in
the midst of the arduous and
sanguinary fight against the
Hitlerites, who were unable to
stifle the national liberation
movement in the country. In
the army, which is built on the
most democratic principles,
serve Moslems, Orthodox Chris-
tians and Catholics.

“We killed many Germans
and Italians, we prevented the
Germans from escaping north-
ward from Greece, and we
think that we thereby helped
the glorious Red Army which
was then fighting in Hungary
and Austria,’ Kotehi Dodi
said. “You, as foreigners, may
be struck by our unprepossess-
ing appearance, but we would
request you not to judge us
by our dress. We are badly
clothed, our uniforms are tat-
tered and patched, and not all
our soldiers are shod. But, ours
is an efficient army and it is
ready to fight an alien aggres-
sor to the last man. For five
years our soldiers were in the
mountains. Nobody supplied us
with uniforms or food. Our
country is devastated and im-
poverished. Old stocks have
been exhausted. But we win,
and that is the main thing,, and
in time we shall have all we
need.”’

e

ALBANIA just now is in dire

economic straits. The country
is threatened with famine. No
rain fell for six months. The
crop was burned up, especial-
ly in the south. The land is
parched and immense fissures
have formed in the soil. The hill
slopes are yellow from the with-
ered grain. We were told that
even before the war Albania
produced only enough grain to
last nine months; the rest was
imported from abroad.

It is fully realized in Tirana.

that the battle for bread is the
battle for popular government.
Over a cup of strong coffee in
the House of Culture, a school-
teacher said to me that if the
country got through the com-
ing hungry winter there need
be no misgivings about the pol-
itical situation. The reaction-
aries wére now lying low, but
they were waiting for a favor-
able opportunity to raise their
heads and were making every
effort to discredit the people’s
government.

“We know,” the schoolteacher
said “that the reactionaries will
cry that the people’s govern-
ment is responsible for the
famine. That’s to be expected.
But we will fight for the power
of the people just as we fought
the Germans for five years in
the mountains.”

For the first time in the his-
tory of Albania trade unions
are being formed and are con-
eluding wage agreements with
the employers. The oil fields,
which were formerly exploited
by Italians and Germans, are
now in the hands of the govern-
ment. Tobacco, soap-boiling,
food-processing and other indus-
trial establishments which be
longed to war criminals have

been nationalized. Many of
them, however, are not yet
functioning. The tobacco fac-

ADVOCATE — PAGE 11

_tories, for instance,~are at a

standstill owing to lack of cig-
arette paper. The soap-boiling
factories are badly damaged.
Their rehabilitation is being un-
dertaken.

PEOPLE'S Democratic Front

- organizations are functioning
in the city and all over the coun-
try. The front embraces politi-
cal parties, sports, youth and
women’s organizations, Moslem
and Orthodox Church associa-
tions and trade unions. A con-
gress of the People’s Democratic
Front was held in Tirana in the
early part of August. It dis-
cussed the methods of extending:
the front, the defense of the in-
dependence and integrity of Al-
banian territory, economic re-
habilitation and preparations

by L. Vysokoostrovsky

for the elections. It was decid-
ed to form the same united,
democratic front in the elections
as in the fight against the Ger-
man and Italian invaders.

The village of Petreno lies
high up in the mountains; it
was therefore cooler there than
in Tirana. We were welcomed
by Zuber Gaka, the prefect. He
was appointed by the people’s
government and holds the post
temporarily, until the elections.

The prefect of Petrena has
several other villages under his

jurisdiction; together they
form a district. Every week
representatives from the vil-

lages meet with the prefect to
discuss economic, cultural and
other affairs. They have the
right to make proposals and to
eriticize the work of the pre-
fecture .-. .

Dimitrov

datory campaign and the vio-
lence of the National - Social-
ists.

In the political situation of
that period there were two

basic factors: the first was the
striving for autocratic rule on
the part of the National-Social-
ists. The second—in counter-
poise to this—was the activity\
of the Communist Party, aimed
at the creation of a united front
of the workers.

HE National - Socialists re-
quired a diversive maneuver

in order to distract attention
from the difficulties within the
national camp and break the
united front of the workers.
The “national government”
needed an imposing pretext for
the issue of its emergency de-
cree of February 28, abolish-
ing freedom of the press and
inviolability of the person and
establishing a system of police
repressions,concentration
camps and other means of strug-
gle against the Communists ...

(Pointing to Van de Lubbe):
The unknown provocateur toek
care of all the preparations for
the fire. This Mephistophles has
contrived to vanish without
leaving a trace. This ‘stupid
tool, this miserable’ Faust is
here, but Mephistopheles has
vanished ...

What is Van de Lubbe? A
Communist? Not at all. An
archist? No. He is a declassed
worker, he is a rebellious lum-
penproletarian—a creature who
has been misused, who has been
made use of against the work-
ing class.

He is a tool who has been
misused by fascism The
investigation was conducted in
a false direction The in-
cendiaries were searched for,
not where they were but where
they were not...

THE police official, Heller,

here quoted some Commun-
ist verses from a book publish-
ed in 1925 in order to prove
that the Communists set fire
to the Reichstag in 1933. Per-
mit me, in turn, to quote some

Cont.

lines of Germany’s
poet, Goethe:
“Learn to be more wise in time.

greatest

On the mighty scales of for-

tune

Rarely is the index still.

You must rise or you must
sink,

You must either rule and win,

Or you'll have to serve and
lose,

Choose to suffer or to triumph,

Anvil or the hammer be.”

Yes, he who does not want to
be an anvil, must be a hammer.
The German working class: as
a whole did not grasp this truth
in 1918, nor in 1923, nor on
July 20, nor in January, 1938.
The blame for this lies on the
Social-Democratic leaders, such

as Wells, Severing, Braun,
Leipart, Grassmann. Now, of
course, the German workers

can understand this...
, &

WE Bulgarians, and Torgler

too, ought to be acquitted
not for lack of proofs but be-
cause we, as Communists, do
not and could not have anything
in common with this anti-Com-
munist act.

As regards the complete
clearing up of. the question re-
garding the burning of the
Reichstag and the disclosure of
the real incendiaries, this, of
course, will be done by the peo-
ple’s court.

In the seventeenth century
the founder of scientific physics,
Golileo Galilei, was brought be-
fore the stern court of the in-
quisition, which was to have
sentenced him to death as a
heretic. With deep conviction
and resolution he exclaimed:

“The earth does move all the
same.” And this scientific
Proposition later become the
Property of all mankind.

We Communists at the pres-
ent time can say no less reso-
lutely than old Galileo:

“It does move all the same.”
The wheel of history is moving,
it is moving onward... And
this wheel cannot be arrested
in its progress by measures of
destruction, nor by hard lJa-
bor sentences, nor by execu-
tions. It is moving and will con-
tinue to move until the final
victory of Communism!

“If anything goes wrong, the
people make it hot for you,”
Zuber Gaka said.

Both the prefect and those:
who attend his weekly confer-
ences were active partisans in
the past.

The prefect invited us into
his office. It was a tiny room
with a small table at. which
Gaka worked. At another table
sat the secretary of the local
organization of the People’s
Democratic Front. The window
offered a splendid view of the
valley and the mountains. In
the distance the road to Tirana
could be clearly seen. Gaka
pointed to it and said: :

“Over fifteen hundred Ger-
mans were killed over yonder.
They were exterminated by our
detachment when they were try-
ing to break threugh to the
north.”

There is a powerful wireless
receiver in the village around
which the inhabitants gather of
evenings to hear the news. Their
interest in world events is very
deep. The peasants expressed
serious alarm at the situation

. in neighboring Greece. Greek
reactionaries were causing dis-
turbances on the border, firing
at Albanian frontier guards,
smuggling over saboteurs and
attacking the frontier posts. in
small detachments.

@

The country, which has
thrown off the German and It--
alian yoke, awakened the deep-
est sympathy in us, visitors
from the Soviet. Union. For the
first time in its history little
Albania has set foot on the
broad path of free development.
It achieved this opportunity in
a stern fight and thanks to the
magnifieent victories of Allied
arms. This is fully realized by
the Albanians and they are
striving with might and main —
to consolidate the liberties they
have won in the five years of
bitter warfare against the fas-
cist aggressors.

a
| THE SPIRIT OF

CANADIAN
DEMOCRACY

MARGARET FAIRLEY $3.00

THE PEOPLE‘S |
CO-OPERATIVE
BOOKSTORE

WISHES
ALL
A
VERY
HAPPY
NEW

| YEAR

377 W. Pender MA. 5836

\ x
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1945