The Sino-Albanian split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the People's Republic of China in the period 1971–1978.
Both countries had supported each other in the Albanian–Soviet and Chinese–Soviet splits, together declaring the necessity of defending Marxism–Leninism against what they regarded as Soviet revisionism within the international communist movement. By the early 1970s, however, Albanian disagreements with certain aspects of Chinese policy deepened as the visit of Nixon to China along with the Chinese announcement of the "Three Worlds Theory" produced strong apprehension in Albania's leadership under Enver Hoxha. Hoxha saw in these events an emerging Chinese alliance with American imperialism and abandonment of proletarian internationalism. In 1978, China broke off its trade relations with Albania, signalling an end to the informal alliance which had existed between the two states.
Origins
In September 1956, Enver Hoxha headed a delegation of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania (PLA) at the 8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Writing years later of his impressions of the country before the visit, he noted that:
Khrushchev's rehabilitation of Josip Broz Tito and the Yugoslavia and his "Secret Speech" denouncing Joseph Stalin in February 1956 put the Soviet leadership at odds with its Albanian counterpart. According to the Albanians, the "Khrushchev group's approaches to the Yugoslav revisionists and its open denigration of Joseph Stalin were the first open distortions of an ideological and political character, which were opposed by the PLA." After arriving in Beijing on September 13, Hoxha held his first (and only) meeting with Mao Zedong in between sessions of the party's congress. Mao's first two questions concerned Yugoslav-Albanian ties and the Albanians' opinion on Stalin. Hoxha replied that Albania's relations with Yugoslavia were "cold" and he gave Mao "a brief outline, dwelling on some of the key moments of the anti-Albanian and anti-Marxist activity of the Yugoslav leadership." On the subject of Stalin, Hoxha stated that the Party of Labour considered him "a leader of very great, all-round merits, a loyal disciple of Lenin and continuer of his work." Mao argued that the 1948 Information Bureau decision to expel Yugoslavia was incorrect, and also stressed what he considered to have been Stalin's mistakes in regard to China.
Hoxha later recalled that
According to Hoxha, Mao at the 1957 International Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties declared that, "If Stalin were here, we would find it difficult to speak like this. When I met Stalin, before him I felt like a pupil in front of his teacher, while with Comrade Khrushchev we speak freely like equal comrades" and condemned the "Anti-Party Group" of Molotov and others. Hoxha also claimed that Mao expressed regret that the Yugoslavs refused to attend the conference, with Mao speaking of those "who are 100 per cent Marxists, and others who are 80 per cent, 70 per cent or 50 per cent, indeed there are some who may be only 10 per cent Marxists. We ought to talk even with those who are 10 per cent Marxists, because there are only advantages in this. Why should we not gather, two or three of us, in a small room and talk things over? Why should we not talk, proceeding from the desire for unity?" In Hoxha's view the refusal of the Yugoslavs to attend, as well as both Soviet and Chinese desires to enhance their prestige in the world communist movement in response to events over the previous year, produced a situation where "the 1957 Moscow Declaration [resulting from the Conference], in general, was a good document" owing to its emphasis on opposing revisionism, which both the Soviets and Chinese found advantageous to stress at the time.
According to William E. Griffith, the Chinese position on international affairs had begun to shift to the left owing to deepening contradictions with the Soviet Union and the failure of the Hundred Flowers Campaign at home. "Only when the Chinese decided, in 1957 and openly in 1960, to challenge Soviet domination of the [communist] bloc did they seriously look around for allies whom they were ready and willing to support." By 1960 the Albanians found themselves in ideological agreement with the Chinese, as Elez Biberaj notes: "The Chinese had criticized Khrushchev for his rapprochement with Tito, and considered the toleration of Yugoslav 'revisionism' dangerous to the entire communist bloc... Although the seeds of the Sino-Soviet conflict were sown during Stalin's time, policy differences between Beijing and Moscow emerged during the mid- and the late 1950s, coinciding with the deterioration of Albanian-Soviet relations." The Chinese found the Albanians useful owing to their hostility to perceived Soviet revisionism, with Albanian articles on the subject being reprinted in the Chinese media.
In November 1960 the Second International Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties was to be held, and a Commission was created in October to prepare for it. The Albanian delegation headed by Hysni Kapo and the Chinese delegation headed by Deng Xiaoping, however, were at odds; Kapo's speech to the Commission criticized the Soviet handling of the Bucharest Conference and its attacks on China, whereas Deng stated that, "We are not going to speak about all the issues... We are not going to use such terms as 'opportunist', or 'revisionist', etc." Neither Kapo nor Ramiz Alia (another member of the delegation) felt this stand was correct, with Hoxha sending letters to the delegation calling Deng's speeches "spineless" and further replying that, "They are not for carrying the matter through to the end... They are for mending what can be mended, and time will mend the rest... If I were in the Soviets' shoes, I would accept the field which the Chinese are opening to me, because there I will find good grass and can browse at will." Alia thus wrote that on the subject of principles, "The Chinese were concerned only about the [Soviet] 'conductor's baton', which they wanted to break. They went no further."
Nonetheless, Hoxha recalled years later that, concerning the breakdown in relations between China and the Soviet Union, "we were quite clear that [the Soviets] did not proceed from principled positions in the accusations they were making against the Chinese party. As became even clearer later, the differences were over a series of matters of principle which, at that time, the Chinese seemed to maintain correct stands. Both in the official speeches of the Chinese leaders and in their published articles, especially in the one entitled 'Long Live Leninism', the Chinese party treated the problems in a theoretically correct way and opposed the Khrushchevites." On this basis it defended the activity of the Communist Party of China at the Conference, "it did so in full consciousness in order to defend the principles of Marxism-Leninism, and not to be given some factories and some tractors by China in return."
1960s
Griffith wrote in the early 60s that "Albanian documents are notable for their tone of extreme violence and defiance. A remarkable combination of traditional Balkan fury and left-wing Marxist-Leninist fanaticism, the Albanian anti-Khrushchev polemics... were certainly much more extreme than the relatively moderate, flowery, and above all 'correct' language in which the Chinese Communists have normally couched their most icy blasts against Moscow.... It seems doubtful that Peking initiated or even necessarily approved the intensity and extent of the Albanian verbal violence... they quite possibly could not or did not feel it wise to restrain him." One author noted that "Hoxha's speech [to the November 1960 Conference] so vehemently denounced Khrushchev that even the Chinese delegates looked embarrassed."
With both states claiming that the Soviet leadership had betrayed Marxism–Leninism and was presiding over the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, "China came to be perceived as having replaced the Soviet Union as the leader of the 'anti-imperialist struggle.' This image was reinforced by the poor state of Beijing's relations with the capitalist countries in general.... The revolutionary spirit characterizing the Chinese society was highly regarded by the Albanian leadership, and was considered as an indication of the Marxist-Leninist character of the CCP and its policies. During the formative years of the alliance, Tiranë looked to Beijing as a center for the development of a new and 'truly' Marxist-Leninist movement." In 1964 Zhou Enlai visited Albania and signed a joint statement which, among other things, stated that, "Relations between socialist countries, big or small, economically more developed or less developed, must be based on the principles of complete equality.... It is absolutely impermissible to impose the will of one country upon another, or to impair the independence, sovereignty and interests of the people, of a fraternal country on the pretext of 'aid' or 'international division of labor.'"
The informal alliance between China and Albania was considered by Jon Halliday to be "one of the oddest phenomena of modern times: here were two states of vastly differing size, thousands of miles apart, with almost no cultural ties or knowledge of each other's society, drawn together by a common hostility to the Soviet Union." Biberaj wrote that it was unusual, "a political rather than a military alliance" without any formal treaty having been signed and "lacking an organizational structure for regular consultations and policy coordination," being "characterized by an informal relationship conducted on an ad hoc basis."
One early disagreement between the Chinese and Albanians concerned the character of the Soviet leadership and polemics against it. In July 1963 Hoxha wrote in his diary that, "The Chinese are saying about Khrushchev today what Khrushchev said about Tito yesterday: 'He is an enemy, a Trojan horse, but we must not let him go over to the enemy, must not let him capitulate, because there is the question of the peoples of Yugoslavia', etc." and that "we are not dealing with a person or a group that is making some mistakes, that in the middle of the road sees the disaster looming up ahead and turns back; in this case it would be essential to manoeuvre, without giving way on principles, 'to prevent him from going over to the imperialists'. But with Khrushchev it is not at all in order, or correct, even to consider, let alone do such a thing. He has betrayed completely." The Chinese were reluctant to engage in public polemics with the Soviet leadership in 1961–1963, stressing the need for a "united front" against the Americans and accordingly asking the Albanians to tone down their own polemics and ask for the restoration of diplomatic relations from the Soviet Union, with the Albanians taking offense to such views.