The Crimes of Khrushchev: Albania

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The following consultations began at 10:30 a.m. in room 226, Old House Office Building, Washington, D.C. Committee members present: Hon. Francis E. Walter, of Pennsylvania (chairman) presiding, and Hon. Gordon H. Scherer, of Ohio. Staff member present: Richard Arens, staff director.

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The Chairman. Do you solemnly swear, Mr. Kotta and Mr. Pipa, that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. Kotta. I do.

Mr. Pipa. I do.

Statements of Nuci Kotta and Arshi Pipa

Mr. Arens. Kindly identify yourself, Mr. Kotta, by name, residence, and occupation.

Mr. Kotta. My name is Nuci Kotta. I live at 304 West 106th Street, New York City, and I am presently deputy secretary general of the Assembly of Captive European Nations.

Mr. Arens. Give us, if you will, please, sir, a brief sketch of your personal life and background.

Mr. Kotta. I am an Albanian exile, and was born in Albania. I left my country in 1938 to go to study in Paris. In 1939 Albania was invaded by the Italian Fascists, and I have not returned there since.

Mr. Arens. Give us just a word, if you please, about your professional career.

Mr. Kotta. I have a degree of doctor of laws from the University of Paris. I have taught Albanian at the National School of Spoken Oriental Languages of the University of Paris. In 1949 I became a member of the National Committee for a Free Albania. I was a member of that committee until 1953. Since 1955 I have been the deputy secretary general of the Assembly of Captive European Nations.

Mr. Arens. Now, Mr. Pipa, would you in like manner give us a word of identification of yourself: Your residence, occupation, and a brief resume of your personal background.

Mr. Pipa. I was born in Albania in 1920. I am a graduate of the University of Florence, with the degree of doctor in philosophy. I have in the past been a teacher of philosophy in Albania. I have edited an Albanian literary review, and have published a book of poems and other writings.

The regime in Tirana arrested me because of my critical attitude towards communism, which I did not accept. As a result, I spent 10 years in various prisons and slave labor camps in Albania. After being released from prison, I escaped into Yugoslavia, and in 1958 I came to the United States as a permanent resident.

Mr. Arens. Now, gentlemen, may I suggest as I pose a question to you, that either of you respond as you think appropriate; or, after one of you has spoken on a particular subject, the other may amplify his comments.

First of all, may I ask, for the purpose of clarification of the record, a word about Albania itself. Please tell us where it is located and any strategic significance it has in the power struggle in the world, and any other items of information of like character.

Mr. Kotta. Albania is situated in the Balkan Peninsula on the Adriatic shore. Its area is of about 12,000 square miles, and the population is 1,500,000, not to mention a minority of about 1,000,000 Albanians in Yugoslavia.

The strategic importance of Albania resides mainly in the fact that the Bay of Valona, which has been transformed by the Soviet Union into a powerful submarine base, would enable the Soviet Union, in case of war, to imperil allied navigation all over the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean is very important to the West because it is the lane through which logistical support can go to the very sensitive southern flank of NATO, constituted of Greece and Turkey.

The southern flank of NATO is very dangerous for the Soviet Union, because the center, Baku, which produces most of the oil in the Soviet Union, is less than 200 miles from the easternmost part of Turkey; and if it were to be occupied by the Allies, in case of war, the Soviet Union would be unable to continue the pursuit of the war. This is why the Soviets consider that it is most important to neutralize the southern flank of NATO. This is why they have built their submarine base in Valona, in order to render impossible the logistical support of Turkey and Greece in case of war.

Mr. Arens. Gentlemen, will you kindly give us a brief history of the political control of Albania in the course of the last several years?

Mr. Pipa. Albania won its independence in 1912, and remained independent until 1939, when it was invaded by Fascist Italy. In 1943, the Nazi army occupied our territory.

Albania was liberated in 1944. A large part of the forces of liberation were composed of patriotic Albanians who had been artfully deceived by Communist leaders into following them. There were also several nationalist groups and parties during the war, but the Communists managed to bring them down with their terroristic methods and with the effective help of the Yugoslav Communists. As a result, communism came into power in Albania, and, from that time, until now, has been ruling Albania so as communism rules, i.e. through methods which are unacceptable to the free world, and to freedom-loving people throughout the world.

It is because of such terroristic methods that the Albanian people, although in overwhelming majority opposed to communism, have not been able yet to overthrow its regime. The opposition has been particularly strong among the peasants and the intellectuals. The peasantry hate the collectivization policy of the regime. As for the intellectual class, its opposition has been repressed with a seldom paralleled ferocity.

Mr. Arens. Mr. Pipa, there recently left these shores the head of the international Communist apparatus, Nikita Khrushchev, who was portrayed by the highest of our officialdom in this country as a friendly, genial man, a family man, who would be deserving of all the amenities accorded a representative of the friendliest power. Have you had any occasion to experience the impact of Khrushchev’s international Communist apparatus in your own life during the period of your residency in Albania?

Mr. Pipa. During the greatest part of my imprisonment, the Albanian Communist regime had been characterized by the terrorism of Stalin. I might describe the situation after my release from prison. I lived in Albania under Khrushchev’s rule for nearly a year and a half. I can, therefore, testify about it. My opinion is that Albania is now living under the same political climate as that of Stalin. The best evidence of this is that the system of political prisons and forced labor camps is the same as before. A total, estimated from 12,000 to 14,000 people, still live in slavery in such places.

Mr. Arens. In the recent past we have seen articles by certain columnists and others who have journeyed to Moscow, to the effect that Khrushchev is becoming more benign and is eliminating the terror mechanisms which prevailed during Stalin’s regime. Would you care, on the basis of firsthand knowledge, to comment on that?

Mr. Pipa. Others may think about Khrushchev as they like. I personally think that he is just the faithful disciple of Stalin. His methods are not essentially different from those of his predecessor. The Beria case may serve as an example. Hungary is another.

As for Albania, I could testify that the forced collectivization policy has been pursued under the Khrushchev period with still more vigor than it was under the Stalin regime.

Mr. Kotta. As a matter of fact, I would like to give some details on that.

By 1953 the Communist regime, in the person of Premier Shehu, had admitted that collectivization in Albania had been a failure, inasmuch as 94 percent of the agricultural output was produced by individual farmers.

Collectivization in Albania started in earnest in 1955; that is, when Khrushchev was in the saddle in Russia. It was pursued very energetically, and by 1956, 30 percent of the arable land was collectivized, and the goal of the five-year plan which is to end next year, in 1960, is to collectivize over 80 percent of the land. The Communist statistics now say that about 75 percent of the arable land is collectivized. The often proclaimed ultimate objective is the collectivization of 100 percent of the land.

If you consider that the peasant—and I would say maybe even more so a peasant of a mountainous country—sticks to his land, does not want to abandon it, to give up his land. We have the example of Poland after the events of the Hungarian revolution in October 1956, where as soon as the peasants were free, they abandoned their collective farms and took up farming for themselves. If you consider that, then you must admit that these collectivization activities are the best proof of the fact that there is in Albania, since Khrushchev has been in power in the Soviet Union, no liberalization of the regime as has been claimed.

Mr. Pipa. I have seen indications of this fact myself. I was living in my hometown Shkoder (Scutari) in September 1957, when Premier Shehu came personally to that town to exert pressure upon the peasants of the Shkoder district to enter the collective farms. Shehu went to a village near Shkoder, gathered the peasants, and threatened that, were they not to accept collectivization, they would be considered traitors to the country and dealt with accordingly. After that, most of the peasants entered the village collective farm. It is only by such methods that communism has managed to collectivize the free Albanian peasantry.

Mr. Kotta. If I may interject. Mr. Arens, I think that Mr. Pipa might be in a position to give additional information about the terroristic measures used by the Communists to enforce collectivization and also about life in the collectivized farms.

Mr. Arens. Could you give us a word on that, please, sir, from your own personal experience, Mr. Pipa?

Mr. Pipa. The prisons and the labor camps were, to the day I left Albania, full of peasants who have opposed collectivization. The insurrection of the peasantry in Postriba in 1946 can prove this. Many peasants were massacred on that occasion, and many others have subsequently suffered death after various attempts, individually or in groups, to resist collectivization. As a fresh specimen of this resistance I could relate the case of two Albanian escapees whom I met in Yugoslavia. They told me that they hated to live in collective farms, and that “they preferred death to such a life.” When I asked them what about all this horror of collectivization, they explained to me that collectivization implies slavery. In collective farms one cannot work for himself, he must work for the state, just as a salaried worker; moreover, one is deprived of familiar intimacy and is not allowed to worship.

Mr. Arens. Is Albania coexisting now with the Soviet Union?

Mr. Kotta. In Albania we have the typical coexistence of the oppressor with the oppressed. As the other captive countries, Albania is, for all practical purposes, a colony of the Soviet Union. The Communist-imposed constitution is patterned upon that of the federated republics of the Soviet Union. The laws are patterned upon those of the Soviet Union. Because of the resistance of the Albanian people to the regime, however, the penal code is even harsher than its Soviet model. Following that code, adopted in 1952, the age for penal responsibility for political crimes begins at 12. A boy or a girl, a child of 12 could be sent to prison for crimes against the state. Last December the age was changed to 14, but I doubt whether in practice this would make much difference.

Mr. Arens. What would be the nature of a crime against the state for which they could send a boy of 12 to prison ?

Mr. Kotta. Anvthing, practically. The judges who sit on trials are called the people’s judges, and they have practically everything in their power. They can do whatever they want. They are not professional judges.

The lawyers themselves are forced to be, as the Minister of Justice said—and I could perhaps give you the date of this—accessories of Communist justice; they are forced to help the prosecution. Not only this, but also they are obliged to tell whatever secrets they have learned from the accused, to the prosecutor. The basic aim of the Communist criminal legislation is to “protect” the so-called People’s Democratic State and to destroy the enemies of the regime. As a result, according to conservative estimates based on reports by escapees—the Communists, of course, do not publish statistics of their crimes—about 10,000 people have been killed with or without trial.

Mr. Arens. Do you suppose Khrushchev, this benign, friendly man, as he is portrayed by certain of our officialdom, would countenance sending to the penitentiary for political crimes children only 12 years of age?

Mr. Kotta. The penal code was adopted in 1952. With the exception of the amendment of December 1958 which I just mentioned, it has remained unchanged. It has not been abrogated. And now, Mr. Khrushchev, this benign man, as you have called him, is the master in Albania; and since this penal code has not been repealed, then you must assume that he would send children to prison.

Mr. Arens. Were reports of Khrushchev’s visit here and the statements made about him disseminated in Albania to these people who are in this slave state?

Mr. Kotta. Very much so.

Mr. Arens. I would like to read you a quotation from the Washington Evening Star of September 28, 1959, as follows:

Describing the meeting of Premier Khrushchev with the Eisenhower grandchildren at his Gettysburg farm, the President said it was a “heart-warming scene” of the sort that all Americans would enjoy.

Assuming that this public statement is disseminated behind the Iron Curtain to the people who are held in subjugation by Khrushchev’s terror apparatus, what will be their reaction to this type of official statement by the head of the government of the free world?

Mr. Kotta. Undoubtedly it will be a blow to their morale. I would like to add to this that, as a general rule, any meeting of a Soviet ruler with a Western leader would be a blow to the morale of the captive peoples unless this Western leader raises, at that meeting, the question of the restoration of freedom and independence to the captive nations and presses for an equitable solution of this grave problem.

Mr. Pipa. I would say that they would be shocked at hearing it.

Mr. Arens. Why?

Mr. Pipa. Because, as a matter of fact, family life in Albania—I refer to family as the ethical institution which has been so strongly respected before communism’s advent—is being systematically destroyed. When Albanians see, for instance, that sons are being trained to spy on their own parents, they would be much perplexed at the presentation of a person, who is to them the incarnation of evil, as a good family man.

Mr. Arens. Do you have information respecting economic exploitation of Albania under Khrushchev’s Communist apparatus?

Mr. Kotta. Yes. In this respect, I may state the following. Since the Communists came into power and particularly since Khrushchev gained control in the Kremlin, there has been an acceleration of the drive toward industrialization of Albania. Before World War II, Albania was mainly an agricultural country, with very little industry. Adding more industry to an agricultural country is not a bad thing in itself, provided it serves the interests of the people. But this is not the case in Albania now under communism, because the industrialization of Albania means practically just the mining of copper and chromium ore.

By the way, in Albania are the richest deposits of chromium ore in eastern Europe, producing over 7 percent of the entire output of the Communist-dominated world.

This chromium ore, and copper and other minerals, as well as oil, are extracted in Albania and sent to the Soviet Union, which buys them at ridiculous prices. The investments for this industrialization, so-called, of Albania are so much greater than the investments for the agriculture that, as a result, Albania is not in a position now to produce enough food for its own people. In addition, the presence of a very large number of Soviet agents of all sorts, who enjoy a standard of living well above not only that of the people, but even of the Albanian Communists, is a heavy burden on the Albanian economy. Also a relatively very large army—which the regime maintains in order to have youth under control—deprives the agriculture of a much needed manpower.

That is why, until 2 years ago, there was rationing in Albania; and now, even though the ration tickets have been abandoned, the diet of the Albanian people is still a starvation diet.

Mr. Arens. Do you have information as to whether or not there is freedom of religion in Albania under Khrushchev’s regime?

Mr. Pipa. Religion has never been free in Albania since communism came into power, and the situation is still the same at present. Although the Communist rulers have many times stated that there is freedom of religion in Albania, the major fact is that the persons who are the heads of the various Albanian churches are people chosen by the government and not by the Albanian people. Everybody knows that communism is an atheistic doctrine which is opposed to any form of religious faith. The Communist leaders do not make any secret of the fact that communism is trying to wipe out any vestige of former religious education. It is, therefore, contradictory to assert any freedom of religion on such premises.

Mr. Kotta. May I interrupt? I have some figures about the persecution of the Catholic clergy in Albania which are very interesting.

Mr. Arens. Would you kindly proceed to present them?

Mr. Kotta. At the end of 1950, out of 93 Albanian Catholic priests, 17 had been executed, 39 had been imprisoned, and many of these have since died in prison or concentration camps.

Mr. Pipa. I could testify to that. I would like to mention here in particular the case of Msgr. Prennushi, who was my roommate at the Durres (Durazzo) prison. I have been told by him about the tortures he underwent at the security section of Durres. I have witnessed myself his being offended and even tortured during his imprisonment. In the same prison of Durres, after horrible tortures, the head of the Moslem Church of Durres, Mustafa Varoshi, died.

Mr. Kotta. Eleven have been drafted into the army as ordinary soldiers, 10 have died, and 3 have escaped into the free world. Only 13 still remain free.

Out of 94 monks, Franciscans and Jesuits, 16 have been executed, 31 expelled, 35 imprisoned, 6 have died, and 6 were in hiding.

Mr. Arens. What is the source of this information?

Mr. Kotta. The source of my information is the Albanian priests who have escaped from Albania.

The Archbishop, head of the Albanian Catholic Church, Monseigneur Vincenc Prennushi, died in prison. Bishop Volaj was shot and Archbishop Gjoni was shot.

The nuns were expelled from their convents. All church properties, of course, have been confiscated.

Catholic institutions in 1945, when the Communists took over, were as follows: 253 churches and chapels, 2 seminaries, 10 monasteries, 20 convents, 15 orphanages and asylums, 16 church schools, and 10 charitable institutions. In 1953, only 100 churches and chapels and 2 monasteries were still open. All the other institutions have been closed.

The printing presses belonging to the church and the seven periodicals published by the church, have been suppressed.

The drive against the Catholic Church still continues, and many of the remaining churches have been closed or transformed into recreational halls for the party. The seminaries are closed, as there are not enough priests alive or free. Many Catholics have little opportunity now to practice their religion.

The Moslem and Orthodox churches, although perhaps less severely suppressed, have not fared much better. They have been deprived of their rightful leaders who have been replaced by subservient tools of the regime. The faithful may lose their jobs if they frequent the churches. And when one loses his job in the captive nations, this often means that he loses the right to work as well.

Mr. Arens. May I inquire, if there were a free election tomorrow in Albania, would the Communists receive the majority of the votes?

Mr. Pipa. I would say that they never would receive a majority of the votes in Albania if there were free elections. I know personally that all strata of the people are opposed to communism. They cannot make an insurrection to throw down communism, however, because the regime is so atrocious, so terroristic, that they cannot dare to attempt it.

Mr. Kotta. That is true today. However, it was not so until recently. After the Cominform expelled Tito in 1948, Albania ceased to have common borders with the rest of the Soviet empire and the Albanians could have overthrown the Communist regime by themselves. The main conditions for a successful revolt were there: discontent of the overwhelming majority of the population and armed resistance in the mountains. All that was needed was some material support and a Western guaranty of the independence and territorial integrity of the country. Unfortunately, these were not given and, after the so-called Warsaw Pact and the repression of the Hungarian revolution, the opportunity was lost.

Mr. Arens. Gentlemen, policies seem to be prevailing in the free world which presuppose that we are engaged in a popularity contest with a competing economic system, and that we can win this struggle with the international Communist empire if we just understand each other a little better, and that we develop an understanding by exchanging art work, motion pictures, displays, fairs, and the like. Based upon your experience with communism in reality as distinct from the fiction which is current, what observation do you care to make on this approach to the struggle with communism?

Mr. Pipa. Mr. Arens, I would like to say that I do not believe in the sincerity of Communists preaching about a mutual interchange in cultural relations. Were such an interchange to take place, communism would lose thereof considerable. The atmosphere propitious to communism is one of secrecy and conspiracy, of underhand methods and of hidden truth. If the curtain were removed—which would certainly happen in case of free cultural interchange—the hideous picture that would reveal itself to the astonished eyes of the free world would raise indignation and anger; communism would not have any benefit from it.

Mr. Arens. Why, then, if the Communists do not like cultural exchange, have they entered into arrangements whereby they displayed here in Washington, the seat of our Government, the motion picture “The Cranes Are Flying.” They were sold out downtown on “The Cranes Are Flying.” Seats were at a premium to see this production of the Communist regime.

Mr. Kotta. They do not mind sending pictures which spread propaganda for the Communist regime.

Mr. Arens. How would this picture, or how would their fair in New York City, or any of these cultural exchanges, benefit the Soviet regime?

Mr. Kotta. The Communist fraud in the whole program is that it purports to identify in the minds of the free world the Communist regime and the people whom they hold in bondage. You do not see in any of these cultural exchanges, in their fairs, in their motion pictures, in their art work which they send over here, in their ballets, any reference at all to the terror mechanism of the machinery which holds in bondage the millions of people that the Communists have subjugated. You see displayed a little culture, which may or may not contain Communist propaganda as such. But the fallacy of the whole program is that it tends to convey to the minds of the free world the concept that the so-called struggle between the free world and the Communist world is a struggle between peoples as such, that is, between the Russian people and the American people, rather than between a deadly Communist world apparatus and the remaining free people.

May I say further, as we mention peaceful coexistence and peaceful competition, that the Soviet rulers have always made it clear that they wanted to conquer the world. Lenin said that, and Stalin said it after him. Then Krushchev said it, and he added that the Communists are going to renounce their goal when “a shrimp learns to whistle.” Now Mr. Khrushchev says, “Let’s forget about the cold war. I want peaceful coexistence.” But not long ago, at Novosibirsk on October 10, shortly after his visit to the United States, Khrushchev defined coexistence like this:

Coexistence means continuation of the struggle between the two social systems—but by peaceful means, without war, without interference by one state in the internal affairs or another. We consider it to be economic, political, and ideological struggle, but not military.

Now, the very phrase of “cold war” has become an anathema to the West, tnanks to the Soviet propaganda; but this peaceful coexistence, as defined by Mr. Khrushchev, is nothing but cold war at its worst.

What the Kremlin wants is to lull the West into complacency. They are trying to get the West to recognize the status quo, so that they may finally succeed in convincing the captive peoples throughout the Communist empire that it is useless to resist them, because they consider that the resistance of the captive nations to communism is one of the major deterrents to their plans of world conquest.

This is what the peaceful coexistence launched by Mr. Khrushchev means.

Mr. Pipa. The Kremlin’s pretense of peace is all a falsity. Communism is characterized by the most unscrupulous machiavellism; they are quite different things what Communists say and what they do. I might say here good words, beautiful words, about something which is in reality bad. That is what the Communists are doing. People who do not know them well, people who do not have the marks of their violence on their bodies, may be deceived by their propaganda. A wise policy, however, should remedy it.

Mr. Arens. Mr. Pipa, can you now, on this record, recount, while you are still under oath, from your own experiences, what communism in action means in reality, as distinct from what Khrushchev says and has said here in the United States?

Mr. Pipa. In reality, communism means the system of prisons and slave labor camps. It means the repression of freedom of press, of freedom of gathering, of freedom of worship, and, in general, of what are called civil rights and human rights.

Mr. Arens. Tell us a word about your own experiences in the slave labor camps as a captive of Khrushchev’s Communist apparatus.

Mr. Pipa. I would like to tell you something particular in this regard. For the ten years of imprisonment I experienced, I was not allowed to have books to read in prison, except official literature. This fact of repression of cultural freedom remained unchanged, under Stalin’s regime as well as under Khrushchev’s rule. It would take too much time to speak here about my experience of prisons and labor camps—this might be found in my writings. Suffice it to say here that during my captivity I was always living under the terror of the possibility of immediate death; death by torture and starvation, death by illnesses contracted in horrible jails, death by inhuman labor conditions in camps.

Mr. Arens. Was physical torture inflicted upon you, sir?

Mr. Pipa. Yes, sir.

Mr. Arens. Give us a word about that.

Mr. Pipa. When I was arrested, I was beaten so savagely that I lost consciousness.

Mr. Arens. Why were you beaten savagely?

Mr. Pipa. Because they wanted me to confess things that were not true.

Mr. Arens. How did they beat you? With what type of instruments?

Mr. Pipa. With several types of instruments: a piece of wood, the butt of a gun, whips; I was boxed, and kicked, and trampled on. As a consequence, I could not speak for a month. Beating, however, is far from being the worst kind of torture in Communist Albania, and I should be glad to have come out alive; my brother, for instance, died while being tortured.

Mr. Arens. Khrushchev has described the Communists as humanitarians. Is that consistent with what you are relating?

Mr. Pipa. If you call such things humanitarian, I would agree with him.

Mr. Arens. Can the free world believe Khrushchev’s professions of peaceful intent?

Mr. Kotta. At its own risk. If the West were to believe the professions of peace and friendship of Khrushchev and be lulled into complacency, the Soviet Union would succeed in gaining further footholds, and would at some time be so strong that it would either by military means or otherwise crush the free world.

Mr. Arens. Can the free world trust Khrushchev in any international summit conferences?

Mr. Kotta. No.

Mr. Pipa. Certainly not.

Mr. Arens. Why not?

Mr. Pipa. An international conference is regarded by Communists as just another weapon in the cold war. The world should not believe what they say in conferences, because it is the dominant feature of Communists to deny with actions what they say in words. It has been proved so many times during the history of communism that only naive people, not enough enlightened, may believe it.

Mr. Kotta. If my memory does not betray me, a committee of the American Congress has established that the Soviet Union has violated some thousand treaties with other countries. If the Soviet Union has violated a thousand treaties, how can you believe that the Soviet Union will respect any treaties which it might enter into with the free world in the future?

The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Kotta and Mr. Pipa.