The following article was originally written as a primary source analysis for a history course on the global anti-apartheid movement at UC, Santa Barbara. The research methods course was taught by Professor Amanda Joyce Hall and detailed the long arch of apartheid in South Africa, informed by the the broader region's colonial legacy.
The analysis was designed to pinpoint one aspect of anti-apartheid and the way it interacted with another historical phenomenon of our interest. Being aware both of the close connection between domestic anti-apartheid organizations and European communist states, as well as the aid Communist Albania specifically extended to African anti-colonial movements, one day simply I searched "Enver Hoxha". The surprising depth of the connection led to the following article.
Hoxha and Southern African anti-colonial movements
The JSTOR Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa database offers exceptional sources shedding light on the dynamics of Southern African anti-colonial movements. A particularly insightful article appears in the fourth volume of Dawn, the monthly journal of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). The volume was published on May 1st, 1980, at a crucial time for liberation movements in Southern Africa.
Twelfth in this issue of the journal, it details the complexity of internal Angolan politics following its independence from colonial Portugal in 1975. Fascinatingly, it discusses the ideological influences of worldwide communist leaders, namely Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin and Enver Hoxha. The ideals represented by these figures are directly juxtaposed with the realities on the ground, chiefly shaped by Angola’s political leadership. The immediate purpose of the article is to accuse former Interior Minister Nito Alves of opportunism and lacking revolutionary principles, while applying the lessons of Angola to the South African context.
Nito Alves is described as one of the leaders of the resistance movement which liberated Angola from Portuguese rule. As Interior Minister in the post-independence government of President Agostinho Neto, he is portrayed as an ultra-leftist demagogue who used dogma to climb to power. Among the three influences listed above, the figure described at the most length is relatively unknown in comparison to the other two giants of Marxist thought, Mao and Lenin.
Enver Hoxha was the dictator who led Albania to unprecedented isolation among the socialist camp. His regime first broke with its closest ally Yugoslavia in 1948, aligning itself fully with the Soviet Union. This lasted until Joseph Stalin’s death, when Nikita Khrushchev's process of De-Stalinization led to an irreversible break between Albania and the now “revisionist” Soviets. The regime then aligned itself closely with China throughout the Sino-Soviet split, a likely explanation for the article’s description of Portuguese Maoists spreading Hoxhaist material in Angola. The alliance lasted until Mao’s successors, too, began opening up to the West, at which point Albania became the most economically and politically isolated state in the Communist bloc alongside North Korea.
This dynamic matters far beyond Albania’s boundaries, as it helped shape the ideological lines of the socialist camp. Hoxha’s approach grew to represent a hardline "anti-revisionist” wing which defied the two communist titans, first the Soviet Union and then China. The fact that Hoxha is listed as the main ideological influence on Nito Alves is crucial to his characterization as a demagogue exploiting ultra-leftist thought. Any Southern African revolutionary would have been keenly aware of the Sino-Soviet split by the early 1980s, while the article serves as evidence that they were also familiar with Albania’s much smaller yet ideologically influential role. The article gives a sharp reminder to its own followers that “the revolutionary sounding phrase does not always reflect revolutionary policy … Indeed, what appears to be ‘militant’ and ‘revolutionary’ can often be counterrevolutionary” (32-33). Alves, then, is portrayed as a figure who fashioned himself to the left of the Neto government, basing his 1977 coup attempt on grievances of hunger and poverty, while in truth being a counter-revolutionary.
The article’s relevance to the journal comes largely from the lessons it draws and applies to the South African resistance movement’s internal dynamics. Early on, a comparison is drawn between Alves and the Pan-Africanist Congress, which is described as purporting to adhere to Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thought while in truth being harmful to the revolution. Towards its conclusion, the author emphasizes that any revolutionary movement is susceptible to the demagoguery and factionalism Alves represents, the sole resolution to which is looking past appearances to examine one’s essence. Through this lens, Umkhonto we Sizwe's pronouncement can be understood as an attempt to chart a more moderate course in opposition to those proclaiming themselves ultra-revolutionaries while hindering that very revolution’s efforts. Alves’ execution at the hands of ‘revolutionary justice’ can similarly be understood as a cautionary tale to those in the South African anti-apartheid movement (35).
The article provides insight into a crucial period in the history of Southern African liberation movements, following the independence of the former Portuguese colonies as well as Zimbabwe and the beginning of the last full decade of South African apartheid. It offers an understanding of the type of society Angola's early leaders sought to build through their major ideological influences and, most relevantly to the South African context, how this influenced competing visions within liberation movements.
From the Albanian perspective
The question naturally rises: what was Enver Hoxha's opinion of these figures? Some interesting insight to this question can be gleamed from Imperialism and the Revolution (1979), one of the many works published in his name during the regime.
Hoxha begins by painting the Soviet intervention in Angola, aided by their Cuban "mercenaries" as a form of socialist imperialism. On the face of it, this might seem like an oxymoron: how could the Soviet Union be supporting a form of neo-colonialism in Africa? To understand this claim, one has to appreciate Communist Albania's perspective at the time. Having broken with all its erstwhile allies, it now positioned itself well to their left, claiming that they had all betrayed Marixsm-Leninism to follow their revisionist paths.
In this account, President Agostinho Neto summoned the Soviets simply to preserve his own power in a factional struggle Hoxha paints as one that "did not have anything of a people's revolutionary character." Tellingly, he does not show support for Alves' "clique", which he accuses of being supported by yet another imperialist power.
A crucial question remains whether Hoxha was aware of his ideological influence on the contest, namely Alves' vocal support for his positions. While his characterization of the latter indicates that this was likely not the case, the projection of ideological purity abroad was a key aspect of the regime's self-conception.
One of the best-known propaganda songs dedicated to the dictator, "Speak ,Comrade Enver" ("Ligjëro, Shoku Enver) exemplifies this:
"You're a worthy champion for Marxism,
All of humanity knows your name."
It is important to remember that, though it famously kept the country in near total isolation, the regime invested considerable resources into projecting its ideology abroad. For instance, Radio Tirana, its chief mouthpiece, was broadcast in twenty foreign languages. Hoxha wrote extensively about world affairs, focusing primarily on the deeds of "imperalist" and "social-imperialist revisionist" powers in his more than 65 published works, which included 13 memoirs. This went hand-in-hand, of course, with Albania's reception of delegations from and modest financial and military support for what it saw as liberation movements from Africa to the Middle East and beyond.
The ideological exchange with Southern African anti-colonial movements, then, is a notable example of the isolationist regime's engagement with broad global dynamics.
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