Page 828 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

demand could have a double meaning—directed toward secession from Yugoslavia or toward a republic in the framework of the Yugoslav federal system. However, ac- cording to the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, the republic is a sovereign state with the right of secession. Once estab- lished and supported by irredentism, the republic could lead in two directions—in and out of Yugoslavia. in the latter case it would produce two albanian states (like North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam, Cy- prus, Palestine, etc.) or the merging of both into a Great albania.
The third type of slogan had a socio-political charac- ter: “Down with the bourgeoisie,” “Down with revision- ism,” and was extolled by the albanian Communist Marx- ist-Leninist Party in Western europe.
Last but not least, slogans against the Serbian nation- al minority in Kosovo, encouraging the ongoing exodus of the Serbs from the Province, dominated.
What is the impact of the Kosovo problem today?
The significance is threefold: Yugoslav, Balkan, and eu- ropean, involving also the United States and the Western World.
albanian demands for a separate republic will desta- bilize Yugoslavia, which is already going through a seri- ous economic and political crisis. it would require the re- shuffling of the neighboring federal republics of Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia, in which many ethnic al- banians are living. This will impose a fundamental revi- sion of the Yugoslav federation to which none of the men- tioned republics would agree. The Serbs in the albanian republic would be left at the mercy of albanians and that will inevitably augment the already existing pressure on them. as already mentioned, it would offer to the new re- public the right of secession.
The Kosovo Republic means the revival of the alba- nian League from the past, and would cross beyond the Yugoslav borders, stimulating albanian demands against Greece and North epirus. (Greek and Serbian minorities in albania proper are already deprived of all basic nation- al and religious rights.) it could encourage Bulgarian as- pirations toward Yugoslav Macedonia. Taken together, it would destabilize the entire Balkan region and open the way to the Soviet access to the adriatic, the aegean and the Mediterranean seas. The eventual merging of two al- banian states into one would challenge the status quo and the southern flank of NaTO, jeopardizing the integrity of italy, Greece and Turkey. When moving out of the status quo, the Pandora box of albania can provoke innumer- able problems.
This statement is not directed against the albanian people who have the human and democratic right to live in peace and to strive toward a better life. especially not against the common people who suffer from poverty and try to overcome the heavy burden inherited from the past. But sympathy goes to the Serbian minority in Kosovo
which has the same rights and is forced to leave the do- micile of their forefathers. an “ethnically pure albanian Kosovo” which is the goal of albanian nationalists today reminds one of racist theories against which this great country fought during the war. albanians, Serbs, Monte- negrins, Macedonians, Turks, have to find a democratic solution to live together in their common state of Yugosla- via which was created in wars and revolutions and is not ready to surrender without resistance, especially where and when its Serbs are concerned.
Thank you for your attention.
MILORAD DRACHKOVITCH
(Dr. Milorad M. Drachkovitch’s paper was read by Mr. Miloš Milenković.)
Mr. Chairman, Honorable Members of the House of Representatives:
My name is Milorad M. Drachkovich. i am—since 1959—a Senior Fellow of the Hoover institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, at Stanford University, California. My fields of study are the history of the Communist in- ternational (Comintern) since its foundation by Lenin in March 1919, and the history of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia from its inception in 1920 up to the present. (The Sixth Party Congress, November 1952, changed the CPY’s name into the League of Communists of Yugosla- via, [LCY].) i have extensively published (books and arti- cles) in these fields both in the United States and abroad.
aware that my time is short and the topic of this pre- sentation huge, i shall concentrate my remarks on the re- lationship between the Yugoslav and albanian Commu- nist parties and the two neighboring states over the last several decades. instructed by the Comintern, Tito was instrumental through two representatives of his Party in the establishment of the albanian Communist Party on November 8, 1941. Seven years later the albanian Party changed its name into the albanian Party of Labor (aPL) which is still in use. a former schoolteacher of French, en- ver Hoxha became its first secretary. Until his death on april 11, 1985, Hoxha was the absolute ruler of both the albanian Party and State. a skillful and ruthless political maneuverer outside and inside albania, he was at differ- ent times and for different reasons pro-Yugoslav and an- ti-Yugoslav; pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet; pro-Chinese and anti-Chinese. He merged his Communist ethnocentrism with his cult of personality, and distinguished himself by a series of internal Party purges—among the bloodiest in the history of the international Communist movement.
initially a Yugoslav satellite, he turned against Tito and the Yugoslav State and Party after Tito’s expulsion from the Cominform on june 28, 1948. From that time on Hox- ha was permanently a foe of the “revisionist” Yugoslavia. This did not change under his successor, Ramiz alia, whose alleged greater flexibility runs parallel with the perpetu- ation of Hoxha’s personality cult.
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