By Michael Harrison, Left side of the road
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Introduction
While not easy, it is relatively easy to make a revolution, in comparison to the difficulty of surviving the fury of the reaction from capitalism and imperialism. Imperialism is prepared to rain death and destruction on any group of workers and peasants who dare to challenge the established order. If a society survives any initial onslaught – and many have not – then the building of a new, Socialist, classless based society is even more difficult. Of the few workers and peasants revolutions that were successful in the 20th century, it is worth mentioning from the start that all were led by organised Communist parties. These followed, and developed, Marxist-Leninist ideology – thereby putting all other ‘ideology’ – the Trotskyites, the Anarchists etc, in their place.
It is also relatively easy to re-organise industry and agriculture in a different, collective manner from that which has existed since the early years of the 19th century. (Again, the term ‘relatively’ has to be taken in context.) Industrialisation and collectivisation in the Soviet Union, for example, from the late 1920s into the 1930s, wasn’t easy and was fraught with difficulties. But the first step – taking the land and the means of production away from the big landowners and capitalists – was achieved by the organised workers (and especially their leadership). They knew that the force of arms, used by the majority of the population, was a winning argument.
However, the biggest hurdle a new workers’ state has to face in the effort to construct Socialism, the biggest challenge that has to be taken on – and needs to be resolved before a truly new society can be established – is to confront the ideas of the old society. These old ideas are entrenched in all who have been brought up in a society relying on oppression and exploitation. Some willingly confront these vestiges of the past, some do so reluctantly, some cling on to them in the hope the new social ‘experiment’ will fail. But all persons within the new Socialist society have to take a stance on this matter – whether they are aware of it or not.
Not only do we need to put capitalism and imperialism into the dustbin of history, into the same wheelie bin we also have to consign the old ideas.
And that’s not easy.
In fact it’s so difficult that no society which has attempted to build Socialism has been able to exist for more than 46 years – barely two generations. But even that was a major achievement when we consider that the country in question was Albania. It had a tiny population and yet was faced, from the very beginning, with the open hostility of the capitalist and imperialist forces. These latter forces had come out of the Second World War weakened (especially in Europe); but still hell bent on destroying those societies that had taken up the Red Banner of Socialism. Albania overcame those early attempts at the restoration of capitalism. But Albania also later had to face the chaos, both economically and politically, caused by the revisionist degeneration of the once proud Communist, Marxist-Leninist Parties.
In this article I want to look at how the Party of Labour of Albania, under the leadership of Enver Hoxha, sought to use culture, especially those monuments, mosaics and bas reliefs (known as lapidars in Albania) which were on permanent public display throughout the country, as a weapon in the ideological battle against the old ideas of the rotten and moribund capitalist system as well as counter-acting the ‘new’ ideas of the equally rotten ‘modern revisionism’ which was aiming to destroy the Socialist state from within.