A Synopsis of the Secret Activity of the Enemy Mehmet Shehu

Enver Hoxha, Selected Works, Vol. 6, pp. 568–596

Speech delivered at the 4th Plenum of the CC of the PLA[1]

September 24, 1982

From the investigations following the suicide of Mehmet Shehu (December 18, 1981), and from the documents in the possession of the Party, it results that Mehmet Shehu was an agent recruited by the Americans from the time he attended Fultz’s school in Tirana. On Fultz’s orders, Mehmet Shehu went to study in a military school in Italy, and on the orders of the American secret service he was sent to Spain.

After the defeat of the anti-fascist war in Spain, Mehmet Shehu went to a refugee camp in France where he stayed for three years, at a time when many of his comrades escaped from it. In the camp he was recruited as an agent of the British Intelligence Service also. He was taken out of the camp by an officer of the German Gestapo and one of the Italian SIM, passed through Italy, where he was held two months, and was then handed over in Durrës to the Albanian notorious spy, Man Kukaleshi, who released him after 20 days, and Mehmet Shehu went to Mallakastra and linked up with the organization of our Party there.

During the National Liberation War, Mehmet Shehu and his wife, Fiqret Sanxhaktari, were recruited as agents of the Yugoslavs, too, by Dušan Mugoša.[2] To this end, the former was given the secret pseudonym MISH (Mehmet Ismail Shehu), and the latter the pseudonym FISARI (Fiqret Sanxhaktari).

From the written documents of Mehmet Shehu it is proved that he was a member[3] of the Berat plot, together with Koçi Xoxe and Nako Spiru, irrespective of the fact that he was not at Berat (in November 1944).

During the war, too, Mehmet Shehu had displayed signs of discontent, because at the 1st National Conference at Labinot in March 1943 he was elected only a candidate member of the Central Committee and at Përmet, at the Anti-fascist National Liberation Congress in May 1944, he was not promoted to general, like several others whom he scorned.

Mehmet Shehu wanted the mistakes which he had made and continued to make by violating the line of the Party and failing to carry out the orders of the General Staff, over which he had been criticized several times, to be forgotten, and now it is quite clear that he did not do all this without a purpose. So, he had used terror in the villages through which the 1st Brigade passed to discredit the Party and the partisan forces, elevated to a legend the «incursion» of two battalions of the 1st Brigade to rescue the General Staff from the German-Ballist encirclement, although he not only did not rescue it, but Mehmet Shehu deliberately wasted two weeks (in place of two days), taking the forces of the Brigade over a number of dangerous paths, thus, causing many brave fighters of this Brigade to lay down their lives heroically. Mehmet Shehu opposed the order of the General Staff for the 1st Division to cross the Shkumbin River and move to the North, because this order was not in accord with the strategy of the Anglo-Americans who wanted to have Northern Albania under their influence, through the forces of their agents, Abaz Kupi, Muharrem Bajraktari and other bajraktars.

Mehmet Shehu came to Albania and fought not as a communist and partisan, but as a mercenary sent by the Anglo-Americans to serve their plans for the future of Albania. After his suicide, a program written by his own hand at the time when he came to Albania, was found in his safe. This was nothing but a bourgeois-democratic program which made no mention at all of socialism and the communist party, but of many parties, just as the Anglo-American missions and the reactionary groups which supported them tried to bring about in the period immediately after the Liberation of our country.

Immediately after Liberation, either to satisfy his careerist ambitions, or on the order of the American secret service, Mehmet Shehu placed himself in the service of the chief of the Soviet military mission in Albania, the agent of Soviet counter-intelligence, major Ivanov, by giving him secret reports against the leadership and the line of our Communist Party, in which he demanded an intervention either by the Soviets or Tito (whom he describes as a big figure) to change the situation in Albania, because it was hard to go on like that with Enver Hoxha.

In this context it is easy to understand the acrobatic twists and contradictory stands of Mehmet Shehu during the National Liberation War and after Liberation, before and after the 8th[4] and 11th[5] Plenums of the Central Committee (in 1948), sometimes defending the Yugoslav theses, sometimes opposing them under the protection of Soviet advisers.

At the 8th Plenum Nako Spiru was exposed and condemned as an enemy by the Yugoslavs and Koçi Xoxe, while Mehmet Shehu was described as «anti-Yugoslav», and from chief of the General Staff of the Army he was appointed minister of communications.[6]

After the letters of the CPSU(b) to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, the 11th Plenum came and Mehmet Shehu hastened to proclaim himself a standard-bearer of the correct line in support of the Soviet Union and Stalin. After the letter of the CPSU(b), after the 11th Plenum, and the 1st Congress of our Party until Stalin’s death (1948–1953), Mehmet Shehu spoke in public and worked in the spirit of the line of the Party, defending the Soviet Union and Stalin and exposing Tito and his clique as agents of imperialism, just as our whole Party did.

Following the death of Stalin, the team that came to power condemned Beria, the chief of the Soviet KGB, for many violations of the law. We asked Mehmet Shehu to examine whether mistakes had also been made in the organs of our Ministry of Internal Affairs, of which he was the head. Mehmet Shehu was afraid that his links with the Soviet KGB had been discovered and he might suffer the same fate as Beria. He went to the Soviet ambassador Levichkin, whom he assured of his loyalty to the new Khrushchevite team that had come to power, and sought Soviet protection, because, according to his statements, «Enver Hoxha regards me with suspicion,» and he was very disturbed about this. Levichkin advised Mehmet Shehu to come to me and make his position clear, while ensuring him that he, Levichkin, would protect him. Levichkin personally came to me, told me of Mehmet Shehu’s worries and that he had advised him to come to me. Mehmet Shehu did not come for two or three weeks. At a subsequent meeting, Levichkin asked me whether I had talked with Mehmet Shehu. I replied that he had not come to me and I had no intention of summoning him, because Mehmet Shehu had to report to me and make a thorough self-criticism, since I considered it a mistake that he had gone to Levichkin without first discussing with me as General Secretary about whom he complained. Levichkin was alarmed and «ordered» Mehmet Shehu to come to me. First he sent Fiqret Shehu to feel my pulse. She came to enquire what was wrong with Mehmet Shehu, who was «extremely worried» (as if she herself knew nothing). I told her «We have nothing against him, so you had better ask him whether he has something against us.»

In this way Mehmet Shehu was reassured that we had not made any discovery and had no suspicions about him. On Levichkin’s urging, too, he came to me, made a self-criticism and, also, made a self-criticism in the Political Bureau and in the Plenum of the Central Committee, saying that he had made a serious mistake in going to the Soviet ambassador to complain about the General Secretary of the Central Committee without discussing the matter with him and without raising the problem in the leadership of the Party.

Later, something else occurred which greatly alarmed and worried Mehmet Shehu: Sokrat Bufi, a Party cadre who was studying in Moscow at that time, sent the Central Committee a letter in which, amongst other things, he said: «Mehmet Shehu is a provocateur…» Mehmet Shehu was furious about this and demanded insistently in the Secretariat and in the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and several times to me personally, that Sokrat Bufi be arrested and condemned. We did not accept his proposal, because to condemn him simply for the fact that he had made a criticism of a party leader would be contrary to the norms of the Party. Since Sokrat Bufi was appointed vice-chairman of the executive committee of a district, the doubts of Mehmet Shehu that we had discovered some of his sins were further aroused and he continued to be on pins and needles, to live and work in great anxiety.

The coming to power of Khrushchev and the 20th Congress of the CPSU brought reconciliation between the Soviet revisionists and the Titoites. Both parties, in collaboration and unity with one another, combined their plans and went into action to change the situation in the international communist and workers’ movement, especially in the countries of people’s democracy, in favour of the revisionist aims of Khrushchev and the agent of imperialism, Tito. Just as they had done in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, etc., they tried to rehabilitate their group of agents, Koçi Xoxe and company, in Albania, too, but they failed. Both the Yugoslav leadership and Suslov officially demanded the rehabilitation of Koçi Xoxe, that is, that we should return to the 2nd Plenum at Berat, admit the so-called mistakes of our Party in line and in our relations with the Yugoslavs, a demand which cannot be claimed to have been made at that time without the knowledge of the chief of the Soviet mission in Albania, Major Ivanov, the close friend of the chief of the Yugoslav mission in our country, the notorious Colonel Velimir Stojnić, who organized the deals behind the scene and the first Titoite plot in the 2nd Plenum of the Central Committee at Berat.

In the context of the feverish activity of Khrushchev and Tito after the 20th Congress, their agents in Albania, with Mehmet Shehu, Beqir Balluku, and Fiqret Shehu in the lead, in close connection with the Yugoslav and Soviet embassies in our country, organized the plot to change the course of the Party Conference of Tirana, with the old aim of overthrowing the sound leadership of the Party, rehabilitating anti-Party elements and people’s enemies, Koçi Xoxe and company, of changing the line and going to the forthcoming Congress of the Party on the lines laid down for us by Khrushchev and Tito, according to the 20th Congress of the CPSU. Their aim was not only to condemn Stalin, but also those who followed his road. The group of plotters at the Tirana Conference was defeated. Some were expelled from the Party, some others (those who were proved to have had links with the Yugoslav embassy, because at that time we had no information concerning the Soviet embassy) were handed over to the court. However, the main culprits escaped. Mehmet Shehu and Beqir Balluku (who was a delegate of the Central Committee to the Conference retreated into the background, «condemned» the plotters, while Fiqret Shehu, who was first secretary of the Party Committee of Tirana, «vowed» that she had not the slightest warning, that everything had happened «behind her back», that she had been shut up at home preparing the report, etc. Fiqret was dismissed as first secretary and the reprimand was recorded on her registration document. At that time we knew nothing in regard to Feçor Shehu who, it now turns out, was an agent in the service of the UDB and was the liaison agent between the Yugoslav embassy and Mehmet and Fiqret Shehu. Mehmet Shehu personally maintained the direct links with the Soviet embassy, readily exploiting the good relations we had with the Soviet Union at that time.

In the situation which was created after the failure of the Khrushchevite-Titoite plot at the Tirana Conference and the resolute, open unmasking by our Party of the events in Poland, and especially those in Hungary, the UDB of Tito-Ranković ordered their secret agents Liri Gega, Dali Ndreu and Panajot Plaku to flee to Yugoslavia in order to create an opposition abroad and to fight us through their mouths. The first two were arrested attempting to cross the border, while Panajot Plaku, with the aid of Mehmet Shehu and his collaborators amongst the officers of the army and the state security,[7] crossed our state border and worked for some time in an allegedly clandestine radio which broadcast the old Titoite poison against our Party and country from the territory of Yugoslavia. However, seeing that they could do us no harm from outside, the Yugoslav revisionists planned to bring Panajot Plaku to Albania with the aim that he, together with their secret agents and other enemies, tried from inside to carry out the secret plots of the Yugoslav and Soviet revisionists. So, they sought Khrushchev’s help, hoping that he would exercise pressure on us and influence us so that we would accept Panajot Plaku in Albania. Sensing the advantages of this course, Khrushchev was ready to collaborate with Tito, as he did over the Polish and Hungarian question, to mislead the work of the Party Conference of Tirana (1956), etc., therefore, he did not fail to intervene for a «conciliation» with the traitor. As the first step, he told us that he was considering admitting him to the Soviet Union, since Plaku himself had expressed this desire in a letter he had sent to Khrushchev.

«He is a traitor,» I told Khrushchev, «and if you accept him in your country, we shall break off our friendship with you. If you do accept him, you must hand him over to us so we can hang him in the middle of the square in Tirana.»

When the Soviet revisionists saw that they had failed in Hungary and elsewhere, and could no longer have control of the situation in the communist movement and in the socialist camp, they retreated a little from their subversive struggle in collaboration with Tito, because he was drawing them in the revisionist mire more deeply than they had thought of, they publicly supported the stands of the Party of Labour of Albania by publishing its articles, etc. Whereas Tito, on his part, in his notorious speech at Pula launched a direct personal attack in which, more than ever before, he condemned «the cult» of Enver Hoxha and called for the overthrow of the leadership of our Party.

Precisely at these moments, instead of waging a more stern struggle against Titoism, Khrushchev and his collaborators went further down on the road of collaboration with Tito, thus proving the falsity of his «support» for our Party. Khrushchev’s collaboration with the Yugoslav revisionists was obvious also in the stand they adopted towards enemy elements: Dali Ndreu, Liri Gega and Panajot Plaku. When our organs captured Dali Ndreu and Liri Gega redhanded and placed them in the dock, the Yugoslavs jumped up in rage, and so did Khrushchev. He sent an urgent radiogram to the Soviet ambassador in Tirana, Krylov, to intervene with me to ensure that the enemies and traitors were not condemned. These were precisely those days of November 1956 when, as I said above, Tito delivered his notorious speech at Pula in which, amongst other things, he called openly for the overthrow of the leadership of the PLA and for my condemnation. Khrushchev sent Krylov with two main instructions: we were not to reply sternly to Tito’s speech and not to punish the captured agents who were rendering account before the people’s court. We very quickly gave Khrushchev and Tito the answer: in regard to the first instruction, we published articles in the press in which we fired off all our batteries against Tito, Titoism and the speech at Pula; in regard to the second instruction, we gave the agents and traitors the punishment they deserved.

The Party of Labour of Albania continued its ideological and political struggle against Titoism persistently. In the course of this struggle we were confronted with the Khrushchevite revisionists, too, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly (Khrushchev’s letter about his visit to Tito; refusal on our part to condemn Stalin, at a time when the others condemned him; our objection to a rapprochement with Belgrade on the plane Khrushchev wished; the open statement of our views about Tito and his group in some meetings with Khrushchev and Suslov, something which irritated them so much that Khrushchev said to me angrily: «Where do you want to lead us, on to Stalin’s road?» We engaged in intensive propaganda against Yugoslav revisionism and, on the ideological plane, indirectly attacked also the views that Khrushchev and his clique were spreading; in the meeting of the communist and workers’ parties in 1957 we adopted a resolute stand against Titoism as a secret agency of imperialism, which was also included in the declaration.) Our contradictions with the Soviet leadership were steadily mounting, we were heading for the confrontation of June 1960 at Bucharest.

In the summer of 1960 Liri Belishova was in Beijing with a parliamentary delegation, at the time that the meeting of the World Federation of Trade Unions was being held there. Contrary to every party rule and norm, the contradictions between the Chinese and the Soviets emerged openly at that meeting. In opposition to the stand of the leadership of our Party, which did not want to pronounce itself prematurely on these contradictions, Liri went to the Soviet embassy and reported all that the Chinese had told her. We sent Liri Belishova two letters, one to Beijing and one that reached her on the way back to Moscow, in which we criticized her for her stand in Beijing and explained the stand she must take in Moscow. However, Liri Belishova, as an agent of the Soviets, not only did not follow the advice of the leadership of the Party, but met Kozlov, talked with him, listened to him and even handed over to the Khrushchevites our letters which, when we asked her for them, she told us she «had burnt them».

When she returned to Albania, Liri Belishova took Comrade Hysni [Kapo] aside and said to him, «Let us keep Comrade Enver out of these clashes,» but Hysni denounced Liri. She had also met Mehmet Shehu and told him, «Don’t talk about Khrushchev, because everything you say reaches his ears.» Mehmet Shehu reluctantly admitted this much later, when he saw that the leadership of the Party was condemning Liri Belishova. What other pressure Liri Belishova had exerted on him is not known.

Likewise, we do not know what Kosygin said to Mehmet Shehu when he was in hospital in Moscow for treatment. Mehmet Shehu told us that Kosygin had tried to convince him that China must be condemned and this «had angered» him, so he left the hospital and returned to Albania. Now it turns out that Mehmet, together with Fiqret, had been summoned to a meeting with Mikoyan at which Andropov and, I think, also the chief of security, Shelepin, were present and talked for four hours with them.

Meanwhile, Mehmet Shehu saw that the leadership of our Party was not going to tolerate Khrushchev’s plans against Marxism-Leninism and the international communist and workers’ movement any longer. Our Party worked out the platform for the stand it would take at Bucharest, retaining its right to present its views at the regular meeting of all parties (in November 1960 in Moscow). At that time Mehmet Shehu was in a quandary: whom to please and whom to displease. To place himself in opposition to the leadership of the Party was of no benefit to him, because he would suffer the fate of Liri Belishova and all the other anti-Party enemies, therefore he could not follow the road which his Soviet patrons advised him.

At this time Mehmet Shehu left for New York at the head of a government delegation to the UNO. He travelled on the British trans-Atlantic luxury liner «Queen Elizabeth». We knew that Tito, also, was travelling on that ship, but it never crossed our minds that Mehmet Shehu might meet Tito. Now we learn that Harry Fultz of the American CIA and Randolph Churchill, who was a top figure of the Intelligence Service but figured on the passenger list as a journalist, were also aboard. Seeing the group which accompanied Mehmet Shehu, those who are now in jail for being members of his group (Llambi Ziçishti, Llambi Peçini, Gani Kodra and some others), it emerges that during the one-week trip Mehmet Shehu, being their agent, might very well have had and certainly did have secret meetings and talks with Tito, Fultz and R. Churchill, together or one at a time, informed them of the situation in and the stands of our Party, the acute contradictions which were arising with the Soviet Union and the stand which the leadership of our Party intended to take in Moscow.

The strategies of the three agencies, Yugoslav, American and British, were in accord and they suggested to their superagent that he should unreservedly «support» the stands of the leadership of the Party, which would lead to the great breach and rupture with the Soviet Union. They would lose nothing if we supported China. On the contrary, this «friendship» with their secret pro-American, pro-Titoite friends (such as Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping), would serve their longer-range strategic plans (to involve us in the liberal policies of China, such as it began later with the Nixon-Zhou Enlai meeting, or when Zhou Enlai urged Beqir Balluku to act relying on a Yugoslavia-Rumania-Albania alliance), etc.

Mehmet Shehu returned from the United States of America full of «courage» and became more catholic than the Pope, was unrestrained in his «defence» of the line of our Party against the plans and stands of Khrushchev and the revisionist Soviet leadership. Indeed, he organized «scenes» in order to boost himself and thoroughly cement our trust in him. When we were at the Meeting of 81 Parties in Moscow, in November 1960, he proposed that we should leave the house in which the Soviets had placed us, because «they are capable of poisoning us.» (He was afraid rather on his own account.) When we went to the residence of our embassy in Moscow, through the secret microphones which the Soviets had planted and which we discovered, he «transmitted» to them a fiery message eulogizing our Party and its first secretary, while abusing them roundly for their disgraceful act in eavesdropping on their close friends, such as the Party of Labour of Albania and its leaders. Mehmet Shehu stubbornly opposed our return by ship via the Black Sea and organized our return by train through Austria and Italy. We agreed to these measures, because we no longer trusted the Soviets, either, but with the zeal which he displayed he strengthened our trust in him and also protected himself. Nevertheless, Mehmet Shehu could not but be worried that he might pay with his head for the «betrayal» which he was committing against his Soviet patrons as a disobedient agent.

There was no lack of some hints and needling. In my book The Khrushchevites I have recorded what Kosygin said to me that «there are enemies in your leadership.»[8] However, when I called on Mehmet Shehu to translate this to me better, Kosygin shut his mouth and said that I «had not understood him properly.» There, too, I have written about the pressure exerted on us by the Soviet militarymen who had even had an argument with Mehmet Shehu. Now another explanation can be given for why Khrushchev at our last meeting said to us: «This is how MacMillan wanted to speak to me,» at which Mehmet Shehu jumped to his feet and we broke off the meeting. Apparently when Khrushchev mentioned the Englishman MacMillan, Mehmet Shehu feared that he might open a wound which would cause him great pain.

After the Meeting of 81 Parties, Khrushchev and company tried to patch up their relations with us. This they tried to do at our 4th Congress,[9] with the letters they sent us, as well as through the Chinese, etc. They also tried to turn us to their course through economic and military pressures, but they failed in all directions. We maintained our immovable stand. We expelled the Soviets from the base at Vlora; they cut off their economic and military aid, even broke off diplomatic relations.

Meanwhile, our Party pursued the course of Marxism-Leninism and Mehmet Shehu «endorsed» its line, indeed, he greatly advertised his role in these situations and, of course, in the eyes of the Americans and Yugoslavs posed as if it was he that inspired this course. From the plans which they had made and the secret contacts which they maintained, the Americans and the Yugoslavs knew this, that is why all the Western secret agencies allowed their «boy» to thunder against them with such statements as «We are dancing in the wolf’s mouth,» etc., etc. They accepted any abuse, provided that their agent could climb higher and higher and might put the helm of our Party and state towards the West.

The Soviets lost their patience when they saw they had failed. At first they decided to warn their agent. Therefore, in a public speech Khrushchev said: «The Albanian leadership has sold out for 30 pieces of silver.» Not long after that an Italian newspaper wrote something and finally the Soviets decided to expose their agent, who had been exposed in fact by the other rival services, as often occurs in the imperialist and revisionist jungle. The Central Committee of the CPSU sent a letter to the Central Committee of our Party, in which it accused Mehmet Shehu of being an agent of imperialism. We received this letter at a time when we were at daggers drawn with the Khrushchevites, when Mehmet Shehu posed as their ardent opponent and it never crossed our minds to have any doubts about him. We read the letter in the Political Bureau, also, in the presence of Mehmet and rejected it as a base provocation of Khrushchev and company to split us. Mehmet Shehu sighed with relief, he had got away with it.

After the suicide of Mehmet Shehu documents were found which prove that he was an agent of the Intelligence Service, too. His name and some coded pseudonyms such as BAB-008, etc., figure in these documents. From them it emerges that Mehmet Shehu had even received money for his services and the centre instructed to leave him at peace, which meant that he was one of those potential agents that are left «dormant», as they say in the language of spying agencies, so as to be used when needed.

Among these documents there is a letter addressed to the Soviet intelligence officer, Major Ivanov, immediately after Liberation, couched in many vilifying terms against the line of the Party and full of hatred for the sound cadres who defended this line, especially against the General Secretary Enver Hoxha, Hysni Kapo and others. This letter proves that Mehmet Shehu, apart from his links as a secret agent of the Yugoslavs, had also established links with a greater power.[10]

(After his suicide a note was found in his safe in his own hand about his having written a letter to Ivanov.)

For the sake of publicity Mehmet Shehu zealously continued the «struggle» against the Soviet revisionists, but proceeding from other purposes and aims, quite the opposite of the lofty aims of the Party which worked for the defence of Marxism-Leninism and the supreme interests of our people and socialist Homeland.

The events of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 came about and the Party decided to denounce the Warsaw Treaty, to take our country out of this ill-famed treaty de jure, although de facto we had withdrawn from it at the end of 1960. On this occasion, Mehmet Shehu delivered the speeches as prime minister and, of course, he presented this to his patrons as his personal victory.

The American secret agency (and those linked with it, first of all, the Titoites) thought that Albania was left exposed and undefended, and since China was far away, it considered that the time had come when our country would turn its face towards the West.

In 1972 Mehmet Shehu went to Paris for an operation, accompanied by the same team that accompanied him to the UNO, plus his wife Fiqret Shehu. There he made contact with a top figure of the American CIA, who said to him: «What are you doing? You are getting old, you must act!»

Mehmet Shehu reported to him about the situation and the plots which were being prepared (by Beqir Balluku and Abdyl Këllezi and company). The CIA recommended that he should act, but without compromising himself. It proposed three variants for the elimination of Enver Hoxha: 1) in a motor accident; 2) through shooting with a rifle from a distance; or 3) with delayed-action poison. It was left to Mehmet Shehu to put into action the variant he considered most feasible.

Through Feçor Shehu, Mehmet Shehu received the same instructions from the Yugoslav UDB, which was completely in agreement with the CIA.

In Paris Mehmet Shehu was also given a sophisticated radio receiver-transmitter which his eldest son, who was an electronics engineer, set up in his house, ready to function.

In fact, Mehmet Shehu had turned, or was to turn, his whole family into a nest of secret agents, a family of vipers. As we said, Fiqret Shehu had been recruited during the war by Dušan Mugoša and had the pseudonym as an agent, FISARI, without taking into account what she might have done earlier when she went to Italy on a one- or two-year course during the occupation, or what Liri Gega (and Smith[11]) might have done with her when they worked together in the 1st Army Corps. Eventually Mehmet Shehu had made his second son, Skënder, a collaborator and when he went abroad (especially when he went to study in Sweden), Mehmet Shehu charged him to establish contact with the CIA and act as a liaison agent, while activating his younger son and his wife in the direction of a foreign embassy in Tirana.

Hence, Mehmet Shehu was directed and ordered by the American CIA to work out concrete plans to overturn the situation in Albania in favour of the West, to set in motion and urge for this purpose the agents known or unknown to him, regardless or whether they were working for the Yugoslavs, Greeks, British, Italians and others, but avoiding compromising himself.

Thus began the implementation of the ramified conspiratorial plan organized under cover by Mehmet Shehu:

I. The hostile activity of Fadil Paçrami and his group in the field of culture, art and the radio and television service for the degeneration of the line in these fields. However, as is known, the Party quickly dealt with this group and its activity; Mehmet Shehu hastened to wash his hands of them, indeed be thundered loudly against people of art and the youth in order to realize his anti-Party aims in this way, as he had done during the war to strain the relations and the links of the Party with these strata.

II. In 1973 the group of Beqir Balluku was set in motion. It prepared the military putsch through the black theses, «the theory of slipping away,» of abandoning the coast and the cities to imperialist aggressors, the patrons of Mehmet Shehu. Beqir Balluku was completely unmasked. Even Petrit Dume and Hito Çako, who were in the plot, abandoned him. Mehmet Shehu, who was the head of the plot and pulled the strings behind the scenes (now it turns out that all these black materials had been approved by him), tried to save Petrit Dume and Hito Çako. They had great hopes that through Mehmet Shehu their «heads would be saved,» as he told them in the Plenum of the Central Committee,[12] and they did not give Mehmet Shehu away, but he could not save them from the danger for fear of damaging himself.

III. Meanwhile Mehmet Shehu, this time more directly, set in motion his henchmen, Abdyl Këllezi, Koço Theodhosi and Kiço Ngjela to carry out sabotage in the economic field, especially in the oil industry and agriculture, to disorganize the economy of the country by beginning to work out and introduce forms of Yugoslav self-administration. Mehmet Shehu failed in these three directions.

Throughout this period, Tito, who was following the situation attentively, thought that since he had his agent in the leadership of our Party and state, after the fall of Ranković in Yugoslavia and the exposure of the barbarities which he had perpetrated in Kosova, as well as after the situations which were created with our leaving the Warsaw Treaty, he could make some concessions in regard to Kosova and our relations with it. Kosova began to breathe a little more freely, Albanian schools were opened, the University of Prishtina was set up, cultural relations, visits to one another and other activities began. Tito and company cherished the old dream that through Kosova they could influence the liberal forces in Albania and, in this way, make possible the union of Albania with Kosova in the framework of Yugoslavia. When the leaders of Kosova told Tito: «The Albanians are fanning up nationalist sentiments and speaking against you,» he replied: «That’s not your business. Let them abuse me if they want to…» Tito said this because he knew that in Albania he had Mehmet Shehu, who, after three failures, was regrouping the other conspirators, especially in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with Feçor Shehu and some others.[13] Nevertheless, Mehmet Shehu needed time to hatch up new plots.

Meanwhile Tito died. A situation of political and economic insecurity was created in Yugoslavia. The world capitalist crisis had gripped Yugoslavia, too, which was up to its ears in debt. The situation was seething in Kosova more than anywhere else on account of the Great-Serb oppression, the unemployment and the gloomy prospects for the working people who saw that in their motherland, in socialist Albania, the situation was quite different. Thus, Kosova did not serve as a bridgehead for the penetration of Titoite self-administration and ideological degeneration into Albania, but Albania showed Kosova the brilliant features of true socialism in our country. And this it did through normal, official, bilateral relations and contacts with Kosova and not through secret agents, because, first, this was not the line of our Party, and second, the Yugoslav secret agency (through Feçor Shehu) was at the head of the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Therefore, the «theses» of the Yugoslavs about the alleged interference of Albania by means of secret agents for the organization of demonstrations in Kosova have no foundation. The American and Yugoslav secret agencies began to be worried lest Kosova escape from their control, lest Albania intervene, possibly, as they thought, in collaboration with Bulgaria and the Soviet Union.

The demonstrations[14] that took place in Kosova alarmed the Great-Serbs and the Yugoslav UDB so much that the Titoites were forced to take draconian measures, they sent in the army and crushed the demonstrations with tanks. Hundreds of people were killed and wounded. A conflagration dangerous to the internal situation of Yugoslavia, now shaken by both economic crises and political crises, broke out. These savage repressive measures caused a great sensation in international opinion. Albania maintained an open stand, as resolute as it was wise.

Apart from the slanders that these demonstrations had allegedly been inspired by Albania, the Yugoslavs had to take immediate measures to «discredit» the «Stalinist» Albanian leadership in order to disturb and overturn the sound situation in Albania, as well as to confuse the patriotic-revolutionary forces in Kosova.

They demanded that their agent Mehmet Shehu act. The Yugoslav UDB was in collaboration with the CIA and was aware of its directives for the liquidation of Enver Hoxha. Therefore, they demanded that Mehmet Shehu send his wife urgently to Paris. The demonstrations took place in March, while she went to Paris in April 1981. There an envoy from Çalamani (the pseudonym of Dušan Mugoša who himself had died, but his mission as an agent «lived on») presented himself to her and gave her the poison which had to be administered immediately to Enver Hoxha.

Fiqret Shehu and Mehmet Shehu had racked their brains together about when, where and how they would act with the variants which the CIA had suggested to them and had found as the most feasible variant the administration of the delayed-action poison, which could be carried out when we paid each other visits. In the conditions under which I travelled, the motor accident was ruled out, while the attempt with a rifle was too sensational and with unforeseeable dangers.

The variant which the Yugoslavs gave Mehmet Shehu to act immediately and quickly found him unprepared. Mehmet Shehu was afraid, did not like being placed in a corner. Therefore, he appealed to his major patron, the American CIA. Fiqret Shehu began to visit the capitals of Europe — Vienna, Stockholm, Kopenhagen. Both in Stockholm and in Denmark she met representatives of the CIA and put forward Mehmet Shehu’s idea that they should not act hastily, as the Yugoslavs demanded, because they were not well prepared; the poisoning or physical liquidation of Enver Hoxha could be put off till until March 1982 (during the winter holidays), meanwhile they could undertake some action which might cause a split in the Party and encourage the liberal element. The representative of the CIA discussed the matter with his centre and, at the second meeting, this time in Denmark, gave his approval for Mehmet Shehu’s variant.

In this context Mehmet Shehu arranged the engagement of one of his sons to the daughter of a family in the circle of which there were 6 or 7 fugitive war criminals, including the notorious agent of the CIA, Arshi Pipa. Such an engagement could not fail to attract the attention of the public. And it was done precisely with the aim of attracting public attention and causing a sensation, so that if it were accepted by the Party, it would lead to splits and liberalism among others, too, in the Party, the Youth organization, etc. If it were not accepted by the Party, measures would be taken against Mehmet Shehu, not imprisonment, of course, but demotion, removal from his position, or even expulsion from the Party. This would cause a sensation and the Yugoslavs could use it, as they needed it, for their propaganda purposes to discredit the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania, and especially Enver Hoxha, who, as they have repeated over and over again, is «eliminating» his collaborators as Stalin did.

However, the plans did not work out as Mehmet Shehu had intended. The Party intervened immediately, the engagement was broken off, Mehmet Shehu was criticized by the comrades for this major political mistake, he was required to make a profound self-criticism to find the sources of such an error and it was left that this would be done after the 8th Congress of the Party. He did not expect this. He tried to make «some other mistakes»: he completely neglected his report for the 8th Congress of the Party, presented it late and with flagrant political errors and the Political Bureau rejected it. Mehmet Shehu wanted to make a «self-criticism» at the Congress over the engagement of his son (his aim was to cause an upset in the Congress), but it was refused, too. In the Congress he purposely sat like a «repentant sinner» and this was so obvious to the delegates and the TV viewers that they began to ask one another why.

Meanwhile, the question of Kosova was becoming dangerous. The Yugoslavs were being unmasked before international public opinion, while the authority of our country was rising. The Yugoslavs saw that nothing happened, either before the Congress or after it. Mehmet Shehu delivered the report to the Congress, he was elected to the Political Bureau and no measure was taken against him, as the Yugoslavs hoped, to demote him or to remove him from the function he had in the state. Once the Congress was over, perhaps Mehmet Shehu informed the Yugoslavs that even after the delivery of his self-criticism he was being treated just the same. From what he had understood from his talks with us the measure of sanction would be of an internal party character. This was of no benefit to the Titoites, the Great Serbs and the Yugoslav UDB, who were expecting and wanting disorder to occur in Albania at all costs. Therefore, on the eve of the meeting of the Political Bureau, at which the grave political mistake of Mehmet Shehu was to be discussed, the Yugoslav embassy in Tirana, acting on orders which it had received from Belgrade, sent its agent and contact man, Feçor Shehu, to Mehmet Shehu to transmit the «ultimatum» of the UDB that «Enver Hoxha must be killed at all costs, even in the meeting, even if Mehmet Shehu himself is killed.» So hard-pressed were the UDB, the Great-Serb and Titoite clique with the situation in Kosova, so gloomy seemed the future, that they decided to destroy their trump card, their superagent, provided only that something spectacular would occur which would «shake socialist Albania and the Party of Labour of Albania to their foundations»!

At ten o’clock at night, on December 16, 1981, Feçor Shehu went to Mehmet Shehu’s home and transmitted the order of their secret centre.

On December 17, the discussion commenced in the meeting of the Political Bureau. All the comrades, old and new, took part in the discussion and resolutely condemned Mehmet Shehu’s act of engaging his son to a girl in whose family there were 6 to 7 war criminals. They expressed their dissatisfaction with Mehmet Shehu’s self-criticism, demanded that he made it more profound and disclosed where the cause of such a mistake lay, asked him many questions, reminded him that he had made mistakes during the National Liberation War, also, that he had placed himself above the Party, they spoke about his unrestrained conceit and arrogance towards the cadres and towards virtually all his closest collaborators in the work of the government, the Political Bureau, etc. (On the day following the suicide, all these contributions to the discussion, which had been tape-recorded, were heard just as they were made by the whole Plenum of the Central Committee and the meetings of the party activists.)

The criticisms by the members of the Political Bureau were strong, open and bolshevik, but only «the recording of a serious reprimand on his registration document» was demanded as sanction. This was the spirit in which I, too, had prepared my contribution in which I outlined the history of Mehmet Shehu’s mistakes, beginning from the period of the war (this contribution, too, was heard by the Plenum of the Central Committee and by the meetings of party activists as it would have been delivered following the contributions of other comrades.)

However, because the meeting went on late, my contribution was not delivered that day. Thus, it was left that the meeting would continue the following day, but Mehmet Shehu was told to reflect deeply all night because «his excuse for the engagement did not hold water.»

What I said alarmed Mehmet Shehu, he suspected that the crime which he was preparing might have been discovered. The «bold» Mehmet Shehu thought all night about how to escape from the tight spot and worked out and applied a plan of his own. Apparently, he judged matters in this way: «I am as good as dead, the best thing is to save what I can,» and he decided to act like his friend Nako Spiru, to kill himself, thinking the Party would bury this «statesman», this «legendary leader», this «partisan and fighter in Spain» with honours, would not sully his reputation, but would say that «the gun went off accidentally» (as he suggested in the letter which he left), and thus, at least, he would not lose his past and his family would not suffer.

Together with his wife he flushed the poison down the WC and charged his eldest son with dismantling and removing the compromising parts of the radio which he had installed for him. (He had kept some of these at his home as he was not arrested.) According to the information given by the enemy Fiqret Shehu about the existence of the radio, the eldest son was called up by the investigation organs and he admitted it, but when he was allowed to go home to hand over the parts of the radio, which he had hidden, he committed suicide, so as not to reveal everything he knew and had done (at a time when his criminal mother had given all the information).

Fiqret Shehu, as the agent she was (she who trembled and wept over nothing, agreed to the suicide of her husband coolly and cynically, provided only that their «historic» past and she and her sons were saved.

However, they had reckoned without the host. As soon as they informed me about Mehmet Shehu’s final act, within moments I proposed that his suicide should be condemned, that he had acted as an enemy, and the Political Bureau expressed its unanimous condemnation of the act of this enemy. Not only the leadership and the Party, but our whole people considered this a hostile act and maintained a revolutionary stand. The Party and people continued with enthusiasm, indeed, with greater determination and unity, the work for the implementation of the decisions of the 8th Congress of the Party.

The UDB and the CIA were left biting their fingers, the KGB rubbed its hands in delight. The foreign news agencies related the fact as we had given it, that Mehmet Shehu «committed suicide in a crisis of nervous breakdown.» Here and there some comment secretly paid for by the Yugoslavs was made. However, even the Yugoslavs were unable to exploit this act in their official press, apart from charging a students’ newspaper in Zagreb to write about the «drama» which had occurred at the meeting of the Albanian leadership (according to the version which the UDB had planned). According to this newspaper, «… Mehmet Shehu fired some shots with a Chinese revolver of this or that calibre(!), but Enver Hoxha’s comrades killed him. The fate of Enver Hoxha is not known…»

A scenario modelled on westerns with gunfights which occurred in the saloons at the time! But what could they do? This is what they wanted! But their agent was buried like a dog, or better to say that their trump card, the superagent of the CIA and the UDB in Albania was thrown away[15] for nothing.

Albania has always supported Kosova and the population of other Albanian regions of Yugoslavia in their legitimate rights, but Kosova, all the Albanians who rose in demonstrations, do not realize what colossal assistance they gave Albania by forcing the Yugoslav UDB to play its trump card and destroy its last «great hope» of overthrowing the Marxist-Leninist leadership in Albania, which had continually unmasked and was relentlessly unmasking the Titoite betrayal, self-administration, non-alignment, this filthy agency of American and British imperialism, of international reaction, of social-democracy and whoever else you like.

Together with Mehmet Shehu, the agencies of the imperialists, social-imperialists and others, like the Yugoslav UDB, received a blow which they will feel for a long time. The big main tumour was removed, the sound body of the Party was thoroughly cleansed. However, the Party knows that small microbes that remain may infect separate cells, new microbes may form in its sound body.

Therefore, we must never lower our vigilance. We need to be vigilant and to work to realize the plans, to continually raise the well-being of the masses, to further strengthen the unity of the Party and the people around it, to strengthen the defence of the Homeland, we need untiring work and vigilance, always vigilance, to defend the victories achieved through so much blood and sacrifices, the freedom, independence, the victories of socialism.

We must not forget that the enemy does not sleep, we must not forget that these victories which we have scored have been achieved on the basis of a correct Marxist-Leninist line, loyalty to the ideals of socialism and communism, the pursuing of the line of our great classics, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on the class struggle within the country and in the ranks of the Party, as well as against the external enemies, the imperialists and social-imperialists, world reaction and their secret agencies.

The call of the Party has been and remains:

«Work and vigilance» for the benefit of the people and the future of the new generations!

Long live the Party!

Glory to Marxism-Leninism!

«Always Vigilant», vol. 2

[1] The 4th Plenum of the Central Committee of the PLA, held on September 24, 1982, heard and unanimously approved the speech delivered by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the PLA, Comrade Enver Hoxha, which put forward «A synopsis of the secret activity of the enemy Meh­met Shehu», and decided that this tableau be analysed in all the basic organizations of the Party. This decision was im­mediately carried out and within two-three days the whole Party was informed about and expressed full solidarity with it.

[2] He began his work with Mehmet Shehu in Vlora in the spring and summer of 1943 and intensified it even more when the pair of them «arranged» that they should be together in the 1st Shock Brigade. While in the Brigade, Mugoša re­cruited Fiqret Sanxhaktari, too, and arranged her betrothal to Mehmet Shehu for the aims of his secret activity.

[3] Apart from other things, this emerges clear also in the letter Mehmet Shehu addressed to Koçi Xoxe on December 10, 1944, in which he is enthusiastic about the anti-Party turn at Berat. See Enver Hoxha, The Titoites (Historical Notes), «8 Nëntori» Publishing House, Tirana 1982, pp. 549–555, Eng. ed.

[4] It held its proceedings in February 1948. At this Plenum, which is described as a black spot in the glorious history of the CPA, the correct line of our Party was heavily violated and national independence and sovereignty were placed in jeopardy. This marked the culmination of the inimical activity of the Titoites and their agents, headed by Koçi Xoxe, who, by coming out with the banner of the «saviour» of the Party, put forward as a platform the anti-Marxist anti-Albanian theses of the CC of the CPY.

[5] It held its proceedings on September 13–24, 1948. This Plenum, which put an end to all distortions and mistakes in the political and organizational line of the Party, marked the beginning of a thorough-going turning-point in the life of the Party and the fate of our country. It restored unity in the leadership and incomparably raised the authority of the Party.

[6] At that time, Belgrade insisted that Mehmet Shehu should not be eliminated altogether, but be given the portfolio of a ministry.

[7] Reference here is to the enemies of the Party and the people, the former minister of defence, Beqir Balluku, and the former minister of internal affairs, Kadri Hazbiu.

[8] See Enver Hoxha, The Krushchevites (Memoirs), «8 Nën- tori» Publishing House, Tirana 1980, p. 432, 2nd Eng. ed.

[9] The 4th Congress of the PLA carried out its proceedings from 13–20 February 1961.

[10] On the orders of Harry Fultz who was the official repre­sentative of the American mission in Tirana, Mehmet Shehu, going deeper down the road of betrayal, immediately after Liberation infiltrated into the secret service of the Soviet Union.

[11] Officer of the British military mission in Albania, secret agent of the Intelligence Service, a friend of Liri Gega and Mustafa Gjinishi. During the National Liberation War he was attached to the Staff of the 1st Division of the ANLA.

[12] The 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the PLA which was convened from July 25–26, 1974.

[13] As emerged later the former minister of internal affairs, the enemy of the people and Party, Kadri Hazbiu, was the closest collaborator of Mehmet Shehu.

[14] In March-April 1981.

[15] The dangerous plot of Mehmet Shehu, like the previous plots and groups of conspirators, was discovered by the forces and the vigilance of the Party and its leadership with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, and not by the state security, which was headed by active secret agents, mainly of the Yugoslav UDB, such as Koçi Xoxe, Mehmet Shehu, Kadri Hazbiu and Feçor Shehu who for nearly four decades withheld from the Party information about the secret activities carried out by each of them in succession, thus covering up their dirty crimes which they committed against our country and people. The discovery and defeat of this plot was a shattering blow which destroyed the diabolic plans of the imperialists and revisio­nists against socialist Albania.