Kosovo and Diplomacy since World War II: Yugoslavia, Albania and the Path to Kosovan Independence 9780755621750, 9781784533984

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For my parents, with great affection

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Introduction

For a long time, Kosovo has posed a great challenge to the international order in the western Balkans. Yugoslavia, Albania, the USSR, the USA and Great Britain have all been involved, directly or indirectly, in the question of Kosovo, especially since World War II. In studying the Albanian political movement in Kosovo and the great efforts that it made to achieve its national programme, I observed that the roots of the solution were linked to the policies and diplomacy of these states, particularly the first two. In planning this study, I  have sought material that sheds light on the question of Kosovo over roughly four decades. Much of the source documentation for the decisions of the great powers during World War II and the Cold War was for a long time classified and unavailable. Historians were able to see only the tip of the iceberg, especially where the former communist countries of eastern and central Europe were concerned. Following the collapse of these regimes, the process of opening their archives began, bringing to light documents of particular importance for contemporary history. Research was also facilitated by the expiry of the legal period of embargo on

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material in the archives of western European nations and the USA. Historians can now form a better judgement of what happened during World War II and the Cold War. Opportunities also arise from the internet, modern methods of communication and increasing freedom from the narrow nationalism of ‘them’ and ‘us’. Students may now appreciate multifaceted sources relevant in all ‘camps’ and consequently assess matters more coolly and realistically. In this work, I  attempt to show Kosovo and its internal developments within the framework of international relations, even though the country during this period was subject to Yugoslavia. The Albanians of Kosovo have endured long periods under Yugoslav rule and have often been fairly invisible to the eyes of the great powers, but they have been able to confront great challenges and prove to the world that they deserve to live in freedom and independence. The book consists of nine chapters. The first considers Kosovo in the diplomacy of the major Allies during World War II, and specifically at its conclusion. At the Yalta Conference, the recognition of Yugoslavia with its pre-war frontiers left Kosovo under Yugoslav rule, a situation confirmed by the Paris Peace Conference in 1946. The second chapter discusses two relationships:  the Soviet–Yugoslav relationship and the Albanian–Yugoslav relationship between 1945 and 1948, and their influences on the question of Kosovo against the backdrop of the developing Cold War. The period saw close and friendly relations between Albania and Yugoslavia immediately after the war, regardless of Kosovo, but this did not last. Kosovo and the Albanian–Yugoslav relationship between 1948 and 1960 are dealt with in the third chapter. This period began with a definite breach between Tirana and Belgrade, after which Kosovo became a very contentious issue in bilateral relations. Yugoslavia exercised rigid supervision over the territory in an attempt to close the question, and bitter propaganda battles made it the principal reference point of Albanian policy and diplomacy. Also, the political movement

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INTRODUCTION

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in Kosovo made efforts to strengthen itself, albeit in extraordinarily difficult conditions. The constitutional position of Kosovo in socialist Yugoslavia is the subject of the fourth chapter, starting with the proclamation of military administration in February 1945. The first constitution of the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946 gave primacy to Serbia. Under the 1974 constitution, Kosovo became a constituent element of the Yugoslav Federation, but at the same time also an integral part of the Republic of Serbia, a duality that failed to ease its problems. In the fifth chapter, the 1974 constitution provides the starting point for analysis of the agonising contentions between Serbs and Albanians. Following a short review of the history of Albanian–Serb conflict, we examine events that aroused antagonism between the populations, such as the Brioni Plenum, the 1968 demonstrations, the unilateral proclamation of the constitution, the Serb ‘Blue Book’ and the further constriction of the Albanian political movement in Kosovo. The 1960s and 1970s witnessed a qualitative change in Albanian policy. The sixth chapter deals with the attitude of the Albanian state towards the Kosovo question. Its opportunities or the lack of them and its weaknesses, handicaps and strengths, both internal and external, are the focus of our analysis, which also includes ideological factors. In the seventh chapter, we discuss the political situation in Yugoslavia during the 1970s, specifically the political and economic crises that engulfed the country and their bearing on Kosovo. The events of 1981, which brought Albanian–Yugoslav relations to a head, form the subject of the remainder of the book. In Chapter 8, we present the Yugoslav perspective on these events, including the measures taken to confront them. Chapter 9 considers the Albanian approach to these crucial developments. Thus the book will have dealt with four fundamental issues: (i) the efforts of the Kosovo Albanians to achieve freedom and independence; (ii) the influence of Albania on the national movement of the Kosovo Albanians; (iii) Yugoslav

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obstacles to the achievement of Albanian national aims; and (iv) the attitudes of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain. In this work I have had the unstinting assistance of friends and companions in researching the various archives of different states. I express my thanks to the Records Department of Kosovo, the Central Records Department of Albania, the Department of History of the Faculty of Philosophy, the Institute of History of Kosovo and the Institute of History of Albania. Likewise, I would like to record my gratitude to all who have helped me in any way to achieve my aim of making a contribution to the understanding of an important epoch in recent Albanian history in general and the history of Kosovo Albanians in particular.

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1 Kosovo in the diplomacy of the major allies during World War II The creation of spheres of interest The landing of Allied troops in Normandy in June 1944 and their obvious progress towards Germany signalled the concluding phase of World War II. The victory of the Allies would offer opportunities for new political arrangements in the postwar world: the elimination of Axis conquests and occupations, a partial re-examination of frontier problems and the establishment of basic principles for the functioning of the international system. The initial plans, made while the war was still under way, were based on the visions and opinions of the leaders of the principal Allied powers: the United States of America, the Soviet Union and Great Britain. It must be stressed that the ideas and projects of the great powers existed only in outline form and differed considerably from each other. President Franklin Roosevelt of the USA envisaged a postwar order in which the three victors, plus China, would

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act as an executive committee for the world, imposing peace on rogue states. His chief war aim was the elimination of Hitler as an obstacle to a collaborative and harmonious international order. Josef Stalin’s objectives meanwhile derived from both the communist ideology of the USSR and the traditional foreign policy of Russia. He sought to consolidate the fruits of Soviet military victory by achieving a permanent extension of Russian influence in central Europe. Hemmed in between American idealism and Russian expansionism, Winston Churchill did his best (from a relatively weak position) to promote the longstanding British view that peace must be backed by some kind of balance of power. Options for postwar international reconstruction became subjects for negotiation between the great powers at bilateral and multilateral meetings. Between January 1941 and July 1945, Churchill took part in 14 such meetings, Roosevelt in 12 and Stalin in five. The future of Europe was effectively in the hands of these three powerful personalities. The wartime meetings disclosed some of their differing aims and ambitions for the postwar world. Of course, the final realisation of Allied plans could not occur until peace had been secured. Decisions taken during the war were ‘decisions in process’, intended to serve as guidelines for postwar peace conferences. At the close of the war in Europe, however, the military positions of the victors counted for more than diplomatic agreements. The Soviet Union, whose armies had penetrated eastern and central Europe, regarded these territories as its zone of influence. Communist regimes based on the Soviet model were established there, independent of agreements made with the Americans and British at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. This division of Europe into spheres of interest was unfavourable to the Western bloc. The Soviet Union dominated the countries under its occupation and dictated all aspects of their politics. During the war, when spheres of interest were under discussion, Churchill had presented Stalin with an informal ‘Percentages Deal’ to regulate the influence of the great powers in south-eastern Europe. Stalin had signified assent to this

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arrangement, which stipulated that Great Britain would have 90 per cent influence in Greece, while the Soviet Union would have 90 per cent influence in Romania and 75 per cent in Bulgaria; in Yugoslavia the balance of influence would be 50:50.1 As compensation for its heavy involvement in the war, the Soviet Union would gain influence over many territories and peoples.

Anglo-American differences over Balkan frontiers Declarations made by the Allied great powers during the war had given rise to hopes that just relationships could be established in the formerly occupied countries, with self-determination for their peoples in accordance with the principles of the Atlantic Charter of 1941. Under this framework, peoples in the developed world who took part in anti-fascist resistance could look to the victors for support in achieving their national aspirations. Albanians in Albania, Kosovo and other Albanian-speaking areas had participated in the struggle against the Axis. During the war, Great Britain and the USA had recognised and encouraged Albanian resistance to Italian and German occupation, giving the guerrilla forces considerable material assistance along with a guarantee concerning the continued existence of Albania as an independent country. A clear statement was also made about maintaining the frontiers of the Albanian state.2 However, the British and Americans took differing views of these issues. For British policy, the frontiers of Albania were an open question. They might be subject to change, if British interests in the Balkans warranted concessions to Greece and Yugoslavia. The Americans, following the principles of Roosevelt, argued that the configuration of the postwar world, including frontiers, should be discussed and decided only after the cessation of hostilities. While holding to this view, the USA unofficially argued for the territorial integrity of Albania – something that the British did not do, since they gave indications of wishing to support Greek and Yugoslav demands for revision of pre-war frontiers.3

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On 16 December 1941, at a time when Moscow was threatened by a German offensive, the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden had embarked on discussions with a Soviet delegation, headed by Stalin and Molotov, that included consideration of postwar territorial arrangements. At that meeting, Stalin agreed – after some discussion – with the British view that an independent Albanian state should continue to exist, while the question of the frontiers should be left open. Simultaneously, the British and Soviets endorsed the right of Yugoslavia to be re-established within its pre-war frontiers, and also approved the extension of them towards Italy. Referring to these talks, Henry Kissinger later observed that ‘Stalin showed himself very ready to talk about postwar objectives when the military situation in which he found himself was very difficult – having the knife at his throat, in a manner of speaking.’4 During the initial discussion, Stalin voiced his opinion that ‘Albania may be reconstituted as an independent state under other states’ guarantee of her independence.’ The final protocol accordingly included as an Allied objective ‘The reconstitution of Albania as an independent state with the establishment of an international guarantee of her independence’.5 So the existence of the Albanian state would be recognised, but not its pre-war frontiers. Uniquely among all the countries mentioned in the protocol, the independence of Albania would be subject to international guarantee. This was a familiar form of words for Albanians, used ever since the foundation of their state in 1912. The creation of spheres of interest appears to have been a consistent policy of the USSR and Great Britain. In May 1942, Stalin sent Foreign Minister Molotov to London for further discussion of postwar problems, but Churchill was now in sharp disagreement with Washington. The US Secretary of State Cordell Hull described the Anglo-Soviet exchanges as contrary to the Atlantic Charter and as a defiance of America’s historic opposition to territorial changes by force.6 At the Tehran Conference of November 1943, Churchill’s proposals for a large Allied landing in the Balkans were rejected, ruling out the possibility of any substantial Anglo-American

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military intervention in the peninsula. Even so, despite American disapproval, Great Britain and the USSR did not cease to discuss spheres of interest. The British were primarily interested in Greece, but Yugoslavia also concerned them. During 1944, as victory came nearer, the British and Soviets made intensive efforts to agree a division of the Balkans. The culmination of these attempts was a series of meetings between Churchill and Stalin in Moscow between 9 and 18 October. Minutes from the Russian archives, published in 2004, reveal the bargaining in detail, but nowhere in them is there any mention of Albania. It is not known why the country was not discussed. There was no mention of Kosovo either, but this was because it was considered an internal matter for Yugoslavia. Although the USA did not take part in the meetings, its ambassador in Moscow, Averell Harriman, attended some of them as an observer. What is of interest to us is the fact that the British, in proposals made in June 1944, claimed both Greece and Yugoslavia for their sphere of interest, whereas previously they had raised no great objection to sharing influence equally with the Soviets in Yugoslavia. According to the Canadian historian Stavrianos, this was because the Red Army had occupied Romania and Bulgaria and advanced into Hungary and Yugoslavia, while the British still had missions in Greece and Yugoslavia.7 The British were now in a weak position in the Balkans, and the agreement between Churchill and Stalin was a defensive measure by which the British hoped to retain some influence in eastern and central Europe. It can be said to have been respected only in the case of Greece, for by the time of the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Red Army had advanced so far that the question of frontiers had become academic. Stalin remarked privately to Milovan Djilas that ‘This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system.’8 In fact, the end of the war resulted in the establishment of zones of influence that lasted until the collapse of communism after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Germany was partitioned into two states relative to two zones of interest, while the Soviet

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Union turned the countries of eastern Europe into satellites, and through the Warsaw Pact cemented its hegemony over the region.

Reflections on the verdict of Yalta Yugoslavia was again discussed at the Yalta Conference. On 8 February 1945, the three great powers recognised its pre-war frontiers and urged internal Yugoslav forces (the royal government and Tito’s partisans) to respect agreements previously signed by them. Recognition of the frontiers meant that legally Kosovo would again be subordinate to Yugoslavia. Albania was apparently not dealt with at Yalta. Stalin cited it as an example of a country that did not merit the same standing as nations that had played a major part in the war.9 During World War II, Yugoslavia had attracted the interest of both Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The British sent several military missions to aid the Yugoslav resistance. Their desire to maintain their influence in Yugoslavia even led them in 1944 to withdraw their missions to the nationalist forces of Draža Mihailović and attach them thereafter solely to the communist partisans. The British recommended the same formula to the Americans, for they judged the nationalists to be incapable of carrying out the military requirements of the Allies. It seems that in British, as in Soviet eyes, Tito had won the domestic contest. Initially, the Soviets were little involved in Yugoslavia. The first Soviet military mission did not arrive at Tito’s headquarters until 1944. In September of that year, he visited Moscow – to the dismay of the British who had not been informed beforehand. The object of the visit was to co-ordinate the operations of the Red Army and the partisans. On 12 August 1944, Churchill met Tito in Naples and, according to the historian Stavrianos, ‘expressed the hope that Tito was not going to impose communism after the war. Tito replied that he had no such idea.’10 But when Churchill asked him to confirm this publicly, he refused, saying that it would be seen by others as a decision taken under British pressure.

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Yugoslav leaders (old and new) during World War II not only felt confident about the restoration of their pre-war territories, but also sought land from the enemy countries, Italy and Bulgaria. In September 1944, when a Bulgarian peace delegation was involved in preliminary talks with the Allies in Cairo, the deputy foreign minister of the Yugoslav government in exile, Stojan Gavrilovic8, told an American intelligence officer that ‘Yugoslavia will not release one inch of her territory to Bulgaria, Albania and Greece.’ Referring to Albanian claims to Kosovo, he added that ‘to surrender that would require another 28 June 1389, the date on which the Serbs lost their empire to Turkey at the Battle of Kosovo […] in fact, the Serbs would more readily leave Belgrade than Kosovo’.11 Even the leaders of communist Yugoslavia would not contemplate the transfer of Kosovo to Albania, despite their awareness of Albanian wishes, which had clearly been expressed when Albanian and Yugoslav communists met at the Conference of Bujani in 1943–4.12 The decision to retain the Albanian population in Yugoslavia was taken at the Second Conference of the Anti-Fascist Council of the People of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ), held at Jajce in November 1943. According to Stojan Gavrilovic8, ‘Tito had decided to retain at least the present frontiers of Albania’ and ‘would not allow Albania to take control of Kosovo’.13 While encouraging resistance movements in the Balkans, the Anglo-American Allies had themselves given some thought to projects for a postwar territorial settlement. American and British archives contain several memoranda dealing with the territorial problems of Albania, and even with Kosovo itself, but it is important to realise that these did not represent the official views of the governments concerned. Historian Paskal Milo has highlighted two such studies drawn up by the US Department of State in 1943 and 1944. The first, dated 12 November 1943, presented four options for the Albano-Yugoslav frontier, three of them affecting Kosovo. In general terms, it considered leaving the pre-invasion frontier unchanged or changing it in favour of Albania or even in favour of Yugoslavia, but without making any radical alterations. The

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second study, put forward by the ‘Intersectorial Committee for the Balkan–Danube Region’ in March 1944, while regarding the pre-war boundary between Albania and Yugoslavia as a legal frontier, left open the possibility that some changes could be made in Albania’s favour, with Yugoslavia to be partially compensated with Albanian territory in the Vermosh area for the construction of a railway. Neither study so much as mentioned the idea of a full transfer of Kosovo to Albania. Milo also records a British document, discovered in the archives of the Foreign Office and dated 25 August 1944. This envisaged sending 5,000 American troops to Albania at a suitable moment, whose principal duty would be to move into Kosovo to inhibit Yugoslav revenge attacks on Kosovans and protect irredentists (perhaps even in the armed forces) who favoured union with Albania. This is an interesting proposal, but it was never realistic. Enver Hoxha, the Albanian communist leader, feared American intervention and would probably have opposed it by force. In any case, the Americans had no strategic interest in the Balkans that could have justified such an operation. The document is nevertheless valuable because it indicates that, regardless of Tito’s view that Kosovo should not be treated as an irredentist region, the reality was different. The British were more alert than the Americans with regard to Kosovo. Milo also mentions a Foreign Office diplomat called Lasky referring to the Albano-Yugoslav frontier on 1 November 1944 and writing, ‘We must not recognise the inclusion of Kosovo in Albania. I think we should do something to prevent the gift of this area to Albania.’14 The Yalta Conference gave the final verdict when it decided to restore Yugoslavia with its pre-war frontiers, leaving Kosovo and its Albanian population subordinate to Belgrade.

Conclusion The placing of Albanians under Yugoslav rule after World War II was determined to a large degree by external forces – forces, of course, that also affected Yugoslavia itself. The Albanian

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nationalists of Kosovo had not been in step with the Allies during the war, while the Albanian communist forces were without influence there. Albania itself remained weak and unable to bring any influence to bear on the Kosovo question. During the war, the British and Americans encouraged the resistance of the Albanian people against the occupiers and gave a guarantee of the restoration of Albania as an independent state. However, the English-speaking Allies were at odds. The British wished to keep the question of Albanian frontiers open, so they could be revised in favour of Greece and Yugoslavia, if British interests in the Balkans demanded this. American diplomacy observed the general principle laid down by Roosevelt that national borders should become matters for discussion and decision only after the end of the war. At the same time, in an unofficial way, the USA supported the territorial integrity of Albania. Yugloslav leaders were not only confident of territorial restoration but also claimed additional land from Italy and Bulgaria. As regards Kosovo, Yugoslav policy asserted that it would never be surrendered, short of another 28 June 1389. The communist leadership of Yugoslavia ruled out the union of Kosovo with Albania, regardless of the wishes of the Albanians, as voiced at the Conference of Bujani. American diplomats envisaged restoring the pre-war frontier between Yugoslavia and Albania with only slight changes (if any), and ignored the idea of transferring Kosovo to Albania. The British, more concerned with the Balkans than the Americans were, would have opposed such a transfer. When discussing spheres of interest, the USSR and Great Britain never mentioned Albania, and they regarded Kosovo as an internal Yugoslav affair. In all these developments, therefore, the Albanian question in general and the question of Kosovo in particular had been marginalised almost completely.

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2 Kosovo and the Cold War 1945–8 The start of the Cold War The contest of the great powers for spheres of interest in Europe after World War II caused deep political divisions. Relations between the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the USA quickly changed, especially in 1945–7, and the new situation persisted for decades. The establishment of socialism in Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria; the civil war in Greece; the victory of revolutionary forces in China; the strengthening of anti-colonial sentiment in Africa and Asia; the electoral successes of communists in France and Italy; and the decline of British and French influence globally all worried the USA, which had assumed the role of principal defender of capitalist interests. The first obvious rupture in relations between the war time Allies occurred at the Potsdam Conference held between 17 July and 2 August 1945. Stavrianos records that when Stalin complained to Churchill about British pressure on Tito, Churchill angrily replied, ‘Our joint idea at the Kremlin in October was

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that Yugoslav business should work out around 50–50 Russian and British influence. In fact it is at present more like 90–10, and even in that poor 10 we have been subjected to violent pressure by Marshal Ditto’. Stalin asked the Western powers to recognise the ‘People’s Democracies’ of eastern Europe, but the American representatives, President Harry Truman and Secretary of State James Byrnes, referred him to the decisions taken at Yalta. They requested that Allied missions be sent to supervise the conduct of elections and presented a memorandum, stressing that the Declaration of Yalta had not been carried out in Romania and Bulgaria. Stalin responded by drawing attention to British activities in Greece and adding with brutal frankness that ‘A freely elected government in any of these countries [of eastern and central Europe] would be anti-Soviet and that we cannot allow.’ The Western powers lined up on one side and the USSR on the other.1 Tension between the erstwhile Allies was reflected clearly in the famous speech made by Churchill on 5 March 1946 at Fulton, Missouri. The British leader memorably declared that ‘From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the continent.’2 He used the expression ‘Iron Curtain’, afterwards widely repeated, to denote the harsh regulation of frontiers in Europe, dividing the Western democracies from the states of eastern and central Europe under Soviet domination. Great Britain no longer had the role of world leader. This had passed to the USA, which, after the arrival of Harry Truman in the White House, gradually changed its policy towards the USSR and became more concerned with Europe. In 1947, the President announced what became known as the ‘Truman Doctrine’, approved by the American Congress on 12 March 1947. The Doctrine contained harsh criticism of the foreign policy of the USSR. Congress was asked to vote credits to strengthen the economy and armed forces of the two most endangered countries, Greece and Turkey. Most scholars regard this as the beginning of the policy of containing Russian expansionism, inspired by the

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American diplomat in Moscow, George Kennan. Containment became the essence of American foreign policy for decades. The deterioration of relations between the Allies became further apparent at the Conferences of Foreign Ministers and the Paris Peace Conference in 1946. Questions with great international ramifications, such as definition of the final status of Germany and the peace treaty with it, and agreement over Austria, were left undecided. In order to maximise American influence in Europe and strengthen countries devastated by war, and also to counter the USSR successfully, US Secretary of State George Marshall offered large-scale economic assistance to European nations, confirming this in his speech at Harvard University in July 1947. Three months later, 16 western European countries at a meeting in Paris accepted the ‘Marshall Plan’, and these states were grouped together in the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, founded on 16 April 1948. The USSR rejected the Marshall Plan, describing it as a means of subjugating Europe and isolating it from the Soviet Union. It also imposed this stance on the other socialist countries of Europe, some of which (including Albania3) had initially favoured the plan. The USSR continued to follow policies contrary to those of the Western allies. In a speech in February 1946, Stalin stressed the successes achieved by the USSR and the superiority of the socialist system over capitalism. Hostile to the Western world, he disregarded the decisions of the Yalta Conference and did not allow free and democratic elections in eastern and central Europe. By 1947, it appeared that the paths of the wartime Allies had fundamentally diverged. The Western democracies led by the USA and the eastern European countries under Soviet direction were closing ranks and uniting, each within their own zone.

American and British attitudes to Kosovo and Albania Even though no particular decisions had been taken during the war to define the future of Albania and its place in the international

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system, there was at that time a general assumption that the country would follow a path projected jointly by the Allies. With a population under two million, Albania did not constitute a major interest for American policy, but it did possess some strategic importance as an outlet to the Adriatic Sea. The Albanian question was also seen as an integral part of the complex problem of the Balkans. American policy towards Albania aimed at supporting its independence, with Albanians free to direct their own affairs without domination by any other state or group of states. Albania remained a zone of rivalry and intrigue, in which the great powers could again get involved. In these circumstances, material prepared by the State Department stressed that the USA had strategic interests in Albania arising from a desire to help in the establishment of peace and freedom in all parts of the world.4 Even Great Britain had no priority interest in Albania. During the war, it had made efforts to support the resistance movements and also, if possible, to shape postwar developments. But the British had an image problem in the eyes of Albanians of all political complexions because they were seen as supporters of Greek and Yugoslav interests. There is nothing in the documentary record to suggest that the USA officially put forward any project concerning the status of Kosovo, either within Yugoslavia or in union with Albania. The idea that Albania might federate with Yugoslavia nevertheless worried both the Americans and the British. On 7 April 1945, the US Secretary of State Edward Stettinius instructed Jacobs, the newly appointed head of the American Mission in Albania, that we consider any proposal made at this time that Albania should enter into a federation with Yugoslavia to be out of place. […] we hold the view that none of the three principal Allied governments must take any decisions about Albania, concerning questions of international importance, such as can be said to concern diplomatic recognition, frontiers, federation, alliance, etc., but only on the basis of consultation with the two other Allied governments.5

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Jacobs himself wrote in his recommendations sent on 15 August 1945 that For the three great powers the best thing would be to suggest to Yugoslavia and Albania that they should withdraw [the proposal] because for the authorities of every state in the Balkans there are more pressing problems to be solved than the problem of a Balkan federation. He added, ‘This approach of the pro-Albanians [of Yugoslavia], which is thought to be planned by the leaders, is not supported by [Albanian] public opinion, because Yugoslavia does not dare take the moral decision to hand over Kosovo to Albania.’6 In analysing Yugoslav policy, Jacobs went along with the State Department view that both Yugoslavia and Greece are more powerful states than Albania, and both seek Albanian territory. As a result, it could happen that at a suitable time in the future both states might agree to divide the country between them  – Yugoslavia taking the north and Greece the south. Great Britain was not considered a friendly country by Albanians, who (according to Jacobs) believed that specific sections of British opinion – particularly in military circles – favoured the partition of Albania. According to this thinking, if Greece controlled the south, especially the ports of Vlora and Saranda, Great Britain would be better able to dominate the mouth of the Adriatic and thus inhibit Yugoslav expansion. Jacobs urged the USA to support a free and independent Albania as a better policy for all, instead of allowing the country to be absorbed by its neighbours. Jacobs accompanied his report to the State Department with some recommendations on frontier and minority problems between Albania, Greece and Yugoslavia. His two suggested approaches would in practice have aided the Albanians. He thought that the problems might be solved under the authority and with the direct support of the USA, USSR and Great Britain,

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and also of the United Nations, which should set up a study group to consider the fundamental issues (and possibly deal with the Albanian-Greek frontier). As to the Albanian–Yugoslav border, Jacobs recommended revision in Albania’s favour. He thought that a part of Kosovo should be given to Albania, although the directive should make clear that the whole of the Kosovo area should not be given to Albania because […] this zone has been historically sacred for the Serbs, who, although they are in the minority in this zone, would never forgive the surrender of the whole area to Albanians. If this suggestion were adopted, Albania would increase her population by at least a third. Jacobs also aired his own ideas on Balkan federation. If Albania were included in such a federation, it would still be the smallest member state, so it would remain difficult to guarantee its existence without the support of some other state. He further thought that federation would be a solution only if there were peace in the Balkans and the world, while the Balkans had for many years been a place that generated wars. His scepticism about the realisation of a federation rested on a belief that it ought not to be dominated by, or under the influence of, any state or group of states. The only other way of guaranteeing the existence of a Balkan federation would be its establishment under the auspices of the United Nations.7 The suggestions of Jacobs and his staff in Tirana, offering opinions sympathetic towards Albanians, cannot be said to have formed the basis of American policy. The pro-Yugoslav and pro-Russian leanings of the new Albanian government, a repressive authoritarian regime intolerant of all opposition, transformed Albania into a hostile land for the Western democracies. At the same time, Greece followed an anti-Albanian policy and portrayed Albania (especially to the British) as an isolated and deeply divided country. The start of the Cold War further embittered relations with the West and caused Albania and the communist countries of

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eastern and central Europe to close ranks even more. In these circumstances, no more could be said about solving the problem of Kosovo. Although Albania and Yugoslavia (1945–8) were both parts of the communist bloc, the USA continued to respect the independence of the Albanian state, maintaining an American tradition formulated earlier in the twentieth century. In January 1947, the USA again expressed the idea of including Albania in some kind of general organisation that might be created in the Balkans, based on the freedom and prosperity of all states in accordance with the principles of the United Nations. However, We will oppose the inclusion of Albania in any bilateral federation or wider grouping, the aim of which would be to create an exclusive ideological bloc, the developments of which would in themselves be contrary to the wishes of the Albanian population.8

Kosovo in the Soviet–Yugoslav–Albanian triangle After the reinstatement of the pre-war borders of Yugoslavia, as agreed at Yalta, it was the fate of Kosovo and its Albanian population to return to Yugoslav rule. The establishment of communist regimes in both countries within an over-arching Soviet-led bloc, the special relationships formed by their leaders during the war, and promises previously made by them, nevertheless led Albanians to hope for positive developments. The leadership of Yugoslavia was in fact preparing proposals for a Balkan federation to include the Albanian state. According to Yugloslav historian Vladimir Dedijer, the solution to the Kosovo question was to be sought through the settlement of Yugoslav–Albanian relations after Albania became part of the Federation of Yugoslavia. Edvard Kardelj, a close colleague of Tito, saw three possibilities:  the first envisaged Kosovo being divided like an Ottoman province between Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia; the second envisaged it being granted limited autonomy as a part of Serbia; the third envisaged it united

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to Albania, with Albania itself federated with Yugoslavia.9 It seems that the second option was chosen: Kosovo was annexed by Serbia. Yugoslav leaders may have accepted the union of Kosovo with Albania in theory, but this acceptance was purely for propaganda purposes and was never accompanied by concrete action. During this period, the Albanian government headed by Enver Hoxha, while maintaining that Kosovo ought to be united with Albania, viewed it as a matter of ‘perspectives’, and ‘completely understood’ the difficulties of the Yugoslav leadership and the internal problems that would arise if a radical solution were adopted.10 This tolerant attitude reflected a desire for good relations with Yugoslavia, since Albania had to concentrate on resisting Greek territorial claims in the south.11 Albanian policy was severely constrained by circumstances. The leadership in Tirana did not enjoy any real support over Kosovo from either the West or the East. They had not succeeded in re-establishing diplomatic relations with the USA and Great Britain, partly as a result of ‘brotherly advice’ from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.12 Efforts at a rapprochement with Great Britain were comprehensively sabotaged in 1946 by the sinking of two British warships in the Corfu Channel. The British blamed Albania, although the incident was actually engineered by Yugoslavia.13 British sympathy for Greek demands for the annexation of ‘Northern Epirus’ also strained relations. It suited Yugoslavia that Albania should be seen internationally as weak and troublesome, as this image would ease its incorporation into the Yugoslav Federation. The Tito government itself recognised all the agreements signed by previous Yugoslav governments with the USA, and re-established diplomatic relations at the start of 1946. The Albanian failure to stabilise diplomatic relations with the USA and Great Britain also reflected a lack of experience on the part of the new government officials in Tirana (and the faith they placed in their Yugoslav comrades). In addition, the Western democracies were reluctant to engage with totalitarian regimes, though Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary (ex-Axis

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states turned communist) had all managed to revive diplomatic relations with them. In this way, Albania came off badly with the Western powers, and was never able to secure their support. Yugoslavia continued to develop its plan to bring Albania into the Yugoslav Federation as the seventh republic alongside Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia. The scheme did not envisage uniting Kosovo and Albania in a single republic; on the contrary, Kosovo would remain part of Serbia. These proposals aroused anxiety not only in Western countries, but also in due course in the USSR, which found Yugoslav domination of the Balkans unacceptable. The Yugoslav communist party had shown a proprietorial attitude towards the communist party of Albania ever since the foundation of the latter in 1941, and the relationship did not change when the two sets of communists came to power. On 20 February 1945, a ‘Treaty of Alliance and Reciprocal Assistance between Yugoslavia and Albania’ was signed by the Democratic Government of Albania and the National Liberation Committee of Yugoslavia. This is evident from the Albanian and Russian archives, though the treaty was neither ratified nor made public. It had clearly been planned before the Yalta Conference, for it was mentioned when the Yugoslav delegation met Stalin on 9 January 1945. He considered it a premature undertaking, whose defence guarantees were at that point incapable of realisation, and the treaty was probably abandoned because it did not suit his tactics in the lead-up to Yalta. Even so, the words of Article VI are striking:  ‘Bearing the democratic principle in mind, the two parties contract to be obliged mutually to ensure full protection and respect for the national minorities of their countries.’14 Albanians in Yugoslavia were to be treated as a minority comparable in value to the Slav minority in Albania. This suggests unusually friendly relations between Belgrade and Tirana. The idea of a close association between the two new communist states leading to a federal union had support in leadership circles in both countries, though especially in Yugoslavia. Some Albanian politicians resisted such a course, and the Yugoslavs saw them

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as opponents. In particular, they criticised Sejfulla Malëshova, a member of the Albanian Politburo whom they accused of ‘opportunist’ positions. By the end of 1945, they had concluded that it was necessary to liquidate his influence over Albanian policy. The plenum of the central committee of the Albanian communist party expelled Malëshova because he ‘advocated opportunism’. It then resolved to pursue ‘closer and more concrete brotherhood’ with Yugoslavia. In Belgrade also there was a desire to hasten closer ties. On 27 March 1946, the Yugoslav Politburo decided to invite the Albanian leader Enver Hoxha to pay an official visit to agree an Albanian–Yugoslav Treaty of Friendship.15 The end of World War II had given fresh impetus generally to ideas about uniting peoples and states, and this was true in eastern as well as western Europe. The USSR showed an interest in creating a federation or confederation among its Balkan satellites, and Yugoslav–Albanian efforts at unity should not be seen in isolation. On the other hand, it does not look as though the Albanian leadership viewed federation as inevitable or even very probable. The union of Albania with Yugoslavia would carry dangers for Albania, its leaders, Kosovo and other Albanians under Yugoslav rule. Far from ensuring balance within the federation, it would incorporate Albania as ‘superfluous flesh’ in a body of Slav peoples. Albanian–Yugoslav relations operated under the constant oversight of Moscow, which would not allow important steps to be taken without its agreement. The USSR did not welcome bilateral initiatives as a rule, and it particularly disliked the growth of Yugoslav influence in the Balkans. Nevertheless, the Soviet leadership at this time instructed Yugoslavia to draw Albania firmly into its political orbit. Hence the invitation extended to Hoxha in April 1946. The Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance awaited signature, along with other agreements for close economic collaboration, withdrawal of the frontier regime between the two countries, and joint defence arrangements. Both national leaderships independently informed Moscow of these steps and sought its opinion. In his book The Titoites, Hoxha recalled,

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We had come to an agreement with the Yugoslavs to have talks and in the first place to sign a treaty of friendship and reciprocal assistance between the two countries, which we considered a great success, political, economic and defensive. On this question, our preparations were carried out with much seriousness, for the great interest that our socialist relationships and allies would present for further economic development and the joint defence of our two socialist countries, surrounded on the west and south by hostile countries, and at the same time as two popular democratic states participant in the socialist camp with the USSR at its head. Hoxha added, We saw another reason which rejoiced us about the meeting we were to have with Tito. We had the impression and belief that ‘Tito reaches agreement and consults with Stalin over everything,’ etc., an impression which was strengthened by the Soviet people who were in Tirana let alone the Yugoslavs themselves. The Albanian side saw Hoxha’s visit to Belgrade as a good opportunity to make economic progress, stabilise security and find a way into the international arena.16 The Yugoslav–Albanian talks aroused serious interest in the Soviet Union. At his meeting with Tito in Belgrade on 22 April 1946, Lavrentiev, the Soviet ambassador, recommended a close association between Albania and the Yugoslav Federation, and Stalin asked to be informed in greater detail about the agreements and the projected treaty of friendship, laying stress on their international implications. Tito and Kardelj informed the Russians that the treaty was aimed at Italy and indirectly also at Greece, which laid claim to southern Albania or ‘Northern Epirus’. On 7 May, Lavrentiev told Tito that the Soviet government wanted to discuss the Yugoslav–Albanian treaty with him. Tito arrived in Moscow on 27 May 1946.17

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Yugoslav historiography presents the Albanian–Yugoslav treaty as evidence of Albanian readiness for federation with Yugoslavia. Vladimir Dedijer, in his biography of Tito, writes that Hoxha while in Belgrade begged Tito for a federation, because ‘Greece had been radically changed into a principal base for imperialist troops for an invasion of Albania’.18 On 27 May 1946, Tito had talks with senior Soviet leaders. With him were Aleksandar Ranković (Foreign Minister), Koča Popović (Chief of the General Staff), Blagoje Nešković (head of the Council of Ministers of Serbia), Boris Kidrić (head of the Council of Ministers of Slovenia) and Vlado Popović (Yugoslav ambassador in Moscow). In discussing Albania, it was emphasised that Enver Hoxha and Koçi Xoxe wished to come to Moscow too, but Tito wanted them to visit Belgrade first, to show that the route to Moscow lay that way, and Stalin assented.19 The problem of Albanian sovereignty did not trouble Tito, since he considered its frontiers virtually a Yugoslav internal matter, telling Stalin, ‘We must know whether our borders are in front of Albania or the sea.’20 On 13 July 1946, the Yugoslav newspaper Borba, after the signing of the treaty, declared, Without doubt, the Albanian–Yugoslav treaty represents a contribution of great importance in ensuring the integrity of the independence of Albania. […] The treaty represents a powerful instrument for the guaranteeing of frontiers in our country, especially in that part of the Balkans that in the recent past has served Fascist aggressors for sudden unexpected and treacherous attacks on Yugoslavia behind her back. Our peoples today well understand that by their support of Albania they are strengthening an allied country, which, with its democratic structure, with the conscience of the masses of its people, and their burning friendship towards Yugoslavia, represents a powerful obstacle to every threat to our country from positions that the Fascist invaders exploited. So it is clear that the Albanian–Yugoslav treaty strengthens security and contributes to the unhindered security of our two countries, and thus also reinforces peace in the Balkans.21

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Yugoslavia as well as Greece evidently held the Albanians responsible for allowing Italian occupying troops to pass through their territory during World War II. After careful consideration, Stalin accepted the idea of the Treaty of Friendship and Reciprocal Assistance, but he expressed reservations about the federal union of Yugoslavia and Albania. First of all, he argued, Yugoslavia must settle the question of Trieste, and Tito was obliged to agree.22 From existing documents and memoirs, it is impossible to say whether Stalin aimed to postpone Albanian–Yugoslav union until a more suitable moment or whether he wished to block it entirely. After the talks with Tito in Moscow in May 1946, the Soviet leadership instructed the Albanians to strengthen their links to Yugoslavia. Less than a month later, at the end of June 1946, Hoxha went to Belgrade, where he was given a pompous reception. The visit was timed to fit the political needs of Hoxha and the desire of Tito to exploit the situation. In a letter to Hoxha on 19 June, Hysni Kapo explained, After the request I made to Marko [Ranković], he gave me the opportunity at 13.30 today in the middle of other talks. Marko said to me: ‘When we were in Moscow, we talked with Stalin and Molotov about you coming to Yugoslavia and reaching an agreement. They were in agreement with Tito’s opinion.’ Marko told me that they talked with Tito and he said that now was the best time for Enver to come since the Paris Conference is in session. Referring to the treaty talks, he added: Marko told me it would be good for Enver to come as soon as possible, possibly on Sunday. They are only waiting for your opinion, so that they can take action officially through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, perhaps until you decide. Both parties should be aware of this. They want to know which comrade will be coming with you, and what officials

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will be accompanying. For your journey they will put an aeroplane at your disposal as necessary. Marko’s opinion is that you should stay five days altogether. Everything depends on you, Sir. They propose to give you a royal reception. Koçi Xoxe said, The reception was very warm. I  spoke briefly with the Marshal [Tito] about the matter of the treaty. It will become a formula [for defence] against any foreign power threatening the independence and integrity of the two countries. He told me that we could also work on economic questions, like customs cooperation.23 No minutes of the meetings in Belgrade have been found. The Treaty of Friendship and Reciprocal Assistance between the People’s Republic of Albania and the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was signed in Tirana on 9 July 1946. Albania ratified it on 6 August, and Yugoslavia on 12 September 1946.24 The treaty that came into force differed in some respects from the draft treaty of February 1945. For a start, it made no mention of the rights of minorities. Then the principles of the United Nations appear as a new element. The nations against which action would be taken in the event of attack on either signatory state are not named, but merely implied. From a juridical point of view, the treaty was also limited. It would remain in force for 20 years, with an option to renew. The treaty was criticised in some other countries. The Turkish newspaper Vakit thought that ‘Yugoslavia is following the policy of Mussolini, who wanted to dominate the Adriatic Sea and in this way play a major role in the Mediterranean.’ The Italian newspaper La Capitale wrote, ‘Yugoslavia has swallowed Albania’, while Il Tempo said, ‘Tito will dominate the Balkans. Albania has vanished as a national state,’ and Messaggero referred to ‘Albania in the bosom of the Yugoslav Federation’. One British newspaper said,

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Some observers believe that in the pact, somewhat precipitately signed, on friendship between Yugoslavia and Albania, there are apparent the first steps towards the creation of a Yugoslav Federation which would include Albania and would assist Belgrade’s propaganda by proposing a union with Tirana in compensation for the loss of Trieste. At first sight, this pact has the object of defending Albania against Greece, which claims Northern Epirus. According to its terms, Yugoslavia is obliged to declare war on Greece if the latter should attempt to annexe Northern Epirus by force  – something that at the moment appears unbelievable.25 Judging by these reactions, it seems that Yugoslavia had succeeded in enhancing its strategic position. Greece had undisguised territorial claims on Albania, with the object of detaching ‘Northern Epirus’. As early as 25 December 1942, the Greek government in exile had sent Moscow a memorandum outlining its claims. The USSR on 18 February 1943 rejected them as baseless. Its declaration about the independence of Albania created a bitter impression in Greece. For their part, the Yugoslavs aspired to the annexation of Greek Macedonia. A  Yugoslav delegation, headed by Andrija Hebrang, informed Stalin of this in January 1945, while explaining that the claim was not now being put forward by Belgrade for fear of causing difficulties for ELAS, the communist-led Greek resistance movement. At the Peace Conference in Paris, Yugoslavia rejected a Greek proposal to partition Albania. Had Yugoslavia supported Greek claims against Albania, Greece would have supported Yugoslav claims to Trieste. According to Beqir Meta’s study of Albanian–Greek relations, Yugoslavia exaggerated the Greek threat in order to increase its own political influence in Albania and hasten the political and military union of the two countries. In reality, Greece was embroiled in a bitter civil war at the time, while the Western powers had no plans for military intervention in Albania.26 Vladimir Dedijer, writing of Yugoslav–Albanian relations in this period, stresses that Stalin placed all the Balkan countries (apart

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from Greece) in his sphere of interest and envisaged them ultimately joining a Russian federation. To achieve this aim, he engaged in intrigues to keep alight all the important conflicts between them. Dedijer thinks that these tactics worked with Hoxha and his circle. Stalin sent messages via Djilas to Tito about ‘swallowing up’ Albania, while at the same time getting Soviet diplomats in Tirana to alarm Hoxha with reports of Yugoslav ambitions.27 By the end of World War II, Yugoslavia had managed to extend its influence in Albania.28 Major economic agreements were signed, including plans for a joint financial system. There was a complete liberalisation of frontiers, and Yugoslav advisers flooded the new institutions in Tirana.29 The new treaty, together with other agreements signed in 1946, marked a further major step in associating Albania with Yugoslavia. They damaged the image of Albania as an independent state and demonstrated its economic reliance on its neighbour. They were made, moreover, at a time when the Yugoslav regime had managed by military measures and massacres to destroy the Albanian national democratic movement in Kosovo and abrogate the decisions of the Bujani Conference. The issue of Albanians in Yugoslavia had been left in the shadows, and the Albanian–Yugoslav treaty did not address the problem. Indeed, one reason for its eventual collapse was the failure to consider Kosovo. On 3 August 1946, in discussion with D.S. Chuvakhin, the Soviet emissary in Tirana, Hoxha, reporting his visit to Belgrade, stressed that ‘the question of the future of Kosovo had also been discussed. In his opinion, it was not appropriate just now, for the Albanian government or the Yugoslav government, to consider the question of a union between Kosovo and Albania.’ He was of the opinion that this region, overwhelmingly populated by Albanians, would no doubt in its own time be united with Albania, but this would only be possible when both Albania and Yugoslavia were socialist states. Hoxha emphasised he had been of this opinion throughout the war, and the whole leadership of the Albanian communist party held such views.30 The Russian historian Leonid Gibianski writes as follows of the Hoxha–Tito meeting in Belgrade in 1946:

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The Albanian leader also raised the problem of Kosovo. In no way did he consider the question of the unification of Kosovo with Albania as a really suitable duty. Apparently Hoxha understood that for the Yugoslav leadership at the present stage it was politically impossible. In fact, even for the Albanian communist regime at that time, the immediate unification of Kosovo with Albania was hardly appropriate, where the Albanian population, like the population of northern Albania in frontier regions with Yugoslavia, was fiercely opposed to communist authority and supported its opponents. In connection with the linking of Kosovo and Albania, Hoxha asked Tito for something else, that a prospective union of Kosovo with Albania should be publicly indicated in some way, by noting this, for example, in the treaty of friendship and reciprocal assistance. Hoxha argued his case by pointing out that it was essential for his own position to confront the opponents of communist power in Albania itself, and also among the Kosovo Albanians who blamed the Albanian government for bargaining with their fate. Meanwhile, Tito assured Hoxha, just as he had during the War, that it was right for the Albanian population of Kosovo to be united with Albania, while on the other hand he declared it impossible in any way at the moment to raise the question of the union of this area with Albania. Gibianski adds, ‘At the same time, Tito proposed measures to ease contact between the Kosovo Albanians and Albania, so far as opening the frontier, but on this proposal, Hoxha made a fairly non-committal reply.’31 After the Belgrade visit, the Soviet chargé d’affaires in Tirana, D.S. Chuvakhin, met the Yugoslav ambassador, Josip Gjergja, who had taken part in the meetings between Hoxha and the senior Yugoslav leadership. Chuvakhin wrote,

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He [Gjergja] thought that, as a result of the face-to-face meetings between Enver Hoxha and Tito, a unique point of view had been achieved over a series of very important questions (Kosovo and Metohija), the evaluation of the work of representatives of the Yugoslav communist party alongside the central committee of the Albanian communist party, etc. Gjergja made Chuvakhin aware that Hoxha had decided to speak to Tito about Kosovo after receiving a telegram from Koço Tashko, the Albanian emissary in Moscow. Tashko had apparently informed Hoxha that Stalin had told Tito to seek ‘the solution of the Kosovo–Metohija problem during the forthcoming meetings with Enver Hoxha in Belgrade’.32 The enthusiasm expressed at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Friendship and Reciprocal Assistance immediately began to wane, as disagreements surfaced, especially over economic issues. This is what the Soviet ambassador Chuvakhin said in a letter to Moscow reporting views expressed by Hoxha on 3 May 1947: They [the Yugoslavs] continued to maintain an extraordinarily high opinion of themselves while at the same time assessing the work quality of Albanian workers too low. The Yugoslavs always thought that the Albanians should accept everything they say unconditionally without contradiction, because everything the Yugoslav representatives propose arises from the premise that our two countries are moving towards socialism and in point of fact, according to Yugoslav opinions, the Albanians have no experience at all. According to Enver Hoxha, the Yugoslavs did not forget their own state interests and utterly ignored the interests of the Albanian people. The greatest problem was the credit promised to Albania for its 1947 budget, which the Yugoslavs did not supply because they had changed the requirements previously set in the agreement. Another problem was customs. The Soviet ambassador in Tirana reported:

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On the customs alliance and the opening of the Albanian–Yugoslav frontier for citizens of both countries, the Yugoslav delegation declared that, in the opinion of the Yugoslav government, the Yugoslav frontier should be opened without the constraint of any further deadline. Furthermore, the Yugoslavs declared categorically that if the Albanians did not want to open their own frontier, if they failed to do so, it would be open for Albanian citizens in Yugoslavia in any case, and the Yugoslav government would not put any sort of obstacle in the way of Albanian citizens or firms that wish to enter into commercial agreements with Yugoslav citizens or firms. In other words, the Yugoslavs were opening their frontier regardless of whether this decision of theirs pleased the Albanians or not. Yugoslav insistence on opening the frontier had economic motives:  the Yugoslavs wanted to buy goods left behind in Albania from the time of the Italian occupation and sell them at higher prices in the empty Yugoslav market.33 In July 1947, Hoxha led an Albanian delegation to Moscow. Regarding the Albanian–Yugoslav agreements, Stalin maintained his view that Yugoslavia should be Albania’s priority. He told Hoxha, We cannot help you directly. We shall give you our assistance via Yugoslavia, because if we give it to you directly, and the Anglo-Americans appreciate that, they will try to cause difficulties. But help will come through Yugoslavia. […] There are good men in Yugoslavia, and I don’t think they will hang on to anything that we shall send for you. […] What’s more, they will assist you. It’s good that you have Yugoslavia, and we shall help you. It’s very good that you have Yugoslavia as an ally on your border. Albania is a small country and needs support. We can’t do anything by ourselves.34 Albania’s disputes with Yugoslavia escalated. The economic agreements were not being fulfilled. The Yugoslavs were not treating the Albanians even-handedly. This is what Lavrentiev,

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the Soviet ambassador in Belgrade, reported to Moscow on 14–15 August 1947: In a conversation I  had with Tito at Brdo, the latter told me that after the visit of the Albanian delegation to Moscow some Albanian leaders had not maintained a correct attitude toward Yugoslavia and did not judge its friendly policy rightly. Some of them say that Yugoslavia is trying to stick its claws into Albania to get something for nothing, that Yugoslavia promises much but in practice gives nothing. In fact, Yugoslavia has shown interest in Albania, starting from its own interest for the Albanian people, with the aim of maintaining Albania’s independence. Yugoslavia has shown interest in Albania as a very important geographical and militarily strategic homeland. But in this meeting there was also mention of Nako Spiru, the head of Albania’s Economic Planning Commission, whom Tito judged one of those most responsible for leading Albania away from Yugoslavia.35 The scale of unfulfilled promises on the part of Yugoslavia is demonstrated by conversations that took place in Tirana between Hoxha and Savo Zlatić on 4 July, 4 November and 5 December 1947. Hoxha was extremely disgusted by the delays in fulfilling agreements, and accused the Yugoslavs of deliberately ignoring deadlines.36 In fact, after the Albanian mission to Moscow, Yugoslavia worried that Albania was slipping out of its sphere of influence. Tito had given expression to this anxiety at a meeting with the Soviet ambassador, when he remarked that the assistance that the Soviet Union is giving for Albania should not be considered as an indication that the Soviet Union desires the separation of Albania from Yugoslavia, but on the contrary it should be seen as assistance for both the neighbouring countries together. Tito said that he was proposing to the Albanians that they should expel Nako Spiru from the leadership, and also that Hoxha should make another visit to Belgrade.37

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Chuvakhin reported from Tirana in October 1948 that the Yugoslavs were directing broad propaganda at Albanian citizens about the superiority of Yugoslav policy and advisers, the ‘great Yugoslav army’, ‘Tito the colossus’, ‘the theoretician Kardelj’ and so forth. This was because ordinary members of the Albanian communist party did not agree with directives from above about relations with Yugoslavia.38

Conclusion The verdict of Yalta, the restoration of Yugoslavia with its pre-war frontiers, left Kosovo and its Albanian population under Yugoslav rule. Yugoslavia was planning a Balkan federation to include Albania, in which case the question of Kosovo would be eliminated. The imposition of communist regimes in both countries, the special relationship between them in the years 1945–8 and their supervision by the USSR led Albanians to hope for positive treatment of the Kosovo problem. Yugoslavia said that it agreed in principle to the union of Kosovo with Albania, but Albania did not press the issue, for its policy was heavily under the influence of the Yugoslav state. The Yugoslav scheme for federation did not envisage placing Kosovo and Albania in the same republic; Kosovo was to be part of the Serb republic. These plans troubled Western countries and in time even the USSR, which did not want to see the Yugoslavs dominating the Balkans. As a result, the problem of Albanians in Yugoslavia did not become a matter for consideration until the breach in Soviet–Yugoslav relations, when Albania escaped the Yugoslav ‘pincers’. The USA had no concerns about the status of Kosovo subject to Yugoslavia, nor about its union with Albania. All the same, the USA and Great Britain opposed the inclusion of Albania in a federation with Yugoslavia. This was one of the reasons why Stalin had reservations about such a federation.

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3 Kosovo in Albanian–Yugoslav relations 1948–60 Yugoslavia leaves the Cominform The expulsion of Yugoslavia in 1948 from the Cominform, the Soviet-dominated organisation of international communist parties, represents a turning-point in relations between Albania and Yugoslavia.1 It may yet be seen as the culmination of a process of estrangement. The American ambassador in Belgrade, Cavendish Cannon, in a report to the State Department dated 24 December 1948, observed that The starting point for the analysis of the Albanian orientation is 8 November 1947, although the differentiating characteristics between Albanian and Yugoslav communists, according to Albanian leaders, date from at least as long ago as 1944, the date on which the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia addressed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Albania a confidential critique of the programmes and aims of the latter.

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He also remarked that the Soviets did what they could to narrow down the placement of Yugoslavs in Albania in order to replace them with their own people. Tito and Yugoslavia gradually began to lose their position in Albania. The Yugoslavs did their utmost to maintain their dominating position in Albania.2 The American embassy in Belgrade realised that the rift between Albania and Yugoslavia was not only due to the Cominform resolution but stemmed from a continuous confrontation. In Soviet historiography, it has been suggested that the specific cause of the breach between the USSR and Yugoslavia was Tito’s ambition to achieve hegemony over the Balkans and, in particular, his attempt to turn Albania into the seventh republic of the Yugoslav Federation. According to Russian historian Nina Smirnova, however, this was merely a ‘legend’ that ‘Albanian politicians supported and was maintained even by Hoxha personally, who liked to repeat that by unmasking the intrigues of Tito’s gang and his Albanian agents, Stalin saved Albania’. On the contrary, writes Smirnova, ‘the Soviet leader was not much interested in the development of Albanian–Yugoslav relations, and, all the time the fuss about Nako Spiru was going on, Ambassador Chuvakhin stayed in Moscow’. She contends that Soviet policy concentrated on other problems.3 Certainly, Albania cannot have been at the top of the agenda of Soviet foreign policy, but it was at least on the agenda. Leonid Gibianski, in his study of Soviet–Yugoslav relations, says: Archive documents studied hitherto do not give any clear answer to the question of what Stalin had in mind – was he expressing his true aims, or was it simply a tactical ploy? But several months earlier, at the end of the summer or the beginning of the autumn of 1947, a memorandum on Yugoslavia, drawn up by the foreign political department, said, ‘The directors of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia are very jealous because Albania is attempting to have

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direct links with the Soviet Union. In their opinion, Albania should have links with the Soviet Union only through the Yugoslav government.’4 Albania, a small country with little diplomatic experience, facing great difficulties in achieving international recognition, often fell victim to the political games of more powerful and experienced states. Since 1941, the Yugoslavs had made extraordinary efforts to influence all important political decision-making in Albania. Equally, the USSR wished to be kept informed of every political opinion discussed by the Albanian leadership. Both countries strove for influence in the Albanian ruling circle and sought to make specific politicians loyal to their policies and aims. The Albanian Communist Party suffered severely from the effects of these manoeuvres, which badly damaged Albanian government policy, both inside the country and internationally. These were the circumstances in which Nako Spiru, judged to be anti-Yugoslav, reportedly committed suicide. On 17 January 1948, Milovan Djilas had met Stalin, along with Molotov and Zhdanov. On this occasion, Stalin agreed that the development of Albania should be entirely linked with Yugoslavia up to the point of political union, so activity by Soviet military and economic advisers in Albania was to be co-ordinated with the Yugoslavs. From this it appears that Dedijer and Gibianski are correct in saying that ‘Stalin was playing tactical games with all the countries of the socialist bloc, and especially with Yugoslavia and Albania.’5 In view of this, the question remains:  Was the Cominform really the dividing line between Albania and Yugoslavia, or was it just a catalyst for the separation of two countries whose peoples (especially the Albanians) were not reconciled to the political association that their leaders had contrived? It is clear from contemporary documents that the Yugoslavs had not respected the treaty of economic collaboration signed with Albania in 1946. This is evident also from a letter sent by Chuvakhin to Molotov, informing him of the situation within the Communist Party of Albania. He said that grievances were

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being expressed about the behaviour of Yugoslav experts, their despotic attitude to Albanian experts and their many disruptive acts.6

The Albanian–Yugoslav rift and the question of Kosovo Yugoslav historiography regards the rupture of relations between Albania and Yugoslavia as a result of the influence of the USSR and Stalin on Albania. Branko Petranović, a Serb historian, has written that ‘At the time of the crisis with the USSR, the Yugoslav leadership tried to maintain its own influence in Albania for the sake of the geopolitical importance for Yugoslavia of Albanian territory.’ It did so, according to Petranović, ‘until the open crisis in relations between Yugoslavia and Albania occurred, after the return of Enver Hoxha in July 1947’.7 The official Yugoslav White Book (1961) presents the breach as a unilateral act of Albanian state policy. It says that breaking the friendly and brotherly relationship between the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Albania, trampling upon the solemn promises given and the agreements made, the government of Albania, after the publication of the notorious resolution of the Cominform of 1 July 1948, unilaterally annulled all the agreements and protocols signed between the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Albania and demanded that all Yugoslav experts, advisers and specialists leave Albania, within forty-eight hours moreover.8 The immediate embitterment of Albanian–Yugoslav relations exposed the great problem of Albanians in Yugoslavia, which had since the war been obscured by good bilateral relations. After 1948, this question would always be present in dealings between the two states, as Albania radically changed its policy in respect of Kosovo, and the Kosovan Albanians began to detect a positive spirit in Tirana.

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For Albania, the time had now come to set the problem of Kosovo (and also of Albanians in Macedonia and Montenegro) on the table and to use it in order to challenge Yugoslavia over its failure to solve the national question. The year 1948 would be a serious one for Albanians in Yugoslavia, because they lost their opportunities for economic, cultural and political communication with Albania. Henceforth they would be isolated, and there was a tendency for one group of ethnic Albanians to be used against the other. In the swirl of political developments, Kosovo assumed greater prominence in the diplomacy of both states. The Yugoslav government, striving to attract the Western bloc after its breach with the USSR, tried to project a positive image of itself as a ‘free and democratic country, as a country that had solved the national question, as a country that had built its own state with democratic principles, and had even solved the problem of Kosovo’. They insisted that ‘It is the regime of Enver Hoxha alone that is using Kosovo to blackmail the democratic Yugoslav state,’ because ‘Kosovo has comparable rights to all the other peoples of the Yugoslav Federation.’ Albania was repeatedly accused of seeking to break up the Yugoslav Federation. The White Book said, The government of Albania is endeavouring at all costs to foment the chauvinist hatred of the Albanian people against the peoples of Yugoslavia by using the same methods and slogans that are used by all reactionary and fascist circles. […] The Albanian government is copying from the programme of the fascist organisation of the Balli Kombëtar9 everything that can serve to arouse this chauvinism. Today the government of Albania is taking the slogan ‘ethnic Albania’ from the great enemies of the freedom of the Albanian people and brotherhood amongst the people of the Balkans. Enver Hoxha, the leader of the Albanian government himself and his deputy Tuk Jakova in their speeches are calling publicly and openly on the people of Kosovo and Metohija to rise in revolt and break up the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.10

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Meanwhile, Dedijer in his book Yugoslav-Albanian Relations, 1938–1948 talked up the efforts of Yugoslavia to help its impoverished and devastated neighbour after World War II.11 This glorification of aid to Albania is typical of Yugoslav and especially Serb historiography right up until the 1990s. On the other side, Albania accused Yugoslavia of hindering its political and economic development in the immediate postwar years by failing to fulfil contracts and withholding payments.12 A  note sent by the Albanian Foreign Ministry to the Yugoslav legation in Tirana on 1 July 1948 said that The government of the People’s Republic of Albania, expressing faithfully the feeling and aspirations of the Albanian people and inspired by true principles for healthy collaboration on a just basis as Marxism–Leninism teaches us, and respecting the independence, sovereignty and the rights of equality on the way to building socialism, reached the conclusion of a series of accords and agreements with the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, the Yugoslav government in connexion with these agreements with the People’s Republic of Albania has quite opposite and destructive aims by carrying out these agreements in a capitalist, exploitative and anti-Albanian manner. […] The Yugoslav government sidesteps the accords, agreements, and protocols that comprise the treaty, following aims completely opposed to the feelings of the Yugoslav peoples. On the pretext of giving credit to Albania […] the government of Yugoslavia has attempted to take the economic life of our country into its own hands, with an assumption of political direction which would mean the disappearance of the independence and sovereignty of the People’s Republic of Albania.13 An annexe to the note specified contraventions of the accords: Under such conditions, Albania considers it impossible to continue with the mistaken and anti-Albanian way in

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which the Yugoslav government has proceeded and continues to proceed. For this reason, and for all the reasons specified in this note and its annexe, the government of the People’s Republic of Albania denounces all the agreements, accords and protocols that have been signed since the Treaty of Friendship and Reciprocal Assistance signed on 9 July 1946, and considers these agreements, accords and protocols invalid and non-existent.14 The rupture was thus the result of a series of failed agreements, and Albania took the side of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, some think that Hoxha cunningly used the conflict of 1948 to free himself from Yugoslav domination. On 10 February 1949, in instructions to the Albanian Legation in Belgrade, he wrote, We know well that the aim of the present Trotskyite Yugoslav leadership has been to colonise our country, obliterating its political and economic independence, cutting off all means of development. This is thus a policy of imperialism and totally hostile towards our people, which desires independence and is working and striving for the building of socialism. He placed special importance on the aims of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, saying that As a result of the issue of letters from the Bolshevik Party, the leadership of our party understood correctly the anti-Marxist aims of the Yugoslavs, and our party and government immediately adopted a correct attitude towards the nationalist and bourgeois policies of the Tito clique. This suggests that it was only after publication of the Cominform resolution that the Albanian leadership took a stand against Yugoslavia on the Kosovo question, and that further,

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The letters of the Bolshevik Party and the Cominform resolution made the Yugoslav reality clear and enabled us to see clearly where the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is heading. The analyses of our party, however, show clearly especially the Yugoslav policy towards Albania. Hoxha emphasised ideological hostility to the Yugoslavs and hoped for the downfall of ‘the Tito clique,’ explaining, The present Yugoslav leadership saw that by disguised plots and the activities of its agents Koçi Xoxe and Pandi Kristo its purposes were not succeeding, and on the other hand, after the letters of the Bolshevik Party, it saw clearly that in Albania a party and a liberated people had arisen that guarded with determination and jealousy its independence and the victory it had won over its enemies, whether these were imperialists of the west or the Trotskyite enemies of Belgrade. Alleging Yugoslav provocations, he said, The Tito group persisted in its hostile policy towards our country by playing imperialist games in an effort to hinder and cause much damage to our country. By exploiting the geographical position of our country, they sought to bring pressure and blackmail our republic. Frontier provocations, the infiltration of UDB [Yugoslav Security Police] agents into Albania, reveal the degeneracy that Yugoslavia is carrying out. In 1949 the Albanian–Yugoslav conflict widened considerably and came close to war. Hoxha sought to concentrate the entire state and political apparatus of Albania on ‘the unmasking of the bourgeois and anti-communist policy of Yugoslavia’. The information and propaganda disseminated by both countries changed accordingly. Speaking of Kosovo to the staff of his legation in Belgrade, Hoxha declared that

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For us, there should be a serious concern for knowledge of the situation in Kosova and Metohija, and the Albanian minority in Macedonia and Montenegro; we must exploit the press to the full, both centrally and regionally, whether Albanian or Serbo-Croat, for knowledge of the situation in those regions. We should be well aware of Albanian publications, laws, executive orders and the various economic, political and social measures. Albanian state policy now made maximum efforts to get to know about the problems of Albanians subject to Yugoslavia. ‘We must be aware of the economic situation of the population’, said Hoxha, continuing We must pursue the movement against the Tito clique and Tito’s bases in these countries. […] In short we must have a commanding view in every direction of the situation of Albanian minorities. We must interest ourselves much more in building up these masses, along with trustworthy revolutionary comrades. In his speeches during this period, especially the 1950s and 1960s, he used the same terminology as the Yugoslavs, calling the Albanian population a minority. Regarding Albania’s links with ethnic Albanians under Yugoslav rule, he stated, It is an important area for our work, so we must speedily overcome all the difficulties that poor work in the past has left us, which has isolated us completely from the Albanian population living in Yugoslavia. Links with Kosmet [i.e. Kosovo and Metohija] and with the Albanian minorities in Macedonia and Montenegro must be set up as soon as possible. For the first time, Hoxha admitted that for several years his government had failed to keep a watchful eye on the question of Albanians under Yugoslav rule. ‘We have had some links,’ he

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wrote, ‘but these still remain weak. To achieve this objective, we must use all forms of work, we must get close to the Albanians living in Belgrade, whom we can use to reach out to the various regions.’ Following the rift in Yugoslav–Soviet relations, Hoxha believed that Tito might be overthrown, and that the resulting turbulence might offer opportunities for solving with Soviet support the problem of Albanians subject to Yugoslavia. Relations with the USSR would therefore be critical: We must be careful to point the Albanian population onto the correct road, the revolutionary Marxist–Leninist road, always in accordance with the lessons of our own party. We must nurture in them the love of communism, of Marxism–Leninism, to make them into a force that supports the Cominform resolution. The Albanian population in Yugoslavia must turn its eyes and its heart towards Moscow and hence should be nurtured with faith and energy for a revolutionary war against the treacherous Belgrade clique. Furthermore, he stated, The Albanian minorities in Yugoslavia must defend their national rights forcefully, and nobody must deny that they are Albanian and that their love is for Albania today in this harsh war in Yugoslavia. They must be nurtured on the fact that Albania stands with the Soviet Union on the road to socialism. Enver Hoxha filled his political platform with ideology, especially during the period of strong links with the USSR while Stalin lived. He was anxious that political movements among Albanians in Yugoslavia should not deviate from strict Marxist–Leninism, for he suspected that Yugoslavia, the USSR and the USA saw the Albanian districts of Yugoslavia as potential centres of opposition to communism. ‘We must look out

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for nationalist bourgeois tendencies that might appear among the various elements,’ he warned, ‘and the comrades and people of the Albanian minorities must understand that their road is a revolutionary road.’15 Previously, during 1945–8, the Albanian state had regarded the question of Kosovo as being totally within the confines of Albanian–Yugoslav relations. It took the view that the problem of Albanians within Yugoslavia would be solved according to the principle of self-determination at a time when the circumstances were right in respect of internal and external politics. Hoxha in this earlier period drew attention in several articles to Tito’s direct and indirect contribution to the anti-fascist liberation war and their good understanding as to the defence of the independence of Albania.16 Not until 1966 did he acknowledge the violence suffered by Albanians in Kosovo during the re-imposition of Yugoslav rule after the war. During his visit to Belgrade in 1946, it is true that he had asked Tito for the union of Kosovo with Albania:  ‘I said to Tito that Kosovans are Albanians, that Kosova is Albania. He answered, “Well, but this should be looked at later.” Here we see the bluff which had other objectives that became clear later on.’ At the time, Hoxha seemed to believe that the Kosovo question would be settled in due course. In his retrospective examination of the Kosovo question in 1966, Hoxha came to the conclusion that there had been no self-determination for the Albanians; they had not been consulted in 1945 on the pretext that they had not taken part in the national liberation war. Their non-participation in the war, he argued, was ‘not because they were not brave and bold, but because they were not politically conscious, not politically wide-awake’. For the first time, he admitted that ‘even we did not do as we should have, and did not have an opportunity, because under the guise of communism, Tito and Tempo were mad chauvinists and extremely anti-Albanian’. At the same time, he also blamed Albanian leaders with old-fashioned ideas of ‘pan-Albanian chauvinism’, irredentism and the belief that the settlement of the problem lay with the great powers.17

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The attitude of Albania towards Kosovo 1949–60 After the break in relations with Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union sought allies in the struggle against Yugoslavia and Stalin perceived that the existing divergences between Tirana and Belgrade could be used to further his own aims. Albania, having seized its chance to escape Yugoslav influence, wholeheartedly supported him in his confrontation with Tito. This is how the Russian historian Nina Smirnova sees the change in Albanian–Soviet relations: ‘In Moscow, they understood the strategic importance of Albania as a point of support in the ideological battle against Tito, and what was more important, for the confrontation with the west.’18 The USSR did not view Albania solely in the context of the ideological battle with Yugoslavia, but also valued it as a geo-strategic base for exerting influence in the Mediterranean. Hoxha expressed the readiness of Albania to grant facilities to the Soviet navy at Vlora. The integration of Albania into the structures of the Eastern bloc, the Warsaw Pact and Comecon enabled it to emerge from political isolation and make economic progress. Soviet influence also inevitably affected the Albanian stance towards Kosovo. Despite Yugoslavia complaining vigorously about interference in its internal affairs, the Albanian state used forms of action that were almost illegal in raising the Kosovo question and raising the consciousness of Kosovan Albanians about their future. On the pretext of organising emigration to Albania, the Albanian Communist Party maintained links with leading Kosovans in the realms of politics and education throughout the territory and even funded political groups on both sides of the border. Albanian policy sought the support of Moscow on the Kosovo question. In 1949, in the name of the central committee of the Albanian Communist Party, Hoxha sent a letter to the central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In it, he expressed the official Albanian view that the question of Kosovo should now be brought to a settlement, and he requested Stalin’s assessment of Albanian actions. He regarded

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it as an urgent matter that the Yugoslav people should be liberated from Titoite fascist bands and the clutches of imperialism, and this also involved the liberation of the Albanians of Kosovo. In his eyes, his political platform and the resolution of the Kosovo question were in total harmony with the decisions of the Cominform. As a state directed by a party that called itself Marxist–Leninist, Albania thought that liberation could come only as a result of war; the people of Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro had to fight to be free just like the other peoples of Yugoslavia. The first thing was for the Kosovan Albanians to fight bitterly against the Tito clique; indeed they should start to fight as soon as possible. However, if they were not to be isolated and oppressed, ‘the population of Kosova must not think that its liberation and the triumph of democratic and national rights can be achieved without uniting in their fight together with the other people of Yugoslavia’. To achieve these aims, Hoxha thought that Kosova should have a leadership of its own with a national liberation committee that would emerge from the fighting, to specify the battle plan along the lines of the Cominform resolution and Marxist–Leninist principles. Meanwhile, within the framework of the Yugoslav communist party under Cominform influence, an internationalist communist party for Kosova should be created, organised and fortified like steel. The fight should have an Albanian colour. The Albanians of Kosova must fight under the Albanian flag. Units should be led by Albanians. Bearing in mind that the Yugoslavs were entering into good relations with the West at this time, this talk of armed struggle was foolhardy. The USA, Great Britain and France backed Tito against Stalin and agreed in 1951 to offer political, economic and military assistance to Yugoslavia. Many contradictions are apparent in the political attitudes of Enver Hoxha over time, arising from the shifting array of forces and changing possibilities for action. In 1949, he saw warfare as the means of liberating the Albanians

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of Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro; in other circumstances, he favoured a slow and evolutionary solution to the national problem. Hoxha was adamant that the Yugoslav leadership had to be overthrown, and he believed that the Soviet Union could achieve this. Above all, he wanted Albanians in Kosovo to develop a basic trust in, and love for, the USSR, the Bolshevik Party and Stalin. They should fully understand that without this there could be no free Albania, no free Yugoslavia, no free Kosovo and no chance whatever for any of them to fulfil their aspirations. In the Albanian Communist Party, proletarian internationalism was mixed with patriotism, as was the general tendency of Marxist–Leninist parties. This spirit was so deeply embedded that an uprising by the Albanians of Kosovo could be seen as a battle against American imperialism as well as the ‘Tito clique and its agents’. In Albanian historiography, it is often said that Hoxha did not pursue the union of Kosovo with Albania. This is disproved by his 1949 letter to the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party. ‘The key to the successful development of the fight in Kosova is its unification with Albania,’ he wrote, continuing, The Albanian population of Kosova does not accept any other solution, and regards it as unjust, and in reality, we consider it to be unjust. We consider that Kosova and the part of Macedonia bordering on Albania in which the Albanians live should be united to Albania, since Yugoslavia must be liberated from the clutches of Tito and imperialism. A certain amount of vacillation is nevertheless apparent. On the one hand, Hoxha notified Stalin that the People’s Republic of Albania would assist with all its strength the fight against the Titoite clique, which fight must be carried on with increasing bitterness until the final victory. On the other hand, the official Albanian position was that the question of Kosovo should be laid before international institutions. The Albanian government

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feared that its pronouncements would be used by Tito to mobilise pan-Serbian chauvinism still further and accuse Albania of chauvinism. Hoxha was trying to gain the support of a superpower to solve the problem of Albanians subject to Yugoslavia, taking advantage of the breakdown in relations between Tito and the Soviet bloc. No step would be taken without the advice of Stalin, and Hoxha stated that ‘if we make a mistake, we shall at once be put in a position where we must correct it’.19 We do not know what reply was made to this letter by the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party. During his visit to Moscow in 1949, Hoxha prepared another letter to Stalin, requesting his advice. The USSR was careful to guard its primacy in the Balkans. When Stalin withdrew support from the communists in the Greek Civil War, the question arose whether the USSR would support a possible war of the Albanians and Yugoslav people against the Tito regime. Stalin, however, was very cautious when confronting the Americans and British, especially over spheres of interest decided at Yalta, and it appears unlikely that the USSR would have approved such a war. In this letter, Hoxha highlighted Yugoslav methods in Kosovo:  the employment of a terror campaign and mass evictions, arrests and forced labour, forcible recruitment to the army and the expropriation of the property of large numbers of people.20

Kosovo in the Albanian–Yugoslav dispute The break in relations between Tirana and Belgrade led to all sorts of attempts to bring about the downfall of the leaders on both sides. Albania strove to foment war on Yugoslav territory by encouraging Albanians to oppose ‘the Titoite clique’ in every way. It organised hundreds of Yugoslav citizens who had migrated to Albania and used them for political ends.21 Meanwhile, Yugoslavia opened its frontier to political opponents of the Hoxha regime and, in many centres in Kosovo and Macedonia, set up committees headed by the Yugoslav Security Police (UDB) to serve the Tito regime. In this way, the so-called

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Prizren Committee was founded. Some of the Yugoslav efforts to change the government of Albania are noted in US State Department documents: Tito requested General Dushan Mugosha, who is of Montenegrin origin and has fluent Albanian, a founder of the Albanian communist party in 1941, to welcome and organise the Albanians who were crossing the frontier in large numbers especially from the north and the centre of the country. Mugosha, an intelligent man, who knew the temperament of the Albanians well, started work immediately. He welcomed them in a friendly manner, regardless of their political past, even ex-policemen and ex-officials who had persecuted him in the years when he had been a renegade revolutionary in Albanian territory. Concerning political activity among refugees, the document states, All the Albanian political expatriates, around 8,000 of them, from the Union of Albanian Political Refugees in Yugoslavia, following the advice of the UDB, every year choose their delegates in the towns where they live. These delegates meet in Prizren and select the executive council of the Prizren Committee and directors of other branches. Meanwhile activity by officials of the UDB is not neglected, and they organise information and operational missions in the interior of Albania, and send them along 450 km of the joint frontier. These armed expeditions, comprising carefully chosen Albanian elements, keep Albania in a state of turmoil and the Tirana government remains continually vigilant.22 Both regimes became very wary of internal movements. The number of Albanian expatriates in Yugoslavia was very large, and Hoxha feared their activities sponsored by the Yugoslav state. He believed that Kosovo had become an important centre

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for anti-communist Albanians, whom he called quislings, bandits and spies, diversionists preparing acts of terrorism and sabotage. According to him, the ‘Belgrade fascists’ were using the former agents of Serbia, Great Britain, America, Italy and Germany, all born in Kosovo, to mobilise Kosovan anti-communists to set up armed groups with other Albanians to penetrate the frontier. Nevertheless, he stated his conviction that ‘the Albanians under occupation by Yugoslavia would never agree to become party to the policy of the Yugoslav state and fight against the Albanian state and its regime’.23 Again, Hoxha regarded the nationality question as the key to success. In the early years of the Cold War, the Western powers explored the possibility of overthrowing the governments of some Soviet-bloc countries. The Hoxha regime looked especially vulnerable. Albania was hostile to Yugoslavia and virtually at war with Greece, while great dissatisfaction existed in parts of the country. It offered a promising opportunity for the ‘roll-back’ of communism. Some members of the Albanian Diaspora of political émigrés formed after World War II were very keen to participate in operations against the communists. In Albanian historiography, much has been written to suggest that the American government was not interested in Albania, but the spheres of interest of great powers do not remain unchanged forever. Fundamentally, the policy of the USA towards the Albanian nation remained supportive, despite grave misgivings about the Albanian regime. A policy document produced by the European section of the State Department on 1 September 1949 stated that The basic long-term objectives of the USA in Albania: the creation of an Albania that is free of foreign domination and a government that answers to and is responsible to the will of the Albanian population. No doubt no Albanian regime because of the essential weakness of the country can be free of foreign influence or independent of external support. But in the more foreseeable future, representative organisations in Albania can only exist in a rudimentary manner.

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In connection with foreign influence, the document says that It is in our interest that external influence in a state should not be allowed to take the form of domination and should be directed straight towards the assistance in governing Albania. We shall expect such things to produce good relations between Albania and Greece, Yugoslavia and Italy respectively, and turn Albania towards the west. The USA and Great Britain did not want to see the dismemberment of Albania, but rather its transferral to the sphere of Anglo-American interest. American aims were:  (i)  to weaken and eventually to eliminate the Hoxha regime, dominated by the Soviets; (ii) to prevent Albania being used as a base for guerrillas operating in Greece and potentially also in Yugoslavia; (iii) to prevent the division of Albania between Greece and Yugoslavia; (iv) to encourage a rapprochement between Belgrade and Athens; (v) to encourage a rapprochement between Belgrade and Rome; and (vi) to reject Soviet military rights and bases in Albania. To achieve these aims, the USA, Great Britain and France used their influence to curb conflict with Greece and prevent the entry of the Greek army into Albania. They also wished to prevent Yugoslav military intervention in Albania. Strict instructions were given to the American Embassy in Belgrade that they were not to discuss the situation in Albania with the Yugoslav authorities. The Yugoslavs should not try and impose another regime in Albania, and they should understand that, if they did, the USA would re-examine its policy towards Belgrade. The American government and Great Britain should maintain continuous contact in order to monitor the activities of Albanian émigré groups, in particular the ‘Free Albania’ Group, which was seeking the overthrow of the Hoxha regime.24 Just at this time, in 1949, the Americans, flying from Italy, parachuted two small diversionary groups of armed Albanian émigrés into Albania, one in the south and the other in the north. Many of them were killed and the rest taken prisoner. In northern Albania, armed bands under Yugoslav direction also made

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several attempts at a coup. Quite a few of the insurgents were killed, and the others crossed into Yugoslavia. According to Hoxha, the attempts of Tito and Ranković to utilise Albanian guerrillas had failed.25

Hoxha’s visit to Moscow 1949 The more dynamic development of Albanian–Soviet relations was signalled by Enver Hoxha’s visit to Moscow in March 1949. The Soviet Union placed Albania in its sphere of strategic interest because of international circumstances in the Balkans and its desire for an ally against Yugoslavia. Albania had welcomed this and adhered zealously to the Cominform resolution, which Hoxha hoped would achieve his own objectives of replacing the Yugoslav regime and resolving the question of Albanians in Yugoslavia. In his first talk with Stalin about relations with Yugoslavia, Hoxha pledged his complete support for Soviet policy and declared that Yugoslavia had continually blackmailed the Albanian Communist Party and the Albanian state. He recounted how Yugoslavia had despatched two divisions of its army into Albania while trying to persuade Tirana to go along with the policy of federal union.26 Stalin said that the Soviet government had not been informed of this action by Yugoslavia.27 Reading the notes of the meeting between Hoxha and Stalin in Moscow, one is struck by how little the Albanian delegation said about Kosovo. ‘Stalin asked:  How many Albanians are there in Yugoslavia? Hoxha replied: About a million. Vyshinsky expressed great surprise at this.’28 It is worth mentioning one detail from the diary of Andrey Vyshinsky, the Soviet Foreign Minister:  ‘Hoxha added that Albania’s economy could not progress and improve without the assistance of the USSR.’ Since the Cominform’s repudiation of the Tito clique, Albanian–Yugoslav relations had greatly worsened, Hoxha explained, saying, ‘Tito’s agents were attempting with all their might to encourage emigration from Albania into Yugoslav territory. The Yugoslav agents had tried to link up with

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small armed bands based in the mountains of Albania.’29 Also of interest is the fact that there was a long talk about Albanian relations with Greece and Italy, and about Albania’s wish to establish diplomatic relations with the latter. It is fair to say that the Hoxha–Stalin meeting did not result in any important developments concerning the future of Kosovo. Historian Stavro Dajo observes that ‘in the summer, with the object of integrating Albania more completely into the coalition of Eastern countries, Stalin organised in Bucharest a meeting between Vyshinsky and Dej [Gheorghiu-Dej, the communist leader of Romania], which Molotov attended two days later’. Thanks to bitter hostility between Moscow and Belgrade, the problem of Albanians in Yugoslavia had taken on an international dimension. Dajo states that The purpose of the meeting was a joint alignment in the battle against Tito and closer association of communist parties after the Yugoslav treachery. In the summer of 1948, Stalin believed he had the means and measures to overthrow the Titoite regime. The first, according to this scheme, was a re-awakening of the Macedonian question in the context of the Greek civil war, and the stimulation of the Albanian question in Kosovo for a general rebellion against Tito. On the same point, Dajo cites D.  Rusino’s The Other Albania (1980): The Kosovo question was considered by the Kremlin a very suitable opportunity for inciting disturbance and destabilising the Yugoslav Federation. Kosovo was appropriate for experiments of this kind that arouse old resentments, because the Tito dogma about the solution of the national question in Yugoslavia had not in any way improved the situation in the region, which had been turned into a Serbian colony, occupied and exploited systematically by Belgrade.30

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On the other hand, Albanian historian and diplomat Paskal Milo stresses, ‘After 1948, the Soviet Union did not support the union of the region [Kosovo] with the main body of Albania. But Stalin tried to turn the Kosova question into a boomerang against Tito in his own interests.’31 Stavri Dajo agrees that Stalin did not want the dismemberment of the Yugoslav Federation, which could more easily have finished up in the hands of the western allies, but he did not want the union of Kosova and Albania either. He would have been satisfied with the fall of Tito and his replacement with a pro-Stalinist leader who would have been obedient to the instructions and diktats of the Kremlin. For this reason Stalin did not incite the Albanian nationalists and never spoke about the union of Kosova with Albania.32 The issue of Kosovo was used by Albania, Yugoslavia and the USSR for their own political purposes.

Kosovo in Albanian–Yugoslav and Albanian–Soviet relations in the 1950s Albanian–Yugoslav hostility grew dramatically as relations worsened from day to day. Tirana was alarmed by the possibility of armed intervention from the north. On 12 July 1949, Radio Tirana for the first time called on fellow Albanians in Kosovo to rise up and overthrow the Belgrade regime.33 The Yugoslav newspaper Politika responded by asserting that Albania was a ‘slave of the Kremlin’ and insisting that ‘the people of Kosovo enjoy every national right like all the other peoples of the federation’.34 Both states engaged in intensive propaganda campaigns. Albanian propaganda was based on the Cominform resolution. Hoxha, in a manuscript entitled The Trotsky-Fascist band of Tito has made every attempt to occupy Albania, declared that: (i) the methods and aims of Yugoslavia towards Albania were comparable to those of Italy in 1939; (ii) the Yugoslav government had plans for the occupation of Albania and its annexation by Yugoslavia as

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a seventh republic; and (iii) the nationalist group of Tito desired to set up a Balkan bloc in the service of America and England.35 The year 1949 was one of the most challenging in Albanian–Yugoslav relations, a year of fractures and divisions that returned the question of Albania and Kosovo to its own essential political dimension, exposing it as an unsolved problem. It also saw the elimination from Albanian politics of all those labelled Yugoslav collaborators and the interruption of economic, political and cultural relations, culminating in the reciprocal withdrawal of diplomats. In this period, Albania committed herself to arousing the national consciousness of Albanians subject to Yugoslavia. For 50  years Kosovo had remained an isolated region under great political pressure, with low juridical status, and little investment. Most Albanian academic and educational institutions were closed, marking the start of one of the harshest periods during the Tito regime. Yugoslav state security took over the direction of political, economic and cultural life in Kosovo. Official tactics included expropriation, imprisonment and murder. The migration of Albanians from Kosovo under pressure from the authorities resulted in considerable numbers ending up in Turkey and other countries. The only structure in Kosovo that remained resistant to the policy of Tito and Ranković was the Democratic National Movement, known as the illegal movement. The attitude of the Albanian state towards Kosovo evolved during the 1950s. In 1951, Albanian historiography started to present the Kosovo question as the problem of a single nation divided into two parts.36 A document produced by the Kosovo desk of the Foreign Ministry stated that The Albanian population of these regions is living in miserable and insecure conditions. Great political and economic pressure is brought to bear on them, and diabolical measures are used to cause them to leave their homes. At the same time, the Yugoslav authorities in Kosova and Metohija are extending general pressure to force the Albanians to take this course. […] Weapons are demanded from Albanian families.

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Those who do not surrender weapons are held and tortured in front of their families by detachments of the UDB.37 Although Albania had achieved some progress in economic and educational fields by the early 1950s, its international position remained difficult. It was completely ignored by the West and relations with Greece were particularly bad, with continuing frontier incidents.38 Greece adopted chauvinistic policies towards its Cham population (ethnic Albanians) and remained expansionist in respect of southern Albania, while still pursuing the idea of partitioning Albania with Yugoslavia. Consequently, Albania faced severe problems. Given that the USSR had played a part in estranging Albania from Yugoslavia, Hoxha in 1956 sought the opinion of the Soviet ambassador in Tirana, L.I. Krillov, complaining that the Yugoslav mission in Tirana was still carrying on hostile activity. According to Krillov’s diary, Hoxha said that A short time ago in Kosovo and Metohija (a region of Yugoslavia) where as many as 800,000 Albanians are resident, broad steps had been taken against a group of Albanians, which in 1948 had organised a movement for the annexation of this area to Albania. We had no relationship whatever with this group. Regardless of the fluctuations in relations between Albania and Yugoslavia, the illegal movement in Kosovo had never stopped its activities. In 1945–8, the National Democratic Movement had come together in resistance to Yugoslav oppression. The breach in Albanian–Yugoslav relations interrupted communication between Albanians on either side of the border. Many families were divided, and Kosovan Albanians who sought contact with relatives in Albania were subject to persecution. ‘Why does this process have to start?’ asked Hoxha, answering that In fact, in Kosovo and Metohija many Albanian citizens who have links to relatives there are subjected to long

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examinations and procedures by the Yugoslav authorities. Those who resist are flung into prison. Consequently, we have stopped giving visas to Albanian citizens who wish to go to Kosovo and Metohija. On its side, the Yugoslav mission insists that its own emigrés who lived there should be permitted to go back to their country of origin. Krillov records that Hoxha added, While maintaining our patience and self-control, we nevertheless think that very soon we should invite Arso Milatović, the Yugoslav representative, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and tell him that we do not consider the attitude of the Yugoslav Mission helpful to relations between the two countries. […] Hoxha asked me to seek advice in Moscow on these things and to tell him what our opinion might be. On 6 August 1956, Enver Hoxha invited Milatović, the Yugoslav chargé d’affaires, to his house in Tirana and recalled the good old days of co-operation during World War II, a move that signalled a lessening of tension.39 As for the Soviet position, Nina Smirnova states, Steps for the normalisation of Albanian-Yugoslav relations took place directly by the example and initiative of the Soviet Union. But this process was simply formal in character in many respects. The official declarations did not fit well with the psychology of popular measures set up during years of propaganda. On the walls of buildings, posters showed caricatures of Tito and his secret service chief Ranković carrying axes stained with the blood of Albanians from Kosovo and Macedonia. Smirnova also writes that Politically and economically, Yugoslavia was portrayed as the very opposite of Albania. So the ideological work of the PPSh

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[Albanian Communist Party] was stiffened by sharp criticism of the leadership of the League of Yugoslav Communists, which made the problem of Kosovo even more bitter.40 During these years, Kosovo was mostly used by Albanian diplomacy for the purpose of discrediting Yugoslavia. When relations were eventually normalised, the Kosovo question would receive less prominence. In the mid-1950s, Albanian–Yugoslav tensions began to ease, and the USSR was sufficiently interested to invite the Yugoslav ambassador to keep it informed of the process. After a meeting between Ajtić, the Yugoslav representative, and K.D. Levichkin, the Soviet ambassador in Tirana, the latter noted in his diary in 1955, ‘Regarding Albanian–Yugoslav relations, Ajtić said that these days they had noticeably improved.’41 After the death of Stalin, according to historian Valentina Duka, Albanian-Soviet relations had begun to change. During the period 1953–5, when Georgij Malenkov was prime minister of the USSR, there was no great change of direction in relations between the two countries. On normal lines, things were as before. With the fall of Malenkov and the arrival in power of Khrushchev, Albanian–Soviet relations began to waver. The Soviet leader started the process of de-Stalinising Soviet society and altered the foreign policy that the Soviet dictator had been following. In this respect Khrushchev started approaches to Yugoslavia, with whom relations began to improve from the summer of 1953.42 On 16 August 1954, during a visit to Moscow, Hoxha noted the relaxation of Soviet relations with Yugoslavia, an undesirable trend from his viewpoint.43 Khrushchev’s visit to Belgrade in May–June 1955 chilled relations between the Soviet Union and Albania. Events in Poland and Hungary in 1956 brought further bitterness to Albanian–Yugoslav relations, as Hoxha sought to

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exploit the divergences between Yugoslav and Soviet attitudes and revive the Kosovo question. Yugoslavia formally protested when he stated in a report to the Albanian Communist Party on 17 February 1957 that the Yugoslav leadership has taken a chauvinistic and anti-Marxist position against the population of Kosova. The situation in that region is woeful. The Yugoslav leadership there is following a policy of ethnic cleansing. Ten thousand inhabitants have been obliged to leave their lands and homes and move to Turkey. The Yugoslav press in Kosova and Metohija is incessantly carrying out a campaign of deceit against our Party and People’s Republic. […] It is mistaken if it is aiming to deceive the Albanians of Kosova on the real attitude of our country.44 Khrushchev’s policy was to safeguard the political and military influence of the USSR in all the states of eastern Europe. He saw in Albania an opportunity to extend Soviet influence in the Mediterranean, but he also sought to heal rifts in the socialist camp by improving relations between Albania and Yugoslavia. In August 1957, the USSR sent its Defence Minister, Marshal Zhukov, to Albania. He reported his talks with Hoxha about an Albanian–Yugoslav rapprochement, and Khrushchev decided to visit Tirana himself. On 19 May 1959, the central committee of the Albanian communist party considered the length of the visit and Khrushchev’s specific request that relations between Yugoslavia and Albania should not be discussed.45 Kosovo had dropped off the Soviet agenda. Soviet–Albanian relations soured in 1960 when Hoxha visited Moscow and faced an abrupt demand from Khrushchev for an end to conflict with Yugoslavia. The crisis point between Tirana and Moscow arrived in June 1961, when the Soviet navy was obliged to evacuate its base at Vlora. On 6 December 1961, the USSR officially broke off diplomatic relations with Albania, after which Hoxha drew closer to China.

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By the early 1960s, relations between Albania and Yugoslavia were again fairly embittered, not helped by Yugoslav agreement to a Balkan Pact with Turkey and Greece. On 3 July 1961, the Soviet embassy in Tirana had reported that the Albanian leadership exploited every pretext to arouse any anti-Yugoslav inclination in people and party. […] With the aim of justifying to Albanian public opinion the line taken towards Yugoslavia, the leadership of the PPSh [Albanian communist party] has artificially created in the country an unhealthy military psychosis by preparing the population for the possibility of war with Yugoslavia.46 The first secretary, F.  Bespallov, gave additional information: ‘Wishing to justify their hostile policy in connection with Yugoslavia, the Albanian leadership continually makes accusations against the Yugoslav leadership on the grounds that it is terrorising the Albanians who live in Kosovo and Metohija.’ Mehmet Shehu, the Albanian prime minister, had declared, ‘If we don’t speak up in the defence of our Albanian brothers who live in Kosovo and Metohija, in Montenegro and Macedonia, we shall betray our people and our country, we shall betray Marxism–Leninism.’ Shehu added, We are not chauvinist, and today we are not demanding the union of Kosovo and Metohija with Albania, but the mother that bore us also bore the Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija, Montenegro and Macedonia and we are Marxists! We raise our voice high against the cruel enslavement activity and bloodthirstiness of the Tito regime towards our brethren and we shall do this as long as our brethren in Yugoslavia do not enjoy even the most elementary rights enjoyed by a national minority in a bourgeois state. We ask and will ask that the government of Yugoslavia give Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija, Montenegro and Macedonia, all the rights of a national minority.47

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Conclusion The Cominform resolution of 1948 radically transformed the behaviour of the Albanian state vis-à-vis Kosovo. Albania believed that conflict between the USSR and Yugoslavia would bring about a consensus in favour of overthrowing the Yugoslav leadership, creating circumstances in which the question of Albanians under Yugoslav rule could be re-opened. Kosovo was seen by the USSR, and also by Albania, as a means of blackmailing Yugoslavia. Hoxha raised the question of Kosovo, but he viewed the solution of the problem in the light of Marxism–Leninism, calling for co-operation with the people of Yugoslavia to implement the policy of the Cominform. The USSR supported Albania’s ideological battle against the Tito regime, but not so far as a solution to the Kosovo question. The Albanian leadership, intent on safeguarding its own political position, accepted Stalin’s political ploy. The USA maintained its traditional policy of support for Albanian independence. Great Britain had changed its position and insisted on respect for the frontiers of Albania. They wanted to see Albania return to the Anglo-American sphere of interest. Greece meanwhile tried at all costs to preserve a situation of discord in Albania. Kosovo fell into the whirlpool of Albanian–Yugoslav hostility, with Hoxha focusing on the ideological battle against Tito. The death of Stalin, however, started an improvement in Soviet–Yugoslav relations and a deterioration in Soviet–Albanian relations. Khrushchev made the relaxation of tension between Albania and Yugoslavia a condition of his visit to Tirana, and this temporarily closed down the question of Kosovo until Hoxha turned against the USSR in 1961.

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4 The constitutional position of Kosovo 1945–74 The annexation of Kosovo by Serbia, 1946 Towards the end of World War II, after the proclamation of the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Tito invited the military leaders Savo Drljević, Djuro Medenica and Milenko Djurović to a meeting at his residence, the White House in Belgrade, on the evening of 7 February 1945. The next day, Tito, in the name of the Supreme Headquarters of the National Liberation Army and the Partisan Battalions of Yugoslavia, announced the imposition of military government in Kosovo. Colonel Savo Drljević was nominated as Commandant of the Operational Headquarters of Kosovo and the Principality of Dukagjin, with Colonel Fadil Hoxha as deputy commandant and Djuro Medenica as political commissar. Kosovo and the Dukagjin area were on the same day placed under military authority, this to be exercised by the Operational Headquarters. It was at this time that the Yugoslav command suspended all the bases of so-called ‘people’s authority’ in Kosovo that had

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only just been created. General Drljević, recalling these events in 1964, explained his instructions from Tito as follows: On 7 February 1945, Djuro Medenica, Milinko Djurović, the delegates of the Central Committee, and I  were at Supreme Headquarters and received orders that Djuro and I were to go to Kosovo. Milenko presented the gist of the proceedings that the Supreme Commander gave us, which laid down respectively the conditions for the establishment of the military administration as a special organ. According to Drljević, Tito had given reasons for the imposition of military government in Kosovo, saying that ‘the revolutionary forces numbered between 20,000 to 30,000 armed men, which was a force to be reckoned with, that was hindering the normal development of business and the functioning of the party’. Explaining the military significance of Kosovo, Drljević stressed, Why were the territories of Kosovo important for the enemy? First, as we all remember, the front was in Syrmia and Bosnia. The Germans wanted very much to be able to send forces not to the main fronts but to the auxiliary fronts, which meant Kosovo. So the occupying forces, by their own very cunning actions, contrived that a considerable part of our forces should be engaged there. An additional reason for military rule in Kosovo, according to Drljević, was the presence of the British and American intelligence services there: Furthermore, Comrade Tito said that the intelligence networks of various countries were interested in maintaining as unstable a situation as possible in Kosovo. Why? It is natural that the enemy would do all it possibly could to cause as much harm as possible to set off a little civil war. For this the intelligence services – not only those of the occupation forces and the English, but also the Americans – were unique in achieving this objective. And another point is that these

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intelligence services, by carrying out their work and trying to create problems for our community, Yugoslavia, also had a duty to cause the greatest harm to Albania, which had achieved a revolution. Kosovo was a suitable territory for the intelligence services. It was a place where the national question had not been decided and where conditions were favourable for the development of intelligence services. Conditions were more favourable in Kosovo territory than, for example, in Albania by reason of specific conditions. Continuing his attempt to justify military government, he added, And thirdly, in practice, the territory of Kosovo, with all these conditions, could have served as an intelligence centre for virtually the whole of the Balkans, and be linked with Greece. So it might have caused maximum harm to Yugoslavia, it might have tried to create a civil war in Yugoslavia, causing harm even to Albania and Greece. Drljević continues: Tito told me he had details of the German and English officers, of the representatives of the Chetnik command, and certainly also of the American officers present in those bands. This was the assessment given to us by the supreme commander that we might better understand the importance of the duty we were undertaking. Considering such an assessment of the situation, it is very natural that Tito instructed us that by means of military measures – which means by military force  – we should solve the problem, destroy the insurgents, destroy the counter-revolution. Yugoslavia imposed military control in Kosovo not only because it wished to confront the ‘counter-revolutionary forces’ (as it characterised the Albanian national movement and foreign intelligence services); it also acted in order to suspend the decisions of the Bujani Conference and block the union of Kosovo with Albania, thus facilitating the annexation of Kosovo by Serbia. On this point, Drljević said,

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After the imposition of military government in Kosovo on Tito’s instructions, intensive political activity was carried out in Kosovo, and the third conference of the area communist party for Kosovo and Metohija was held, at which a decision was taken to the effect that this party organisation should be linked to the regional committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party for Serbia, because, before this, on the basis of the decisions of the Fifth Conference of the country (1940), it was linked directly to the central committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party.1 The historian Noel Malcolm writes in Kosovo: A Short History that the essential question of the status of Kosovo in the new communist Yugoslavia, like all the other fundamental questions, was apparently decided from above. The basic structure of the state as a federation of six republics was officially approved by the communist leadership early in 1943, although the position of Kosovo long remained unclear. In March 1944, Tito wrote that Vojvodina and other similar areas ‘will obtain a broader autonomy, and the question of which federal unit they are joined to will depend on the people themselves through their representatives, when the issue is decided by a definitive ruling after the war’. During 1944 and the beginning of 1945, talks took place between senior communists in order to decide in which federal unit to place Kosovo; Montenegro and Macedonia put in bids, but the dominant idea was that Kosovo should be united with Serbia. Interestingly, in February 1945, Edvard Kardelj, one of Tito’s closest advisers, told the central committee, ‘The best solution would be if Kosovo were to be united with Albania, but because neither foreign nor domestic factors favour this, it must remain a compact province within the framework of Serbia.’2 This opinion of Kardelj’s was raised again during Enver Hoxha’s visit to Belgrade in 1946.3 The final decision on the political status of Kosovo was taken in February 1945, after the decision to impose military government. It was reached in Belgrade at a meeting of the central committee of the Yugoslav communist party attended by Tito, Kardelj, Ranković, Djilas, Žujović, Nešković, Tempo, Miladin

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Popović and Fadil Hoxha. ‘I don’t believe there was any stenographic record taken of the meeting,’ recalled Fadil Hoxha later, but we are all still living, apart from Miladin Popović, and can all vouch for this. At that meeting, three different proposals for the status of Kosova were written down: the first proposal was that Kosova should be divided between Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia; the second was that Kosova should stay as it was and be united with Serbia; and the third proposal – which came from Edvard Kardelj – was that Kosova ought to be united to Serbia because of international relations and the general world situation, even though, according to Kardelj, the best solution would be its union with Albania. Fadil Hoxha added, Before Kardelj brought the meeting to an end, when talking about the division of Kosova between three republics, he asked for my opinion and that of Miladin. Miladin and I both said that the division of Kosova and Metohija would have grave political consequences.4 After the decision to unite Kosovo with Serbia, the following points were discussed (among others): the presence of the Serbian population there (over 20 per cent); the leaning of Vojvodina towards union with Serbia, the major influence of Serbia and its level of economic development; the possibility of assisting Kosovo to develop more swiftly; and attempts to overcome past antagonisms between Albanians and Serbs.5 On 7 April 1945, at the meeting of the Anti-Fascist Convention for the Liberation of Serbia, in paying a compliment to the work of the convention, the Kosovo leaders Mehmet Hoxha and Dushan Mugosha expressed a desire that Kosovo and Metohija should be united with federal Serbia. The formal decision, however, was made by the Regional Convention of Kosovo and Metohija on 10 July 1945 in the form of a ‘Resolution for the Annexation of Kosovo and Metohija by federal Serbia’. The National Anti-Fascist Liberation Council of Yugoslavia then approved this resolution on

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7 August. On this basis, on 2 September 1945, the presidency of the People’s Convention of Serbia passed a law on the foundation and organisation of the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija. Finally, its status was definitively stated in the Constitution of the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of 1946.6

The dominance of majority populations The first postwar constitution of Yugoslavia was similar to the constitution of the Soviet Union, though it was not a faithful copy. One similarity lay in the idea that, where there were two nationalities, the population that was numerically larger could predominate. Just as the Soviet constitution gave primacy to Russians, the first communist Yugoslav constitution gave primacy to Serbs. The chief evidence for this was the federalisation of Serbia, with Kosovo and Vojvodina as two regions within its jurisdiction.7 Edvard Kardelj, one of the authors of the 1946 constitution, said that it was the expression of our need to reinforce the victories of the revolution and to create the kind of political conditions in which the revolution could be carried through. From this stems the decisive role of our central state government in our first constitutional provisions. The first constitution played an important part in the reinforcement and development of our society.8 Even he conceded that the influence of the Soviet system on it was strong: The tradition of the October Revolution and its further development, the battle for the existence of the first socialist state in the world as well as the monumental international situation in which we found ourselves, all these were factors that greatly influenced our constitution in taking the form of a copy of the Soviet constitution.9 Esat Stavrileci has observed that ‘The first constitutional phase of the development of the autonomous units is indicative of their

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differing status. Vojvodina had a broader status than Kosova as an autonomous unit.’10 Of this juridical distinction, Kurtesh Salihu writes, ‘The matter has not been unimportant, since it influenced the breadth of their rights and their organisation, and because both of them, in principle, had a politico-territorial position of autonomy.’ Yugoslav political leader Moshe Pijade defended the distinction: A kind of discrimination like this was desirable and reasonable. Vojvodina, numerically from the point of view of population, from the point of view of greater land area, and also from the point of view of economic and cultural power […] it is desirable that it be distinguished from the constitutional position of Kosovo and Metohija. Thus it is designated a province, whereas Kosovo is a region.11 A year after the announcement of the federal Yugoslav constitution, in 1947 the constitution of the Republic of Serbia was proclaimed. This set out the position of Kosovo in detail. It stated that an autonomous region possessed the right to generate a statute, as a higher juridical act of its own, but that any such statute had to be fully consonant with both the federal Yugoslav constitution and the constitution of the People’s Republic of Serbia. On the basis of this authorisation, the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija did in 1948 produce a statute governing its own field of activity, but it included most of the provisions of the constitution of Serbia. The Presidium of the People’s Council of Serbia had the right to abrogate and annul the decisions of the Regional People’s Council of Kosovo and Metohija; the government of the People’s Republic of Serbia had the right to veto the official decisions of the Regional Executive Council; and the Convention of the Serbian Republic had the right to dissolve the Regional People’s Council and proclaim elections for a new council, and to discharge the Regional Executive Council. It is important to note that primary elections were held in all the republics and in the province of Vojvodina – but not in Kosovo. This reflected the anti-Albanian policy of Serbia and Yugoslavia,

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and the minimisation of the role of the statute of Kosovo, which was left ignored and non-functional. There was another institutional distinction between the regions of Vojvodina and Kosovo. Kosovo did not enjoy any judicial autonomy, whereas Vojvodina even had its own supreme court. In Kosovo, district courts and second-rank circuit courts were at first established, but they were afterwards arbitrarily suppressed. From 1 July 1949, the circuit courts were absorbed into a single court only, the Circuit Court of the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija, which had no greater competence than one of the original circuit courts. Then, in July 1951, this single circuit court was suppressed and circuit courts re-established.12 During the years 1945–8, the district and circuit courts in Kosovo had passed heavy sentences on the activists of the Albanian National Democratic Movement, ordering long terms of imprisonment or execution.13 The Albanian population of Kosovo faced severe challenges between 1946 and 1953. There were murders in the name of the fight against counter-revolutionary forces, imprisonments and condemnations ‘in the name of the people’ and expropriation of classes labelled ‘kulaks’. The centralised Yugoslav state was openly anti-Albanian in its bias and activity. ‘At the beginning of the 1950s,’ writes Croatian historian Dušan Bilandžič, ‘the centralisation increasingly lost sympathy for the problem of inter-ethnic relationships and in this way created an ideological climate and an opportunity for the birth of unitary tendencies.’14 Pressures for constitutional change in Yugoslavia were constant and continuous, reflecting internal political movements that created ongoing instability, and a raft of reforms was introduced during 1953. In January, the Constitutional Law of the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia altered some of the provisions of the 1946 constitution. In February, a new law of the constitution of the Republic of Serbia was issued, and, on 20 February 1953, a new statute was passed for the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija.15 The autonomous rights of the region were now specified in the constitution of the People’s Republic of Serbia. That is to say, the federation did not prescribe the rights of autonomous regions

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in any general way, but authorised the Republic of Serbia to determine them. Various Serb jurists have argued that the 1953 settlement gave more autonomy to the regions than had the 1946 constitution. Kurtesh Salihu rejects this claim as invalid: It would be valid if the question, who shares those autonomous rights were put  – the federal constitution or the republican one? This is not an unimportant question, but has political importance that directly alters the essence of autonomy, which lost the character of a federal status. Those rights were not treated as originating from the region, but were passed through the competence of the republic.16 The centralist-unitary line in Serbian and Yugoslav policy had in fact been reinforced.

Kosovo under the 1963 constitution When considering possible changes to the Yugoslav constitution in the early 1960s, the executive council of the central committee of the League of Communists of Serbia criticised autonomist tendencies in the regions and demanded that the federal constitution leave their status as a question for the Republic of Serbia. The regions should not be represented directly in the Chamber of Nationalities in the future, but only through Serbia.17 The 1963 federal constitution of Yugoslavia did not contain any specific chapter on autonomous units. The only relevant section noted that in Serbia there existed the autonomous regions of Vojvodina and Kosovo and Metohija, regions formed by decision of the People’s Convention of the People’s Republic of Serbia. By this formula, the decisions of the convention of representatives of Kosovo and Metohija and of Vojvodina were brought into question, since only decisions of the Convention of the People’s Republic of Serbia were mentioned. At first sight, the rights of the two regions appeared quite voluminous, but this was misleading, as they were subject to the restrictive provisions of the constitution of Serbia, according to which

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in matters that, on the basis of the constitution, are settled only by law, the autonomous regions can settle some questions but only where this is authorised by republican law. To this it should be added that the republican law (as equally the federal law) has settled the questions in detail.18 There was no decentralisation here, nor even normal regionalism. The new Statute of the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija, proclaimed on 10 April 1963, was oriented more towards republican matters than to the internal affairs of an autonomous unit. As Esat Stavileci remarks, ‘The constitutional documentation of the 1963 federal and republican constitutions found no relevant solution, and did not lay down the constitutional-juridical position of the autonomous regions in any proper manner.’19 All autonomy was prescribed within the constitutional provisions of the Republic of Serbia, which could intervene directly at will. The 1963 federal constitution also created the post of deputy head of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. The Federal Convention of Yugoslavia chose to appoint Aleksandar Ranković, a man of known centralist-unitarist leanings. Although he was not formally identified as the heir apparent to Tito, it seemed that the way had been cleared for him to inherit. From the mid-1950s onwards, Ranković had in practice taken over the direction of the internal politics of the Yugoslav communist party, so he looked likely to become party leader.20 Twenty years after the end of the war, the Albanians in Kosovo had not made any significant progress, even of a formal juridical sort. Neither the Republic of Serbia nor the Yugoslav Federation was interested. Repression, school closures, lack of investment, murders, imprisonments and expulsions caused Kosovo to be the most depressed and poverty-stricken area in the Yugoslav Federation. The ethnic imbalance in the political life of Kosovo is revealed by the fact that the Serbs and the Montenegrins who, according to the 1953 census, comprised 27 per cent of the population, actually formed 50 per cent of the membership of the party and 68 per cent of personnel in administrative and leadership posts. In manufacturing and factories too, they were 50 per cent of the

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employees. Industrial development was slow; only after 1957 did Kosovo start to receive industrial investment funds from the federal budget. In 1958, Kosovo had 49 industrial enterprises, with 16,000 persons employed; by comparison, Slovenia at the time had 465 enterprises. Throughout the Tito period, income growth in absolute terms was offset by relative decline. In 1946, average incomes in Slovenia were three times higher than in Kosovo; by 1966, they were five times higher. Investment in Kosovo was chiefly in primary industry, such as mining and electrical power stations, which provided other parts of Yugoslavia with basic materials and energy. This primary industry produced a great deal of capital, but did not require many workers.21 It was clear that the Albanians formed an undesirable and unacceptable element in the Yugoslav political system. Tito himself had voiced his mistrust of them back in 1945 when, at a meeting with a delegation from Kosovo, he complained that about 90 per cent of Albanians supported fascism.22 Even though the military administration had been withdrawn only a few months after its imposition in 1945, the Yugoslav secret service remained powerful in Kosovo under the leadership of Ranković (who favoured a centralised Yugoslav nation with Serbia as its only unit). Only after his fall from power at the Fourth Plenum held at Brioni in July 1966 did debate begin about the need for constitutional change. At this point, political circumstances created the possibility of a more liberal approach to Kosovo. Two visits by Kosovan leaders to Belgrade in February and March 1967 should be seen in this light. At a meeting on 23 February 1967, a delegation from Kosovo informed Tito of a host of problems confronting Albanians in Kosovo. Then, on 21 March 1967, Edvard Kardelj met a delegation from the senior leadership of Kosovo, who argued that circumstances in the region called for constitutional initiatives.23 In 1967, a commission was formed to make radical changes to the juridical status of the regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina, restoring them to a position within the Yugoslav Federation. Amendments were approved defining the regions as ‘socio-political socialist democratic communities consisting of a particular nationality

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and other distinctive characteristics’.24 The Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija was renamed the Autonomous Socialist Region of Kosovo, and a supreme court was established there. The reforms continued until 1971, when constitutional courts were founded, financial competence was broadened and full regional representation at the central level was achieved. These constitutional amendments were partly a consequence of the international situation, but internal pressure had played a crucial part, both the illegal activities of the political and national movement in Kosovo and the patriotic stance of some local communists, who publicly argued that Kosovo should have its own constitution and be a republic in its own right.25 Powerful support also came from a substantial portion of intellectuals, especially academics at the University of Prishtina.

The 1974 constitution The constitutional changes of 1968–71 were followed by the proclamation of the 1974 constitution, which treated the autonomous region of Kosovo as a constituent part of the Yugoslav Federation, with territory and frontiers of its own, represented in the Federal Chamber, the Federal Executive Council, the Federal Court, the Constitutional Court and so on. Kosovo was now an equal partner in many respects, but there remained significant distinctions between autonomous regions and republics, especially between Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Serbia was defined as a state based on the sovereignty of the nation, whereas the autonomous region of Kosovo was defined as a socio-political community. Republics had the symbols of statehood:  a coat of arms, a state flag and so forth. A  region was a self-governing community, defined as a community of the nations and nationalities that inhabit it, in which the nationalities did not enjoy the same rights as the subjects of a formal state. Among constitutional experts, there was quite a lot of debate over whether the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a federation or a confederation. This is what Edvard Kardelj said:

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The open question of our federation must not be examined or solved on the basis of juridical state categories. […] Today’s Yugoslavia is neither a classic federation, nor a classic confederation, but a socialist self-governing community of peoples, which from many viewpoints presents a new and important category in international relationships. The independence of peoples in a community of this kind becomes greater than in classic federations and confederations. At a meeting on constitutional reform held by the leaders of the central committee of the League of Yugoslav Communists in 1971, Kardelj asserted, The right of each people to self-determination also includes the right to break away and the impulse to turn towards voluntary unification – a state position and the sovereignty of the people and their republics within the framework of a union of Yugoslav states.26

Conclusion The imposition of military administration in Kosovo by Tito had only one aim: to prepare for the annexation of Kosovo by Serbia, and the juridical position of Kosovo was determined by Serbia and Yugoslavia. Under the 1946 constitution, it was treated as a region. While free elections were held in all the Yugoslav republics in the early postwar years, and also Vojvodina, in Kosovo were they not organised at all. The Yugoslav leadership pursued a policy of hegemony and impoverished the Albanian-inhabited areas. The Albanian population of Kosovo faced a great challenge to its survival in the period 1946–53. The Kosovo statute of 1963 represents the lowest juridical-constitutional level of Kosovo under Yugoslav domination. After the Brioni Plenum in 1966, a better climate emerged for the advancement of its position. Constitutional amendments provided greater juridical opportunities for Kosovo, although they

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did not go as far as the Kosovo Albanians wished. Adem Demaçi, the writer and dissident whose political philosophy attained great importance among them, has described the 1974 constitution as the compromise that led to the battle for liberation.

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5 Disputes over the 1974 constitution The anti-Albanian policy of Yugoslavia Albanian–Serb relations have often been antagonistic, sometimes to the point of violence. Ever since the creation of Yugoslavia, its Albanian inhabitants had not been treated fairly or given equality of status with the other peoples of the country.1 In its attitude to Albanians, the socialist Yugoslavia of Tito, prior to the 1974 constitution, had not essentially differed from monarchist Yugoslavia. Consequently, no feelings of sympathy or admiration towards the political doctrine of Yugoslavia were ever implanted in Albanian minds and culture. On the contrary, a sentiment of permanent opposition towards Yugoslavia powerfully influenced the growth of Albanian self-awareness. In theory, the defeat of fascism in World War II was supposed to usher in an era of peace and good understanding between peoples. In reality, the Serbs were not ready to give up their old ideas of hegemony in this part of the Balkans. Socialist Yugoslavia propounded a new doctrine, the so-called brotherhood of the Serbian and Albanian peoples, and tried to impose it on education and

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culture in Kosovo in ways that amounted to ‘Yugoslavisation’. Under the direction of Aleksandar Ranković prior to 1966 especially, the special organs of the Yugoslav secret service used repressive measures against Albanians in every sphere of life. The doctrine of brotherhood was in essence just political camouflage for the old policy of hegemony. Two important events in the early postwar decades had serious consequences for the Albanian population of Kosovo. One was the confiscation of weapons, which was frequently accompanied by torture and even murder. The underlying object was to drive Albanians out of Kosovo; in some cases the security service units themselves suggested emigration. The other policy that led Albanians to leave for Turkey was the keeping of detailed files by the state security service.2 By the 1960s, the Yugoslav authorities had opened about 100,000 dossiers on Albanian activists, intellectuals and ordinary people considered hostile to the state.3 Strict checks were carried out on Albanian professors, writers, teachers, publishers, etc., who were kept under constant surveillance. The official Albanian language newspaper Rilindja (meaning Rebirth or Renaissance) was always closely monitored and censored in detail. Intense efforts were made to impose a sense of ‘Yugoslav nationality’, especially on citizens who were not Slavs.

The clash of political doctrines The census of population was used as a means of implementing the doctrine of Yugoslavism. There had been considerable debate over the method of classifying the population of Kosovo, with talk of categorising it as several new ethnic groups. In this way, manipulation was attempted, including the use of Islam as an identifier. Interestingly, the 1970 population census for the first time included a category for people of unspecified nationality, giving them the opportunity to associate themselves with the new ‘Yugoslav’ nationality. Even after the 1970 census had been held, debate continued about its coverage of Kosovo.4 The sphere of education and culture represented another area of confrontation in Kosovo in the 1970s. The Albanian intellectual

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world actively resisted the imposition of Yugoslavism. Worthy of mention in this context are Selman Riza, Zekerija Rexha, Mehmet Gjevori, Esad Mekuli, Hasan Vokshi, Zekerija Cana, Mark Krasniqi, Ali Hadri, Dervish Rozhaja, Fehmi Agani, Gazmend Zajmi, Idriz Ajeti, Anton Çetta, Skënder Rizaj and Ramiz Kelmendi, though there were many others. This led to an extraordinary step in 1970:  the signing of an agreement between the University of Prishtina and the University of Tirana. The support of Albania and the transfer of faculty from Tirana to Prishtina played a key role in preserving Albanian education and increasing national sentiment.5 Academics from the University of Prishtina themselves made a special contribution to these developments. Writers and political leaders from the illegal organisations, such as Adem Demaçi, Jusuf Gërvalla and Kadri Zeka also played a large part in opposing the Yugoslav doctrine.6 In response to the official Yugoslav doctrine, an Albanian political doctrine was created by intellectuals who argued ‘We are Albanian and we are not Yugoslav.’ This was in line with a tradition of activism that stretched back to the League of Prizren in 1878, when Albanian delegates united in opposition to the resolutions of the Congress of Berlin, which ignored the case for Albanian self-determination. The Revolutionary Liberation Movement now created had a manifesto written by Adem Demaçi. It stated in part that Our movement does not direct action and opposition against Yugoslavia and its present social and economic system – but its activity and its struggle will continue to move towards the position where those Albanian regions annexed by Yugoslavia may be liberated and united with Albania.7 On the other side, the corresponding platform of the Serbs also had a long history, dating back to Ilija Garašanin, the Serbian Interior Minister, whose 1844 political programme (known as the Načertanije) claimed sovereignty over all Serbian-speaking people in the Balkans and the territories where they were domiciled. Its anti-Albanian component had grown more extreme until Vaso Čubrilović, in his 1937 memorandum The Expulsion

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of the Albanians, advocated ethnic cleansing by means of pressure, mass deportation and murder.8 The two doctrines clashed over a range of sensitive issues in socialist Yugoslavia: region or district, republic or region, minority or nation, constitution or statute, Albanian or Yugoslav. At the same time, other attitudes also appeared which sought to mediate political life in the Yugoslav Federation; hence official federalist policy tried to close down debate on these contradictions, sometimes even using them as arguments against a specific political line.

The Albanian doctrine makes progress In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Kosovo Albanians appeared to consolidate their concept of national liberation by taking advantage of the new circumstances that had been created by the fall of Aleksandar Ranković in 1966. After his disappearance from public life, political contacts began to be organised in Kosovo to analyse the abuses that had been committed by the Yugoslav security system under his direction. Veli Deva, the chairman of the regional committee of the League of Communists, Stevan Doronjski, the secretary of the central committee of the League of Communists of Serbia, Razho Radonić, the Secretary of the Executive Council for Kosovo, Ali Shukriu, Stanoje Aksic8, Kadri Reufi, Ramadan Vranić, Xhevdet Hamza, Mehmet Shoshi, Fadil Hoxha, Blazhho Lutica and Kolë Shireka all took part in a meeting on 12 January 1968 that discussed in detail the so-called ‘Prizren Process’ and the persecution of the Albanian population of Kosovo during the 1950s and early 1960s.9 Albanian–Yugoslav relations also began to change after 1966. On 29 January 1968, at a joint meeting of the Kosovo committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija and the commission of the regional committee for the international movement of labour, there was broad discussion about establishing relations with the People’s Republic of Albania and finding means of co-operation with it. All present favoured a new spirit of Albanian–Yugoslav communication.10

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In this more liberal climate, it became apparent that there was a great need to change the 1963 constitution, under which Kosovo had endured juridical, economic and political stagnation, and, at the end of 1968, the commission for constitutional changes was formed. Politically, the Albanians in Yugoslavia were drawing closer together, a rapprochement having come about between the communist leadership in Kosovo on the one hand and, on the other, the intellectuals and the illegal movement. The common aim of both sides at this time was the creation of a Republic of Kosovo enjoying equality with the other republics of the Yugoslav Federation. In several towns in Kosovo, as well as in Gjakova and Pejë, the raising of the statute of Kosovo to republic level was proposed at the communal committees on 18 August 1968.11 On 31 August, however, there was deadlock at an extended meeting of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo, attended by the heads of all regional organs and social organisations, as well as the secretaries of the communal committees of the League of Communists of Prishtina, Mitrovica, Pejë, Gjakova, Prizren, Ferizaj and Gjilani; the Albanians present favoured a Republic of Kosovo while the Serbs totally opposed the idea.12 On 3 September 1968 in Prishtina, Prizren, Ferizaj, Kamenica, Viti, Suhareka, Skenderaj (formerly Serbica), Podujeva, Leposaviq, Rahovec, Dragash, Lipjan and other towns in Kosovo, meetings were held to consider the constitutional changes. The overwhelming majority of people involved supported the movement demanding equality for Kosovo with the other republics of Yugoslavia.13 Consultations organised by the regime were getting out of control and taking on a national dimension. Large demonstrations took place in the towns of Kosovo and Macedonia. The communist leadership in Kosovo was not prepared to come out in support of the constitutional demands of the demonstrators. At an extraordinary meeting of the regional committee of the Communist League of Kosovo, which took place at four o’clock in the morning on 28 November 1968, disturbances that had taken place the previous day were likened to ‘hostile events

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of an anti-Yugoslav character, aimed at endangering the integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia’.14 It was nevertheless at this meeting that Ismail Bajra demanded the start of dialogue with the demonstrators – an option categorically rejected. At this time, the political leaders of Kosovo, including senior figures, such as Fadil Hoxha, Veli Deva, Ilaz Kuretshi and Xhevdet Hamza, could not openly endorse calls for a Republic of Kosovo despite sympathy for the idea; publicly they were more concerned with calming the situation. In Belgrade on 28 November, a meeting of Serbian activists led by the chairman of the republican committee of the League of Communists of Serbia assessed unrest in Prishtina and other towns as a consequence of ‘the liberalisation of political life in Kosova’. On 30 November, on the 25th anniversary of the second meeting of the National Anti-Fascist Liberation Council of Yugoslavia, Tito, speaking of recent events in Kosovo, tried to minimise the situation, even while noting that enemies still existed there.15 During the autumn of 1968, the Yugoslav government was also concerned by the military intervention of the Warsaw Pact in Czechoslovakia. A meeting of the heads of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, held in September 1968, considered how this situation would be reflected in Kosovo and how the People’s Republic of Albania viewed the Soviet action.16 This broader international situation was helpful to Kosovans pressing for their rights within the federal system. The Yugoslav government needed domestic peace, so, in the name of ‘democratic frankness’, it allowed the discussion of constitutional change to continue, in this way buying time to face the challenges confronting it as a result of the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. In this atmosphere, the Kosovo leadership grew more outspoken in its demands. At a meeting of a commission of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo held on 8 November 1971, it was stated ‘that communists and working people must for the large part be fraternal, united, and whole, because nobody can be free and equal unless everyone is free and equal’. Furthermore,

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the communists and the overwhelming part of the citizens have become very sensitive to the tendency to trample on national rights on all sides. The result of this tendency is a failure to recognize that […] awareness is constantly increasing that without self-government and democracy there is no real national equality, and vice versa.17

The position of Kosovo in the Yugoslav economy Kosovo’s economic development was minimal between 1945 and 1968. It had been left outside the major credit systems, and employment levels were very low, especially among Albanians. The unsatisfactory constitutional position discouraged investment too. With the departure of the centralist-statist forces in 1966, however, progress also became possible on the economic front. The fall of Ranković allowed the communist leadership of Kosovo to present their arguments more clearly and effectively. At the same meeting in 1971 that called for freedom and equality, this statement was also affirmed: With absolute right, it is mathematically stated that the national question is almost exclusively an economic question. Without economic equality there can be no talk of true and essential national equality.18 Economic stagnation in Kosovo was having a serious effect on the difficult political situation there. Lack of necessary investment marked Kosovo out as the poorest region in Yugoslavia. In 1945, the differences in income between Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro were relatively small. By 1984, the disparity between Kosovo and the rest had doubled.19 The economist Ismet Gusia, in his book Natural Resources as a Factor in the Economic Development of Kosova (1982), showed the importance of the minerals of Kosovo to the Yugoslav Federation:  ‘Kosova’s reserves of lignite in 1976 compared with the total reserves of Yugoslavia represented

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63.3%, while, in reserves of lead and zinc, Kosova’s percentage of Yugoslav reserves was 47.4%.’20 Despite Kosovo possessing valuable resources, its industrial development was slow and geared to the support of other republics. Albanian activists, especially those involved in the illegal political organisations (such as Adem Demaçi, Metush Krasniqi, Jusuf Gërvalla and Kadri Zeka) focused strongly on these questions – the exploitation of natural resources, the exploitative policies of Serbia towards Kosovo, and the colonial contracts between Kosovo and the Yugoslav Federation. Economic grievances played a significant part in Albanian protests in 1968 and 1981. At the meeting of the committee for international relations of the regional committee of the League of Communists for Kosovo on 8 November 1971, one of the political leaders of the time, Ismail Bajra, while stressing the economic stagnation of the region, also suggested that greater constitutional autonomy would lead to material progress. Hajredin Hoxha pointed out that Kosovo was not supported by the fund for undeveloped areas, and ‘our people are aware of this stagnation because we have 30–40,000 people working in Slovenia and Croatia and 30,000 others working in the outside world who can see how developed those countries are’. The leader of the Kosovo communists, Mahmut Bakalli, asserted that ‘now we have something completely new in social and democratic relations in Kosova, and we have a more independent and autonomous position, which we must exploit for progress in the whole region’. Enthusiasm for the liberalisation of political life was clearly linked to hopes that these changes would promote economic growth. Later at the same meeting, it was said that With the new amendments to the federal constitution, under which a historic change has been made in the independence of republics and autonomous regions […] the rights of juridical state self-government, national, economic, and educational, etc., have been handed back to the working people and the other sections of the country. From now on, the working classes of all nationalities in Kosova are masters of

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the country, and they have at their disposal (or must have at their disposal) the creation and division of its revenues. However, the approval of federal amendments represents only one revolutionary but very important step; another step, even more important, is also to ensure the implementation of the consequences of these amendments in practice.21

Serbian resistance to constitutional change The Albanian political class in Kosovo doubted whether Serbia could reconcile itself to the constitutional changes. At a meeting of the central committee of the League of Serbian Communists in May 1968, the Serbian writer and politician Dobrica Ćosić had expressed a position of non-acceptance by the Serbians and Montenegrins. He did not support the reforms carried out since the Brioni Plenum, where there had been bitter conflict between the Serbian and Montenegrin line on the one hand and the Croat and Slovene line on the other. Ćosić criticised the attitudes of Tito and Kardelj and voiced anxiety about the ‘freedom allowed to Albanians in Kosovo and the discrimination against Serbs by the leadership of Kosovo and Yugoslavia’. He contended that ‘from the foundation of the Serb Republic until the present time the forums of this republic had followed a very democratic and internationalist policy towards minorities, especially in supporting development and investment in Kosovo’. According to Ćosić, ‘After the Brioni Plenum, Serbian nationalism suffered from barbed attacks; there is a perception that apparently the people of the region had not taken the necessary measures against Albanian chauvinism and irredentism.’ He suggested that ‘no deep and objective analysis of the Kosovo situation’ had been done, since it was impossible to be unaware of the widespread opinion in Serbia regarding the tension in relations between Albanians and Serbs, and the conviction of Serbs and Montenegrins that they are under threat, that there is pressure to displace them, that there is constant pressure on Serb personnel to give up leadership positions, that Serbian and Montenegrin

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personnel are leaving Kosovo, that the dimensions of the chauvinist psychosis of the Albanians are not noticed – a psychosis that is unjustifiably underestimated.22 The reactions of Ćosić epitomised the Serbian platform, which had been at odds with the policy of Tito since the Brioni Plenum on 1 July 1966. At Brioni, Ranković had been forced to resign as Interior Minister and Deputy Chairman of the Yugoslav Federation because of his misuse of the state security services in opposition to Tito and against the Serbian population and the Albanians in particular. Following this, on 15 September 1966, the central committee of the League of Communists of Serbia called for his expulsion from the Communist League of Yugoslavia. Ranković was accordingly expelled in early October, and this resulted in the departure of several other Serbian political leaders, including Ćosić, Svetislav Stefanović, Vojin Lukić, Slobodan Krstić and the generals Milan Žeželj and Miloje Milojević.23 These events encapsulate the profound divergences that overtook the Yugoslav Federation during this period. Such disagreements and the struggle to form alliances afforded greater opportunities for the development of Kosovo. At the same time in the late 1960s, student movements all over Europe were seeking the extension of liberty and human rights. In Kosovo, and in Serbia and Yugoslavia as well, a growing number of voices called for constitutional change, but a part of the Serbian political leadership determinedly opposed constitutional reform from the start. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia on 14 May 1971, it was attested that In the amendments proposed, pan-Serb nationalists see what they call a danger to the vital interests of the Serbian people. Emphasising that the changes express nothing other than the destruction of Serbia and complete Serbian disintegration, without any objective possibility of an approach to a centralised federation being apparent, they start to call for separatism along the lines of the slogan ‘Serbs in combat!’

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Based on Chetnik ideology, they raise the question of the ethnic boundaries of Serbia, which means nothing less than the creation of a Serb state in all the provinces where Serbs live.24 A section of Serbia’s leadership was in no way prepared to accept the equality of peoples within the framework of the Yugoslav Federation. The Serbian communist leader Dragoslav Marković wrote in his diary on 27 March 1971, ‘There is no question of any solution that could involve a republic, when there is a question of autonomy, and especially for Kosova. The President’s solution in terms of “autonomy” is out of the question.’ Marković recorded an informal conversation with the leading communist of Kosovo, Fadil Hoxha, who during a break in a meeting asked him, ‘Why are you making [the situation] tense?’ Marković replied, ‘We cannot accept your ways of speaking in political slogans’, but Hoxha accused him of manipulating the Serbs of Kosovo, saying ‘Your people tell the Kosovo Serbs that they mustn’t betray Serbian interests.’ Marković, known for his anti-Albanian views, said to Hoxha during the debate, ‘The position of Serbs in Kosovo must be ensured in the composition of the republic.’ It is clear here who exercised dominant power: Fadil, worried, spoke about possible negative reaction in Kosovo, and threatened they might come out on the streets in Prishtina. I spoke about the negative reactions in Serbia, and stressed that demonstrations on the streets in Prishtina would not be so dangerous as demonstrations on the streets in Belgrade.25

The Yugoslav crisis and international concerns This period saw a great rise in national sensitivities not only among the Serbs, but also among the Croats, Slovenes and other peoples of the Yugoslav Federation.26 The year 1971 was especially dramatic, as the atmosphere was full of nationalist and anti-socialist feeling. The Communist League of Yugoslavia began

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to show open hostility towards the Croat nationalist movement. A year earlier, Tito, assessing the political situation in the country at a meeting of the Yugoslav leadership, had drawn attention to disintegrating tendencies within the Communist League, where the republican committees were displaying an ever more open inclination towards independence in disregard of the unity of the party centre. On 1–2 December 1971, the leadership of the Communist League of Yugoslavia met at Karagjorgjev to discuss the problem, with particular reference to events in Croatia. It concluded with a call to resist anti-socialist and nationalist tendencies. In the political structures of Kosovo meanwhile, discussion of constitutional change was polarised on a national basis. When the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo met on 25 December 1970, the Serbian participants insisted that Kosovo could in no way be equal with the other federal units. Mihajlo Zvicer was especially outspoken. The arguments continued at the meeting in July 1971, when Lazar Vujović presented a paper condemning Albanian nationalists for putting pressure on Serbs and Montenegrins. Sharp exchanges ensued between the Albanian and Serb representatives about investment in Kosovo and the condition of the University of Prishtina. Mahmut Bakalli, Fadil Hoxha and Ismail Bajra spoke on one side, Jovo Šotra, Miloš Sekulović and Novica Stojanović on the other. Their differences over constitutional reform were insurmountable, and intervention by the Yugoslav state was deemed necessary. Tito suggested the removal of some of the followers of Ranković who had until then retained their political status.27 Kosovo was now one of the most sensitive security zones in the Yugoslav Federation. Tito managed to damp down unrest in Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, but foreign powers perceived that the situation in Kosovo was potentially explosive, with possible implications for their spheres of interest.28 The regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo was aware of foreign interest. At its meeting on 28 March 1970, there was a statement:

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Recently diplomatic and military representatives of western countries – in this context American, British and Greek representatives were highlighted  – by various means and methods, alongside activities to elicit information, sought to make contact with the citizenry and to spread propaganda. The objects of their interest are all the changes, political events and the general situation. […] In the collection of data and subversive propaganda activity, representatives of various western countries and their experts were working in a combined and coordinated way, e.g., American-Greek, Italian-English. They were also said to be noting the positions of military bases. Kosovo had been visited by military and diplomatic representatives from the USSR, the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy and Holland.29 Kosovo found itself involved in the vortex of power politics during the Cold War, when the West favoured Yugoslavia, and fear of Warsaw Pact intervention in the country still loomed.

‘The Blue Book’ The struggle for constitutional change brought about a close fellowship among Kosovo’s political representatives, forced by circumstances to unite in the face of criticism from the Serb leadership. A great reawakening began in Kosovo, especially in art and culture, together with modest progress in the economic field. People called ever more clearly for decisions to be taken outside the political orbit of Serbia. This, according to Dobrica Ćosić, amounted to a clear attempt to push Serbia back into ‘the pashalek of Belgrade’.30 After much bitter debate, a new settlement of the relationship between republics and regions was incorporated into the federal constitution proclaimed in 1974. The republics would have the right to determine their own political and juridical future, while the regions would not have the right to statehood. In this way, the senior Yugoslav leadership had achieved its goal of a compromise between centralist, liberal and nationalist tendencies. At

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the same time, the Serbian leadership saw the changes as obstacles to the full exercise of Serbian state authority throughout its territory, including the regions, which now had dual status as constituent elements of the Yugoslav Federation and also constituent parts of the Republic of Serbia. The status of Kosovo was a thorn in the flesh of the Serbian political leadership. It should be stressed that even the so-called ‘liberal’ current of the time, represented by Marko Nikezić and Latinka Perović, unhesitatingly supported the cause of Serb nationalism while otherwise favouring decentralisation of the federation.31 Serbian intellectuals and churchmen came out openly against the constitutional changes. Meanwhile the political leaders commissioned a political pamphlet, a ‘highly secret’ document for the presidential body of the Republic of Serbia, entitled The Republic of Serbia and its Constituent Autonomous Regions. Widely known as ‘The Blue Book’, it was written by a working group headed by Serb professors, such as Najdan Pašić and Ratko Marković, and printed in Belgrade in March 1977.32 The authors had been asked in 1975 to examine the constitution of the Republic of Serbia ‘with special emphasis on the implementation of functions of concern to the republic as a whole’. At a progress meeting of 24 July 1976, the working group said that ‘conditions have arisen that impose the need for the constitutional arrangement of the Socialist Republic of Serbia to be examined and evaluated in its entirety, as a unique state and a socio-political community’. Already, it seems, the 1974 constitution needed to be reconsidered. The Serbian leadership was looking for pretexts to challenge the recent settlement. The Blue Book itself stated that the process of constitutional reform that began with amendments in 1967–8 and culminated in the 1974 constitution had imposed major changes on the structure of the Yugoslav Federation. These possessed especial importance for Serbia ‘in the composition of which there are also two autonomous regions, which at the same time are also elements of the Yugoslav Federation’. An in-depth examination was required of

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how the organisation of the constitution of the Socialist Republic of Serbia is arranged, and how its functions are being carried out as a state and socio-political community, especially in relation to the constituent functioning of the autonomous regions that are part of it. Repeatedly stressing the dual constitutional nature of the regions, the authors observed that On this basis, the federal constitution and that of the republic have different aims: the federal constitution confirming the concrete body of the regions as elements of the Yugoslav Federation, with the republican constitution confirming the body of the regions as constituent parts of the Republic of Serbia.33 In outlining the two competencies, the aim of the Blue Book was to highlight the lack of clarity in dual functionality and to suggest that it was impossible for the Republic of Serbia to function effectively across all its territory. It argued that where, under Article 300 of the Serbian constitution, the Executive Council proposed laws and statutes, these must be carried out throughout the whole of its territory, including Kosovo and Vojvodina. The second part of the Blue Book analysed the functioning of the republic in relation to the regions in terms of jurisdiction and law, defence, internal affairs, security, external affairs and other matters. In three key areas, the working group identified lacunae in the functioning of the state of Serbia: territorial defence, internal affairs, and security in foreign relations. It considered that the regions had institutional relationships with other countries from which the republic was being excluded. For example, only once had the Executive Council of Kosovo invited representatives of the republic to attend a meeting about the engagement of an educational team from the People’s Republic of Albania to work at the University of Prishtina.34

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The Blue Book became the official Serb platform for a re-examination of the position of the Serbian republic in the Yugoslav Federation, the position of the regions within the Serbian republic and their position in the federation. ‘The participation of regional delegations at federal level and the manner of their positioning in the Yugoslav Federation also presents a problem,’ declared the working group. At the root of all this was concern about the enhanced constitutional position of Kosovo. Dragoslav Marković, one of the Serbian leaders who initiated the study, later said that the primary aim of the Blue Book was ‘the setting up of impediments to hinder the regions gaining the status of republic’.35

Conclusion In 1968, large demonstrations took place in the Albanian towns in Kosovo and Macedonia. At the time, the Kosovan political class was not prepared to come out openly in favour of the demonstrators’ demands for improvement of the constitutional position of Kosovo. ‘We are Albanians and not Yugoslav’ was one slogan of the protestors, and the following decade saw the strengthening of the illegal movement in Kosovo. The 1974 constitution advanced the juridical and political position of Kosovo, but it did not reduce support for the illegal movement or those in Kosovo aiming for republican status. Serbian policy resisted all constitutional changes favourable to Kosovo, however small, and marshalled arguments in favour of their reversal.

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6 The Albanian attitude to Kosovo 1960–74 Albanian–Yugoslav détente After the dismissal of Ranković in 1966, a more liberal political climate emerged in Yugoslavia, and, under great pressure from the progressive forces of the time, Tito relaxed discrimination against Albanians. The University of Prishtina was founded in 1970, and this was to become a powerful base for the Albanian patriotic movement. Large numbers of Albanian citizens began to be employed in state organisations in Kosovo, where an educated Albanian stratum of society slowly came into being. Also there was investment in basic industries, especially energy, mining, agriculture and improvement of the road infrastructure. Kosovo remained one of the most backward regions of the Yugoslav Federation, but there was progress, and revision of the constitutional position of Kosovo signified a qualitative change. A more relaxed relationship meanwhile grew up between Albania and Yugoslavia in the 1960s and 1970s, partly as a result

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of the estrangement of Albania from the USSR. After several years of incubation, Albanian–Soviet disagreements were made public in 1960. Albania then made approaches to China and broke off all links with the USSR in 1961. Historian Hamit Kaba summarises the international position of Albania in this fashion: Relations with the USA remained severed. There was no serious attempt to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries. […] At the beginning of the 1960s, the foreign policy of the Albanian state was completely unbalanced; interruption of relations with the USSR, normal relations with the neighbouring Balkan countries, hostility towards the USA, indifference towards Italy and France.1 The open breach with the USSR occurred in November 1960 at the Conference in Moscow where the Albanian leaders Enver Hoxha, Mehmet Shehu, Hysni Kapo and Ramiz Alia raised serious objections to the policy of Khrushchev. On 16 November 1960, Hoxha accused the USSR of fomenting an anti-communist revolution in Albania and supporting Greek territorial claims in the south. In June 1961, the Soviets began to withdraw from their naval base at Vlora. China at this time wished to broaden its influence in eastern Europe, and the Balkans were seen as receptive. Therefore China wanted Albania to have good diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia. Archival evidence indicates that the Chinese put great pressure on Albania to move in this direction.2 The outcome was a rapprochement between Tirana and Belgrade, accompanied by assurances of support in the event of outside aggression. Khrushchev meanwhile tried to isolate Albania by drawing Yugoslavia closer to the USSR. His strategy also included analysis of the possibility of using anti-Hoxha elements in Albania and Kosovo to secure a change of leader in Tirana. An American document records a discussion between Ružić, a counsellor of the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington, and Robert C. Mudd of the State Department on 2 February 1962:

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The Soviets have asked Yugoslavs to unite with them against Albania. The Bulgarians have made the same proposals to Yugoslav officials […] the Yugoslavs are interested in the continuation of peace and stability in the Balkans, and for this reason have rejected the Soviet and Bulgarian proposals. The Yugoslavs always looked on Kosovo as potentially anti-communist and therefore a lever for endangering the regime of Enver Hoxha. It was true that Albanians in Yugoslavia were generally resistant to communist ideology (largely because it emanated from Moscow and Belgrade), yet attempts to incite them against the Albanian regime had not been successful. The Yugoslavs believe that Hoxha had Albania under complete control. Hoxha and his clique distrust the Ghegs [northern Albanians] and watch them with special care. The majority of Albanians in Kosmet [Kosovo and Metohija] are Gheg, where the anti-Hoxha potentials in Yugoslavia are resident. Hoxha would always display great caution and prudence regarding Kosovo. Ružić told Mudd, The Russians still continue to believe that they can overthrow Hoxha. The Yugoslavs don’t believe the Russians can, at least for some time. The Yugoslavs and the Greeks are in agreement that the best policy towards Albania at present is ‘Hands off!’3 The détente between Albania and Yugoslavia created political opportunities for the Albanians under Yugoslav rule. There was more scope for the illegal movement to spread its message, especially among young people and students. It began to strengthen itself, moving from small group activity to action as a movement or party. It even managed to issue its own periodical, organise among the Diaspora, and make contact with sympathetic international institutions. The illegal movement gained experience from the wider struggle for a fresh constitutional settlement for

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Kosovo and its influence spread among the political groupings of the period. Meanwhile, the official leadership of Kosovo, although politically dependent on, and responsible to, the Serb and Yugoslav leadership, was itself dissatisfied with the current position and eager for reform.4 Under great pressure from events, internal and external, and urged on by all strata of society in Kosovo, the regional government in 1968 set up a commission for constitutional change under the chairmanship of Fadil Hoxha. Constitutional debates began in the large towns. At the political assembly of Gjakova in August 1968, there were demands that 1) In the federal constitution, the Albanian ethnic nationality should be referred to as ‘nation’; 2)  In the constitution and law, the use of the Albanian national flag should be specified; and 3) The region of Kosova should be proclaimed ‘the Republic of Kosova’.5 The political assemblies of Prishtina, Gjilani, Peja and Mitrovica endorsed these calls practically unanimously, and a considerable number of intellectuals backed the campaign for a Republic of Kosovo, among them Fehmi Agami, Gazmend Zajmi, Ali Hadri, Dervish Rozhaja, Bardhyl Çaushi, Mark Krasniqi, Rrezak Shala, Ramadan Vraniqi, Hajredin Hoxha and Syria Popovci. Meanwhile, the national political movement discussed what sort of demands should be brought forward. Three options were considered: (i) union with Albania; (ii) union of all Albanian territories in Yugoslavia in a republic within the Yugoslav Federation; and (iii)  the Republic of Kosovo. Some Albanians feared that the demand for a Kosovo republic would undermine their quest for eventual union with Albania, as envisaged in the national programme of Adem Demaçi and Metush Krasniqi. Article 1 of the manifesto of ‘The Revolutionary Movement for the Union of Albanians’, drawn up by Demaçi and other nationalists, stated, The first and ultimate aim of our movement is to secure the right of self-determination as far as separation, for those residential areas with an Albanian majority that are still

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under the administration of Yugoslavia. In other words, the first and ultimate aim of our Movement is the liberation of the Albanian regions annexed by Yugoslavia and the union of these regions with their mother Albania.6 Convinced from past experience that the Yugoslav political class was not going to offer any satisfactory solution to the problem of Kosovo, the illegal nationalist forces succeeded in aligning their political activity with the organisation of demonstrations in November 1968 – action that gave their national demands publicity.7 The early 1970s brought a positive climate to Albanian– Yugoslav relations. This is revealed in the conversation that took place on 24 August 1973 at the reception given by the Deputy Chairman of the Albanian Council of Ministers, Adil Çarçani, to the Chairman of the Executive Council of the Socialist Autonomous Region of Kosovo (Ilia Vakiqi) and the Yugoslav Ambassador in Tirana (Jovan Pejčinović). Çarçani said, Our two peoples stand for peace, and for centuries have been in the ranks of the struggle for the defence of freedom and their independence. […] It is in the interest of our two peoples that between them there should be friendship, peace, and not hostility, and they should develop relations on a just basis. This is the desire not only of the people, but also of our government, which has always declared that we are with the Yugoslav people and we want Yugoslavia to be strong and independent. […] Comrade Enver has declared that if there is any threat to the Yugoslav people, the Albanian people will be with them and will help defend the country and its people. Therefore it concerns everyone, and, in a special way the diplomats, to pursue this just policy.8 Albania and Yugoslavia had by now reached some important agreements in the fields of education, economy and scientific exchange. Albania offered scientific and cultural assistance to help Kosovo achieve great educational progress. For over a decade after 1968, there was a relatively good relationship between the two countries, and especially between Kosovo and Albania.

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Albania took a close interest in constitutional reform in Kosovo. In 1972, a document of the Albanian Foreign Ministry stated: The discussions over the approval of new constitutional amendments for Kosova should be followed with great care, and the people of Kosova are to be encouraged in their struggle to achieve constitutional rights so that there is no retraction of circumstance or influence in the case.9 During this phase, Albania was careful to preserve relaxed relations with Yugoslavia, realising that this enabled Kosovo to have the opportunity to achieve additional rights within the Yugoslav Federation. Deliberate efforts were made to ‘repair’ the relationship between Tirana and Belgrade, and this influenced the political movement in Kosovo in framing its platform and achieving considerable constitutional advances.10

Albania and the national movement in Kosovo in the 1960s In the early 1960s, Albania grew more active over the question of Kosovo. The developments taking place there, and the constant demands of the illegal movement for its support, caused Albania to devise a strategy of action that, although not very different from that of the past, was nevertheless more systematic and organised. The period is characterised by contact between the Albanian communist party and political groupings within Kosovo and among the émigré population. The sharing of information and guidance with these groups was top secret and virtually illegal; yet despite this, the interlinking structures of the Albanian state were broadened, and there were many fields of operation. We pause to consider some: 1) Albanian diplomats now included among their priority functions liaison with the political structures of Kosovo Albanians in the Diaspora, their orientation and organisation. 2) In the Albanian Foreign Ministry, a special directorate closely monitored political developments in Kosovo and the

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policy of Belgrade towards Kosovo. This directorate prepared top-secret information bulletins for the Central Committee of the Albanian communist party. 3) In the Albanian Ministry of the Interior, there was a special directorate working with organised structures that had links with Albanian political groups inside Kosovo and in the West to monitor the situation and watch for Yugoslav penetration. 4) In the Central Committee of the Albanian communist party, a special ‘Kosova Sector’ was formed with the following functions: 4.1) to follow the political situation and activity of state organs and socio-political organs and relationships within the national structure in Kosovo and other Albanian areas subordinate to Yugoslavia that are linked to and have an influence upon the national situation of Albanians in Yugoslavia 4.2) to find out about the national and chauvinist policy being carried out in the economic field and the economic situation and level of livelihood of the Albanian population subordinate to Yugoslavia 4.3) to find out about the educational and cultural situation of the Albanian population in Yugoslavia, the policy being carried out in this field, and the activity of scientific, literary, artistic and cinematographic institutions, etc. 4.4) to follow the situation and activity of the economic and political Kosovo émigrés in connection with the stance and realisation of the people of Kosovo ‘on the democratic pathway’ 4.5) in collaboration with the other sectors of the central committee, to assist in the working and monitoring of the fulfilment and direction of the party and duties that the various institutions have towards Kosovo and the other Albanian areas subordinate to Yugoslavia 4.6) to maintain liaison with the Foreign and Interior Ministries and follow up their problems in matters connected with the functional duties of the state

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4.7) to maintain liaison and collaboration with other institutions that have a duty to know and study the situation and to develop propaganda towards Kosovo concerning fundamental problems connected with the functional duties of the sector, without duplicating or replacing those relevant institutions in carrying out their duties 4.8) the sector responsible for knowledge of the situation in Kosovo should exploit the daily press as necessary, the information coming from Albanian foreign representatives, from the Ministry of the Interior and from all other possible sources.

5)

6) 7) 8)

The Kosova Sector produced detailed index cards and a regular index concerning the activities of the patriotic and revolutionary organisations in Kosovo; collected documents and essential literature dealing with Albanians subject to Yugoslavia; and used all these as the basis for reports and studies for the leadership of the party.11 Albanian Radio and Television was told to buy and produce special broadcasts for the Albanians of Kosovo. Its programme was submitted to the Central Committee of the party for approval. Each year Tirana University had to schedule publications and readings for the Albanians of Kosovo. The same had to be done by the Academy of Science of Albania. Trade organisations had a special duty to promote contacts and exchanges with the Albanians of Kosovo.12

In 1966, Enver Hoxha wrote that after the war, ‘the Titoites imposed their administration on Kosova, created an apparatus of oppression, prepared their personnel, organised the party and the propaganda, and began the well-known massacre under the mask of barbaric chauvinism’. He asserted that ‘the Albanian population of Kosova is defended formally politically and openly [sic] by the Albanian state’. This support had taken two forms: ‘the first was the heroic struggle against the Titoites, while the second was the open and brave support in defence of the Albanians of Kosova’.

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He had the idea that by unmasking the policy of Yugoslavia and belittling its image, he could hinder the measures of the Yugoslav state against the Albanians and in some cases force it to handle Kosovo more carefully. At the same time, he could not wholly accept the other activities of the illegal political movement. Indeed, he drew attention to the political deficiencies of the Kosovo Albanians: 1) The struggle of the Kosova Albanians for democratic rights was not organised; 2) It was not led; 3) It is politically and organisationally degenerate; 4) It follows the old pre-war features with much less sensitivity, coming out with the slogan ‘Struggle for union with Albania;’ 5) Mass emigration of Albanians to Turkey was allowed, and the business was not organised in a way that would dissuade Albanians from moving out of the land of their ancestors; 6) Sale of the land of Albanians to Serbs was permitted; 7) When co-operation with the Titoites was necessary, no effort was made to oblige them to open Albanian schools; 8) The struggle was carried on in secret groups that were no secret to the UDB people; 9)  The struggle did not bear in mind that a struggle was necessary by all the Yugoslav people; 10) There was a lack of Marxist–Leninist leadership, which could have made waves and exploited the situations and the combined complexities. Hoxha observed that ‘the question of Kosova was not an easy matter, and that it would not be solved as quickly as some Kosova people of good will thought’. As for solving the political status of Kosovo, he wrote, ‘it won’t be solved because it doesn’t depend on wishes’. The Albanian leadership regarded the liberation of Albanians under Yugoslav rule a territorial matter for Yugoslavia, as it was not ready to accept that the Kosovo struggle should disrupt international frontiers. ‘The people of Kosova,’ wrote Hoxha, must understand that at this juncture Albania can never attack or assault Yugoslavia. The People’s Republic of Albania must never be an aggressor. If Yugoslavia attacks

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Albania, that is another matter. Albania would be defended, would fight and would win, and the problem of Kosova would then be totally different. He opposed armed struggle, denouncing it as a fatal error. Such a thing could not be successful without preparations being made for a long time in advance, since neither daring nor individual bravery would be enough. Revolution is one of the most serious matters and must be prepared. The Albanian leadership continued to regard the struggle of Kosovo as closely connected to the struggle of the other peoples of Yugoslavia against Titoism, arguing that it would be suicidal for the Albanians to fight in isolation against Yugoslavia. The existing situation could be improved by strengthening democratic rights. Hoxha thought that ‘the Albanian leadership in Kosova was sold on Titoism, so they are chauvinist and revisionist Albanians and there must be no trust in them, but the weakest points must be found to undermine them’.13 It was illusory to imagine that the Kosovo question could be solved by the Albanians in Yugoslavia uniting with other nationalities against Titoism, when Tito had spread his influence through all the structures of the state and his prestige in the West remained high. In its propaganda, Albania continued to criticise the Yugoslav leadership. In some cases, Hoxha also sharply criticised the Kosovo leadership, and subsequently asked for information to be sent back about the effect of this. He wanted to discover how close the official Kosovan leaders were to the federal government.14 In his ideological disputes with Yugoslavia, he sometimes pointed to the poverty of Kosovo. On 6 November 1967, Enver Hoxha wrote an article entitled ‘Titoite demagogy cannot heal the open wounds of Kosova’. It compared the economic, political and cultural situation in Kosovo with conditions in the other republics of Yugoslavia. The disparities were attributed to the discriminatory line of Titoite

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policy, a policy of chauvinism, which treated Kosovo only as a source of raw materials and a zone of colonial repression. Hoxha wrote of ‘a period of relative calm imposed by the crises and internal complexities brought about by the Titoite regime’, and described the cultural liberalisation in Kosovo as ‘a dangerous deceptive manoeuvre that indicated the Titoites were cooking up some new tragedy for the annihilation of the Albanian nationhood’. According to him, the Albanian party and scientific leadership had taken up the defence of the struggle of Albanians of Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia, who have the right to struggle resolutely and with determination for the return to their own country of all émigrés within and outside Yugoslavia. They have the political, moral and historical right to demand the expulsion of Serbian and Montenegrin colonists from their hearths and homes. They have the right to talk and write freely in their mother tongue, to have schooling, press and literature in Albanian, libraries, theatres, institutes of study and the spread of their national culture, to have an administration composed of Albanians, men elected by the people and not imposed by the Titoites. They have the right to struggle against expropriation and exploitation and to use facilities in their own interest.15 In this period, the official position of Enver Hoxha differed profoundly from the stance taken by the illegal movement in Kosovo. While the latter demanded radical measures to end the subordination of Albanians to Yugoslavia, Albania was much more cautious, calling only for the broadening of the framework of democratic rights within a wider autonomy.

Albania and the 1968 demonstrations On 27 November 1968, in Prishtina and some other towns in Kosovo and Macedonia, the national movement for the first time organised demonstrations to call for Kosovo’s promotion to a republic. Along with this main demand, there were also other cries: ‘We want self-determination and nothing else!’, ‘We want

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Albanian-inhabited areas to be united with Kosova!’, ‘We want a constitution!’, ‘We want a University!’, etc.16 The 1968 demonstrations also mirrored the position of Albanians in Macedonia. A document of the Albanian Foreign Ministry states: It must be said that the events of November and December 1968 caused a shock to the leadership of Macedonia and for fear of further consequences they were obliged to make some relaxation. For this Krste Crvenkovski (former head of the League of Communists of Macedonia) and Angel Çemerski (present head) have been time and again to the political assembly of Dibra, Tetova and Gostivari, where they were obliged to talk about the rights of the Albanians of Macedonia, as well as their language, flag and culture. In the political assembly of Dibra in October 1970, Angel Çemerski, talking of equality between nations and nationalities, boasted that ‘We are giving broad rights to Albanians’.17 The Albanian movement in Macedonia worked for the union of Albanian communities with Kosovo, or, at least, for the recognition of Kosovo as a political, economic, educational and cultural centre for Albanians in Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav government was greatly concerned by these events, even though Tito, at a press conference for foreign journalists, tried to present the demonstrations as no more than a student movement, like those in other countries at the time.18 It was nevertheless impossible to hide the fact of their occurrence. An American analysis of the deterioration of Soviet–Albanian relations after Albania’s exit from the Warsaw Pact referred to the unrest in Kosovo: Albania did little to curb the previous irritating elements in its relationship with Yugoslavia. The resumption of Albanian propaganda attacks in October and the recent riots of December in the autonomous Yugoslav province

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of Kosovo and Metohija have again embittered relations between Tirana and Belgrade. The USA was clearly following events. The document adds, ‘The fact that the Kosovo demonstrations occurred at the same time as the festival celebrating the independence day of Albania gives rise to the speculation that perhaps the Albanians could have helped foment the riots.’ The Yugoslavs also suspected this. The Tirana newspaper Zëri i Popullit had on 24 November carried an editorial denouncing ‘violent oppression’, ‘unrivalled economic exploitation’ and ‘deportations and genocide against the Albanian minority’. The American analyst thought, ‘These developments make the future of Albanian–Yugoslav relations completely unforeseeable.’19 In fact, the 1968 demonstrations did not bring about any change of attitude on the part of Albania. Much propaganda was released about the position of Albanians in Yugoslavia in respect of language, culture, education and human rights, but remarks on the constitutional status of Kosovo were more reserved. Albania feared that events in Kosovo might be used to destabilise the Balkans completely, possibly leading to armed intervention by ‘imperialist’ or ‘social-imperialist’ powers in Yugoslavia, with serious implications for the sovereignty of Albania. Consequently, Tirana appeared inclined to favour the constitutional status quo. On 5 December 1968, Enver Hoxha made some notes which revealed the Albanian position. He started off by saying, ‘On 27 November in Prishtina and many other towns in Kosova, demonstrations by young students took place,’ and goes on, ‘According to official information, there was one person killed; there were also many injured by personnel of the UDB who attacked the demonstrators, and by the demonstrators who defended themselves.’ The Yugoslav state claimed that the unrest was inspired from abroad. Responding to this oblique accusation, Hoxha insisted, ‘Naturally, we have not the smallest finger in these demonstrations, we do not carry out any kind of agent or subversive work in Yugoslavia or in Kosova. The Titoites know this, but want to embroider the affair.’ He suggested that the shouting of pro-Albanian slogans had been a ‘provocation from persons

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insinuated into the ranks of the demonstrators who wish to give a different colour to the demonstrations’. At the same time, he accused the Yugoslavs of hypocrisy: ‘Tito declared it was their right to defend the Macedonians of Greece, yet Tirana has a right, doesn’t it, to defend Albanian demonstrators, and they call that defence a crime!’ In his view, ‘After the fall of Ranković, Tito did make some relaxations in their plight, the Albanians gained somewhat, but now are again oppressed.’20

Albania’s response to the illegal movement The political movements that arose in Kosovo during this period were variously demanding a Republic of Kosovo, the union of all Albanian areas in Yugoslavia within a single republic or the union of all Albanian areas with Albania. These movements posed a major dilemma for the leaders of Albania, who feared their knock-on effects and suspected that the illegal organisations might actually be under the direction of the Yugoslav secret service or bourgeois reactionary forces. Their fears had some basis in logic, because Belgrade had built up structures within Kosovo through political opponents of the Hoxha regime. Before the 1968 demonstrations, the Albanian state had been contacted (via its legation in Belgrade) by a patriotic group in Kosovo seeking support for its liberation struggle and instructions on how it might proceed. The special directorate of the Albanian Foreign Ministry sent this reply to its envoy: Our legation in Belgrade informed us on 19 September 1968 that persons from Kosova had frequently presented themselves and asked that, profiting from the present situation in the People’s Republic of Albania, complete assistance should be given to Kosovans for the achievement of their aspirations to break away from Yugoslavia and unite with Albania. […] The Legation states that it has no suspicion about these people, but requests the Ministry to give the representation instructions as to what position to take towards the Kosovans because there are no clear instructions.

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The Foreign Ministry urged greater wariness: We think that the comrades representing us do not have the right a priori to trust Kosovans who turn up with requests of this kind. We offer therefore, the following advice: you should be vigilant about people who raise such requests and bear in mind that we do not make any official territorial claims against Yugoslavia, because we do not separate the problem of Kosova from the general problem of Yugoslavia; that is to say, a problem which could be solved by the collapse of the Titoite clique and the rise to power of a Marxist–Leninist leadership in its place. In this context, a solution to the national problem in Yugoslavia would give the Albanian population the right to self-determination by plebiscite. In this sense, the Albanian population must look to the eventual Yugoslav Marxist–Leninist forces for the realisation of their objectives. The document states unequivocally, Our attitude towards Yugoslavia and the Kosova question in this situation has not changed. We advise the Kosovans to continue the struggle as hitherto, to win more rights in all areas, aiming to succeed in enjoying the same rights as the other nationalities in Yugoslavia enjoy. Furthermore, As regards the question of whether we are in favour of a republic or an autonomous region, you have your instructions. I repeat that we are not in favour of the creation of a republic because that will not solve the problem. That will be solved only as outlined above. Thus Albania declared its unwillingness to play a more forceful part in activities concerning the political status of Kosovo. When visitors, whoever they may be, seek our opinion concerning the creation of a republic of Kosova or not, you are

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not to reveal our thinking, but it should be stated that that is a question for you yourself to decide. They should be told, The important thing as far as we are concerned is that you should win as many rights as possible and you should struggle to enjoy the same rights as the other nationalities in Yugoslavia. In this you have, and will have, the support of the People’s Republic of Albania.21 The official policy of the Albanian leadership towards the illegal national movement in Kosovo was not always consistent and principled; sometimes it was deeply ideological, contradictory or even negative. Albania was chiefly preoccupied with the wider political consequences of a new status for Kosovo, and specifically its effect on the other republics in the Yugoslav Federation. A memorandum prepared in the Foreign Ministry commented, The demand for an autonomous republic of Kosova has begun to be mentioned in the regional press, where this demand is fully debated. In many of the articles, details and figures of the population of the republics of Yugoslavia and their national make-up, etc., are given. Indirectly the question arises as to why, for example, Montenegro and Macedonia (which have respectively 2.8% and 6.6% of the population of Yugoslavia) are republics, with the main national ethnicity of their populations making up 72% and 71% respectively, of the whole, whereas Kosova has 5.2% of the total population of Yugoslavia and the main ethnicity of its population (Albanian), comprises 74% of the whole, but it is not a republic but an autonomous region. The document concluded, These demands of the Albanian people of Kosova concern not only the interests of the three republics of Yugoslavia which border on the region of Kosova, and which have

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within their borders broad territories with an Albanian population, but also contain a danger for the whole Yugoslav federal system. Thus, Tito, despite all the big promises made for Kosova, took measures to put a stop to this rush of demands because their achievement would also endanger Tito’s own position. The Albanian Foreign Ministry analyst identified three forces at work in Kosovo and the other Albanian areas of Yugoslavia. First, there was the healthy patriotic force of Albanians who, seeing that the goal of a special republic uniting all the Albanian territories was not achievable under current conditions, made every effort by constitutional means to gain more rights for national equality and to minimise dependence on Serbia as much as possible. Aligning itself with this force, the official leadership of Kosovo tried to serve Tito loyally. The second force, that fought to stop Kosovo gaining any more rights, was the chauvinist Serbo-Montenegrin element. The third strand comprised Albanians, who, failing to evaluate correctly the internal situation in Yugoslavia, stood out against the programme of the Kosovo League of Communists and considered the proposed constitutional reforms insufficient; the leaders of Kosovo called their demands unrealistic and their motives tendentious.22 In fact, this third group was much the largest. Albanian state policy was concentrating too much on the political complexities of the circumstances, and any possible step outside these complexities was judged through an ideological microscope. Enver Hoxha overestimated ideological struggle as a means of opposition to Tito’s Yugoslavia. Above all, however, Albania was fearful for its own security in the event of serious disturbances in Yugoslavia.

The Albanian attitude to Yugoslav unrest in the early 1970s In the decades after World War II, Yugoslavia experienced a number of serious political crises:  the conflict with Stalin, the Brioni Plenum, events in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, the

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struggle against Croat armed groups, etc. The opposing political blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, followed these events closely, sometimes sending their fleets to the Adriatic coast. The Albanian government also scrutinised the developments in Yugoslavia, mainly commenting on them according to ideological principles, and considering their implications for Albania and Kosovo. This was its approach in 1971, when the ‘Maspok’ mass movement took place in Croatia, protesting against the centralising tendencies of the Yugoslav Federation. Albanians in Yugoslavia were generally sympathetic to this (as to other anti-federal movements), and Albanian students at the University of Zagreb participated in the demonstrations. Official Albanian policy, however, urged the inhabitants of Kosovo to distance themselves from the protests and praised the local press for not giving publicity to the events in Croatia. The Albanian Foreign Ministry was concerned about the impact on Albanian–Yugoslav state relations and the possibility of Serb action against the Kosovo Albanians. In Belgrade, immediately after the constitutional reforms, the Serbs reacted strongly and tried to exploit the events in Croatia by summoning a meeting of the Presidency of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia; just as it had been called to consider Croatia, so it should now be called to consider Kosovo.23 Unrest in Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia made the Albanian state very wary, lest the activities of the illegal movement provide Serbia with grounds for striking against Kosovo.

Albanian Marxism–Leninism and Kosovo Political systems usually alter their policies in response to changes in political, economic and military forces. Albania framed its foreign policy on the ideological battle against Yugoslavia, maintaining that this would ultimately help to solve the question of Albanians in Yugoslavia. It adhered fanatically to the Cominform’s 1948 denunciation of Titoism, presenting ideology as the key to resolving all the problems faced by the Albanian nation. This overestimation of the ideological factor was in truth an admission of the powerlessness of the Albanian

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state to do anything more about Kosovo at the time. Yugoslavia had come out of the war greatly superior to Albania in military, economic and political terms. It had built up far more significant international relationships than Albania, so there was greater international interest in Yugoslavia. With two strategic ports, it was a valued and sought-after player in regional politics, and it also attracted the attention of the world through its role in the Non-Aligned Movement, resisting inclusion in Cold War power-blocs. Albania was consequently at a great disadvantage. The Albanian leadership asserted its own ideological superiority, calling openly for the overthrow of the Tito regime and denouncing the League of Communists of Yugoslavia as an anti-Marxist organisation. The great powers did not view this kind of rhetoric with any favour. Officially at least, even Enver Hoxha himself regarded the Kosovo question in the light of ideology. In 1966, he wrote, International minorities must follow the straight revolutionary road, the road of the battle against the Tito clique for the liberation of the peoples of Yugoslavia. The Albanians of Kosova must not deviate or desert this road. This is the only way to their liberation and self-determination. Hoxha claimed to believe in the possibility of forming a coalition of anti-Tito forces among all the peoples of Yugoslavia, an unlikely event in reality. Specific action by the Albanians in Yugoslavia was therefore discouraged by him: Fighting now for ‘Let’s join up with Albania,’ that won’t advance you on the way. Union with Albania has been and is the ideal of their life, but there are only two ways towards this:  the revolutionary way and the reactionary chauvinist way. The first is the way of struggle, all together with the peoples of Yugoslavia, under the leadership of a real Marxist–Leninist party, against modern Titoite revisionism and for liberation and true socialism in Yugoslavia. This road carries the Albanian people of Kosova in the direction

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of self-determination and towards union with Motherland Albania. The other way is in the lap of the gods; in this way, even if perhaps they were to fight, the Albanians of Kosova would fall prey to the Yugoslav reaction.24 These Marxist–Leninist arguments were as much an attempt at an alibi as an expression of any real possibility of solving the Kosovo question. It actually suited Yugoslavia that Albania should marginalise the issue and concentrate on the ideological battle. Knowing that Albania had no powerful ally, Yugoslavia rarely bothered to reply to the ideological accusations hurled from Tirana. Yugoslavia did what it could to ensure that the Albanian state remained isolated. The Corfu Channel incident shows how involved it was in the breakdown of relations between Albania and Great Britain. Bad advice from Yugoslavia to the leadership of Albania in 1946 also helped sabotage the restoration of diplomatic relations with the USA. Similarly, the Yugoslavs prevented Albania maintaining direct contact with the USSR until 1948. From the end of World War II right up to its dissolution, Yugoslavia invested continuously in hindering Albanian relations with the West. For instance, in a meeting with Adil Çarçani, Deputy Prime Minister of Albania, in 1973, Jovan Pejčinović, the ambassador of Yugoslavia in Tirana, said, ‘Our opinion is that Albania should be unengaged, just as it is, outside every treaty and unattached. This is in the interest not only of the Albanian people but also of the Yugoslav people.’25 The practical exclusion of Albania from the Warsaw Pact after 1961 favoured Yugoslavia, because it guaranteed the southern border against any possible attack. The non-aligned status of Yugoslavia was an equally positive factor for the Albanian state on the same understanding. On other hand, Yugoslavia maintained open political, economic and diplomatic links with both East and West, while Albania did not enter any collaborative relationship with either bloc. Although they had officially split in 1961, the USSR still had the means to exert political and military pressure to keep Albania in a state of tension. Along with ‘the stick’, Soviet policy

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used ‘the carrot’ of leaving a door open for Albania to return to the bosom of the communist bloc. The USSR repeatedly made appeals to Albania for the re-establishment of diplomatic relations. Albanian policy and diplomacy found it hard to manage the political games of the great powers. As well as the countries of the Warsaw Pact, Greece and Italy also sometimes manipulated Albania, putting it in difficult positions. The attitude of Hoxha and official Albanian policy must be seen in context; the sovereignty of the Albanian state itself sometimes seemed in danger. Isolated in complex international circumstances, Albania found it ever more difficult to support Albanians in Yugoslavia. Hoxha had no strong or active policy on the constitutional status of Kosovo. He thought that the Kosovo Albanians ought to follow carefully the internal struggles between the republics and seek to profit as much as possible from the weakening of the Serb position after the fall of Ranković. During this period, he never expressed any support for armed struggle as a way of liberating Albanian territories. He never backed any kind of illegal movement that involved a switch from peaceful protest to armed struggle. In this way, he effectively favoured a solution of the problem through the structures of the Yugoslav Federation (prior to 1981). This appears to have been more a consequence of circumstances than any real and consistent determination for or against any kind of solution. Albania was not prepared to stand up openly in defence of demands for a republic of Kosovo. In his political diary for 1966, Hoxha wrote, We hear talk of a republic of Kosova. But the Kosova patriots and revolutionaries at this time must be very wary of Titoite revisionists, who might also play the card of creating a so-called ‘Kosova-Albanian republic’ instead of an autonomous region, just so as to lure Kosova Albanian chauvinism into a liberation of Kosova to fight against the People’s Republic of Albania. Ignoring the fact that the demand for a Republic of Kosovo was based on the right of peoples to govern themselves, Hoxha was

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expressing his worry that such a republic could pose a challenge to his own regime: This so-called Albanian republic abroad, cooked up by the Titoites, could become a centre for Kosovar reaction and for fascist expatriates and Albanian war criminals in Europe and the USA. The Albanians of Kosova must not fall into this trap. They must fight this filthy ploy of the Titoites, who are capable of playing this card.26 Hoxha, in his approach to the problem of Albanians in Yugoslavia, relied on the theory that Marxist–Leninist revolution would solve all national questions. He hoped for the downfall of Tito and for the erection of communist structures in Yugoslavia like those of Albania. This was impossible to achieve, and not only because of the strength and prestige of Yugoslavia. An intolerant ideological communism like that of Albania was unacceptable even in the socialist world of eastern Europe. Expecting Yugoslavia to turn Marxist–Leninist was fantasy. Some analysts, however, questioned the primacy of ideology in Hoxha’s thinking and argued that the underlying motives for the struggle against Titoism were really nationalist.

Enver Hoxha and Fadil Hoxha It is possible to discern an approximation between the official political position of Enver Hoxha and the policy of the Yugoslav communists and their subordinates in Kosovo, such as Fadil Hoxha, Prime Minister and later President of Kosovo. At the start of the 1970s, Albania was trying to improve relations with Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. It felt itself in danger of foreign intervention after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact in 1968, and the Brezhnev declaration about ‘limited sovereignty’. This being so, Albanian diplomacy was very wary in respect of developments in Kosovo. On 19 September 1970, Enver Hoxha met Lik Seiti, the Albanian chargé d’affaires in Belgrade, who had recently discussed the changes occurring in Kosovo with Fadil Hoxha.

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According to Seiti, ‘with Fadil Hoxha there was a feeling of Albanianism. Fadil Hoxha was very worried about the impetuousness of the youth, who could not be contained, and who were displaying broadly and openly a love for Albania and for Enver Hoxha.’ The illegal movements and progressive intellectuals had strengthened patriotic sentiment among Albanians in Yugoslavia, encouraging a nationalist philosophy concerning their right to be free and equal. Fadil Hoxha had told Seiti that It was difficult to rein in this impetuosity; that he had nothing against the fervour for Enver, or the display of photographs of him by the Kosova youth; on the contrary he was the first to like Enver Hoxha more than anyone else, but it was making matters difficult. Seiti reported Fadil saying that, ‘if there were any aggression against Albania, he personally would be a loyal soldier for Enver Hoxha, and nobody in Kosova would stand against the People’s Republic of Albania’. The Albanian leadership always wanted information about relationships between Kosovo leaders and their attitude to Albania and its policies. On this occasion, Enver Hoxha requested Seiti for his assessment of the Kosovo leaders. ‘Fadil Hoxha and Veli Deva are the best,’ he answered, ‘while Xhavit Nimani and Ali Shukriu are something different. When Ranković was in power, Ali Shukriu was in a stronger position than Fadil and Veli.’ Enver then asked which of them were sympathetic to Ranković’s Greater Serbia programme. Seiti replied, ‘There is doubt about Xhavit Nimani and Ali Shukriu. Indeed Tito often encouraged Ali Shukriu’s activity and made him popular.’ Seiti said that Fadil Hoxha wanted to know Enver Hoxha’s opinion of Rezak Shala, who favoured the creation of an Albanian republic in Yugoslavia. ‘Fadil Hoxha was against such a thing since he only recognised the People’s Republic of Albania.’ Enver was curious whether Fadil Hoxha was making inquiries on his own behalf or whether it was with the knowledge of the Yugoslav leaders. Seiti said it was with Yugoslav knowledge, since Fadil had put much emphasis on Tito and how very

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interested he was. Fadil would have liked the legations of the two countries to be raised to embassy level, but Serbian supremacists opposed this. According to Seiti, Fadil ‘spoke enthusiastically about Tito, because he favours the Kosova people, but he spoke about Ranković with hatred’. In reply to Enver’s question whether people liked Fadil Hoxha, Lik Seiti said, ‘They do like him and it seems they trust him more than any of the other scoundrels of his calibre. Word goes around that he is opposed to the Albanians breaking away from Yugoslavia.’ Enver did not want to reply in writing to Fadil Hoxha. Although he had written out a response to him, he ordered Seiti to memorise it and repeat it verbally to Fadil: Comrade Enver has instructed me to give you his apologies and salute you for your plain patriotic sentiments so characteristic of Albanians, whether citizens of the People’s Republic of Albania or of Kosova. He is very impressed by your readiness in case of danger to the People’s Republic of Kosova, because your attitude follows the path of the warlike traditions of the people of Kosova. Enver noted the rights gained in Kosovo over language, education and administration, etc., as victories against the anti-Albanian policies of Ranković, Serbia and Montenegro. Enver agreed that Fadil was right to oppose the creation of a second Albanian republic. Work should be done to enhance Kosovo’s autonomy, which should be complete in terms of authority, economy, education, culture, personnel and state security. Enver Hoxha said that he desired at all costs to preserve healthy Albanian–Yugoslav relations, because by this means he could influence developments in Kosovo. He now realised that when relations were embittered, he could not influence the Kosovo problem. So he stressed that the Albanian government will develop Kosova by collaboration with Belgrade. It will assist Kosova in all directions, especially in the development of education, by the

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preparation of personnel with textbooks both for the University and for schools, and by visits and exchanges of experts, etc. The Albanian government will happily fulfil all the Kosova requests. Naturally, Enver Hoxha differed from Fadil in his assessment of the leader of Yugoslavia: You may have your point of view, but for us Tito is anti-Marxist. We tell you that in these circumstances, you do no harm in supporting Tito because you ease the difficulties somewhat. But from our point of view, this attitude of Tito towards Kosova was not dictated by affection but was dictated by the circumstances that have been created; in which case the question is, should you be hostile or should you be friendly? If you are hostile, it is dangerous for him. So he wants you to be friendly, something that is also important in Tito’s battle against the Ranković supporters. In these circumstances, said Enver, the Yugoslav leadership sought to develop relations with the Albanian state. It also wanted to indicate that ‘socialist Albania had changed its line and its colour; that Titoism had indeed been right in its attitude. Albania should not give this political capital to the Yugoslav leadership’. Albania was currently studying the possibility of an exchange of ambassadors, but the Yugoslav leadership must know that it has acted against the best interests of the People’s Republic of Albania and it must condemn those hostile actions for the path to be cleared of the obstacles that it has itself imposed for many years. Enver Hoxha wished to understand Fadil Hoxha, who appeared to be leader of the Albanians in Yugoslavia and a person close to Tito. In the analysis contained in this document, we come close to the positions of both sides:

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The union of Kosova with Albania, according to the Albanian leader, will come through political means. As is known, Fadil was against the republic, although at that time he would not declare himself in favour of Kosova being united with Albania. Fadil wanted only full autonomy, and in this situation we are also in agreement. The two sides agreed on doing what they could to reduce the influence of Serbia in Kosovo: The aim is that the Serbs should not be in occupation of Kosova. They should go to their country, and the people in power in Kosova should be the Kosovans. They should be there at the head of all the positions of power in the economy, in the army and in security. Indeed we should fight to insert good people everywhere in readiness for the moment when union can be achieved. The matter should be carried out dialectically therefore, so that these things are not done haphazardly.27

Conclusion At the beginning of the 1960s, Albanian state policy was in a difficult position, particularly after the rupture of relations with the USSR. Albania was isolated, and its approach to the Kosovo question ran largely along ideological lines. Enver Hoxha looked to a coalition of anti-Tito forces throughout Yugoslavia. Developments in Kosovo then obliged Albania to consider the Kosovo question more deeply. The period is characterised by the growth of relationships between the Albanian communist party and Albanian political groups abroad (in both Kosovo and the Diaspora). Enver Hoxha attempted to use these relations to influence the political movement in Kosovo. He criticised the illegal movement, demanding that slogans such as ‘The battle for union with Albania’ be dropped. His stance was in accord with that of the official leadership of Kosovo, i.e. that only one Albanian republic existed – the People’s Republic of Albania – and a Republic of Kosovo should not be created.

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Kosovo now entered a new phase of political development. The illegal movement came out openly and demanded a republic. The Kosovan institutions supported this, but Albania remained hesitant. In the circumstances created by the intervention of the Warsaw Pact in Czechoslovakia, it would have preferred a more gradual change in the status of Kosovo within the Yugoslav Federation.

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7 Political developments in Yugoslavia in the 1970s Tensions in the Yugoslav Federation The 1974 constitution did not succeed in easing tensions between the republics and peoples comprising the Yugoslav Federation. This constitution, which resembled more a confederation than a federation, produced great changes in the organisational structure of the state, but it deepened political divisions, especially between Croats and Serbs, whose antagonism had been exacerbated by World War II and suppressed by authoritarian methods in the earlier postwar decades. The divisions came back into the open in the 1960s, and a serious confrontation occurred between Serbs and Croats in 1967. The following decade was a time of crisis in republican relationships, as each republic struggled to empower itself and the position of its nationality within the Federation. The Serbs had succeeded in dominating the Yugoslav Federation for a long time after the war, when key posts in the central leadership, the army and the police were disproportionately

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held by Serbs. In the heyday of Aleksandar Ranković, their pre-eminence was obvious, and Croats and Slovenes were not prepared to accept it. Croat intellectuals published a declaration on the Croat language, which overturned the 1954 Novi Sad agreement by which the unified literary language of Serbo-Croat (or Croat-Serb) had supposedly been settled. The celebrated Croat writer Miroslav Kerlezha preferred to resign his role in the communist party rather than withdraw his support from the Croat movement at Tito’s request. It became clear that the theory of brotherhood and unity propagated by the state party structures in Belgrade had never won widespread acceptance. Earlier, Ranković had used the police to check any movement that could manifest resistance to Tito’s policies. State repression had been particularly pronounced in Kosovo, where Ranković claimed that the Albanians were preparing an uprising and ordered surprise raids to confiscate weapons. Up to a point, the Serbs, Croats and Bosnians fared better in this period; in Kosovo violence was never far from the surface. In the 1960s, economic difficulties, strikes and inflation alarmed the Yugoslav political elite. Vladimir Bakarić, chairman of the League of Communists of Croatia, insisted on a radical re-examination of the economy and political decentralisation. The Croat and Slovene leaders, especially those on the liberal wing of the party, demanded control of republican revenues, while Belgrade sought to maintain existing centralised investment policies, so the debates turned into a clear confrontation.1 This pitted Ranković against Tito, and, after the removal of the dominating Serb, reform of federal relationships was widely expected. It took place amid uncertainty about the future leadership of Yugoslavia, as Ranković had previously been seen as Tito’s heir. As historian Dušan Bilandžić remarks, ‘The question of Tito’s successor was not decided either on a constitutional basis or in practical politics, but, because of the advanced years of President Tito, every day it became more relevant.’ Tito, at the Ninth Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in 1969, had introduced a type of collective leadership with 14 members, chosen in

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accordance with the principles of parity: two from each republic of the Federation and one each from the regions. This collective leadership only brought the tensions within the Federation closer to the surface.2

Tito’s reforms and Kosovo Tito, as Yugoslav head of state, felt obliged to tackle the nationalist trends that were now particularly apparent in Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia. At the opening of the 21st meeting of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia on 1 December 1971, he asked that the situation in Croatia be discussed – a situation replicated in all the republics to a greater or lesser degree. Tito supposed that counter-revolutionaries were behind the nationalist movement in Croatia. Angel Chemerski, chairman of the central committee of Macedonia, said that ‘in all the republics there is an appearance of nationalism and chauvinism’. Edvard Kardelj agreed with Tito that ‘nationalism is endangering the revolution’, while Fadil Hoxha from Kosovo drew attention to the connections that closely linked events such as the 1968 demonstrations in Belgrade, the demonstrations in Prishtina and Tetova, the conflict over road funding in Slovenia, student strikes in Zagreb; all these demand that we fight against nationalism in our own territory. In closing the meeting, Tito said that ‘the chief reason for the distortions in Croatia and in the whole of Yugoslavia is a crisis of ideas that did not just appear during the constitutional changes but much earlier’. He stressed that the directorate of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia had the right to intervene in republican matters, and he criticised Serbia, ‘which has now launched the idea that nobody has the right to meddle in its affairs’. Afterwards, the directorate concluded that ‘chauvinism had radically increased, combining anti-autonomous and anti-communist movements along with techno-bureaucratic forces, and we should use all our strength to disable them’.3

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Great changes in republican leaderships ensued, starting with Croatia. At the 23rd meeting of the central committee of the League of Communists of Croatia, the chairwoman resigned and 741 members were expelled. Many republican leaders were then replaced, a serious blow to the Croatian political movement. There remained the other major centre of resistance:  Serbia, whose close-knit leadership did not accept the fundamental decisions of the directorate, causing open and persistent differences in the League of Communists of Serbia.4 Tito himself had to intervene to impose the anti-chauvinist policy and force a section of the Serb leadership to resign. Some Slovene politicians were also obliged to withdraw from public life, as well as certain figures in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia. The years 1970–3 saw the departure of all the significant political opponents of Tito.5 ‘The recent amendments to the constitution have been agreed and affirmed politically,’ remarked Tito to the socio-political assembly of Serbia in October 1972, ‘but those things that talk about the independence, the sovereignty of republics, and their position in the federation are given too much emphasis.’6 Within the Yugoslav leadership, each representative of a republic stood up for his local power base, so the Federation looked like a structure that they were using for the achievement of their own interests. On the other hand, the Albanian leaders had no support or ability to insist on a commitment to the interests of Kosovo. This was particularly evident in relation to the Federal Investment Fund, which was controversial generally. Political conflicts within the Federation escalated over the division of budgetary matters, the powers of the Yugoslav army, and relations between the republics and international institutions. The sort of political calculations made in the relations between republics is apparent from the ‘Slovene revolt’, which concerned the use of loans for road construction. The Slovenes expected the funds borrowed from international banks to be directed to the building of the Nova Gorica–Ljubljana road, a route for trade with Italy, but the Croats and Serbs wanted the money to fund their own requirements. According to Kardelj, Tito disliked this rapprochement between Serbs and Croats, so he came out openly against their demands.7

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Serbian historian Branko Petranović writes that ‘the party leadership judged “federalisation” and “disintegration” of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia to be the greatest danger to its unity and an attack on its foundations’. Perceiving the federation to be in such a crisis, Tito asked Kardelj to prepare for the introduction of a constitution containing new concepts of self-government based on collaboration in order to achieve more dynamic social and economic relations. The fundamental plan for the future of the Federation was unveiled to the Tenth Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in June 1973.8 The resulting 1974 constitution was intended to make substantial reforms and eliminate the disputes that had been escalating since 1966. Ever more powerful demands came from the republics (especially Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia), and arguments between statist and liberal forces in the League of Communists of Yugoslavia could not be damped down, because the issue of nationalism was deeply felt by the representatives of each federal entity. The mission of the 1974 constitution was to reform the economic relationship between the Federation and the republics in order to eliminate nationalist opposition, but it failed to produce the expected results.9 Within a few years, the compromises collapsed and a great anti-federalist and anti-Yugoslav movement swept the country. Investment in Croatia and especially Serbia meanwhile swallowed up loans from the West. Yugoslavia’s foreign debts increased five-fold between 1972 and 1982. In these circumstances, the Kosovo leadership was able to exploit the internal divisions and liberal policies of the Yugoslav Federation in order to improve the economy, culture and education system of the region. Investment structures became more favourable, and Kosovo experienced greater cultural development than at any time since World War II. Much has been written of this period, Serbian historians claiming that the Republic of Serbia supported economic progress in Kosovo to the full.10 Noel Malcolm, in Kosovo: A Short History, comments on the rise of a new class of educated Albanians, a class ‘which greatly exceeded the number of posts available for such personnel in Kosovo’s still rudimentary economic system,

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though the ethnic imbalance in some areas of public life was partially corrected’.11 During this era of liberalisation, Kosovo was also able to form relationships with Albania, especially in the context of culture and education. Joint academic symposia took place in Prishtina and Tirana, which later came to be seen as very influential in the development of a new political class. A protocol of collaboration between the Universities of Prishtina and Tirana was signed in 1971, and Albania gave a boost to campaigns in favour of the national question.12

Kosovo and the Karagjorgjeva meeting By the end of the 1970s, the political and economic crisis had reduced the Yugoslav Federation to chaos. Tito in old age found it necessary to call together political and military leaders to discuss the state of national security. Such a meeting, according to Josip Kopinc] (one of his most trusted colleagues), took place in Belgrade on 21–2 and 27–8 December 1979. This is known as the Karagjorgjeva meeting, and one of its principal themes was the situation in Kosovo under the 1974 constitution. Tito opened proceedings by saying, I haven’t invited you to celebrate Army Day, but to talk about the current situation, and about the future of the army and of Yugoslavia. […] I have received information that General Ljubic]ic8 has brought me, and reading it I am shocked by the political situation in the country. I  also know that in Kosovo the security situation is bad and it is considerably weakened in the republics too. Later he added, ‘I have said that the political and security situation in Kosovo is worsening daily. Estrangement and intolerance have sprung up between the Serb and Albanian personnel.’ Tito stressed the opportunities that Kosovo had gained from the new constitution. It was also now easier for the Yugoslav leadership to look differently at the problem, he explained, because its international position had stabilised. The danger of

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Warsaw Pact intervention had passed, and the West showed a clear interest in maintaining the political and economic stability of Yugoslavia. Tito had succeeded in dominating the national political movements and, by means of the 1974 constitution, had taken over all the essential functions of the party and state. ‘The Albanian personnel of Kosovo think that, since they gained more rights under the 1974 constitution, this amounts to partial statehood,’ declared Tito, ‘whereas I  emphasise that I  have been against a constitution in which they are able themselves to establish statehood activity. So it is unacceptable that, without Serbia or Yugoslavia, state-to-state talks should be held with Albania.’ Speaking of the impact of the 1974 constitution, he observed that ‘Kardelj incidentally did not warn the Kosovo leadership that they were sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind’ by taking advantage of the ‘privileges’ that Kosovo gained. Even before 1974, but particularly since, he found the people in authority in Kosovo saying, ‘We have no interest in the present problems of the other states with Serbia.’ With these statements, Tito was re-affirming that Kosovo could not get out of the Serbian orbit. ‘Whose are these regions but the republic of Serbia’s?’ he asked rhetorically. Such a policy must urgently be stopped. So – do I have to repeat it to you? – in Kosovo they have imported professors from Tirana who have caused a historic ‘rupture’ in Prishtina, while in foreign policy they have stated: ‘We are a region where we have the right to ratify state agreements.’ This is a privilege, comrades, that no republic in Yugoslavia has, and yet in Prishtina and also in Novi Sad they have assumed this right that belongs only to the Federation. Tito continued, Comrades, it must be said that when Kosovo is in question, all those who voted for the 1974 Constitution are to blame for the fate of Yugoslavia. The only one who had the open courage to vote against the constitution was the hero of the people Radenko Mandić, who said that a constitution of this kind was against the principles of the Anti-Fascist

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National Liberation Council of Yugoslavia. […] You see now, where we have a constitution of this kind, it inhibits our control, especially in political influence in the republics and where nationalism erupts, as in Kosovo. The spheres of nationalist interest will influence even the Yugoslav People’s Army, and this is the most dangerous thing for the integrity of Yugoslavia. Nationalism was spreading to all federal structures. I have the feeling that even in the Yugoslav People’s Army since 1971 there have been elements poisoned by nationalism. I include, apart from Kosovo, also events in Slovenia, and in Croatia, and even here things are not clean. I repeat, I would like to be mistaken. In October of this year, I spoke openly about all these questions to the Kosovo leadership, but without success.13 (During his last visit to Kosovo, Tito had addressed the regional committee of the League of Communists in Prishtina on 16 October 1979, saying, ‘Kosovo is confronted by the strengthened activity of nationalists, irredentists, a hostile section of the clergy and opponents of other concepts.’14) Now he protested that ‘the nationalists and irredentists in Kosovo are exploiting the disunity in Yugoslavia concerning the solution of the Kosovo question. Slovenia and Croatia have some unclear views concerning the problem of Kosovo.’ ‘But when I recollect events of this kind,’ said Tito, many people ask me why we don’t impose military administration on that region now. I’ve thought of that solution too, and Vlado here has responded and also Edo Beve [i.e. Edvard Kardelj]. I know that what is happening in Kosovo is not only anti-Yugoslav activity, but is an anti-state act as well, and we ought to put an end to it urgently. So that’s no longer possible. If Beve were alive, I  would send him to Kosovo now, not just to quench the flames but to get

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rid of the fiery dragon that has taken over the whole of Kosovo.15 The Yugoslav head of state did not have much faith in the readiness of the Kosovo leadership to work with Serbia or even with the Federation. ‘Indeed, I have heard that [Fadil] Hoxha, Hasani and Bakalli and their colleagues do not wish to talk with the republican leadership in Belgrade.’ This was contrary to the 1974 solution for the regions, he added. When in 1974 I was against giving autonomy of this kind to the regions, to Kosovo and Vojvodina, and Vlado was too – and he will confirm that – Beve told me I was ‘frightened’ of the awakening of nationalist feelings […] but there must not be a repetition of 1968 or 1971. The main question at this meeting was how to extinguish the nationalist movement in Kosovo. The minutes include the line, But now that we are being scorched by the fiery dragon of nationalism in Kosovo and also by the car workers in Vojvodina, it is difficult to be perceptive enough to know how one should act. Should military administration be imposed, or do we attempt to prevent it by political action? It would have been difficult to repeat the military tactics of 1945, given the number of visiting foreign journalists in Kosovo. Tito wanted to preserve his image as a man of peace, but he faced a dilemma. ‘Some in the west think that now is the time to meddle in Yugoslavia,’ he claimed, continuing They say we must be ready for D-Day. […] I am responsible for all the peoples of this country, for its integrity, for its stability. But if you are not with me, and our Army, what shall I be able to do in the situation that we have now in Kosovo? Yugoslavia, created as a union of peoples, had never overcome its internal antagonisms, and many Western observers expected

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major political re-arrangements to follow the death of Tito. Speaking of Kosovo, he said, Consider the truth that the leadership of Prishtina, and especially the illegal activists, are well informed about the strategy of the West. Fadil Hoxha has talked about this – so I am informed – with Stane Dollanci, Sinan Hasnai and with Llaza, and he has told them, delicately, so that western collaborators are not insulted, about the increasing number of westerners who are visiting Prishtina and the conversations they are having.16 The stability of Yugoslavia was linked chiefly to the personal leadership of Tito and the underlying question was how things would turn out after his death. The talk of re-imposing administrative and military measures in Kosovo in 1979 should not be regarded as fanciful.

Conclusion Yugoslavia was in crisis by the end of the 1970s. Relations between the republics and regions were collapsing and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was disintegrating. Tito’s efforts to keep the country under control had resulted in a federation riven by national divisions. His visit to Kosovo in October 1979 foreshadowed discussions about imposing military administration there, but this was to happen only after the events of 1981.

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8 Yugoslavia and the events of 1981 The events of 1981 Under the 1974 constitution, the official leadership of Kosovo had attempted to diminish the role of Serbia in the region. Mahmut Bakalli and Fadil Hoxha in particular tried to take advantage of the reforms being implemented throughout the Federation in order to govern Kosovo directly, without Serbian interference.1 The new settlement, however, failed to incorporate the public will, expressed by Albanians at demonstrations and town assemblies in 1968, that Kosovo should be raised to the status of a republic. The Albanian political movement became fully operational in Kosovo in the 1970s. It had taken the offensive and its popularity was widespread, despite efforts by the Yugoslav security forces to hinder its growth. The imprisonment in the middle of the decade of Adem Demaçi and other activists only inflamed the discontent of the populace. A  new political philosophy, a new world view of life, tradition and nation had taken hold among Albanian students, along with a more liberal understanding of social arrangements. This spirit of change did not recognise, did

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not desire and did not accept any barriers imposed by federal rules, republican or regional.2 Two dates in 1981, 11 and 26 March, mark the beginning of the end of the subordination of the Albanians of Kosovo and the start of the process of Albanian integration. If other European peoples feel proud of the revolutions that brought change to France, Italy, Germany and other lands in the past, then the events of 1981 evoke a similar response in Kosovo. Yugoslavia was undergoing the most difficult phase of its existence since World War II. Its economic and political system had gone into deep crisis; debt engulfed the Federation, and the consequences were especially severe in Kosovo. Marenglen Verli has written, In such circumstances, for Tito, and after his death for those who succeeded him, there only remained two avenues: one, to take the shears to living standards, which had been raised artificially above the real possibilities of the true economy of the country; the other, to try and secure from other countries and international financial organisations a postponement of annual repayments and receipt of fresh credits to cover the deficit. He adds that Kosova especially and the Albanian areas in Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, which had always been treated as colonial regions by the Serbian and Croat-Slovene capitals, indeed even by Macedonia itself, were placed in a much worse situation than usual. So bad was it, in fact, that in the Albanian areas the conditions of rising poverty and national discrimination led to an outburst of demonstrations in the spring of 1981.3 Noel Malcolm has also commented on the economic imbalance arising from federal investment policies in Kosovo, which chiefly funded

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primary industries, whose products (metals, chemicals and electricity) were then supplied at artificially low prices to processing industries elsewhere in Yugoslavia. The unemployment level in Kosovo was the highest in the whole country: officially 67,000 people were registered as unemployed, but observers estimated the actual figure at 250,000. Out of a population of 1.5 million, only 178,000 had jobs in all forms of state-run enterprises (civil service, schools, hospitals, factories and so on); and a significant ethnic imbalance was still in place, with the Serbs and Montenegrins, who formed 15 per cent of the population, holding 30 per cent of these jobs.4 Branko Horvat, a Croat economist who analysed the Kosovo problem, concluded that ‘Kosovo is the poorest country, the country with the most unemployment, the country with the greatest number of expatriates and the people least integrated into Yugoslav society.’5 The 1974 constitution has been represented as the final attempt to safeguard and reform the federal system, but in essence it was a compromise between the two political axes that dominated the Yugoslav Federation:  the Slovenes and Croats on the one side and the Serbs and Montenegrins on the other. Although it failed to create a Republic of Kosovo, the constitution did advance Kosovo to the highest status that it ever possessed within the framework of the Yugoslav state. The Serb leadership openly aspired to reverse this change and deprive Kosovo of the limited autonomy that it now enjoyed. Tito never condemned those Serbs who commissioned the Blue Book, despite its opposition to federal policy. The official leaders of Kosovo clung to the idea that constitutional amendments might yet raise the region to a republic, but, given the Serbian stance, this was a triumph of hope over reality. The protests of 1981 arose as a result of the unbalanced constitutional position and economic hardships of Kosovo, and they amounted to a continuation of the historic attempts by Albanians to realise their own national programme. On 11 March 1981,

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a group of students led by Gani Koçi, Kadri Kryeziu, Januz Januzaj, Ramadan Dobra, Murat Musliu, Bedri Deliu and Selim Geci openly expressed discontent with their lot and with the condition of Kosovo in general. From 1979 on, there had been much activity by young campaigners who would become powerful players in future events. On 26 March, the demonstrators made not only social and economic demands, but political ones too, relating to the constitutional position. The communist leaders of the region regarded these demands as premature and feared that they would give the Serb unitarists a pretext for intervention, but the students rejected these views.

Yugoslav reaction Speaking of the reaction of Yugoslav officials, historian Dušan Bilandžić has said, The nationalist-irredentist disturbances in Kosovo in 1981 bewildered, astonished and worried them. Their opinion was that they had widespread implications for the political life of the country, chiefly for internal relations in the federation, and for international relations, particularly in the Balkans. […] The Kosovo uprising dumbfounded Yugoslav opinion, which was convinced that Albanian nationals had achieved equal rights with all the other peoples in Yugoslavia.6 The Serb nationalist Dobrica Ćosić wrote at the time, ‘Yesterday I heard from many sources that in Prishtina there were demonstrations of all the people, children, workers, school children, all demonstrating against “the socialist self-governing Yugoslavia” of Tito, “the society of brotherhood of nations and nationhood”.’ Regarding Albanian demands, Ćosić unjustly stated, ‘The Albanians seek a republic, they wish to join a “Greater Albania”, they expel the Serbs from their hearths. […] Serbs in Kosovo are considered liars, manipulated by Tito and his cronies. […] communication has broken down.’ He saw in this the beginning of the end for ‘the Yugoslavia of Tito’: ‘This collapse

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will last a long time, and nobody knows how it will come out of its death-pangs.’ He blamed the so-called liberal forces that had prevailed since 1968 (when he had been forced to resign from the central committee of Serbia) and opined that ‘The revolt of the Albanian separatists arises as a result of a bad Albanian analysis that after the death of Tito, his state died too.’ Voicing nostalgia for the Ranković era, Ćosić said, ‘This uprising shows that “pan-Albanian” energy is present in the youth and the intellectuals. After 1966 in Kosovo and Metohija, political circumstances were created for the Albanianisation of Kosovo.’ He could not see how the demonstrators could be countered effectively: If the police chase them off the streets, they will take action illegally or semi-legally to gain strength, like all the nationalist movements. This can no longer be stopped and should be kept under legitimate ‘socialism’, which the League of Communists of Kosovo has been for the last two decades. ‘Serbs in Kosovo cannot confront the Albanian terror,’ thought Ćosić: They will leave and sell their lands. Kosovo, in a decade or perhaps two, will be Albanian land if we are not ready to liberate Kosovo again, and we are not ready. It will have to be divided with Albania. We must take the monasteries and Serb lands and leave what is Albanian to the Albanians. This political aspiration was to become the Serbian platform in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Ćosić was unimpressed by the Yugoslav assessment of events, writing, I do not understand why the Leagues of Communists of Yugoslavia and Serbia have described the nationalist and separatist incidents of the Albanians in ideological terms as a ‘counter-revolution’. The successors of Tito forget that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, right up until World

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War II and the occupation of Kosovo and Metohija by the Italians, always considered that territory as Albanian. The official leadership of Serbia incurred his scorn: For twenty years they have followed the same policy of allowing greater Albanian chauvinism and anti-Serbism in Kosovo and in Yugoslavia, calling nationalists all those who were attempting to oppose this Titoist policy of ‘brotherly unity,’ this anti-Yugoslavism and Comintern-Stalinist anti-Serbism. And now when authority is shaken, when the armchairs of authority are moved, they’ve sent in the army and the police to hunt and kill in Kosovo. People are killed in their hundreds, youths, students, girls, as ‘counter-revolutionaries and hostiles.’ In this way, Ćosić used the 1981 events to repudiate the policies of communist Yugoslavia, claiming that its abandonment of statism had been completely mistaken.7

The position of the Kosovo leadership The demonstrations of 11 and 26 March 1981 surprised the communist leaders of Kosovo, who appeared to have had no idea that student groups and the national movement were preparing to make a stand against Serbia and Yugoslavia in support of renewed demands that Kosovo be raised to the status of a republic. At a meeting on 3 March, the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo had discussed the effects of the economic crisis that had overtaken Yugoslavia, but not a word was said about any eventual outburst of popular discontent.8 On 12 March 1981, the day after the first demonstrations, the presidency of the regional committee met again to consider the situation. The Kosovo leadership was not prepared to defend the political demands of the demonstrators and sought reasons for resisting them. Mahmut Bakalli announced that all police mechanisms and party members in community committees had been activated to

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assess the situation, and increased security measures were ordered. Mustafa Sefedini of the Yugoslav Secret Service admitted that in the security service we had no indication that anything like the events of yesterday evening was going to happen. On the basis of the knowledge we have, we as a service are not able to say whether they are organised or spontaneous events. The Kosovo leadership’s main preoccupation was with security and the functions of the police and military apparatus. None of the leaders passed a direct judgement on the demonstrators’ demands, which might almost have come from some other country and people rather than from their own population.9 The state-controlled media gave only a very short report of the demonstration, saying that ‘in Prishtina a small group of students broke into disorder and caused a breach of the public peace’.10 At the regional committee, however, it was stated that around 2,000 students had taken part, calling for better conditions, the release of their comrades from prison and many other social demands. Several students from Albanian areas outside Kosovo were also said to have participated, allegedly with the aim of involving the neighbouring republics. Asllan Fazlia, chairman of the League of Communists in Prishtina, requested that information be given to all social political organisations to enable them to form a judgement about the demonstrations and ensure at all costs that secondary school pupils and workers’ organisations should not be permitted to show solidarity with the protestors. Fazlia condemned the unrest as in essence, a hostile action. At a time when we are struggling to stabilise things, according to reports of the slogans  – apart from ones protesting at the so-called conditions – there was also a slogan ‘Down with the bourgeoisie!’ and people also heard ‘Down with the party!’ He urged that information released to the public be kept to a minimum.

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At this same meeting, Dušan Ristić, known for opposing any advancement in the constitutional position of Kosovo, commented that, aside from the character of the events, whether they were social or hostile, they are very unpleasant for us and, in their timing, quite astonishing […] because right now, there are some who are carrying out hostile activity. […] All the blame for the incidents that took place on 11 March, and the consequences, must be borne by the people at the University of Prishtina. Part of the Serb leadership in Kosovo wanted to use the events as a pretext for settling scores with some of the university teaching staff, a considerable portion of whom were subsequently banned from giving tuition. Ristić warned, We must expect a hostile offensive from all sides, because they conclude that now is the time for action for Albanian nationalists and irredentists, and advantage will be taken and troubles fomented by Serbian and Montenegro nationalists from here to Belgrade. Mihailo Zvicer also thought, ‘We have sufficient reason to stress the specifically hostile tendencies,’ while Ali Shukriu said that ‘irrespective of the motives, the incidents are unacceptable in the situation in which our country and the nations and nationalities find themselves, because anti-socialist, anti-autonomist forces and other hostile elements will exploit the moment’.11 All discussion at the meeting focused on the problem of public opinion and how to present the demonstrations as harmful to the citizens of Kosovo and a danger to their prosperity. Information through local media could be restricted, but there were concerns about the Western media and the likely attitude of Albania. In the end, it was agreed that the demonstrators should not be portrayed as totally hostile, but reports should make no mention of their political demands.

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The federal leaders, republican and regional, were mistaken in supposing that the events of 11 March were an isolated and spontaneous social protest. Within a few days, the national movement organised much larger demonstrations in other towns in Kosovo. The demonstrations of 26 March and the 1, 2 and 3 April 1981 shook the whole Yugoslav political class. The demands of the demonstrators were now clear. Slogans included ‘We are not Yugoslav, but Albanian,’ ‘We want a republic’, ‘Republican constitution, that’s our desire, that’s our fight’, ‘We want conditions’, ‘Unity’ and ‘Down with the bourgeoisie’.12 This clarified matters for the Kosovan political leadership. In their eyes, the demands were ‘hostile, anti-socialist and anti-autonomist, aimed against brotherhood and unity, and a threat to the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia’. At a meeting of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo on 2 April 1981, Mahmut Bakalli anticipated ‘further attempts to escalate things by the expression of hostile tendencies; it is possible attitudes will be changed, perhaps by a teaching boycott or strikes’. He promised that ‘precise measures’ were in place: These measures are not only political but, on the basis of directives from the president of the republic, we will act to reinforce our defence and security forces, above all in Prishtina. […] We have mobilised 50 per cent of police reserves; in other words, we have brought 3,000 new police personnel to Prishtina. […] We have activated the territorial defence staffs of the region, while in Prishtina we have mobilised and armed some special units for territorial defence where we have them, with the aim of using them in the social self-defence sector. It was apparent at this meeting that the Kosovo leadership had capitulated to Serb and Yugoslav pressure. ‘We think we should impose a state of emergency in Prishtina on the orders of the Regional Secretariat,’ said Bakalli,

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to prohibit all public gatherings. […] but the problem we shall then face is what to do when there are demonstrators on the streets. And we have taken semi-administrative measures under which pupils and students must remain inside the schools and should be attending classes. He hoped ‘to maintain the security situation without excesses’.13 After 36  years of socialist Yugoslavia, supposedly a country of ‘equal peoples’, for the second time a state of emergency was declared, little more than a year after Tito had envisaged such a step at the Karagjorgjeva meeting. The decree stated, ‘By reason of the creation of unusual circumstances that endanger public order, the Regional Secretariat of Internal Affairs of Kosovo approves the decree under which movement by persons in groups in public places is forbidden.’14 Units of the Yugoslav army were deployed to defend essential sites. Weapons were used in Kosovo, and there were murders in Prishtina, Vushtrri, Mitrovica and Ferizaj.15 Dušan Ristić said at the meeting on 2 April, You see, the more this hostile activity goes on, the more we get involved in complex situations which multiply. […] So the situation is serious. It is not happening in a workplace or in the University, but in secondary schools. Unfortunately, it has escalated and is spreading through the whole region. In his view, these incidents and the people who are leading them are not isolated, they have their centre, they have been organising for a long time and are knowledgeable, and here we are not dealing with social demands, we are dealing with some internal questions in Yugoslavia, and this is a matter of the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. The protests had brought about complete polarisation on a national basis and opinions that are very irritating, qualifying which

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personnel are which in Yugoslavia – who is more and who is less Yugoslav, and the Belgrade kitchen cabinet has begun to lose faith in the Albanian staff. Seeing that the police were unable to calm the situation, the Kosovo leaders found themselves in a dilemma over the introduction of military units and the use of weapons. Mehmet Maliqi told the meeting, For the moment I  am not in favour of using the army, because a soldier is a soldier, and I  would ask for police assistance from the other republics. Up to now we have proceeded a bit sheepishly in this business. Because this is a big organisation and it is not simple to carry out. Maliqi, fearing fatalities, suggested closing the University of Prishtina. Ali Shukria, who since 1945 had supported Yugoslav measures in Kosovo without fail, agreed ‘that at first we should use the police with all their technical capacities, later holding the army in reserve’.16 After these dramatic events, there was widespread public interest in what was happening in Kosovo, but little information. The Leagues of Communists of Serbia and Yugoslavia demanded that their comrades in Kosovo keep them better informed. When the directorate of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo met on 27 April 1981 to consider the causes and consequences of the unrest, the majority of the speakers took a very hard line. Asllan Fazliu claimed that the root causes were to be found in ‘enemies within and abroad’, in the state of Albania, and in other forces which ought to be uncovered. Mahmut Bakalli said of the protests: There can be no doubt that their character is completely hostile, with nationalist and irredentist content aimed against socialism, autonomy, brotherly unity, and the integrity of the country, and as such, it is counter-revolutionary, with all the elements of dissolution and coup d’état.

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Debate centred on whether the incidents amounted to a popular uprising or counter-revolutionary activity. Mihailo Zviceri thought that blame should be laid on relations between Kosovo and Albania, especially cultural exchanges, the arrival of lecturers from Tirana and literature with ‘a hostile content’. Shukriu attached more weight to the structures of the illegal movement. Opinions differed over the scale of the measures to be taken against the demonstrators.17 In truth, nearly all the official leaders of Kosovo had capitulated to the structures of the Yugoslav state. None had come out in defence of the demands of the Kosovo population for republican status. This is how Dušan Bilandžić explains the Yugoslav attitude: The leadership of the Leagues of Communists of Kosovo, the Socialist Republic of Serbia and Yugoslavia labelled the disturbances as counter-revolutionary, irredentist and nationalist attempts at the creation of an ethnically pure Albanian republic within the Yugoslav Federation with a view to union with Albania on the basis of the right of self-determination, even as far as breaking away, which is a right that each republic possesses according to the constitution. So the putative Albanian republic would also consist of those parts of the republics of Macedonia and Montenegro inhabited by Albanians, with over 700,000 inhabitants altogether.18

The Yugoslav manifesto for Kosovo At a meeting in Belgrade on 7 May 1981, the central committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia concluded that the aim of the hostile and counter-revolutionary activity in Kosovo is the destruction of the constitutional order, a threat to the integrity and sovereignty of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the destruction of the brotherly unity of equal nations and nationalities, and a direct assault on socialist autonomy […] and on the foundations of our

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socialist revolution. The counter-revolution is led by the Albanian position of nationalism and irredentism. In consequence of the hostile character of the incidents, the central committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and the presidency must assimilate the situation and increase activity to overcome it and normalise it. To achieve this we must replace the manifesto and plan of action. Most of the discussion had expressed revulsion at the political liberalisation previously permitted in Kosovo. The Kosovo political leadership was accused of failing to take adequate steps to prevent disturbances. Several speakers, such as Lazar Mojsov, asserted that Albania was to blame for everything that had happened in the incidents, which, they alleged, had been planned in advance and delayed until after the death of Tito.19 After much discussion, on 17 November 1981, the central committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia approved a manifesto or ‘political platform’ for progress in socialist autonomy, brotherly unity and co-operative life in Kosovo. It laid down long-term duties for organised social forces, listed the serious lessons to be learnt from recent events, analysed the ‘reactionary and counter-revolutionary’ content of the slogan ‘Kosovo Republic’, and addressed the problem of unsatisfactory development. It should be stressed that the incidents of 1981 had come as a surprise to many Yugoslav decision-makers, who had not been aware that the Albanians of Kosovo were so discontented with their constitutional position. The demonstrations of 1968, which made the same demands, had apparently been ignored, and some Yugoslavs seem to have believed that the Albanians of Kosovo had found their identity ‘in the pocket of Yugoslavism’. The manifesto referred to the ‘astonishment’ occasioned by the 1981 protests: The distress caused to Yugoslav opinion because of the hostile events in Kosovo is completely understandable, particularly by reason of the counter-revolutionary aim, the aggression of the enemy, its organisation, its preparedness and its links with external factors, and by reason of

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its forceful attempts to completely change the political and social system in an anti-socialist, anti-autonomist and anti-democratic way. Yugoslav policy did not analyse the demands of Albanians for equal status with the other peoples of the Yugoslav Federation or seek to include them in the decision-making process. The manifesto simply denounced their demands and tried to justify the state of emergency: ‘The vandalism of the demonstrators had reached such an extent that our system of democratic self-government used all political measures and was obliged to use other relevant measures to defend itself against an attack of this kind.’20 The national movement in Kosovo in 1981 was certainly not the tool of any great power. It had not achieved relations with any powerful country. Attempts at forming contacts in West Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the USA, Sweden, Turkey, Denmark and Canada were still at a preliminary stage. Nevertheless, public opinion abroad, especially in intellectual circles, evinced some sympathy for the Albanians of Kosovo and criticised Yugoslav repression. The Süddeutsche Zeitung commented that The Yugoslav communists are trying to cover up the true reasons for the bloodshed in Kosovo. Yugoslav officials now have an opportunity to use the fine words learnt during their careers, such as:  battle for further development of self-administration, the battle against nationalism and irredentism, counter-revolution, elements that make hostile agitation, brotherhood and union, and so forth. But in fact what happened in the demonstrations on 11 and 26 March and in the disorders of 1 and 2 April lies hidden behind a fog of beautiful words. The Herald Tribune noted that ‘Kosovo is, in third-world Yugoslavia, the most deprived part of a country whose spectrum ranges from poverty to abundance in Slovenia, the wealthiest republic.’21

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The Yugoslav leadership still tried to link events in Kosovo to the international situation: Misusing the correlation and contradictions of the internal situation in Kosovo (relative underdevelopment, the working class numerically small, economic difficulties, the problem of unemployment, the inadequate development of socialist autonomist relations), the enemy, with strong support from foreign centres in the outside world, came close to a confrontation that threatened violent destruction of the constitutional order and the constitutional relationships in the autonomous socialist region of Kosovo, in the Socialist Republic of Serbia and in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The continuing poverty of Kosovo had led large numbers of Albanians to leave their homes and seek a livelihood outside Yugoslavia, and these expatriates had turned into a significant body of support for the political movement in the region. They broke through the Yugoslav diplomatic veto on discussion of the Kosovo question and succeeded in winning sympathy in several European countries. It was Albania itself, however, that Yugoslavia had in mind when it alleged that the demonstrators were ‘supported by the system, ideology and personality of a foreign state’. According to the Yugoslav manifesto, the events that took place in Kosovo were also attributable to laxity on the part of the League of Communists: Working in an organised and perfidious way over a long period, and without any decisive resistance by the organised socialist forces, the enemy managed to create a crisis of vacillation and self-awareness, especially in some strata of the intelligentsia, in student youth and secondary schools. The Yugoslav state viewed even its allies, the official leaders of Kosovo, with some suspicion, as

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Incidents of this kind were possible for the most part because of concessions made by the League of Communists, and other political factors created by the nationalist and irredentist forces over quite a long period, with the result that nationalism had spread even in the ranks of the League of Communists of Kosovo. The manifesto explained the outbreak of unrest in the following paragraphs: First, this was possible because in our society and around it, nationalist and other reactionary forces and tendencies were present, which re-emerged time after time in moments of crisis or decisive situations. These hostile ranks were encouraged by economic difficulties in Yugoslavia, the effects of which were more burdensome and difficult in Kosovo. Here the worsening of the international situation and the contradictions of the international sphere exercised some kind of influence. Second, it is a matter of the policy of the leadership of Kosovo, which in recent years objectively created a space for the activity of nationalism in Kosovo, that did not allow a clear-cut boundary to be set between our orientation and the nationalist orientation, and between our slogans and their slogans. Third, in the postwar period, Kosovo society has changed radically and is steering its own structure. Fourth, there is the closure of Kosovo from the economic and political point of view […] which has been stated in respect of the Socialist Republic of Serbia and also of Yugoslavia. […] this situation was relevant to the slogan ‘Kosovo Republic.’ Fifth, the development of bureaucratic-statist relationships in place of socialist self-government in joint work, in local unity, in the communes and in the entire region. In personnel policy some essential criteria have not been respected, such as moral-political qualities and

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consistency in the execution of the manifesto of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. The League of Communists of Kosovo stood accused of hesitation in making correct judgements concerning the hostile character of the demonstrations, the identity of their instigators and their links to Albania. The trouble had also arisen, apparently, because ‘Albanian youth did not have adequate knowledge of the great work the League of Communists of Yugoslavia had done in support of the Albanian people in Yugoslavia.’ Consequently, nationalism had unfortunately eaten away the awareness of some of the youth of the Albanian nation from the point of view of ideology, policy, psychology, culture. […] The young generation in Kosovo knows little of the bitter history, the dark character of Fascist irredentism and nationalism, of the victims and the sacrifices made in the revolution for brotherhood and unity, for socialism. The enemy has done its best brutally to obliterate these bright pages in the relationships of nations and nationalities in these provinces. The fundamental demand of the demonstrators – ‘Kosovo republic’ – was roundly condemned by the manifesto as hostile and counter-revolutionary because it is built on the basis of ‘ethnic cleansing,’ it is contrary to the decisions of the Anti-Fascist Council of the People of Yugoslavia and the principles of the constitutional settlement of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it endangers the state frontiers and the independent political integrity of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, is against the interests of nations and nationalities, and therefore the first and fundamental aim of the irredentist and separatist concept is the destruction of socialist and autonomist order in Yugoslavia.22 All communists therefore had a duty to combat ‘nationalist and irredentist forces’ in accordance with the programme set out in the manifesto:

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Revival of activity and mobilisation of the League of Communists and all social and political organisations in the critical analysis of the policy that enables the spread of nationalism and irredentism, in eliminating present weaknesses and creating permanent political and economic stability in Kosovo. The creation of more appropriate conditions for development and incorporation in work, development of socialist awareness, activity in the further development of equality and the joint life of nations and nationalities in Kosovo, and the mobilisation of wide measures for the fight against nationalism. The Yugoslav manifesto of 1981 opened the door to the abrogation of the 1974 constitution of Kosovo.23

Conclusion Yugoslavia reacted to the events of 1981 in Kosovo by condemning them as ‘hostile and counter-revolutionary’. The manifesto published by the League of Communists expressed the opposition of the Yugoslav Federation and the Republic of Serbia to the demand for a Republic of Kosovo. At the same time, it gave the green light to political repression and institutionalised confrontation. The demonstrations marked the beginning of the disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation. They drew the attention of the Western world to Kosovo, and the barometers of Western opinion started to move towards defending the political rights of Albanians under Yugoslav rule. Changes were made in the official leadership of Kosovo, with the aim of bringing the Yugoslav manifesto to fruition. The leadership was divorced from the Albanian national movement, just as it had been in 1968, and this situation would not change until the late 1990s.

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9 Albania and the events of 1981 A history of struggle Reflecting on the broader history of the Albanian national movement, the literary critic Rexhep Qosja has remarked: The forgotten statesman and deathless poet Lamartine in his later years was often heard to say, ‘I have hastened too much and the Lord has chastened me for it.’ It appears that too late he learnt the antithesis, which said, ‘Nothing great is done quickly, not even revolutions.’ Albanians in the second half of the nineteenth century can say otherwise:  ‘We have delayed too long, and for this the great powers of Europe and the neighbouring Balkan powers have chastised us.’ And in truth they did delay the start of their national and cultural renaissance, their explanation to Europe of who they are, how they are one people, how they are attached to their land, and what they intend. As an ancient historic people, as the original indigenous Balkan people, they did not suspect that this antiquity from which the delay derived would take cruel revenge on them.1

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The Albanian national movement from its inception confronted many internal difficulties, such as a low level of economic development, long periods restrained by foreign occupation, a pedestrian level of culture and national policy, and failure to create a united front for national freedom. It did not succeed in gaining the support of large countries capable of acting decisively in international politics. Serbia, Greece and Montenegro occupied parts of the Albanian lands during the great changes that took place in the Balkans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while the Albanian national political movement was slow to build its own state. The year 1912 saw Albania partitioned, and the year 1945 saw a portion of Albanian territory re-incorporated into Yugoslavia. At a time when other peoples were celebrating victory for their civilisation and culture, the Albanian national movement was preoccupied with survival, with maintaining its identity and the remnant of its lands. The activists of the Albanian national movement in Kosovo refused to accept subordination to Yugoslav doctrine and stood unbowed before the repressive measures of the Yugoslav Federation at great cost to themselves and their families. Loyal to their ideals of liberty, they sacrificed everything for greater national interests and made themselves examples for future generations who, with the same motives, continued to fight for the solution of the national problem of Albanians subject to Yugoslavia. At a time when a considerable number of people both at home and abroad thought that the Albanian national movement had been destroyed, it was reborn through the efforts of Adem Demaçi, who, with other outstanding personalities, founded the Revolutionary Movement for Albanian Unity. The moral, intellectual and humanitarian courage of these activists allowed the Albanian political and national movement to survive until the end of the 1960s and then in the 1970s to intensify its efforts against the Yugoslav Federation and Serbian hegemony. By the late 1970s, various illegal organisations were active among Albanian students in Yugoslavia, and these young activists were to be the prime movers of the policy of liberation for Kosovo that was now taking formal shape.

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The intensification of the national movement After the 1968 demonstrations and the constitutional reforms, the Albanian national movement re-organised itself so as to be ready for the new situation. The political programme of Adem Demaçi became the basis of all the organisations and political groups active in the Albanian areas of Yugoslavia.2 It turned into their manifesto, while Demaçi himself became the ‘moral hero’ of the movement.3 Other activists, including Metush Krasniqi, Jusuf Gërvalla, Kaddri Zeka, Rexhep Maja, Xhafer Shatri, Kadri Osmani, Hydajaet Hysseni, Mehmet Hajrizi, Ibrahim Kelmendi, Enver Hadri and Ukshim Hoti took on the work of drawing up a programme for the creation of the Republic of Kosovo.4 The national movement grew and spread in the early 1970s, setting itself the task of penetrating every area of life, forging links with other organisations in Kosovo, and becoming permanently powerful.5 At this time, untiring work was carried out by Metush Krasniqi, who belonged to the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo and the Albanian Areas in Yugoslavia, the People’s Red Front and the Marxist–Leninist Organisation of Kosovo (one of the most powerful structures within the country), and later also the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party of Albanians in Yugoslavia.6 His vision helped construct strong organisations among the people, capable of facing the challenges of achieving the political programme of the national movement for the Republic of Kosovo, as a transitional phase towards national unity. Judging by the documents that we have been able to access, these organisations set out manifestos for the solution of the national problem using all possible means, including armed warfare. The national policy of Kosovo was by this time oriented from a left-wing perspective, whereas the national movement in the 1940s and 1950s seems to have been overwhelmingly right-wing. This is at variance with the general observation made by Eric Hobsbawm in his Nations and Nationalism since 1780 that ‘from the 1930s to the 1970s the dominant discourse of national emancipation echoed the theories of the left’.7 There

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are several reasons for the Albanian anomaly in this regard. Communism was associated with Russia, and Russia was considered an ally of the Serbs. National demands eclipsed social concerns. The Albanian Left had been closely associated with the Yugoslav Left during World War II and indeed until 1948. On the other hand, part of the Albanian Right, which had been voicing nationalist demands, was politically emasculated because of its links to Italian and German fascism during the war; these connections deprived it of influence in the chancelleries of the Western democratic world. By the 1970s, the left-wing colouring of the national movement of Albanians within Yugoslavia was in closer harmony with world movements and generally more efficacious. It was possible to base demands on Leninist theory, which accepted the self-determination of nations. The governments of Yugoslavia and Albania were both left-wing, so it was easier to come out with left-wing slogans than right-wing ones. The extremely left-wing regime in Tirana was prepared to support movements of a similar ideological character among Albanians within Yugoslavia. It is therefore understandable why the national movement in Kosovo gradually shifted to the left from the late 1950s. The activists desired to focus on the national question and did not yet wish to open up a separate ideological front. Demaçi, in his manifesto, wrote: ‘Our movement will accept with much appreciation every help and honest support from wherever and whoever comes and approaches us.’8 Similarly, Metush Krasniqi and Jusuf Gërvalla in the political manifesto of the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo and the Albanian Regions of Yugoslavia, stated, ‘The first main fundamental aim is the liberation and unification of all Albanian lands under their own national frontiers.’ This was the embodiment of a new intellectual political philosophy, Jusuf Gërvalla wrote to Enver Hoxha in 1980, declaring: ‘We Albanians, separated from a free homeland and pinioned by force within the political frontiers of Yugoslavia, follow with pride every step of our mother Albania in the strengthening and progressing of the homeland.’ The Albanian state had become a potent symbol for the Albanian national movement in Yugoslavia,

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whose activists tended to exaggerate its merits. Gërvalla assured Hoxha that, ‘Although we are harmed to a great extent by the pressure of the Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian pincers we have kept ourselves completely clear of the black waters of the Tito-Ranković revisionist ideology.’ Concerning the realisation of Albanian aspirations, he added, ‘With us, the spark of the inevitable battle has been ignited, the will of our people is firmly fixed on unity with the mother country,’ although ‘We are sceptical that the circumstances for a settlement on a Marxist–Leninist basis of our centuries-old and just aspirations for the union of our lands and people can be expected.’9 In his book The Political Philosophy of the Albanian Question, Ushkin Hoti describes the great idealism of the leaders of the national movement: ‘Their ideal appeared synonymous with the good and the beautiful. The world they craved was filled with pure spirit, beautiful dreams, and great ideals; it was a world of universal equality, completely divested of malice of any kind.’10 The national movement was nevertheless prepared to use force to reach its sacred objective: the achievement of its national programme. This was great political daring and high national idealism. In some of the programmes of illegal Albanian organisations, instructions are given for the preparation of armed uprisings. Point 4 of the manifesto of the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo stated, Military preparations:  the youth particularly must be encouraged not to avoid the military service of the hated occupier; service in the occupying forces should be exploited for learning their military tactics, and work should be done towards arming the population  – every Albanian should arm himself.11 In order to make progress, the idealism of the activists needed to be extended and made acceptable to all levels of Kosovo society. In this, the national movement was able to work with the teaching staff of Prishtina University, who had influence with students and other young people. The movement also drew

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powerful support from the inhabitants of rural areas and the working classes. Even some people favoured by the Yugoslav system responded to the campaign and joined the movement in 1981.

Three options Within Albanian political organisations there were distinctions between different programmes. All groups shared the same fundamental objective: the construction of a majority state. However, differences over the best solution to the national question amounted to three separate options: (i) the unification of all Albanian territory with Albania, (ii) the unification of all Albanian areas into a republic within Yugoslavia and (iii) a Republic of Kosovo. Even so, the vast majority of the proponents of these rival aims found it possible to work together in a united front against Yugoslavia. The postwar Albanian National Democratic Movement aimed at unifying Albanian regions,12 while Demaçi’s Revolutionary Movement for the Unification of Albanians favoured the incorporation of all Albanian regions into a single state.13 The National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo and Albanian Regions of Yugoslavia, led by Krasniqi and Gërvalla, advocated the liberation of Albanian areas subordinate to Yugoslavia and their unification within their own national frontiers.14 The objective of the Albanian Marxist–Leninist Communist Party in Yugoslavia was to fight for a socialist Albanian republic of Kosovo, including all the areas of Yugoslavia inhabited by Albanians.15 At the end of the 1970s, Metush Krasniqi sought to unite the illegal organisations in Kosovo into one broad popular movement or popular front.16 In the early 1980s, the Marxist–Leninist Organisation of Kosovo was the spokesman and promoter of such a union. The National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo and the People’s Red Front offered to discuss a joint programme with the Marxist–Leninists, and, according to the illegal newspaper Liria (Freedom), these organisations agreed to form a Popular Front for the Republic of Kosovo with a common manifesto:

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The objective of the Front for the Republic of Kosova is that the region of Kosova should be liberated from Serbian occupation and gain the status of a republic within the Yugoslav Federation. The demand for a republic is just and is supported by all the Albanian people. The population of Kosova has never been able to decide its own future. Its territories are occupied by force, are dismembered, and, against its will, have been annexed by Serbia. The Albanian people of Kosova have all the characteristics of a people and a nation. The republic of Kosova will make possible the speedier economic and cultural development of Kosova. The republic of Kosova will be a great victory for the Albanian people in Macedonia, in ‘narrow Serbia’ and in Montenegro. The republic of Kosova does not involve anything harmful for the people of Yugoslavia and their federation.17 The Front called for national unity at all levels of society without distinction, and invited the participation of all illegal national groups, communist, patriotic and revolutionary, whether or not a republic was their final objective, whether or not they favoured true socialism. This manifesto became a political philosophy, accepted very widely. It found supporters even at Prishtina University. The call for a Republic of Kosovo had been vaguely voiced in the demonstrations of 1968, and it solidified into the unifying demand of the national movement during the period of demonstrations in 1981.18 This opened a new chapter in the history of the Albanians and set in motion the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

The attitude of Albania The main obstacle to good relations between Albania and Yugoslavia has been the question of Albanians subordinate to Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia wished to safeguard the integrity of its territory, including Kosovo; the objective of Albania was the union of Kosovo and the other Albanian-inhabited areas to complete the process of uniting Albanians into a single

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state. While union has long been the dream of Albanians, the policy of the Albanian state was tempered by circumstances, internal and external. From its creation in 1912, the highest priority for the Albanian state was its own survival; the achievement of union with other Albanian territories took second place. In 1949, Enver Hoxha tried to exploit Soviet–Yugoslav hostility by suggesting to the central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that Albanians subject to Yugoslavia should be united with Albania: The Albanian people of Kosova do not accept any other solution and call it unjust, and in reality we think it is unjust. We think that Kosova and that part of Macedonia contiguous with Albania, which is inhabited by Albanians, should be joined to Albania, since Yugoslavia should be freed from the claws of Tito and imperialism.19 However, this demand was only presented to the USSR at its own wish, and Stalin did not choose to pursue it. For years, the Albanian state would not make public or official its attitude to Kosovo. It aimed to support the rights and freedoms of Albanians living in the Yugoslav Federation, but it was intimidated by Yugoslav accusations of interference in internal affairs. After the events of 1968, Albania remained cautious, as a shared fear of the Soviet Union led the two countries to try and improve their relationship. Hoxha still denounced Tito on ideological grounds, but he asked the Albanians of Kosovo to pursue their goals within the Yugoslav Federation. ‘We have continually and publicly voiced our thoughts about the Albanians of Kosova,’ he claimed. ‘The Titoites and the Albanians of Kosova know these thoughts. The latter are glad about them and about the just, natural and Marxist–Leninist defence that we are making of their national rights.’ Accusing Tito of defending ‘super-Serbian’ chauvinism, Hoxha expressed his attitude towards the incidents of 1968 with the words,

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The Albanians of Kosova have not bowed down under Titoite and Serb supremacist slavery, which are both the same. They have fought, are fighting and will fight continually for freedom and for their rights. And daily this fight becomes more bitter, the contradictions deepen between the Albanians and the Titoite regime, whether the Titoites like it or not. […] The demonstrations were a prelude to the patriotic symphony of the Albanians of Kosova. In vain the Titoites shout that we are making an intervention. No! The seat of this fire is within Kosova itself. The patriotism of the Kosovans and their legitimate demands are burning. It is the repression and the Titoite slavery that has ignited the fire.20 By the end of the 1970s, the national movement in Kosovo was very active. It had managed to set up working groups in every town and almost every settlement, despite repression by the Yugoslav authorities. After the imprisonment of Demaçi and his group in 1974, more activists of the illegal movement were imprisoned in 1978–9. It seems that the events in Kosovo in 1981 found Albania unprepared. Judging by the little documentation available, it was not in command of the necessary sources of information. In his political diary for 1 April 1981, Hoxha states, From the reports of foreign news agencies, we learn that today in Kosova forceful demonstrations have broken out by the students of Prishtina University. According to these agencies one or two people have been killed in clashes with the police. The demonstrations have taken place twice in the last ten days of March and have twice been dispersed with force by the police. It was said that the students were complaining about the poor quality of food in the campus refectories and about the neglected economy in Kosova. But as matters appear, the demonstrations have taken on a political character. In fact, so they say, the students were shouting ‘We want freedom, we want Kosova to be a republic!’21

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Another senior party figure, Ramiz Alia, later explained, ‘We were not informed at all about the events that occurred in Kosova. The first information we received came from our professors who were in Prishtina at the time. State organs had no information about what happened in Prishtina.’22 The Albanian head of state wondered if the incidents in March–April 1981 were engineered by non-Albanians for their own purposes. ‘Even manipulation by the supremacist Serb agency against its own system cannot be excluded,’ Hoxha wrote, or the Croat separatists, etc., who found the Kosova area the weakest link in the Yugoslav Federation. Anyway, what has happened in Kosova is a slap in the face for the Titoites who want to give the world the impression that everything has turned out right in Yugoslavia – the national question, socialism, democracy and so on. He added, We hear and learn this much from foreign radio and television news agencies because we have no finger in this matter. In this question there has been weak organisation, but also foreign elements that have been manipulating. External agencies are not excluded, but in the last analysis I think that […] at this moment there is not any interest in disturbances, especially in Yugoslavia.23 It must be said that Albanian policy remained very cautious. After the Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Miloš Minić, accused Albania of supporting the demonstrators’ demands in 1981, the official response from Tirana was that the Republic of Kosova is a matter for the people of Yugoslavia and the people of Kosova themselves, and we have not spoken in defence of the demands for a republic of Kosova put forward during the disturbances that have been confirmed in March and April in Kosova.

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In distancing himself from the unrest, Enver Hoxha said, We have emphasised that we have not demanded the status of a republic for Kosova; that has been demanded by the people of Kosova. We have only affirmed that it is the right of Albanian people who are living on their own lands in Yugoslavia to seek what they believe is their right under their laws. The policy of the Albanian state after the 1981 demonstrations was to strive to send out a message of peace and security in this part of the Balkans. There was still a fear that the Soviets or some other power might intervene in Yugoslavia, endangering the security Albania too. ‘On this occasion,’ said Hoxha, we can once again express the idea that Socialist Albania has declared and is decided upon – that if Yugoslavia should be attacked by an aggressive imperialist power Albania would stand shoulder to shoulder with it. The leadership of Yugoslavia should understand that the Albanians, whether those of the People’s Republic of Albania, or those of the Autonomous Region of Kosova, or of the Republic of Kosova, and also those of Macedonia and Montenegro, whatever happened, would stand side by side with the people of Yugoslavia in the defence of the frontiers of the federation.24 Those in power in Yugoslavia dismissed these assurances as propaganda. In a document produced by the Centre for Strategic Studies in Belgrade, it was stated, The propaganda that the Albanian state has put out had two aims: first the disavowal of the basic values of our system and the presentation of Yugoslavia as an unstable factor in the Balkans; and secondly the support of Albanophil nationalism, openly supporting the Kosovo problem.25

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The Yugoslav leaders, especially those of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro, but even some Croat and Slovene representatives at federal level, now became hostile to any mention of Albania. Two members of the Federal Presidency, Lazar Koliševski and Petar Stambolić, were especially outspoken, as were Stane Dolanc of the presidium of the central committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the Foreign Minister Minić, the secretary of the central committee of the League of Communists Dušan Dragosavac and Dobrivoje Vidić, the president of the Serbian Republic.26 In the face of their polemics, the Albanian state continued to exercise great restraint in its statements.27 No doubt concerns for national security were the chief reason for this. The Yugoslav leadership, rejecting any suggestion of a Republic of Kosovo, laid the blame for the disturbances of 1981 on the Albanian leadership and Enver Hoxha himself. In official literature, Albania was presented as a troublemaker, with the aim of discrediting Albanian policy in the international arena.28 This task was made easier by the absence of Albania from several diplomatic forums. Yugoslavia pointed to the fact that Albania had turned down membership of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975 and alleged that this was because ‘It did not like the present-day frontier status quo in Europe, but desired a reclamation of territory to the disadvantage of Yugoslavia.’29 Despite this propaganda, the reports of several Western diplomats and journalists were critical of Yugoslavia. With the incidents of 1981, the first strong and serious attempts were made by the Serbs to stifle both the 1974 constitution and the Titoite system in foreign policy. Serbian chauvinism became ever more pronounced.

The impact on Albanian foreign policy It was impossible for relations between Albania and Yugoslavia to remain as they had been before the events of March–April 1981. Yugoslavia declared a state of siege in Kosovo on 2 April 1981 and sent in military forces. A number of people were killed

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and injured, and many more imprisoned. Lisen Bashkurti has observed that ‘the crisis of Kosova in Spring 1981 showed that the period of “brotherly unity” was over, that communist internationalism had come to an end, and that unexpected traditional nationalism had turned the country upside down’.30 Although it strongly defended the demands of Albanians subject to Yugoslavia, Albania stopped short of calling for the break-up of the Yugoslav Federation. ‘The dissolution and dismemberment of Yugoslavia,’ wrote Enver Hoxha in November 1982, ‘will never come from us. We are for the stability of the federation.’31 Given the circumstances of the Cold War and the condition of the Albanian state at the time, this was a realistic policy. The country was more isolated than ever following its breach with China in 1978. The Albanian government did prepare a draft resolution in defence of Kosovo in 1981 for submission to the United Nations, but it was never presented. The Warsaw Pact had no interest in supporting Albania in respect of Kosovo. In general, the communist countries of eastern Europe favoured Serbia. The USSR was inclined to encourage Serbian ambitions, in order to expand its own influence in the Balkans, weaken the south-eastern branch of NATO and gain access to the Adriatic Sea. The Bulgarians meanwhile had their own territorial claims in Macedonia. When celebrating the anniversary of the Treaty of San Stefano (1878), they published a map of Bulgaria with its borders pushed as far as the Adriatic. The Albanian state felt that it had to consider the possibility of a Russo-Bulgarian attack via the valley of the River Vardar and Kosovo. The press in some Western countries offered more realistic assessments of the 1981 disturbances in Kosovo, perceiving the seriousness of the situation within the Yugoslav Federation. The West, particularly the USA, was showing greater interest in Albania since the publication of Hoxha’s article ‘The theory and practice of revolution’ in July 1977, and the subsequent rupture of Sino-Albanian relations. It was thought virtually impossible for Albania to survive without a foreign sponsor, so Western analysts worried that it might hastily return to the Soviet bloc. On

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26 April 1982, Walter Makota wrote in the Italian newspaper Il Popolo, ‘The complete independence of Albania in actual context constitutes an advantage for the west as it is jealously keeping watch on the Soviet Union, even more so since Albania in the past has been an important Soviet forward base.’32 The Soviet Union showed signs of wishing to restore its influence in Albania, for the Balkans remained important to the two superpowers, and neither of them would leave possible opportunities unexploited. The Western powers countered the Soviets by expanding their own slender contacts with Albania, a task undertaken mainly by Greece, Italy, Turkey and France. International interest in Kosovo and Albania at this time needs to be seen in a broad context. From available documents, it does not appear that the Albanian state welcomed expressions of Western interest with any enthusiasm. Its foreign policy remained strongly ideological, and, although a few modifications were observable, its reactions to diplomatic overtures from the USA, Great Britain and West Germany were slow and capricious. However, the mere fact that Albania did not return to the Soviet bloc was cause for satisfaction in the West. Meanwhile, the regime in Tirana was being weakened by the same processes of change as occurred in other communist countries in eastern Europe in the 1980s. Albania focused chiefly on improving relations with Greece, though it also made diplomatic moves towards Turkey and Italy. However, the countries that had, through their media, shown most sympathy for the Albanians of Kosovo were Austria, West Germany and, to some extent, the USA. Expressions of support from West Germany regarding Kosovo struck Enver Hoxha as especially promising, given that diplomatic relations did not exist between West Germany and Albania. France, despite cultural links to a number of leaders in Albania, tended to favour Serbian interests. This was a traditional line of French policy, though it should be noted that a number of French individuals spoke in support of the people of Kosovo. From May 1981, Hoxha began to reach out to the more sympathetic western European countries, but he did not expect much from the French Foreign Ministry:

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We note that the Quai d’Orsay in general does not appear sympathetic to our problem and actually does not have an impartial attitude. On the contrary, it favours Yugoslavia. This is not in our interest. But in France we have friends like Robert Escarpit [a columnist in Le Monde] who speaks for Albania publicly and with great sympathy. But despite the positive interest of various personalities in France, her state policy continues as before to lean towards interest for Yugoslavia. Even in Paris, however, as elsewhere, he wanted Albanian diplomats to be more active in cultivating support among foreigners: For example, in dealing with the Kosova incidents: These should be talked about, not just to inform them and persuade them of the justice of the positions we have taken, but, bearing in mind the company and their potential influence in our favour, to explain our political attitudes  – in the spirit of a friendly chat amongst colleagues and friends. Although Marxism–Leninism remained central to Albanian foreign policy, it paid much more attention to the national question after 1981. There was a need to counter Yugoslav propaganda that portrayed Hoxha as a destabilising force in the Balkans. ‘We must not leave the exposition and the reports of our political attitudes only in the hands of journalists of this or that newspaper, of this or that current of opinion, but must reinforce this opinion and strengthen the conviction about the correctness of our policy,’ he ordered. ‘Actually the incidents in Kosova are linked with the question of Yugoslavia itself. We have followed and must follow attentively the reverberations – the impressions they create in journalistic circles around the world and especially in Europe.’ The aim was to influence international attitudes towards Kosovo. Starting from the fact that these journalistic circles reflect the opinion of the governments of their countries […]

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distinction must be made about which newspaper, which press, speaks in favour of us, of our just question; that is to say, of the correct judgement of the people of Kosova, and the point of view we have expressed in support of our Kosovar brethren and of their demands.33 Despite the intention, the actual effect of these Albanian diplomatic efforts was limited.

The reassessment of the Albanian question The Kosovo events were to influence the reassessment of the Albanian question in the Balkans. The mature and considered reaction of Albania towards them made an impression on international opinion, although its image as an isolated country did not change. Nevertheless, Albania’s isolation was relative and not absolute. In the first place, it was an ideological isolation, because Albania followed an extreme socialist policy, considering itself the only true socialist country in the world. It took no part in either the Warsaw Pact, NATO or the Non-Aligned Movement. On Chinese advice, it also shunned the Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, being the only European state to do so. Similarly, it had shown itself very reserved in responding to regional initiatives. Uniquely, Albania had forbidden religion by law, a measure that narrowed its opportunities for joint action even with countries that had traditionally been friendly. Secondly, Albania’s isolation was economic, as it heavily restricted foreign trade. Even in the 1980s, while taking small steps towards some Western countries, it would not accept credit from others. Thirdly, while cultural relations were broadened in these years, they were kept within strict ideological bounds, and therefore remained limited. From the early 1960s, after the Albanian–Soviet rift, Albania increased its diplomatic contacts, first with neighbouring countries, then with western Europe, Asia and Africa. By 1988, it had diplomatic relations with 112 states, but it still rejected permanent diplomatic relations with the USSR, the USA, Great

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Britain and West Germany. The Albanian government preferred bilateral links to collective initiatives and organisations. This policy lessened its effectiveness in international affairs. The isolation of Albania and its serious economic situation, amplified by Yugoslav propaganda, damaged the image of the Albanian nation in the eyes of the world. Hoxha acknowledged the official and unofficial support given by certain Western states with regard to Kosovo in 1981, independently of their essential differences with Albania. In his diary, he wrote, We must likewise make an analysis of the attitudes the various chancelleries have held; in other words, to determine and know which ambassadors of world countries, especially of the countries of Europe, in a particular manner, can have an influence on the Yugoslav government, are showing themselves to be for us, and against Yugoslav activities, which they condemn. And we must not forget that some of them have shown themselves to be neutral. In particular, he noted that some papers and journalists from the German Federal Republic  – West Germany  – were favourable, and after them come the Austrians. We have no diplomatic relations with West Germany but with Austria relations are good. The Austrians maintain this attitude because they have disagreements with Yugoslavia on a few matters, but the West Germans have not. So we must assess why West Germany maintains a realistic attitude towards the Albanians of Kosova and Albania, when it has always criticised and is in disagreement with it. Albania and West Germany had long been at odds over the issue of reparations for World War II. After 1981, where Kosovo was concerned, Albania displayed greater pragmatism in seeking help from foreign states, regardless of their social system. Hoxha stated,

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I think that when it comes to the Kosova question, we should interest those who show interest, regardless of where they start from, so that it can be solved in a favourable manner; in other words, we must give them some signals to work matters in the direction that interests us. Accordingly, Hoxha sought to please the West Germans by making a favourable reference to the goal of German unification: ‘In our last article, by stating that there is only one German people and one German nation we gave the Federal Republic of Germany a gentle signal, and we saw this was immediately taken note of there.’ His government viewed West Germany as a possible ally and source of aid for the failing Albanian economy. Wishful thinking is apparent when Hoxha writes that ‘in West Germany, it appears, we have created an atmosphere of friendliness towards our country, which can have political consequences not only for defending our own actual position against the Yugoslavs, but also regarding the problem of reparations’.34 In fact, the policy of West Germany did not move beyond the common positions of NATO and the European Community, as it had comprehensive economic relations with Yugoslavia and other interests there. Even so, it is significant that Enver Hoxha was prepared to seek German help in influencing Yugoslav policy, regardless of the close links between West Germany and the ‘imperialist’ USA. Of course, in saying ‘there is only one German people and one German nation’, he was also implicitly pointing to a parallel with the Albanian people and the Kosovo question. In this period, NATO’s interest was that Albania should remain neutral, with the object of keeping Soviet influence out of the Adriatic. The Albanian leaders were interested in building better relations with certain NATO member-states, such as Turkey, France and Greece. However, despite helpful American comments on the situation in Kosovo, Albania would not contemplate any move towards the USA. In 1982, Enver Hoxha declared, ‘With the United States of America and with the Soviet Union, the most cruel enemies of freedom and independence of peoples, of world peace and security, our country does not keep,

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and will never maintain, relations.’35 Even so, at the time of the Kosovo demonstrations, he had written in his diary, The United States of America speak on our behalf, but we are not directed by them. While they speak of the events in Kosova and ‘Voice of America’ radio (who are no friends of ours) speaks in an impartial manner, the Soviets and the Bulgarians have not spoken, because they desire quarrels to develop between the peoples of Yugoslavia and Albania, from which they can profit themselves.36 At the start of the unrest in Kosovo in 1981, the American press had reported and assessed events in line with the interpretation offered by official Yugoslav sources. With the passage of time, however, the New York Times, Washington Post, Times Herald, Chronicle, World, New York Post, etc. published articles sympathetic to the Kosovo Albanians by such journalists as Marvine Howe, Eric Bourne, Anthony Barber and Michael Dobbs. These articles reported that Kosovo was the poorest part of Yugoslavia and a region where Albanians constituted 85 per cent of the population but were treated as ‘second class citizens’; they accepted that the demand for a ‘Kosovo Republic’ was legal and described the Yugoslav response as repressive.37 To speak of the internationalisation of the Albanian question at this stage would be premature, but comments of this sort did suggest the beginnings of a shift in Western perceptions of the problem of Kosovo. After the events of March–April 1981, the leaders of the Albanian state reviewed their policy towards Yugoslavia. In his diary of foreign affairs, Hoxha wrote that After the last plenum of the central committee, which approved the report of the Political Bureau ‘On the project-directives of the Eighth Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania’ […] I talked with the comrades about the line we would take with Yugoslavia after this and especially about the question of Kosova. They were in agreement with the questions I put forward. We do not change

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our position in respect of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He remained consistent in his anti-Titoite attitudes. ‘What we have declared we will maintain for such time and in the same broad manner as they maintain with us,’ he explained. ‘The ideological position against Yugoslav revisionism, and the policy stemming from it, we are not changing.’ Although political relations were greatly embittered, the situation was not like 1948, when every agreement between the two countries was set aside. ‘We shall maintain trade relations where they are reciprocally profitable,’ Hoxha wrote, but cultural relations with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and within it also with Kosova, we must not have for the time being. In the first place, because they attack our culture as ‘Albanian supremacist, chauvinist and irredentist’ and claim this to be the cause of the disturbances in Kosova. Secondly, because in present conditions, if our socialist culture goes to Kosova through various forms, it will be limited and controlled by the Kosova Serbian UDB people. Expanding on cultural relations, he emphasised, we have no intention of building a culture according to the whims of Yugoslavia. Our procedure in Kosova and in other areas inhabited by Albanians in Yugoslavia would always be used by the Titoites as a means of accusing us, as they have in the past. The Albanian state needed to adopt a different approach. In these conditions, we must give our assistance in the field of culture and education to the Albanians living in their own land in Yugoslavia through our radio and television. We can go to any scholarly meeting in the Yugoslav Federal Republic if they invite us; and they, if they wish, can come to any such meeting with us here when we ask them.38

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An important contribution was made to the political development of Kosovo by the work of the Academy of Science in Albania and professors of Tirana University. In 1981, many distinguished Albanian writers, such as Aleks Buda, Kristo Frashëri, Dritëro Agolli and Ismail Kadare, along with scientists and publicists, lent their services to the national cause and fully supported the demands of the Albanians of Kosovo.39 This is what Hoxha wrote of the policy to be followed in countering Yugoslav propaganda: The polemic we have developed with the Yugoslav revisionists concerning the tragic events in Kosova was essential because our Kosova brothers and sisters had to be defended and the Serbian supremacist genocide in Kosova unmasked. It was essential to defend with determination the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and the Party of Labour of Albania, which the Serbian supremacists accused of being ‘inciters of revolts in Kosova’. Our polemic was carried out just in time; it was just, bitter, and exposing, and it counselled cool heads and low blood pressure, the solution of the rights of the Kosovans, and of Albanians in other areas of Yugoslavia, on a correct path and with justice. He felt that the Albanian response was already yielding results: Our cool-headed, mature and principled attitudes towards deceitful Yugoslav and Serbian supremacist hysteria have caused world opinion and diplomacy to place us in the right and denounce the political attitudes and barbaric activities of the Yugoslavs in Kosova and against the Albanian Republic and Party of Labour. The Yugoslavs have discredited themselves politically throughout the world, and the demagoguery and all their policy at home and abroad has been exposed.40 The events of 1981, organised by patriotic forces, exercised a radical influence on the policy of the Albanian state towards Yugoslavia. The armed forces were often put at full readiness for

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long periods. Numerous frontier incidents took place, along with infiltration by the intelligence services of both sides. But it seems that the 1981 events produced another alternative for Albania. According to Veli Llakaj, the deputy minister and chief of the general staff of the Albanian army (1974–82), after 1981, the responsibilities of the Albanian army are not only to welcome Albanians who were displaced from Kosova, not only to secure the territorial integrity of Albania, but also to be in readiness to undertake a successful military pre-emptive assault  – indeed even such as might correct any historical injustices.41 Albania, according to Ramiz Alia, prepared a military plan to come to the aid of Kosovo in the event of an emergency. The general staff of the Albanian army, with a considerable portion of its personnel, was directed towards the Yugoslav frontier.42 The events in Kosovo were carefully analysed by the Albanian leadership. The Albanian Foreign Ministry prepared a special manifesto ‘for work with Albanians outside the country’.43 Reiz Malile, the Foreign Minister, sent instructions to Albanian ambassadors abroad to ‘work with the Kosovar emigration, following the situation in Kosova’. These documents were pre-occupied with the class character of the Albanian national movement in Kosovo. According to Malile, ‘in the continent of Europe the national movements of different peoples are strongly entwined with their social movements’.44 What distinguishes them from each other is the fact of who leads them, the bourgeoisie or the working class. The national movement of the Albanian people since World War II is described as both national and internationalist, an historic part of the proletarian revolution, which is allegedly why the socialist order had triumphed in Albania. Nothing is said in this material about the aspirations and ideology of the people actually directing the national movement in Kosovo, so its analysis seems unreal. As far as we know, the motive of social class was not manifest in the demonstrations.

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Another feature of the Albanian national movement highlighted by the Foreign Ministry was its essentially defensive character. It has almost never demanded the territory of others, but only asked for the unity of Albanian people within the borders in which they live. As William Griffith, an American writer, has observed, ‘Albanian nationalism, like Polish nationalism, is defensive.’45 The document predicted that, following the serious limitation of the national rights and freedoms of Albanians in Yugoslavia, they would become ever more disillusioned with the socio-economic order of ‘self-administration’, ‘joint brotherhood’ and ‘national balance’. Hostility would mount towards Serbian supremacism and Croatian and Slovene chauvinism; there would be a deepening of national awareness and love for socialist Albania; a lessening of belief in Yugoslav propaganda; a strengthening of politico-social responsibility for mounting an organised national liberation struggle on the basis of Marxism–Leninism; a weakening of the resident bourgeoisie linked with Titoism; the isolation of traditional elements of the Albanian population subject to Yugoslavia; a new period of social and national struggle; and an escalation in the scale of legal and illegal resistance, all leading inevitably to a much greater conflict than that of 1981. The Foreign Ministry anticipated that the Albanians in Yugoslavia would need help from Albania, in time requiring barriers between the joint nations to be surmounted. Basing itself on this prognosis, the Albanian Foreign Ministry proposed some concrete objectives for its diplomatic representatives. The core of its guidance was that the national aspirations of Albanians should be strengthened, wherever they happened to be, but national objectives continued to be closely linked to the ideology of socialist Albania and the fight against imperialism and revisionism. It cannot be said that this concept really fitted the Albanians under Yugoslav rule, most of whom did not find the ideology of the Albanian state attractive. Albanian diplomats were told to expose reactionary organisations in the Albanian Diaspora as anti-national and anti-socialist. Aside from ideology, however, the response of Albania to the 1981 incidents was positive, inspiring and supportive for Albanians in general, and for

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the leaders of the protests. In its material, the Albanian Foreign Ministry requested all Albanian émigrés to strengthen solidarity with their brethren in Kosovo and other parts of Yugoslavia and to support them in their attempts to gain national recognition and equality within the framework of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It also stressed that the question of the status of ‘Republic of Kosova’ should constitute the principal demand that should be supported until it is achieved, and that there should be struggle so that in the future ever better support from progressive international public opinion should be secured in all countries.46

Conclusion The 1981 incidents were a turning-point for Kosovo and the foreign policy of the Albanian state. Albanian policy became more realistic, assessing without prejudice the actual support of some Western countries for the Kosovo demonstrations. On the other hand, eastern Europe, and especially the USSR, lined up behind Serbia and Yugoslavia. Western interest in Albania had become more sensitive and more active since the break in relations between Albania and China in 1978. The breach with China and the renewal of activity by Albanians in Yugoslavia led the Albanian state to turn its eyes towards the West, and seek communication with it. This was not an easy process, since there was deep suspicion on both sides, but Albania sought closer relations with countries that had traditionally been supportive of the Albanian national movement, such as the USA, Germany, Austria and Great Britain. It has to be admitted that this process did not get very far, because policy-makers in Albania could not overcome their ideological preconceptions, while the West was cautious and suspicious that Albania would rejoin the Soviet bloc. Albanian state policy was coming out openly in favour of the aspirations of the Albanians in Yugoslavia. For the first time, Albania became fully supportive of the demand for a Republic

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of Kosovo. On the other hand, Albanian foreign policy was not in a position to advance the cause very effectively in the chancelleries of Europe or at the United Nations. Nevertheless, the events of 1981 did open the way for the partial execution of the programme of the national movement as an irreversible process for the achievement of Albanian objectives in the Balkans. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia was starting out on a gradual path towards disintegration. The Albanians in Yugoslavia provided a direct impulse towards this, but they were not the only reason for its eventual dismemberment. Yugoslavia did not enjoy the support and sympathy of the West as it had done earlier, yet its dissolution was still some years off. The Bujani Conference of 1943–4, the 1968 demonstrations, the foundation of the University of Prishtina in 1970, the 1974 constitution and the 1981 incidents mirrored more than three decades of struggle for the achievement of the political manifesto of Albanians in Yugoslavia. The 1981 events opened a new chapter in the history of the illegal movement, which reformed its structure and created a common front for the solution of the Kosovo question. This empowered the titanic efforts of the Albanian people in Yugoslavia to liberate Kosovo. In 1981, the policy of the Albanian state began to change, and also the image of the Albanian nation in the eyes of the democratic world. Thereafter, until the end of the war in 1999, the Albanian national movement in Kosovo never ceased its activity. It prepared the Albanian population in Yugoslavia for new and continuing challenges, even to the point of armed combat, which led to the triumph of the Kosovo Liberation Army with the support of the United States of America and its allies, who at the right time demonstrated their determination to resolve the question of Kosovo.

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Notes 1

Kosovo in the diplomacy of the major allies during World War II

1 Vladimir Dedijer, Interesne Sfere (Prosveta, Belgrade, 1980), pp. 371–404; Misha Glenny, The Balkans 1804–1999 (Granta, London, 1999), pp. 522–3; Nicolas Baciu, Si u tradhtua dhe u shit Evropa e Lindjes (Shtëpia botuese 55, Tirana, 2007), pp. 212–22. 2 Paskal Milo, Fuqitë e Mëdha dhe çështja e Kosovës gjatë dhe në përfundim të Luftës së Dytë Botërore (Konferenca e Bujanit, Tirana, 1999), p. 46. 3 Beqir Meta, Tensioni greko-shqiptar 1939–1949 (Geer, Tirana, 2002), pp. 244–98; Milo, op.cit., p. 46. 4 Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994), p. 398. 5 O.A. Rzheshevskii, Stalin i Cherchill (Nauka, Moscow, 2004), pp. 38 & 49. 6 Kissinger, op. cit., p. 407. 7 L.S. Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1453 (Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, New York, 1958), p. 820. 8 Kissinger, op.cit., p. 417. 9 Arthur Comte, Jalta dhe ndarja e botës (Albinform, Tirana, 1994), p. 123. 10 Stavrianos, op. cit., p. 814. 11 National Archives and Record Administration, USA (henceforth NARA), RG 59, Intelligence Report (Cairo), 6 September 1944. 12 Konferencia e Bujanit, Materiale nga Sesioni Shknencor kushtuar 50-vjetorit të Konferencës së Bujanit (Institute of History, Prishtina, 1998). 13 Milo, op. cit., p. 51. 14 Milo, op. cit., pp. 45–50.

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2

Kosovo and the Cold War 1945–8

1 L.S. Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1453 (Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, New York, 1958), pp. 833–4. 2 The Times, London, 6 March 1946. 3 The Albanian government had formed a delegation, headed by Nako Spiru, to take part in the meeting in Paris on the Marshall Plan, but this was countermanded on Stalin’s orders. 4 NARA, RG 59, 711.75, Policy and Information Statement, 23 January 1947. 5 Ana Lalaj, ‘Mjegulla për Federatën dhe Pavarësia e Rrezikuar’, in Pavarësia e Shqipërisë dhe sfidat e shtetit shqiptar gjatë shek (2007), p. 368. 6 NARA, RG 59, 875, Jacobs to State Department, 16 August 1945, p. 8. 7 NARA, RG 59, 875, Jacobs to State Department, 16 August 1945, pp. 16, 28–9. 8 NARA, RG 59, 711.75, Policy and Information Statement, 23 January 1947. 9 Vladimir Dedijer, Novi Prilozu za bijografiju J.B. Tita (RAD, Belgrade, 1984) vol. 3, p. 164. 10 Enver Hoxha, Titistët (‘8 Nëntori’, Tirana, 1982). 11 Beqir Meta, Tensioni greko-shqiptar 1939–1949 (Koçi, Tirana, 2002). 12 Hamit Kaba, Shqipëria në rrjedhën e Luftës së Ftohtë, studime dhe dokumente (Botimpex, Tirana, 2007), pp. 152–3. 13 Miscarriage of Justice – The Corfu Channel case (The Albanian Society). 14 Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry (1945), File 50, ff. 2–4; Ana Lalaj, Pavarësia (2007), p. 343. 15 Russian State Archives for Socio-Political History, Note of conversation between Stalin and Tito, 27 May 1946. 16 Hoxha, Titistët, pp. 250–1. 17 L.J. Gibianksi, ‘Ideja e bashkimit ballkanik dhe planet e realizimit të tij në vitet 40 të shekullit XX’, Vaprosij Historij (Moscow, 2001), no.  11–12, pp. 17–18. 18 Dedijer, op. cit. (1984) vol. 3, p. 19. 19 Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, Note of conversation between Stalin and Tito, 27 May 1946, pp. 22–3. 20 Idem., p. 26. 21 Vladimir Dedijer, Marrëdhëniet jugosllavo-shqiptare 1939–1948 (Meduar, Tirana, 2005), p. 140. 22 Gibianksi, op. cit. 23 Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP, Radiogram and letters on Hoxha’s visit to Belgrade, June 1946. 24 Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry (1946), File B/V-2. 25 Dedijer, op. cit. (2005), pp. 140–2. 26 Meta, op. cit. (2002), pp. 517–19. 27 Dedijer, op. cit. (2005), pp. 933–4. 28 Islam Lauka & Eshref Ymeri (eds), Shqipëria në dokumentet e arkivave ruse (Toena, Tirana, 2006), pp. 120–30. 29 Ndreqi Plasari & Luan Malltezi (eds), Marrëdhëniet shqiptarojugosllave 1945–1948 (Tirana, 1996). 30 Lauka & Ymeri, op.cit., pp. 127–8. 31 Gibianksi, op. cit., p. 51.

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34 35 36 37 38

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Russian State Archives of Socio-Political History, Note of conversation between Gjergja and Chuvakhin on Kosovo-Metohija, 25 July 1946, pp. 315–17. Russian State Archives of Socio-Political History, Note by Chuvakhin of conversation on Albanian-Yugoslav economic and financial relations, 3 May 1947, pp. 435–7. Plasari & Malltezi, op. cit., p. 117. Lauka & Ymeri, op. cit., p. 153. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP, Notes of talks between Hoxha and Zlatić, 4 July–5 December 1947. Lauka & Ymeri, op. cit., pp. 153–4. Nako Spiru was reported to have committed suicide in 1947. Russian State Archives of Socio-Political History, Chuvakhin to Molotov, 17 October 1948, p. 629.

3 Kosovo in Albanian–Yugoslav relations 1948–60 1 A meeting of the Cominform held in Bucharest on 28 June 1948 approved a resolution that castigated the Yugoslav communist party as ‘a party of kulaks’, with ‘nationalist and micro-bourgeois leadership that carries out policies hostile to the Soviet Union’. It was said to have abandoned the position of the working class, deserted the Marxist theory of class war, and changed Yugoslavia into an imperialist colony. The resolution ended with a call to ‘healthy forces’ in the Yugoslav party to change the leadership. Almost all the communist parties gave unreserved approval to this resolution and supported the complete isolation of Yugoslavia. See Branko Petranović & Momcilo Zecević (eds), Jugoslavija 1918–1984 (RAD, Belgrade, 1985), pp. 765–9. 2 NARA, 875.00, Cannon to Secretary of State, 24 December 1948. 3 Nina Smirnova, Historia e Shqipërisë gjatë shekullit XX (Ideart, Tirana, 2004), p. 332. 4 The Cominform (1994), p. 93. 5 The Cominform (1994); Dedijer, Novi prilozi za biografiju Josip Broz Tita (1984), p. 933. 6 Russian State Archives of Socio-Political History, Chuvakin to Molotov, 17 October 1948, pp. 628–9. 7 Branko Petranović, ‘Kosovo u jugoslovensko-albanskim odnosima i projekt balkanske federacije 1945–1948’ in Srbi i Albanci u XX veku (1991), p. 393. 8 Islam Lauka & Ymeri Eshref, Libri i bardhë [ The White Book] (Belgrade, 1961), p. 39. 9 A nationalist anti-communist resistance group in Albania during World War II. 10 Libri i bardhë, p. 40. 11 Marrëdhëniet jugosllavo-shqiptare 1939–1948 (Meduar, Tirana, 2005), p. 211. 12 Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP (1948). 13 Central Archives of Albania, File A/6a, k. 1, no. 13, Plans and analysis of representatives in Belgrade.

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40 41

42 43 44 45 46

Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP, Note from the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Yugoslav envoy, 1 July 1948. Central Archives of Albania, File A/6a, k.1, no. 13, p. 46, Plans and analysis of representative in Belgrade, 10 February 1949. Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP, Bashkimi newspaper, 21 August 1947. Central Archives of Albania (1966), File 186, pp. 3, 9–12. Smirnova, op. cit., p. 345. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP (1949), File 1, pp. 5–7. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP (1949), File 1, p. 1. Russian State Archives of Socio-Political History, Shehu to Kishinjevski, 3 April 1950, pp. 16–22. NARA, State Department, 6 July 1953. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP (1949), File 2, pp. 1–2. NARA, State Department policy document on Albania, 21 September 1949. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP (1949), File 2, p. 3. Archives of Yugoslavia, Central Committee of the LKJ, p. 504, IX, 1/1-135 1/1 163 1/1 164. Lauka & Ymeri, op. cit., pp. 204–5. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP (1949), File 2, p. 3. Russian State Archives of Socio-Political History, Diary of A.J. Vyshinsky, 22 March 1949, pp. 63–5. Stavri Dajo, ‘Politika e fuqive të mëdha ndaj Shqipërisë pas konfliktit shqiptaro jugosllav 1948–1949’, Studime historike (Tirana), p. 61. Paskal Milo, ‘Sali Berisha nuk ka mundësi ta bashkojë Kosovën me Shqipërinë’, Koha jonë, Tirana, 26 September 1995. Stavri Dajo, Istorika Mathiata (Mësimet historike), Macedonia, 19 July 1998. NARA 875.00, US Embassy (Belgrade) to State Department, 1949. Politika, Belgrade, 15 June 1949. Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1959), File 83, doc. 1, p. 7. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP (1951), File 423, p. 9. Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry, 1951, File 249/b7-2c, pp. 1–8. Beqir Meta, Shqipëria dhe Greqia 1949–1990  – Paqja e vështirë (Koçi, Tirana, 2004). Russian State Archives of Contemporary History, Institute of Balkan Studies, Note of conversation between Krillov and Hoxha, 9 July 1956, no. 1, pp. 89–94. Smirnova, op. cit., p. 365. Russian State Archives of Contemporary History, Institute of Balkan Studies, Note of conversation between Levichkin and Ajtić on Albanian-Yugoslav relations, 7 December 1955, no. 2, p. 75. Valentina Duka, Histori e Shqipërisë 1912–2000 (Kristalina KH, Tirana, 2007), p. 267. Russian State Archives of Contemporary History, Institute of Balkan Studies, Note of conversation of Levichkin and Shehu, 1 July 1954, no. 1, p. 23. Libri i bardhë, p. 71. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP, File 6, d. 1, 19 May 1959. Russian State Archives of Contemporary History, Institute of Balkan Studies, Clarification of Soviet embassy on relations of Albania with Yugoslavia and Greece, 31 July 1962, no. 2, pp. 310–24.

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Russian State Archives of Contemporary History, Institute of Balkan Studies, Bespallov (Tirana) to Soviet Foreign Ministry, 31 July 1961, p. 5, op. 49, d. 409, pp. 55–7.

4 The constitutional position of Kosovo 1945–74 1 2 3 4 5 6

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14 15 16 17

18 19 20

Dedijer, op. cit., pp. 158–60; Hakif Bajrami, Kosovo prej Bujanit në Kaçanik (ETMM i Kosovës, Prishtina, 1997), pp. 238–9. Noel Malcolm, Kosovo:  A  Short History (Macmillan, London, 1998), p. 315. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP (1949), d. 1, p. 7. Central committee of the PPSH to the central committee of the CPSU, 1949; Enver Hoxha, op. cit. Dedijer, op. cit., pp. 168–9. Hajredin Hoxha, ‘Proces nacionalne afirmacije albanske nacionalnost u Jugoslaviju’, doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Philosophy (1973), pp. 252–3. Kurtesh Salihu, Lindja, zhvillimi, pozita dhe aspektet e autonomitetit të KSA të Kosovës në Jugosllavinë socialiste (ETMM i KSA të Kosovës, Prishtina, 1984), p. 30. Constitution of the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 1946; Branko Petranović & Momčilo Zecević (eds), Jugoslovenski federalizam  – Ideje e stvarnost 1943–1986 (Prosveta, Belgrade, 1987), p. 225. Edvard Kardelj, Sistemi politik i vetëqeverisjes socialiste (Rilindja, Prishtina, 1982), p. 215. Edvard Kardelj, Kujtime (Rilindja, Prishtina, 1982), p. 78. Esat Stavileci, Vazhdimësia e mendimit për Kosovën dhe çështjen shqiptare (Lidhja Shqiptare në Botë, Prishtina-Tirana-Tetova, 2001), p. 21. Salihu, op. cit., p. 33. Salihu, op. cit., pp. 40–1. Archives of Kosovo, Class ANDM, Public Prosecution Office of Kosovo and Metohija, k.  no.  99/45, 11 September 1945, Provincial Court of Kosovo and Metohija, Prizren, indictment against Halim Spahia and other members of the Central Committee of National Democratic Organisation; Public Prosecution Office of Kosovo and Metohija, 13 July 1946, Prizren, indictment against Marije Shllaku and other members of the National Democratic Organisation; Public Prosecution Office of Kosovo and Metohija, no. 6/47, 12 April 1947, Prishtina, indictment of the Prishtina County Court against Ukë Sadiku, Ajet Gërguri, Gjon Serreqi and other members of the Albanian National Democratic Movement. Dušan Bilandžic, Historija Socijalisticke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, Glavni procesi 1918–1985 (Školska Knjiga, Zagreb, 1985), p. 262. Narodni odbor Autonomne Kosovsko-metohijske oblasti 1943–1953 (1955), p. 837. Salihu, op. cit., p. 44. Archives of the regional committee, Minutes of a meeting of the secretariat of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, 2 September & 18 October 1961. Salihu, op. cit., p. 48. Stavileci, op. cit., p. 24. Bilandžic, op. cit.

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NOTES TO PAGES 75–83 21

22 23

24 25

26

5

Malcolm, op. cit., p. 337; Marenglen Verli, Ekonomia e Kosovës në vargonjtë e politikës jugosllave 1945–1990 (Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë, Tirana, 2000). Dedijer, op. cit., p. 163. Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, g. 3, k. 2a/40 (1967), discussion of Tito with delegation of Kosovo and Metohija, 23 February 1967, & g. 3, k. 2a/37 (1967), discussion of Kardelj with delegation of Kosovo and Metohija, 21 March 1967. Amendment XVIII (point 2)  of the Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Rilindja, Prishtina, 19 August 1968; Information bulletin of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, Prishtina, September 1968. Edvard Kardelj, Kombi e marrëdhëniet ndërnacionale (Rilindja, Prishtina, 1982), pp. 471–2 & 482.

Disputes over the 1974 constitution

1 Branko Petranović & Momcilo Zecević (eds), Jugoslavija 1918–1984 (RAD, Belgrade, 1985), pp. 121–44 & 546. 2 Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, Box 51, Group 7. 127/55a, evaluation of UDB and state security deformations, September 1966. 3 Srbija i albanci, pregled politike Srbije prema albancima od 1944 do 1989 (Ljubljana, 1989), p. 78. 4 Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, unit 1/21, no.  409/5, 4.  XI 1971, minutes of the International Relations Commission of the regional committee, July 1971. 5 Malcolm, op. cit., p. 339; Central Archives of Albania, Class 10–11 (1971), File 174, p. 27. 6 Ethem Çeku, Mendimi politik i lëvizjes ilegale në Kosovë 1945–1981 (Brezi’81, Prishtinë, 2004). 7 Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, Demaçi file; Verli, op. cit., pp. 183–92. 8 Hakif Bajrami, Shpërngulja e shqiptarëve në Turqi (Prishtina, 1997). 9 Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, k.  51, gr. 7–127/5a, 7th Session, 12 January 1968; see also k. 51, g. 7. 127/55a, evaluation of UDB and state security deformations, September 1966. 10 Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, k. 23, joint meeting of the regional committee with the commission of the committee on the international movement of workers, 29 January 1968. 11 Rilindja, Prishtina, 19 August 1968; Information bulletin of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, September 1968, Archives of Kosovo. 12 Miloš Mišović, Ko je tražio republiku (Narodna knjiga, Belgrade, 1987), p. 136.

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NOTES TO PAGES 83–96 13 14

15 16

17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

183

Information bulletin of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, September 1968, Archives of Kosovo. Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, minutes of regional committee, 13 January 1970. Mišović, op. cit., pp. 212–13. Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo, extended meeting of the chairmanship of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, 16 September 1968. Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo, 1971, p. 3. Loc. cit. Jadranka Rodić, Osnovni pokazitelji dostignutog nivoa privredne razvijenosti SAP Kosovo, Sazev Ekonomista SAP Kosovo, ‘Problemi i mogucnosti brzog razvoja nedovoljno ravzijenih podrucja Jugoslavije’ (Prishtina, 1987), p. 147. Ismet Gucia, Burimet natyrore si faktori i zhvillimit ekonomik të Kosovës (Prishtina, 1982), p. 75. Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo (1971), pp. 5, 7, 36–7. Dobrica Ćosić, Kosovo 1956–1995 (Novosti AD, Belgrade, 2004), pp. 20–1. Zdravko Vuković (ed.), Od deformacije SDB do maspoka i liberalizma, moj stenografski zapisi 1966–1972 (Narodna Knjiga, Belgrade). Archives of Yugoslavia, central committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, 29th session of the central committee of the League of Communists of Serbia, 14 May 1971, p. 15. Branko Horvat, Kosovsko pitanje (Globus, Zagreb, 1988), pp. 94–5. Bilandžić, op. cit., p. 354. Mišović, op. cit., pp. 9–15. NARA, Intelligence and Research Section, Department of State, Memo. by Thomas L. Hughes, 2 January 1969. Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists, 25 March 1970, no. 18, pp. 6–7. Ćosić, op. cit. Interview with Branko Mihajlović and Dragoslav Marković on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 27 February 2008. Petrit Imami, Srbi i Albanci (FreeB92, Belgrade, 2000), p. 320. ‘The Blue Book’, p. 9. Ibid., p. 50. Interview with Dragoslav Marković, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 27 February 2008.

6 The Albanian attitude to Kosovo 1960–74 1 Kaba, Shqipëria në rrjedhën e luftës së ftohtë (Botimpex, Tirana, 2007), pp. 164–5. 2 NARA, US Ambassador in Paris to State Department, 21 October 1968; Enver Hoxha, Ditari politik për çështje ndërkombëtare 1970–1971 (‘8 Nëntori’, Tirana), p. 432.

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NOTES TO PAGES 97–126 3 NARA, 767.00, Conversation with Counsellor of Yugoslav Embassy in USA, 2 February 1962. 4 Archives of Kosovo, regional committee of the League of Communists of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, g. 3, k. 2a/40 (1967), Discussion of Kardelj with delegation of Kosovo and Metohija, 21 March 1967. 5 Archives of Kosovo, Information bulletin, Prishtina, September 1968. 6 Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, Demaçi file. 7 Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, Indictment against Osman Dumoshi and other members of the LBRSH, 7 April 1969. 8 Central Archives of Albania, Class 890, File 230, p. 54. 9 Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry, File b8/2 (1972), no. 636, p. 10. 10 Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry., File b7/2d (1970), no. 581, p. 7. 11 Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1966), File 171, p. 10. 12 Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1966). 13 Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1966), File 185, pp. 12–19. 14 Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1970–71), File 387, p. 1. 15 Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1967), File 19, pp. 15–20. 16 Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, Indictment against Osman Dumoshi and other members of the LRBSH, 7 April 1969. 17 Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry (1971), File 643, p. 14. 18 Enver Hoxha, Ditari politik për çështje ndërkombëtare 1968–1969 (‘8 Nëntori’, Tirana), p. 327. 19 NARA, Intelligence and Research Section, Department of State, Memo. by Thomas L. Hughes, 2 January 1969. 20 Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1968), File 238, pp. 1–8. 21 Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry (1968), File b/7-2/b, no.  360, pp. 1–2. 22 Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry (1969), File b/7-2/b, no.  461, pp. 2–3. 23 Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry (1978), File b7/2, no.  1,366, pp. 2–3. 24 Enver Hoxha, Ditari politik për çështje ndërkombëtare 1966–1967, pp. 146–47. 25 Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry, Class 870 (1973), File 230, p. 10. 26 Enver Hoxha, Ditari politik për çështje ndërkombëtare 1966–1967 (‘8 Nëntori’, Tirana), p. 147. 27 Central Archives of Albania, Section 10/AP (1970–1), Dossier 387/1, pp. 1–16.

7

Political developments in Yugoslavia in the 1970s

1 Misha Glenny, The Balkans 1804–1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers (Granta, London, 1999), p. 581. 2 Dušan Bilandžić, Historija Socijalisticke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, Glavni procesi 1918–1985 (Školska Knjiga, Zagreb, 1985), pp. 468–70. 3 Ibid., pp. 427–9. 4 Slavoljub Djukić, Slom srpskih liberala (‘Filip Visnjic’, Belgrade, 1990), pp. 137–46. 5 John R.  Lampe, Yugoslavia as History (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 309–11.

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11 12 13 14 15 16

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Branko Petranović & Cedomir Štrbac, Istorija socijalisticke Jugoslavije (Radnicka štampa, Belgrade, 1977), p. 116. Glenny, op. cit., p. 587. Branko Petranović, Istorija Jugoslavije 1918–1978 (Nolit, Belgrade, 1980), pp. 595–7. Mehmet Hajrizi, Historia e Lidhjes Komuniste të Jugosllavisë (Rilindja, Prishtina, 1985), pp. 506–22. Spasoje Djaković, Sukobi na Kosovu (Narodna knjiga, Belgrade, 1984); Miloš Mišović, Ko je tražio republiku (Narodna knjiga, Belgrade 1987), Dragoslav-Draža Marković, Zivit u politic, 1967–1978 (RAD, Belgrade 1987). Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (Macmillan, London, 1998), p. 326. Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/11 (1968), file 30, pp. 1–7. Vjenčeslav Cenčić, Titova poslednja ispovijest (Grafos, Belgrade 2001). Nina Smirnova, Tito përsëri në Kosovë (Rilindja, 1980), pp. 68–70. Cenčić, op. cit. Cenčić, op. cit.

8 Yugoslavia and the events of 1981 1 2 3

Interview with Mahmut Bakalli, Koha ditore, 16 April 2007. Marko Horvat, Kosovsko pitanje (Globus, Zagreb, 1988), pp. 129–40. Marenglen Verli, Ekonomia e Kosovës në vargonjtë e politikës jugosllave 1945–1990 (Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë, Tirana, 2000), p. 240. 4 Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (Macmillan, London, 1998), p. 337. 5 Horvat, op. cit. 6 Dušan Bilandžić, Historija Socijalisticke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije, Glavni procesi 1918–1985 (Školska Knjiga, Zagreb, 1985), p. 495. 7 Dobrica Ćosić, Kosovo 1956–1995 (Novosti AD, Belgrade 2004), pp. 29–34. 8 Archives of Kosovo, 79th meeting of the presidency of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo, 3 March 1981, p. 43. 9 Archives of Kosovo, 81st joint meeting of the presidency of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo and the presidency of the autonomous region of Kosovo, 12 March 1981, pp. 2–3. 10 Rilindja, Prishtina, 13 March 1981. 11 Archives of Kosovo, 81st joint meeting of the presidency of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo and the presidency of the autonomous region of Kosovo, 12 March 1981, pp. 5–42. 12 Verdict of the Prishtina County Court, p.  no.  149/81, 28 August 1981; Horvat, op. cit., p. 101; Bilandžić, op. cit., pp. 495–500. 13 Archives of Kosovo, 88th joint meeting of the chairmanship of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo and the chairmanship of the autonomous region of Kosovo, 2 April 1981, pp. 2 & 8. 14 Rilindja, Prishtina, 3 April 1981. 15 Nine protesters were killed in clashes with the security forces. Asllan Pireva, Naser Hajrizi, and Xhelal Maliqi were killed in Prishtina on 2 April; Riza Matoshi and Sherif Frangu in Ferizaj on 3 April; Sali Zeka, Sali Abazi,

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NOTES TO PAGES 142–155

16

17 18 19 20

21 22

23

and Ruzhdi Hyseni in Vushtrri on 2 April; Sokol Bajrami in Mitrovica on 3 April. Archives of Kosovo, 88th joint meeting of the chairmanship of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo and the chairmanship of the autonomous region of Kosovo, 2 April 1981, pp. 11–20. Archives of Kosovo, 89th meeting of the chairmanship of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo, 27 April 1981. Bilandžić, op. cit., p. 495. Petranović & Zečević, op. cit., pp. 1,081–93. Archives of Kosovo, Political platform of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia for developing socialist self-government, fraternity-unity and co-existence in Kosovo, Belgrade, 17 November 1981. Cited in Shtypi botëror rreth ngjarjeve në Kosovë (Tirana, no date), p. 7. Archives of Kosovo, Political platform of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia for developing socialist self-government, fraternity-unity and co-existence in Kosovo, Belgrade, 17 November 1981, pp. 6–14, 24, 41. At the central committee of the League of Communists of Serbia on 24–6 December 1981 (and at later meetings), Tihomir Vlaskalić, the chairman, called for amendment of the 1974 Constitution as regards Kosovo. Petar Stambolić said that the constitution had caused the disintegration of Serbia, and Dragoslav Marković protested that regions had more rights than republics. See also Bilandžić, op. cit., pp. 501–8.

9 Albania and the events of 1981 1 2 3 4

5

6

7 8 9 10 11

Rexhep Qosja, Çështja shqiptare, historia dhe politika (Toena, Tirana, 1998), p. 13. Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, Demaçi file. Rexhep Qosja, Rilindja e dytë (Tirana, 2007), p. 106. Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, p. no. 90/70, 9 March 1970, indictment against Kadri Osmani and other members of the Revolutionary Group; Prishtina County Prosecution Office, pp. no. 17/82, 25 May 1982, indictment against Hydajet Hyseni and others; Prishtina County Prosecution Office, pp. no.  28/81, 31 May 1982, indictment against the Intellectuals Group, Ukshin Hoti, etc. Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, pp. no. 180/79, 9 May 1980, indictment of Shefqet Jashari and other members of the National Liberation Movement. Mehmet Hajrizi, Histori e një organizate politike dhe demonstratat e vitit 1981 (Toena, Tirana, 2008); Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, p–k no. 167/82, indictment against members of the Marxist–Leninist Party of Albanians in Yugoslavia. E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990), p. 150. Hakif Bajrami, Dosja Demaçi (Brezi ‘81, Prishtina, 2005), p. 86. Çeku, op. cit., p. 215. Ukshin Hoti, Filozofia politike e çështjes shqiptare (UNIKOMB, Prishtina, 1997), p. 114. Sabri Novosella, Dorëshkrim (Sweden, 1993).

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NOTES TO PAGES 156–169 12

13

14

15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

187

Archives of Kosovo, Public Prosecution Office of Kosovo and Metohija, k. no. 99/45, 11 September 1945, Prizren, indictment against Halim Spahia and other members of the National Democratic Movement; 13 July 1946, Prizren, indictment against Marije Shllaku, Bernard Llupi, Kol Parubi and others; No. 6/47, 12 April 1947, Prishtina, indictment against Ukë Sadiku, Ajet Gërguri, Gjon Serreqi, Hilmi Zariqi, Hamdi Emini and others. Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Prosecution Office, k.  no.  223/64, indictment against Adem Demaçi and other members of the Revolutionary Movement for the Unification of Albanians. Archives of Kosovo, Gjilan County Court, k. no. 19/59, indictment against Metush Krasniqi and others; Prishtina County Court, pp. no.  180/79, 9 May 1980, indictment against Shefqet Jashari and other members of the National Liberation Movement of Kosovo. Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, p–k no.  167/82, indictment against members of the Albanian Marxist–Leninist Communist Party in Yugoslavia. Ethem Çeku, Mendimi politik i lëvizjes ilegale në Kosovë 1945–1981 (Brezi’81, Prishtinë, 2004), pp. 221–2. Archives of Kosovo Archives, Prishtina County Court, Theses of the Popular Front for the Republic of Kosovo. Archives of Kosovo, Prishtina County Court, p.  No. 149/81, 28 August 1981; County Prosecution Office, pp. no. 17/82. Central Archives of Albania, Class 14/AP (1949), File 1, pp. 6–7; Kaba, op. cit., pp. 270–1. Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1968), File 238, pp. 1–5. Enver Hoxha, Ditari politik për çështje ndërkombëtare 1980–1981, p. 365. Conversation between Ramiz Alia and the author, Tirana, 22 May 2008. Hoxha, Ditari politik 1980–1981, p. 368. Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1981), File 33, pp. 23–4 & 32. Xenia Atanasievski, ‘Albanska propanganda’, Centrar za strategijske studije, Belgrade, May 1986, pp. 1–2. Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1981), File 31/1, p. 21. Hoxha, Ditari politik 1980–1981, pp. 384–409. Documents of the Centre for Strategic Studies, Belgrade 1986–1987; Political platform of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia for developing socialist self-government, fraternity-unity and co-existence in Kosovo, 17 November 1981; Bilandžić, op. cit.; Archives of Kosovo, League of Communists of Yugoslavia, meeting of the presidency of the regional committee of the League of Communists of Kosovo, 27 April 1981. Hoxha, Ditari politik 1980–1981, p. 506. Lisen Bashkurti, Diplomacia e vetizolimit  – Rasti Shqipërisë 1961–1989 (Geer, Tirana, 2004), p. 592. Enver Hoxha, Fjala para zgjedhësve, 10 November 1982 (Tirana 1982), p. 42. Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry, File 830 (1982), p. 123. Hoxha, Ditari politik 1980–1981, pp. 468–9. Ibid., pp. 470–1. Enver Hoxha, Rruga e Partisë, p. 104. Hoxha, Ditari politik 1980–81, pp. 476–8.

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42 43

44

45 46

Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry (1981), File 812, pp. 18–37. Hoxha, Ditari politik 1980–1981, pp. 541–2. Central Archives of Albania, Class 10/AP (1981), File 36, pp. 1–5. Hoxha, Ditari politik 1980–1981, pp. 542–3. Cited in Sylejman Abazi and Afrim Imaj, Qëndrimet politikoushtarake të Shqipërisë ndaj demonstratave të 81 – shit në Kosovës në këndvështrimin e politikës së sigurimit kombëtar dhe të mbrojtjes (2001). Conversation between Ramiz Alia and the author, Tirana, 22 May 2008. Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry, Drejtoria e IV, Objektivat tona në punën me shqiptarët jashtë atdheut për periudhën e ardhshme, Tirana, 27 June 1981. Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry, Udhëzim ‘për punën me emigracionin Kosovar dhe ndjekjen e gjendjes në Kosovë‘, no. 200, Tirana, 24 January 1983. William E.  Griffith, Albania and the Sino-Soviet Rift (M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963), p. 174. Archives of the Albanian Foreign Ministry, Drejtoria e IV, Objektivat tona në punën me shqiptarët jashtë atdheut për periudhën e ardhshme, Tirana, 27 June 1981.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY —— Shekulli i ilegales (Brezi ’81, Prishtina, 2004) —— Mendimi politik i lëvizjes ilegale në Kosovë 1945–1981 (Brezi ’81, Prishtinë, 2004) Cenčić, Vjenčeslav, Titova poslednja ispovijest (Grafos, Belgrade, 2001) —— The Cominform (Fondacioni Giangacomo Feltrineli, Milano, 1994) Comte, Arthur, Jalta dhe ndarja e botës (Albinform, Tirana, 1994) Ćosić, Dobrica, Kosovo 1956–1995 (Novosti AD, Belgrade 2004) Dajo, Stavri, Istorika Mathiata, Macedonia, 19 July 1998 —— ‘Politika e fuqive të mëdha ndaj Shqipërisë pas konfliktit shqiptaro jugosllav 1948–1949’, Studime historike (Tirana) Dedijer, Vladimir, Marrëdhëniet jugosllavo-shqiptare 1939–1948 (Meduar, Tirana, 2005) —— Novi prilozi za biografiju Josip Broz Tita, 3 vols (RAD, Belgrade, 1984) —— Interesne sfere (Prosveta, Belgrade, 1980) Djaković, Spasoje, Sukobi na Kosovu (Narodna knjiga, Belgrade, 1984) Djukić, Slavoljub, Slom srpskih liberala – Tehnologija politickih obracuna Josipa Broza (‘Filip Visnjic’, Belgrade, 1990) Duka, Valentina, Histori e Shqipërisë 1912–2000 (Kristalina KH, Tirana, 2007) Gibianksi, L.J., ‘Ideja e bashkimit ballkanik dhe planet e realizimit të tij në vitet 40 të shekullit XX’, Vaprosij Historij (Moscow, 2001), no. 11–12 Glenny, Misha, The Balkans 1804–1999:  Nationalism, War and the Great Powers (Granta, London, 1999) Griffith, William E., Albania and the Sino-Soviet Rift (M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963) Gucia, Ismet, Burimet natyrore si faktori i zhvillimit ekonomik të Kosovës (Prishtinë, 1982) Hajrizi, Mehmet, Histori e një organizate politike dhe demonstratat e vitit 1981 (Toena, Tirana, 2008) —— Historia e Lidhjes së Komunistëve të Jugosllavisë (Rilindja, Prishtina, 1985) Hobsbawm, E.J., Nations and Nationalism since 1780:  Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990) Horvat, Branko, Kosovsko pitanje (Globus, Zagreb, 1988) Hoti, Ukshin, Filozofia politike e çështjes shqiptare (UNIKOMB, Prishtina, 1997) Hoxha, Enver, Ditari për çështje ndërkombëtare 1958–1981, 13 vols (‘8 Nëntori’, Tirana) Rruga e Partisë, Titistët (‘8 Nëntori’, Tirana, 1982) —— Report on the Proceedings of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania (Tirana, 1981) Hoxha, Hajredin, ‘Proces nacionalne afirmacije albanske nacionalnost u Jugoslaviju’, doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Philosophy (1973) Imami, Petrit, Srbi i Albanci (FreeB92, Belgrade, 2000) Kaba, Hamit, Shqipëria në rrjedhën e luftës së ftohtë (Botimpex, Tirana, 2007) Kardelj, Edvard, Sistemi politik i vetëqeverisjes socialiste (Rilindja, Prishtina, 1982) —— Kombi e marrëdhëniet ndërnacionale (Rilindja, Prishtina, 1982) —— Kujtime (Rilindja, Prishtina, 1982)

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Kissinger, Henry, Konferenca e Bujanit, materiale nga Sesioni Shkencor kushtuar 50-vjetorit të Konferencës së Bujanit, mbajtur më 7 janar 1994 (Institute of History, Prishtina, 1998) —— Diplomacy (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994) Lalaj, Ana, ‘Mjegulla për Federatën dhe Pavarësia e Rrezikuar’, in Pavarësia e Shqipërisë dhe sfidat e shtetit shqiptar gjatë shek. (2007) Lampe, John R., Yugoslavia as History:  Twice There was a Country, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000) Lauka, Islam & Eshref Ymeri (eds), Shqipëria në dokumentet e arkivave ruse (Toena, Tirana, 2006) —— & Eshref Ymeri, Libri i Bardhë [The White Book] (Belgrade, 1961) Malcolm, Noel, Kosovo: A Short History (Macmillan, London, 1998) Markovic, Dragoslav-Draža, Zivot u politici 1967–1978 (RAD, Belgrade, 1987) Meta, Beqir, Shqipëria dhe Greqia 1949–1990 Paqja e vështirë (Koçi, Tirana, 2004) —— Tensioni greko-shqiptar 1939–1949 (Geer, Tirana, 2002) Milo, Paskal, Fuqitë e Mëdha dhe çështja e Kosovës gjatë dhe në përfundim të Luftës së Dytë Botërore (Konferenca e Bujanit, Tirana, 1999) —— Miscarriage of Justice – The Corfu Channel Case (The Albanian Society, Ilford) Mišović, Miloš, Ko je tražio republiku (Narodna knjiga, Belgrade, 1987) Narodni odbor Autonomne Kosovsko-metohijske oblasti, 1943–1953 (Prishtina, 1955) Novosella, Sabri, Dorëshkrim (Sweden, 1993) Petranović, Branko, Istorija Jugoslavije 1918–1978 (Nolit, Belgrade, 1980) —— & Cedomir Štrbac, Istorija socijalisticke Jugoslavije, 3 vols (Radnicka štampa, Belgrade, 1977) —— & Momčilo Zečević (eds), Jugoslovenski federalizam  – Ideje e stvarnost 1943–1986 (Prosveta, Belgrade, 1987) —— & Momčilo Zečević (eds), Jugoslavija 1918–1984, Zbirka dokumenata (RAD, Belgrade, 1985) Plasari, Ndreqi & Luan Malltezi (eds), Marrëdhëniet shqiptaro-jugosllave 1945– 1948 – Dokumente, Drejtoria e Përgjithshme e Arkivave (Tirana, 1996) Qosja, Rexhep, Rilindja e dytë (Toena, Tirana, 2007) —— Çështja shqiptare – historia dhe politika (Toena, Tirana, 1998) Rodić, Jadranka, Osnovni pokazitelji dostignutog nivoa privredne razvijenosti SAP Kosovo, Sazev Ekonomista SAP Kosova, ‘Problemi i mogucnosti brzog razvoja nedovoljno ravzijenih podrucja Jugoslavije’ (Prishtina, 1987) Rzheshevskii, Oleg, Stalin i Cherchill:  vstrechi, besedy, diskussi:  dokumenty, kommentarii 1941–1945 (Nauka, Moscow, 2004). Salihu, Kurtesh, Lindja, zhvillimi, pozita dhe aspektet e autonomitetit të KSA të Kosovës në Jugosllavinë socialiste (ETMM i KSA të Kosovës, Prishtina, 1984) —— Shtypi botëror rreth ngjarjeve në Kosovë (‘8 Nëntori’, Tirana, undated) Smirnova, Nina, Historia e Shqipërisë gjatë shekullit XX (Ideart, Tirana, 2004) Srbi i Albanci u XX veku (Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, Belgrade, 1991) Serbija i albanci  – pregled politike serbije prema albancima od 1944 do 1989 (Ljubljana, 1989)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Stavileci, Esat, Vazhdimësia e mendimit për Kosovën dhe çështjen shqiptare (Lidhja Shqiptare në Botë, Prishtina-Tirana-Tetova, 2001) Stavrianos, L.S., The Balkans since 1453 (Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, New York 1958) Tito përsëri në Kosovë (Rilindja, 1980) Verli, Marenglen, Ekonomia e Kosovës në vargonjtë e politikës jugosllave 1945– 1990 (Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë, Tirana, 2000) Vukovic, Zdravko (ed.), Od deformacija SDB do maspoka i leberalizma, Moji stenografski zapisi 1966–1972 godine (Narodna Knjiga, Belgrade)

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Index Albania armed forces of, 171–2 coup attempts in (1949), 54–5 and demonstrations in Kosovo (1968), 105–8 foreign policy around 1981, 162–8, 172–4 national movement in, 152–7 and the national movement in Kosovo, 100–5 policy towards Kosovo, 48–51, 120–1, 158 relations with the Soviet Union, 48, 55, 61–2, 95–7 relations with Yugoslavia, 2, 22–3, 32–5, 39–46, 51–64, 73–82, 95–10, 106–7, 112, 118–19, 157, 161–3, 169–71 statehood of, 7–8, 13, 17–21, 30, 157–8, 163–4 Treaty of Friendship and Reciprocal Assistance with Yugoslavia (1946), 27–9, 31–2, 43 and Yugoslav unrest in early 1970s, 111–12 Alia, Ramiz, 159–60, 172 armed struggle, attitudes to, 49–50, 104, 115, 155, 175

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Atlantic Charter (1941), 7–8 Austria, 167 autonomous regions, 72–6 Bajra, Ismail, 84, 86 Bakalli, Mahmut, 86, 133, 138, 141–3 Bakaric8, Vladimir, 124 Balkan federation, proposed, 21, 35 Balkan Pact, 63 Bashkurti, Lisen, 162–3 Bespallov, F., 63 Bilandžic8, Dušan, 72, 124, 136, 144 Blue Book, The (1977), 92–4, 135 Bolshevik Party, 44, 50 bourgeois tendencies, 46–7 Brioni Plenum (1966), 88 Britain, 49, 54, 64 ‘brotherhood’ doctrine, 79–80 Bujani Conference (1943–4), 11, 13, 30, 67, 175 Bulgaria, 163 Byrnes, James, 16 Cannon, Cavendish, 37–8 Capitale, La (newspaper), 28 Çarçani, Adil, 99 Çemerski, Angel, 106 census of population, 80

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194

INDEX Cham population, 59 chauvinism, 50–1, 59, 62–3, 87, 102–5, 113, 115, 125–6, 137, 162, 173 Chemerski, Angel, 125 Chetniks, 67, 88–9 China, 96, 174 Churchill, Winston, 6, 8–10, 16 Chuvakhin, D.S., 30–3, 35, 38–40 Cold War, 20, 53, 91, 163 collective leadership in Yugoslavia, 124–5 Comecon, 48 Cominform, 37–40, 44, 46, 49, 55, 57, 64, 112 communist parties, 23, 35, 37, 43, 48–50, 63, 68, 89–90, 100; see also Leagues of Communists constitutional reform, 84, 92–3, 98, 100 resistance to, 87–90 constitutions Serbian, 71–3, 93 Yugoslav, 3, 70–7, 91, 94, 123, 127–30, 135 Corfu Channel incident, 114 Ċosic8, Dobrica, 87–8, 91, 136–7 Croatia, 89–90, 112, 125–6 Crvenkovski, Krste, 106 Čubrilovic8, Vaso, 81–2 Czechoslovakia, 84, 116, 121 Dajo, Stavro, 56–7 Dedijer, Vladimir, 21, 25, 29, 39, 42 Demaçi, Adem, 77, 81, 98–9, 133, 152–6, 159 Deva, Veli, 82, 117 diplomatic relations, 22, 56, 58, 61–2, 96, 114–15, 119, 165–6, 173 Djilas, Milovan, 9, 29, 39 Djurovic8, Milenko, 65–6 Dolanc, Stane, 162 Doronjski, Stevan, 82 Dragosavac, Dušan, 162 Drljevic8, Savo, 65–8 Duka, Valentina, 61 Eden, Anthony, 8 ELAS movement, 29 Escarpit, Robert, 165 ‘ethnic cleansing’, 62, 81–2, 149 European Community, 168

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fascism, 79 Fazlia, Asllan, 139, 143 France, 49, 54, 164–5 ‘Free Albania’ Group, 54 Fulton (Missouri), Churchill’s speech at (1946), 16 Garašanin, Ilija, 81 Gavrilovich, Stojan, 11 Gërvalla, Jusuf, 81, 154–6 Gheorghiu-Dej, Gheorghe, 56 Gibianski, Leonid, 30–1, 38–9 Gjergia, Josip, 31 Greece, 29, 54, 59, 64, 115 Griffith, William, 173 guerilla forces, 7 Harriman, Averell, 9 Hebrang, Andrija, 29 Herald Tribune, 146 Hitler, Adolf, 6 Hobsbawm, Eric, 153 Horvat, Branko, 135 Hoti, Ushkin, 155 Hoxha, Enver, 12, 22–34, 38–64, 96–9, 103–8, 111–20, 154–5, 158–71 Hoxha, Fadil, 65, 68–9, 89, 98, 116–20, 125, 131–3 Hoxha, Hajredin, 86 Hoxha, Mehmet, 69 Hull, Cordell, 8 Hungary, 61–2 imperialism, 50 ‘iron curtain’, 16 irredentism, 144–7 Jakova, Tuk, 41 journalists, 165–7 Kaba, Hamit, 96 Kapo, Hysni, 27–8 Karagjorgjeva meeting (1979), 128, 142 Kardelj, Edvard, 21, 25, 35, 68–70, 75–7, 87, 125–31 Kennan, George, 16–17 Kerlezha, Miroslav, 124 Khrushchev, Nikita, 61–2, 64, 96 Kidric], Boris, 26

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INDEX Kissinger, Henry, 8 Koliševski, Lazar, 162 Kopinçi, Josip, 128 Kosovo annexation by Serbia (1946), 65–77 economic conditions in, 75, 83, 85–6, 95, 134–5 illegal movement in, 97, 105, 120–1, 156, 159, 175 liberalisation in, 86, 90, 127–8, 145 military government in, 65–7, 77, 132 political and juridical status of, 68, 71–2, 75–7, 83–4, 92, 94, 103, 135 possible union with Albania, 30–1, 51, 57, 67–9, 98–9, 106, 113–14, 120 pressure for autonomy and self-determination in, 47, 49–50, 114, 118, 120 student and nationalist disturbances in (1981), 136–50, 159–63, 169, 174 Yugoslav rule in, 2, 10–13, 21, 35, 47, 51, 58–62, 72–7 Krasniqi, Metush, 98, 153–4, 156 Krillov, L.I., 59–60 Kristo, Pandi, 44 ‘kulaks’, 72 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 151 Leagues of Communists in Yugoslavia, 125–7, 132, 137–8, 143–50 Levichkin, K.D., 61 Liria (newspaper), 156 Llakaj, Veli, 172 Macedonia, 49–51, 63, 68–9, 105–6, 110, 144, 163 majority populations, dominance of, 70–3 Makota, Walter, 163–4 Malcolm, Noel, 68, 127, 134–5 Malenkov, Georgij, 61 Malëshova, Sejfullah, 23–4 Malile, Reiz, 172 Maliqi, Mehmet, 143

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195

Mandic8, Tadenko, 129–30 ‘Mapok’ movement, 112 Markovic8, Dragoslav, 89, 94 Markovic8, Ratko, 92 Marshall, George (and the ‘Marshall Plan’), 17 Marxism–Leninism, 46, 49–50, 63–4, 103, 109, 113–16, 155–8, 165, 173 Medenica, Djuro, 65–7 Messagero (newspaper), 28 Meta, Beqir, 29 Metohija, 63, 69–73, 76, 106–7 Mihailovic8, Draža, 10 Milatovic8, Arso, 60 Milo, Paskal, 11–12, 57 Minic8, Miloš, 160, 162 minority groups, 23 Mojsov, Lazar, 145 Molotov, V.M., 8, 27, 39, 56 Montenegro, 49–50, 63, 68–9, 105, 110, 144 Mudd, Robert C., 96–7 Mugosha, Dushan, 52, 69 Mussolini, Benito, 28 nationalism, 125, 130–1, 136–7, 148–50, 162–3, 173 Neškovic], Blagoje, 26 Nikezic8, Marko, 92 Nimani, Xhavit, 117 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) 112, 163, 168 Novi Sad agreement (1954), 124 Organisation for European Economic Co–operation, 17 Paris Peace Conference (1946), 2, 17, 29 Pašic8, Najdan, 92 Pejc]inovic8, Jovan, 114 Perovic8, Latinka, 92 Petranovic8, Branko, 40, 126–7 Pijade, Moshe, 71 Poland, 61–2 Politika (newspaper), 57 Popovic8, Koc]a, 26 Popovic8, Miladin, 68–9 Popovic8, Vlado, 26 Potsdam Conference (1945), 6, 15 poverty, 134–5, 147, 169

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196

INDEX Prizren Committee, 51–2 Prizren Process, 82 propaganda, use of, 57, 90–1, 106, 161, 171, 173 Qosja, Rexhep, 151 Radio Tirana, 57 Radonic8, Razho, 82 Rankovic8, Aleksandar, 26, 55, 58, 60, 74–5, 80, 82, 85, 88, 95, 108, 115, 118, 123–4 Rankovic8, Marko, 27 ‘republic’ status within Yugoslavia, 83–4, 94, 133, 135, 138 Rilindja (newspaper), 80 Ristic8, Dušan, 140, 142 Roosevelt, Franklin, 5–7, 13 Rusino, D., 56 Russia, 154; see also Soviet Union Salihu, Kurtesh, 71, 73 Sefedini, Mustafa, 139 Seiti, Lik, 116–18 Serbia, 3, 21, 23, 35, 56, 69–70, 74, 76, 79–80, 87–9, 91–3, 120, 123–6, 129 Shala, Rezak, 117 Shehu, Mehmet, 63 Shukria, Ali, 117, 140, 143–4 Slovenia, 75, 126, 146 Smirnova, Nina, 38, 48, 60–1 Soviet Union, 17, 24, 39–40, 48–51, 57, 60–4, 96–7, 114–15, 163–4 spheres of interest, 6, 8–9, 29, 34, 51, 53, 54 Spiru, Nako, 34, 38–9 Stalin, Josef, 1, 4–17, 23–35, 38–40, 48–51, 55–7, 61, 158 Stambolic8, Petar, 162 Stavileci, Esat, 70–1, 74 Stavrianos, L.S., 9–10, 15 Stettinius, Edward, 18 Süddeutsche Zeitung, 146 Tashko, Koço, 32 Tehran Conference (1943), 8 Tempo, Il (newspaper), 28

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Tito, Marshal, 10, 12, 15–16, 25–35, 38, 44–9, 55–60, 63, 66–7, 75, 77–9, 84, 87–90, 95, 106, 108, 111, 113, 116, 119, 124–32, 134–7, 142, 158 Titoism, 104–5, 112, 119, 158–9, 170, 173 Trieste, 27 Truman, Harry (and the ‘Truman Doctrine’), 16 United Nations, 19, 21, 28, 163, 174 United States, 18, 21, 35, 50, 53, 64, 96, 107, 163, 168–9, 175 State Department, 11, 52–4 University of Prishtina, 95, 140, 143, 155–60, 175 USSR see Soviet Union Vakit (newspaper), 28 Verli, Marenglen, 134 Vidic8, Dobrivoje, 162 Vojvodina, 70–7 Vujovic8, Lazar, 90 Vyshinsky, Andrey, 55–6 Warsaw Pact, 9–10, 48, 84, 91, 112, 114, 121, 163 weapons, confiscation of, 80, 124 West Germany, 164, 167–8 White Book, The, 41 World War II, 5, 79, 123, 167 Xoxe, Koçi, 26, 28, 44 Yalta Conference (1945), 2, 6, 10, 12, 16–17, 21, 35, 51 Yugoslav Security Police (UDB), 51–2, 59, 103, 107, 170 Yugoslavian disintegration, 175 Yugoslavism and Yugoslavisation, 79–81 Zeka, Kadri, 81 Zëri i Popullit (newspaper), 107 Zhdanov, Andrei, 39 Zhukov, Marshal, 62 Zlatic8, Savo, 34 Zvicer, Mihailo, 90, 140, 144

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