Source: https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/titoites.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 13:01:16+00:00

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As always, the Titoite revisionists continue to claim that they have allegedly taken up and solved the national question in their country in a Marxist-Leninist way. Of course, the opposite is the truth. The materialist scientific analyses the PLA and Comrade Enver Hoxha have made of this dangerous revisionist trend have fully proved that the Titoites' theories and practices on the nation and the national question, like all their views and stands on the theory and practice of scientific socialism contain nothing proletarian and nothing socialist, they are a flagrant departure from Marxism-Leninism. The theories of the Titoite revisionists on the notion of nation, which express their idealist reactionary world-outlook, directly serve the interests of the Yugoslav chauvinist bourgeoisie. They are attempts at providing a “theoretical basis” for the bourgeois nationalist and chauvinist policy which is implemented in Yugoslavia and which characterizes its whole system of capitalist “self-administration”.
The Marxist-Leninist theory has long ago provided and formulated a complete materialist scientific concept on the nation. Proceeding from the main principles laid down by Marx, Engels and Lenin on this question, on the basis of a thorough and all-round dialectical analysis of the historical processes and material conditions which have led to the creation and strengthening of social communities and the replacement of lower communities, such as kinships and tribes, with other, higher communities, nationalities and nations, J. V. Stalin made the scientific definition of the nation. “The nation is an historically formed permanent community of people which has emerged on the basis of the community of language, territory, economic life and psychological formation, which manifests itself in the community of culture”*. This definition expresses the more general features and the main components of the nation. Negation of each of them and attempts at adding other elements to them are nothing other than open departure from the Marxist-Leninist theory on the nation, abortive efforts to cover up and justify the pursuit of a non-proletarian policy on the national question.
* J. V. Stalin Works, vol. 2, p. 295, Alb. ed.
With their views and practical stands, the Yugoslav revisionists have placed themselves in open opposition to the scientific materialist conception and definition of the nation in all its components.
* Development of the Slovene national question, pp. 58-59, Prishtina, 1977.
As is seen, in this definition of his E. Kardelj excludes, not unintentionally, from the content of the nation everything which characterizes the essence of a national community. He openly distorts the historical process of the emergence and consolidation of nations, denies their more general feature which characterizes them as permanent communities of people, and ignores such determining elements as the community of language, territory and economic links.
Of course, Kardelj's definition of the nation is not without ulterior aims. It is the conclusion of a voluminous book which, as the author himself says, was written to clarify and work out the theoretical bases of the national program of the LCY.*. We find the anti-Marxist and anti-scientific spirit which pervades this conception of the notion of nation lying at the foundation of the Titoite revisionists' theories and practices on the nation and national question.
* Development of the Slovene national question, p. 23.
Among the main distortions the Titoite revisionists make of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the nation is their falsification of the process of its formation. Claiming that “the nation... has emerged in certain conditions of the social division of labour”, E. Kardelj fails to mention the main and true cause which led to the formation and consolidation of national communities which, as is known, is the creation of the capitalist mode of production. He goes as far as to preach openly that the social division of labour is the basic cause, not only of the formation of national communities, but also of the emergence of the capitalist order.
Of course, this is a concept and stand which runs flagrantly counter to the historical process of social development, the material conditions and the objective laws which led to the emergence of the capitalist mode of production. Analysis of these conditions and knowledge of these laws, an analysis which has been made in detail by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, shows that it is not the social division of labour which brings about such transformations in society as the emergence of nations and the capitalist mode of production, but it is precisely the capitalist mode of production which determines both the emergence of nations and the need for the deepening of the social division of labour.
In Capital, his monumental work, K. Marx brings scientific arguments to show the process of the overthrow of feudalism and the emergence of capitalism. At the foundation of this process lies, not the social division of labour, as E. Kardelj tries to make out, but the accumulation of capital, the concentration of great wealth in money in the hands of the big landowners, merchants and usurers. The owners of this capital, in their constant efforts to increase it, concentrate the means of production and workers in workshops. In this manner the first capitalist enterprises emerged which used hired workers who did manual work on the basis of the division of labour. Creation of the two new basic classes of society – the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, creation of a unified national market and the deepening of the social division of labour are an expression and a result of this degree of development of social production and the relative material relations.
The social division of labour has existed in pre-capitalist social formations, but it has not led and could not lead to the emergence of nations, nor can it lead to the overthrow of one social order and the triumph of another, higher social order, because, as an historical category, the social division of labour assumes its definite forms, and differs and deepens depending on the nature of socio-economic formations. Precisely on this question K. Marx pointed out that “...the manifactural division of labour is a very specific result of the capitalist mode of production.”* Criticising Proudhon, who conceived the division of labour as a permanent category, as the determining cause which led to the emergence of all capitalist relations of production, K. Marx stressed: “The division of labour within the workshop developed after the accumulation and concentration of the means of production and workers,”** that “the development of the division of labour presupposes the union of workers in a workshop..., actually this workshop being a condition for the existence of the division of labour.”*** Hence it emerges that it is not the division of labour that determines the transition from feudalism to capitalism. And since nations are the inevitable product of the bourgeois epoch of social development, the process of their emergence can by no means be linked with the social division of labour.
* K. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, book 2, d. 70, Alb. edn.
** K. Marx The Misery of Philosophy, Tirana 1971, p. 176, Alb. edn.
* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 1, p. 164, Alb. edn.
The thesis of the Titoite revisionists, who link the process of the formation of nations with the social division of labour in capitalism, conceals in itself counter-revolutionary aims. According to this pseudo-theory, just as the social division of labour in capitalism allegedly led to the formation of nations, so, in the conditions of present-day imperialism, the development of science, technique and the technical-scientific revolution, when the social division of labour has been deepened and extended to international dimensions, automatically leads to the closeness and union of nations and the dying away of national differences. “The social division of labour which is required by this development of the productive forces and the volume of exchange of material values in the world,” E. Kardelj writes, “goes necessarily beyond narrow national borders, brings nations closer together and includes man directly in the mechanism of the world economy. Along with this, man's awareness of his material and cultural interest must be changed and, in fact is being changed. Right now international organizations for economic co-operation are being formed, which show that the awareness of the common economic interests is transcending national borders and extending to ever larger regions... This is the process of unification of nations which is necessarily brought by the social division of labour in the epoch in which mankind is entering socialism.”* One cannot be more explicit.
* Development of the Slovene national question, pp. 59-60.
The metaphysical and counter-revolutionary character of the claims of the Titoites lies in the fact that these consider the elimination of national oppression, and the question of the establishment of equality among nations and their closeness and union as phenomena that can be settled in the framework of the capitalist order and only intensifying the international division of labour. Proceeding from these positions, the Titoite revisionists negate the struggle of the people's masses in oppressed nations for freedom and independence against the bourgeoisie of oppressing nations, and with this they actually justify and encourage the deepening of inequality among nations the most savage national oppression.
The objective tendency of imperialism to intensify economic, political and cultural links, and to transcend and break down national boundaries on the basis of the international socialization of capitalist production, as Lenin has pointed out with scientific precision, does not and can never lead to the voluntary coming together and union of nations, as the Titoite revisionists make out. On the contrary, the only correct road followed by the proletariat according to this tendency is that of struggle against any national inequality, of resolute support for the liberation movements of oppressed nations, and of the internationalist union of the proletariat and the working people within one country and on an international scale to shake off the yoke of capital, and to fight the bourgeoisie and imperialism.
It is quite clear that the “bringing closer together” and “union” of nations in the conditions of imperialism, about which the Titoites talk is nothing other than a reflection of the present-day capitalist reality which is characterized by strained national and international relations; it is the right which the bourgeoisie of the oppressor nations, the American and Soviet bourgeoisie, in the first place, arrogates to itself to subdue other nations by violence and to trample underfoot their sovereignty. The Titoite interpretation of the imperialist tendency to intensify economic, political and cultural links between nations and to break down and transcend national boundaries, which is allegedly brought about by the further deepening of the social division of labour overlooks the deep-going and irreconcilable contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between oppressor nations and oppressed nations; it is tantamount to open preaching of the idea that the oppressed nations should submit and sacrifice their cause to the interests of the superpowers and other imperialist powers.
Upholding the view that the formation, existence, union and merger of nations are determined only by the social division of labour, the Titoite revisionists slide into utterly metaphysical positions.
* Development of the Slovene national question, p. 78.
Second, the metaphysical position of the Titoite revisionists becomes even more obvious from their stand towards the future of nations. Advocating the union of nations and the elimination of national distinctions in the conditions of the existence of private property and capitalist relations of production, the Titoites actually oppose the free and independent development of nations, their language and culture, a development which can reach its highest degree only in the conditions of the socialist and communist relations of production, only when conditions for the political rule of the proletariat in society exist.
Negation of the thesis that nations are permanent social communities of people is another distortion of the materialist theory of the nation by the Yugoslav revisionists.
Marxism-Leninism has long since proved that the common language, the common territory and the community of economic links and culture created under the direct influence of the historical process and handed down from one generation to the other, make for a strong and lasting community of a nation. The national consciousness, which is a reflection of the very strong and close links of the members of one nation, is formed and strikes deep roots on this basis. In these objective links the members of different nations see their vital interests, hence national awareness becomes a source of struggle for national self-affirmation and is transformed into such exceptional strength as enables even smaller nations or parts of them to stand up for centuries to efforts by larger oppressor nations to assimilate them by violence. This conclusion has been borne out long ago by the protracted and heroic struggle which many nations have waged and continue to wage to win their freedom.
Permanence of nations, their resistance and inner strength, which has stood up and continues to stand up to the assimilating and exterminating aims of chauvinists, has forced the ruling classes of oppressor nations to use, along with unrestrained violence, different means of spiritual enslavement in order to achieve their goals — the enslavement and assimilation of the annexed nations or parts of them. For this purpose they have been concocting all sorts of ”theories” and views through which they cunningly try to sow indifference about the national belonging of the masses of people in the oppressed nations, to deaden peoples' profound feelings about their language, culture, history and ancestral customs or to suppress them altogether so as to undermine or wreck their struggle for national affirmation.
One of these pseudo-theories is that which identifies the national community with the state community. According to this theory, in a multinational state the national belonging of every citizen is not determined on the basis of the language and other components of the nation, but on the basis of citizenship.
The Yugoslav revisionists have long ago adopted the bourgeois theory which indentifies the national community with the state community. E. Kardelj proceeds from these idealist metaphysical positions when, in flagrant opposition to the Marxist-Leninist materialist theory, he excludes from the notion of nation one of it essential features – its character as a permanent community of people, and this is not the only accidental stand of his.
There is a long history of attempts at identifying the national community with the state community in Yugoslavia. They emerged immediately after the creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, as a tendency of the Serb bourgeoisie to the Serbization of other, smaller nations included in the Yugoslav state. The Worker Socialist (Communist) Party of Yugoslavia slid completely into these positions of the Serb bourgeoisie when, at its 1st Congress held in April 1919, it adopted the slogan “one nation and one national state”, and at its 2nd Congress which was held in June 1920, it remained in the same troubled waters, by issuing the slogan of “national unity.”* This blatantly nationalist and chauvinist stand heavily compromised the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the eyes of the oppressed nations.
* The slogan of “one nation and one national state,” or the slogan of “national unity,” was launched by the Serb bourgeoisie immediately after the creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This slogan expressed a whole bourgeois nationalist and chauvinist policy. According to this slogan, it was supposed that, from the national stand-point, the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes had common characteristics and formed a national unity. The policy of “national unity” pursued by the Serb bourgeoisie was aimed at the Serbization of non- Serb nations included in the Yugoslav Kingdom. See An Outline of the History of the LCY, pp. 47-48, 68-69, Prishtina 1963.
* An outline of the history of the LCY, p. 113, Prishtina 1963.
This conception of the nation and the national question on the part of the CPY carried in essence the idea of “national unity”; hence it coincided fully with the aims of the Great-Serb bourgeoisie for the denationalization and assimilation of the other nations included in the Yugoslav Kingdom. Precisely this unhealthy situation in the ranks of the CPY, especially in its leadership, forced the Comintern to dwell repeatedly on the Yugoslav national question.
* The enlarged Plenum of the EC of the CI, p. 594, Moscow 1925.
The stand of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia on the problem of Yugoslavism as a national identity did not change in principle at the time when the Titoites came to the leadership of this party, either. Tito, Kardelj and other Titoites “opposed” the views of their predecessors on “the one Yugoslav nation” and called it “old Yugoslavism”, but they did this not because they proceeded from positions of principle, or from the principles of Marxism-Leninism in coping with the national question, but only in order to defend the interests of the Croatian-Slovene bourgeoisie from the assimilating policy of the Serb bourgeoisie, to establish some kind of equilibrium between these two bourgeois groupings. Hence the tactic of the Titoites who, on the one hand, criticized, as they still do, “old Yugoslavism” while on the other hand, loudly propagate and support their “new socialist” Yugoslavism covered up with obscure phrases and hollow slogans on “equality” and “unity” “fraternity”.
* Development of the Slovene national question, pp. 66-67.
It is clear that in a country like Yugoslavia in which private property exists and develops, in which contradictions between antagonistic classes are ceaselessly exacerbated and deepened, and in which national oppression exists in most savage forms, “the general human component” the Titoites speak about and with which they try to cover up the true meaning of Yugoslavism, is nothing other than the right of the old and new bourgeoisie of Yugoslavia, especially the Serb and Croat-Slovene bourgeoisie, to ruthlessly oppress and exploit the other nations and nationalities in the system of capitalist self-administration.
The support the LCY gave the concept of Yugoslavism as a national identity and the propaganda carried out on this question went beyond the bounds of theory. In the general census of the population of Yugoslavia taken in 1961, more than 317,000 people declared themselves of Yugoslav nationality, while in the 1981 census this number rose to 1,216,463, or more than four times the figure of the preceding census.
In Serbia the citizens who have declared themselves Yugoslavs constitute about 12 per cent of the population, in Croatia 8.4 per cent, in Bosnia-Herzegovina 7.9 per cent (here those registered as Yugoslavs are mainly Serbs and Croats); while in Macedonia the citizens who have declared themselves Yugoslavs make up only 0.7 per cent of the population, in Kosova 0.2 per cent, etc.
* NIN, August 22, 1982.
It is evident that Yugoslavism directly serves the interests of the oppressing nations, and is aimed at the denationalization and assimilation of smaller nations.
This large and rapid growth in the number of citizens who have declared themselves Yugoslavs has aroused a fierce polemic at different republican and federative levels in Yugoslavia. However, the Titoites, like all the other revisionists, go by a logic of their own. Their conscious anti-Marxist position, which has always characterized them, their ingrained hostility to freedom and true equality of nations and nationalities, and their stubborn defence of the interests of the new and old Yugoslav bourgeoisie, of which they are part, impel the Yugoslav revisionists to further foster the bourgeois idea and practice of the creation of the Yugoslav nationality.
* Rilindja, May 19, 1983.
** TANJUG bulletin, July 4, 1982.
* Rilindja, May 12, 1982.
Enlivenment and strengthening of the unitarian Serb tendencies has made the question of “Yugoslavism” even more acute. It was among the main themes of discussion at the scientific convention on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the 1st Meeting of AVNOJ. At the section of historical sciences a fierce polemic flared up over the issue. The Serb side openly defended the thesis of the centralized regulation of Yugoslavia, the same as in the pre-war Kingdom in which the Great-Serb bourgeoisie made the law in the whole of Yugoslavia. The Great-Serbs went to such lengths as to express their regret at the disappearance of the old centralized Yugoslavia and voiced their indignation that the same road is not being followed today.
* Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), German chancellor (1871-1890), rabid enemy of democracy and socialism. By force and violence he brought all the German lands under Prussia.
** Risorgimento is the broad progressive liberation movement of the Italian people for national unity, which took place in the 9th century. Piedmont, a state in northern Italy, the support base for every political, diplomatic or military action for the unification of Italy, and the rallying centre for all the different principalities and states in northern and southern Italy. The Italian Piedmont struggled for uniting homogenous nationalities into one nation, hence, it played a positive role in history, whereas the Serb variant of the “Piedmont” has a totally different content; it expresses the idea of the creation of Great Serbia through sacrificing the interests of the other nations of Yugoslavia.
*** Rilindja, Nov. 19, 1983.
The line and policy of the Titoite revisionists which identify the national community with the state community stems from their idealist and metaphysical world-outlook, and from the interests of the old and new Yugoslav bourgeoisie which they defend and represent. Against the logic of the objective process and the historical conditions which led to the formation of national communities and the development of national features, they think they can ignore the strength and permanency of nations and parts of nations, that they can easily assimilate some of them.
To tell the nations that make up a state community to renounce their national identity, to struggle for their merger and liquidation before the construction of the communist society and, more so, in the conditions of capitalism, as in the case of Yugoslavia today, is a metaphysical stand which from the standpoint of the theory of historical materialism, stems only from a chauvinist policy.
As is known, conditions for the merger and dying away of nations are created only after the triumph of communism on a world scale. Only the historical period of transition from the overthrow of capitalism to communism, the fundamental characteristic of which is the existence o the dictatorship of the proletariat, creates the conditions for the formerly oppressed and exploited nations to develop and prosper, and to display their true merits. Only when private property and the exploiting classes are liquidated, and when the communist society is built, will those factors which arise and justify the use of violence on the part of some nations on other nations, disappear from society, will true national equality and mutual trust among nations be established. Any other stand, any negation or tendency to negation of the efforts for all-round national self-affirmation and development, as the Titoite revisionists have always done, runs counter to the dialectical process of the development of history and, as such, necessarily presupposes the use of savage violence.
* J.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 11, p. 342, Alb. ed.
The departure of the Yugoslav revisionists from the Marxist-Leninist theory of the nation and their open opposition to it is apparent in the stand they take on another essential aspect of the nation, its content as a historical community of people.
Formally the Yugoslav revisionists accept that the nation is an historical social community, but along with this, in the documents and materials of their party, in the speeches of the Titoite leaders and in the publications of their daily press there is talk also about the Moslems, the Roms, or Gipsies, etc. considered as national communities, nationalities. This is an open distortion of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the nation. Proceeding from erroneous positions, they identify the historical social community with the religious or racial community.
* J.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 2, p. 292, Alb. ed.
Another flagrant distortion of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the nation by the Titoite revisionists is that they exclude such an indispensible component as language from the notion of nation.
The Marxist-Leninist theory has long since proved that the community of language is one of the more basic characteristics of the national. All the members of a nation speak a common mother tongue “There is no nation which can speak different languages at the same time...,”* J. V. Stalin pointed out.
he process of formation of nations has been associated everywhere with the formation of their common language. During the centuries which constitute the period of the pre-capitalist classless society, the common language and common territory created the conditions for the gradual implanting, among the members of a nationality, of common customs and traditions, a common way of life and a common culture, as well as many-sided common links.
With the overthrow of feudalism and the triumph of the capitalist mode of production, nationalities are transformed into nations, which are social communities much more consolidated and much more lasting than nationalities. Along with economic material factors which, of course, lie at the foundation of this progressive change, the common language makes this process easier, is an indivisible element of it, because it enables the inhabitants of different regions, who in the conditions of feudalism lived isolated from each other within the possessions of a feudal lord, to communicate freely with one another in the process of capitalist production and exchange on the national market created by this order. So language not only becomes an essential feature of the nation, but also a condition for its free and all-round development.
From this scientific materialist conception of the content of the nation and its components stems the Marxist-Leninist thesis that there can be no development, affirmation or prosperity of nations and of their national values, without supporting the development and enrichment of their national language, literature and culture by all manner of means. From the same conception stems the well-known proletarian principle that in a multinational state real juridical equality of national languages and cultures is a primary demand of democracy and socialism.
* Development of the Slovene national question, p. 76.
This is pure cosmopolitism advocating the negation of all national distinctions, the merger and assimilation of the smaller oppressed nations by the bigger oppressor nations. In this case, too, the Titoite revisionists emerge to be faithful apologists of American imperialism and its ideology and policy of exploitation.
With their theories and practices in the spirit of the ideology of cosmopolitism, the Titoite revisionists serve both international imperialism, a tool of which they are, and the new and old Yugoslav bourgeoisie, as their abject spokesmen. The national policy of the LCY expresses and protects precisely these interests of the bourgeoisie also in matters of national language and culture. Both in the time of its most savage expression in the Rankovi… period and in the time when some concessions were made under great pressure of the oppressed nations and nationalities, the policy of the LCY has always been characterized by hatred for non-Serbo-Croat languages and cultures, and complete lack of equality between them. An example to the point is the stand maintained towards the Albanian language and literature, to Albanian music and culture, in general, in Yugoslavia.
Without mentioning the period 1945-1966, which is known as the period of the most savage Rankovi… terror, when the Albanians living on their own territories in Yugoslavia were denied even their most elementary national rights, as has been admitted by the Titoites themselves, we will dwell here on the development of these two last decades which are advertised as the ”ideal” of equality among nations and nationalities, and among national languages and cultures.
It is true that after 1966, the Albanian language, literature, music, education and culture in Kosova affirmed themselves and developed as never before. However, that was not the merit or the desire of the Titoite revisionists, or their line and policy. On the contrary, the credit for everything goes to the Albanian population of Kosova, which has achieved and defended everything with blood and innumerable sacrifices.
* Rilindja. November 12, 1983.
The press in Kosova brings innumerable examples from everyday life to show that the Kosova people are denied the right of using their mother tongue, and that the use of the Serbo-Croat is imposed on them instead. It stresses with concern that “at every meeting of whatever level, communal or regional, the debate is conducted mainly in Serbo-Croat. This practice is followed not only after 1981, but also before it.”* Significative is the case of a meeting of the Economic Chamber of the Region of Kosova at which, the Serbo-Croat was the only language used, although only 3 out of 25 participants were Serbs.
*Ibidem, Rilindja. November 12, 1983.
* V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 20, p. 7, Alb. edn.
* The Official Gazette of the FSR of Yugoslavia, no. 9, 1974, p. 242.
** Rilindja, November 20, 1983.
* Rilindja, November 24, 1983.
Attempts to impose the Serbo-Croat language to the detriment of Albanian are apparent especially in cinematography. Not only are all Yugoslav films (with the exclusion of those produced by Prishtina) shown in Serbo-Croat, but also all foreign films shown in Kosova are dubbed in Serbo-Croat only. This happens only in Kosova, since in the other republics which are outside the language area of Kosova, such as the SR of Slovenia and the SR of Macedonia, foreign films are translated into their respective languages.
* TANJUG bulletin, November 1, 1982.
The Titoite revisionists continued distortion of the Marxist-Leninist concept of the nation is indivisible from the line of political and economic inequality and oppression they have always pursued in inter-national relations. The consequences of this chauvinist policy can be seen everywhere in Yugoslavia. But they are more blatant in Kosova and in the other Albanian-inhabited regions where economic backwardness is more pronounced.
The conclusion that Kosova lags far behind not only compared with the more developed republics and the average of the Federation, but also compared with the less developed republics, is substantiated by the analysis and comparison of the basic indices of the development of the region, such as the social product and the national income per capita, employment, number of doctors, pupils and students per 1,000 inhabitants, etc.
Unemployment is one of the greatest ulcers. From the reports of the Yugoslav press it emerges that one in every 2-3 citizens is employed in Slovenia, one in every 4 in Croatia, one in every 5 in Serbia, one in every 6 in Bosnia-Hercegovina, while the figure for Kosova is one in 11. The problem becomes more complicated in Kosova, as employment differs much for different nationalities. In this region one in every 4 Montenegrins, one in every 5-6 Serbs and one in every 18 Albanians has an occupation in the social sphere. Unemployment among the Albanians of Kosova is even higher when we take into account that about 100,000 of them have in recent years emigrated to other regions of Yugoslavia or abroad.
The problem of unemployment in Kosova is estimated to become more acute and worrying in the future. Thus while in Slovenia there is only one candidate for every newly created job, the figure for Serbia is 2.3 for Vojvodina 4.8, for Croatia 5.3, for Montenegro 12.8, for Bosnia-Hercegovina 13.4, for Macedonia 18.6 and for Kosova 41.8.
Even if we judge from the more fundamental index – the social product and the national income per capita – Kosova is 6 times more backward than Slovenia, 5 times more backward than Croatia, 4 times more backward than Vojvodina, 3 times more backward than the average of the Federation and the Republic of Serbia and 2 times more backward than the other less developed republics. While to the requests of the Kosovars to narrow the gap of economic inequality, the Titoite revisionists reply with promises and lies, with anger and rage, they resort to the army, tanks and aviation to suppress the legitimate demands of the Albanian population in the political field, especially to its just request for a republic of its own, like the others nations in the Yugoslav Federation.
The founders of the materialist scientific doctrine on the development of society, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, considered the right of nations and nationalities to self-determination as the right to equality, first of all, in the political field. “The right of nations to self-determination,” V. I. Lenin forcefully stressed, “means their absolute right to independence in the political meaning...”* Hence the conclusion that achievement of equality in the political field, in international relations, even within the framework of a bourgeois-democratic solution, is also a condition for the development of less advanced nations in the economic field so as to be protected, to a certain extent, against national oppression, too.
* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 22, p. 174, Alb. edn.
This truth, when the question is about the Slovenes, is admitted by Kardelj, too. “After long periods of dependence,” he writes, describing the situation of the Slovene nation in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then under Serb hegemony, “the Slovenes gained their own state, the Socialist People's Republic of Slovenia, in the framework of the Yugoslav Federation. With this the centuries-old historical aspirations of the more progressive forces of the Slovene people were realized.”* Hence, apparently E. Kardelj links the solution of the problem of the national equality of the Slovenes in the Yugoslav Federation with the creation of the Slovene Republic. If this is so then why the demand of the Albanians for the proclamation of Kosova as a republic of the Yugoslav Federation is “irredentist”, “nationalist” and “counter-revolutionary”, when it is known that on their own territories in Yugoslavia they constitute an ethnic group which, from the numerical standpoint, is larger than not only the Montenegrins and Macedonians, but also the Slovenes?
* Development of the Slovene national question, p. 46.
On every occasion the PLA and Comrade Enver Hoxha have forcefully exposed the “theories” of the nation and the practices of the Titoite revisionists on the national question and have revealed their dangerous character. They have shown the oppressed peoples and nations the true road to liberation, which is that of uncompromising struggle against the superpowers, the bourgeoisie and its servants – the modern revisionists of all hues.

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