The period of political factorization of Albania, which only from the 60s and 70s began to be considered in the international arena as a completely independent state, and at the same time the factorization of Albanians in the RSFJ, who were going through the late period of national renaissance, influenced not only in the institutionalization of the national and political consciousness of the Albanians, but for the first time also approximated the possibility of solving the issue of the Albanians in Yugoslavia. Enver Hoxha in Albania and Fadil Hoxha in Kosovo, both of whom supported the idea that Albanians should make the most of the legal opportunities for the national equality of Albanians and the advancement of the status of Kosovo
The Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, from the post-war period (1945) to the beginning of the 60s of the XX century, proved in practice that the policy of concentration of power had not resolved the national, political and economic contradictions in the Yugoslav Federation. Therefore, in the early 60s, Yugoslavia began reforms aimed at decentralizing the state and the party. With the Constitution of 1963, the RPF of Yugoslavia changed its name to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, while the status of Kosovo (which continued to be called Kosovo and Metohija) was advanced from a region to an autonomous province, equaling rights with Vojvodina.
This small and positive change for Kosovo came after a long period of persecution of the Albanians (the action of collecting weapons and moving them to the Republic of Turkey), which had the effect that the relations, still strained between the Albanians and Serbs, to make the state relations between Albania and Yugoslavia even more difficult.
Albania's exit from the Warsaw Pact and separation from the influence of the USSR
However, Albania's de facto withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and the breakdown of its relations with the USSR in 1961 could not help but affect the state relations between Albania and Yugoslavia. Thus, it was no coincidence that the conversation held in London, on March 17, 1953, between JB Tito (President of Yugoslavia) and W. Churchill (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom or Great Britain), during which the British Prime Minister emphasized that it should never be allowed penetration of the USSR naval fleet into the Mediterranean Sea, let alone possessing any naval bases.
While JB Tito would emphasize the danger that in the event of a new world conflict, the penetration of the USSR in Trieste (Italy) and Albania would isolate Yugoslavia. Consequently, Albania's new non-aligned position was also favorable for Yugoslavia, which, by balancing the foreign policy between the NATO Pact and the Warsaw Pact, had contributed a lot to the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement. Consequently, the Albanian state, with its separation from the political, economic and military influence of the USSR, had also changed the geostrategic circumstances in the Balkans and the Mediterranean, removing the Soviet military danger for the countries of South-Eastern Europe. This brought about a new situation, where for the first time after the Informburo (1948), Yugoslavia and Albania in their foreign policy met at one point: both countries became non-aligned. While the ideological struggle between the RP of China and the RP of Albania and on the other side of the USSR for influence in the International Communist Movement, aligned the Communist Party of the USSR and the Communist League of Yugoslavia, which were criticized by the Albanian leadership as "Soviet revisionists and Yugoslav". Despite the fact that N. Khrushchev's USSR and JB Tito's RSFJ were temporarily united by "anti-Stalinism", their state interests continued to be antagonistic.
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Why was Ranković's fall experienced as the rebirth of Kosovo?
Therefore, although Tito declared in 1961 that Albania and Enver Hoxha with his anti-Yugoslav policy, as well as his alliance with China presented a danger to peace in South-Eastern Europe, in the field of security for Yugoslavia it was of interest to remove the military presence of the USSR from Albania. But, due to the Soviet military threat, the non-aligned policy of the RSFJ was also important for the RP of Albania, which, based on its neutral position, had rejected the Soviet and Bulgarian offer to cooperate against the RP of Albania. Consequently, at the end of 1961, the Republic of Albania offered Yugoslavia full normalization of diplomatic relations, thus distinguishing between ideological and state interests.
At the same time, in 1960, on the eve of the exit from the Warsaw Pact and the economic blockade by the socialist countries, the RP of Albania sought to improve economic and cultural relations with France and Italy. Thus, at the end of 1960, France sold 30.000 tons of wheat to the RP of Albania (20.000 tons were paid by the RP of China), which were vital for Tirana to overcome the bread crisis induced by the Soviet economic blockade. Trade relations were also expanded with Italy (where the equipment for the nitrogen fertilizer factory was bought), with which Rome and Paris proved their willingness to keep the West's door open for Albania. Also, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece had data, according to which in the period of the breakdown of relations between the USSR and the Republic of Albania (1961), Enver Hoxha had authorized the Albanian ambassador in Rome to discuss with American officials, in in good faith and in secret, the future position of Albania. But the content of these talks was never made known.
The limitation of support from the USA and the support of Albania to China
So, in the circumstances of the "Cold War", when a spark could trigger the explosion of the "Nuclear War", the USA was not ready for the dangerous escalation with the USSR due to Albania's RP. Therefore, in the event of a Soviet invasion, Washington's support for Tirana would be limited to limited economic, diplomatic and military assistance, but without the open intervention of the NATO Pact. On the other hand, the USSR could even tolerate an Albania outside of the Vrashava Pact, but only on the condition that it would not seek to join the NATO Pact and would not change the socialist social order. In such unfavorable conditions, as well as the lack of substantive support from Western countries, Albania was forced to rely on China, which with its large economic and military aid enabled the official Tirana to survive both the economic blockade and the risk of Soviet occupation. On the other hand, in the 60s of the XX century, the member states of the NATO Pact, in order to facilitate the economic and monetary reforms of Yugoslavia, gave it 340 million dollars.
Therefore, in its policy of economic reforms, Yugoslavia was also financially assisted by Western countries, in order for its system of self-government to become an example for socialist countries, while such a policy was not followed towards Albania, primarily because NATO considered that the USSR he would try to bring Albania back to the Socialist Camp and the Warsaw Pact, even by force if necessary.
This means that the position of the RP of Albania as a former member of the Warsaw Pact was many times more serious compared to the RSF of Yugoslavia, which since 1948 was a state excluded from the Socialist Camp and with its economic reforms and political played the role of the reformed socialist state and different from those of the eastern countries. This probably also explains the reason why only in July 1967 the American diplomats proposed to the Albanian representatives in the United Nations (New York) the beginning of talks on the normalization of diplomatic relations. These US proposals for the restoration of diplomatic relations with Albania became clearer after Albania's formal withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact in August 1968.
Albania's propaganda pressure on injustices against Albanians in Yugoslavia
The fall of Khrushchev in the USSR in 1964 and the arrival of Leonid Brezhnev with his policy of ideological hardening, as well as with the policy of limited sovereignty for the member states of the Warsaw Pact, affected the cooling of relations between Yugoslavia and the USSR. For Yugoslavia, despite the ideological changes with the Albanian state, in political and military terms, it was important to have a stable Albania on the border, outside of military and socialist alliances. On the other hand, the consolidation of Albania as an independent state and its factorization in the field of ideological war within the International Communist Movement, as well as the increasingly organized clandestine activity of the Albanians influenced the RSF of Yugoslavia to soften the repressive measures against the Albanians.
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Albanian Re-Recognition
It should not be forgotten that the Albanian leadership, apart from the ideological criticism against the Communist League of Yugoslavia, also emphasized the violation of the national rights of the Albanians in Yugoslavia. Perhaps this propaganda pressure of Albania on the injustices against the Albanians in Yugoslavia was one of the motivations of the Serbian side to change the borders of the Kosovo region through administrative decisions, in order to increase the participation of the Serbian population in Kosovo. Indeed, from the end of 1954, in Yugoslavia, based on the principles of socialist self-government, the system of municipalities began to be established, as the basis of the self-governing society and where the bodies of power and the productive units of a given space would interact territorial. Although in 1958 the region of "Kosovo and Metohija" continued to be divided into the districts of Pristina, Gjilan, Prizren, Peja and Mitrovica of Kosovo, this administrative division changed in 1959, when the party and government bodies decided that even in Kosovo, instead of districts, the basic territorial units should be municipalities. Also, in Kosovo, as in other parts of Yugoslavia, the number of municipalities was reduced from 65 to 28.
Thus, at the end of 1959, the Law on changes in the administrative division of Kosovo and Metohija, approved in the Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, entered into force, according to which, instead of five administrative districts, the basic political-territorial unit in Kosovo would be a municipality. Therefore, the Serbian government in 1959 decided that the "Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija" should join parts of the territory of the Municipality of Rashka (Leshaku and Leposaviqi, with about 197 square kilometers), which until then were part of Central Serbia. The unofficial justification for the union of these two areas with Mitrovica was due to mining, but to date no official document has been found on this decision.
The increased presence of the Serbian population around Mitrovica as a guarantee of the protection of the mines by the Albanians
So, the increased presence of the Serbian population around Mitrovica would serve as a guarantee of the preservation of these mines by Albanians, but also that with the new administrative division the number of municipalities with a Serbian majority (Zubin Potok, Shtërpcë, Novobërdë and Leposaviq) would increase. compared to 24 other municipalities dominated by the Albanian population (Viti, Vučitern, Gllogovc, Gjilan, Deçan, Dragash, Gjakovë, Istog, Kaçanik, Klinë, Kamenica e Kosova, Mitrovica e Kosova, Lipjan, Malishevë, Rahovec, Orllan, Pejë , Podujevë, Prizren, Prishtina, Skenderaj, Suharekë and Ferizaj).
On the other hand, Yugoslavia in the 60s, not coincidentally, started the process of political, cultural and economic emancipation of the Albanians, as an attempt to fight the propaganda of the Albanian state on the national inequality of the Albanians in Yugoslavia, but also to eliminate the desire theirs to join their mother country, the RP of Albania. This change in the relationship of Yugoslavia towards the Albanians, although not in content and rather formal, was seen in the second Constitution of the RSF of Yugoslavia (1963), in which the status of Kosovo changed from an autonomous region to an autonomous province (Article 111), was thus equated with the status of Vojvodina. Also, from 1963, after the continued demands of the Albanian cadres, the doors of the Federation began to be opened. At the same time, the departure of Aleksandar Ranković (1966), not only paved the way for the deepening of the process of political and economic decentralization of Yugoslavia, but also posed the question of who Tito's eventual successor would be. Past experience had shown that both the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and post-World War II (1945) Yugoslavia's first existential problem as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state was the continuous confrontation between the centralist-hegemonic concept, supported by the Serbian elites, and that of disturbing or distributing political and economic power from the center to the federal units and that was supported by other non-Serbian nations of Yugoslavia.
In such conditions, in order to eliminate the possible conflict about his successor and at the same time the political war between the centralist-conservative current and the reformist-decentralist current, Tito and his collaborators, in the constitutional changes of 1971, introduced the institution of the Presidency of the RSFJ as a form of collective leadership of the Federation after the Tito period. This new system of collective leadership was hoped to enable the survival of Yugoslavia even after Tito, cementing in the new Constitution of 1974 the political and economic system of self-government (decentralized economy with elements of planned economy and free market), the political power of the League of Communists, as well as the foreign policy of non-alignment. Consequently, the 1974 Constitution transferred decision-making from the center to the six republics and two provinces (Kosovo and Vojvodina), leaving as common functions of the central bodies: defense, foreign policy and social order.
Institutionalization of national and political consciousness of Albanians
The period of political factorization of Albania, which only from the 60s and 70s began to be considered in the international arena as a completely independent state, and at the same time the factorization of Albanians in the RSFJ, who were going through the late period of national renaissance, influenced not only in the institutionalization of the national and political consciousness of the Albanians, but for the first time also approximated the possibility of solving the issue of the Albanians in Yugoslavia. The Albanian political elites in Albania and Kosovo, who had a long political experience, were clear that in the conditions of the "Cold War" and the ideological contradictions between the two political and military blocs, as well as until the Berlin Wall existed ( which symbolized the division between two political-economic systems: socialism and capitalism, but also a symbol of the division of the German people), the borders of the RSFJ could not be changed, nor would its disintegration be allowed.
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Beshlin on the negotiations of the '70s: Fadil Hoxha aimed to strengthen Kosovo's statehood
Enver Hoxha in Albania and Fadil Hoxha in Kosovo, both supported the idea that Albanians should make the most of the legal opportunities for the national equality of Albanians and the advancement of Kosovo's status. In fact, the Yugoslav side, respectively the Serbian, Macedonian and Malaysian political elites, accused the RPS of Albania and Enver Hoxha of encouraging and supporting the creation of the Republic of Kosovo, which would include all areas inhabited by Albanians in the RSF of Yugoslavia, while , on the other hand, Enver Hoxha used the ideological war and the attack against Yugoslav revisionism (the self-governing system) for propaganda purposes and only to hinder the influence of Yugoslavia in the internal politics of Albania. While, beyond the political border of Albania, Fadil Hoxha (Kosovo's senior cadre in the central bodies of the Federation) with the support of JB Tito and in accordance with Article 244 of the Constitution of the RSFJ (which recognized the right of constitutive units and elements of the Federation in the formulation of relations with neighboring countries), encouraged the development and deepening of cultural and economic cooperation with the RPS of Albania.
To be continued in the next issue of the Culture Supplement
