ALBANIA: Odd Man Out

Among the gaggle of satellite Communist bosses trotting at Nikita Khrushchev’s heels in Manhattan, one was conspicuously odd man out. Red Premier Mehmet Shehu of Albania was not on the Baltika’s passenger list, got to Manhattan as an ordinary passenger on the S.S. Queen Elizabeth. At a Communist Czech reception, Shehu stood forlornly in a corner, studiously avoided by everybody except the State Department security man assigned as his bodyguard. And when, at a party given by the Rumanian Reds, Khrushchev took his satellite cronies into a back room for a chat, the door was shut in Shehu’s face as he started to follow them.

Shehu seems to have asked for it. Albania is the one European satellite which seems to have chosen Peking in the intramural ideological conflict between Russia and Red China. In June, when Khrushchev summoned all the satellite party chiefs to Bucharest to ratify his policy of “peaceful” coexistence, Albanian Party Secretary Enver Hoxha was the only top Communist boss missing. At the U.N., Shehu was noticeably more vigorous than Khrushchev in speaking up for admission of Red China, impudently echoing Red China’s scornful charge that Russian Communism is losing its ideological militancy because it is afraid of nuclear war. And Albania was the only one of Europe’s Communist nations to send a special representative to Peking for this month’s eleventh anniversary celebration of Red China’s revolution.

Just why tiny (10,630 sq. mi.) Albania, which has less area than West Virginia and fewer people than Detroit, should take Red China’s part against the Russians is something of a mystery. Part of the answer may be its poverty; Albania has only 5,000 cars, trucks and buses, like Red China feels the need of keeping the class war at fever pitch to keep her people from rebelling against austerity. But another reason is historical and geographical accident: Tito’s Yugoslavia, Albania’s archenemy and neighbor, is currently the favorite target for Chinese criticism, and Albania may figure that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Oddly enough, Tito’s Communist independence gives Albania its opportunity to be a little independent of Moscow. Since Tito broke with the Kremlin in 1948, Albania has been physically isolated from the other satellites, cut off from Russia by Yugoslavia and Greece. Part of Albania’s interest in Red China may be crassly financial: to minimize Albania’s exclusive financial dependence on Russia, Red China last year made Albania a $5.5 million interest-free loan.