Albania ...

A photo from a dear friend, on holiday in Albania, sets the memory banks buzzing. .. rewinding a few decades to the days of political delusion and exciting stories created in the drama of this naive young activist, seeking a practical expression of a truly socialist society, signs up to the austere and ideologically pure regime of Enver Hoxha ... promotes its merits in The Albanian Society, a home for anyone interested in the country, run by dedicated revolutionaries as an opaque vehicle with wider aims ... headed by a maverick intellectual dentist called Bill Bland, who had his own small Marxist-Leninist group, mirroring Hoxha's history of falling out with erstwhile allies ... whilst the naive young activist, having inveigled himself into the working class as a bus driver in London (sabotaging decades of effort in the other direction from aspirational parents), then as trade union rep, was a member of a slightly bigger group, a Party, which established formal relations with Albania after another, slightly bigger again, group fell out with Hoxha over the split with China ... phew, so many splits and we haven't started on the Communist Party of Great Britain or any of the many Trotskyite groups ...

Needless to say the Labour Party, was dismissed as a capitalist outfit, providing cover for the traditional ruling class and their Conservative Party. They even took turns as the government when democracy needed a polish. .. or industries vital to private industry,  like coal mining, steel, rail, gas, electric and water,  needed large capital investments the risk taking stock market gamblers didn't fancy ...  as Lenin said: The British bourgeoisie lets go of power with one hand, only to catch it with the other.

The two main strands of political activity, party and trade union, leavened by playing and watching football and by romantic liaisons, came together in a particularly intense few weeks back in 1979, when the Albanian Society organised the first group trip to Albania, which involved quite complicated effort ... a few weeks before departure, an issue arose at the bus depot, when a conductor was sacked for allegedly fiddling fares. He protested his innocence. The sacking was considered provocative, since in such cases where there was any doubt, then a warning would be issued. The district manager, aptly named Blacker "the Sacker", was flexing his muscles and the mood in the local union was to take him on. So, two weeks before the trip, a strike was called. Not a token hour or day, but an all out event until the conductor was reinstated. Official TU officers told us to go back to work while they sorted it out (they had a cosy agreement to keep a lid on wildcat strikes in return for privileges). Having little faith in the officials, we persevered. They persuaded other depots across London (more than 50 at the time) to hang us out to dry ... revenge for previous radicalism.

As time ticked on, the question of how the main trip organiser could possibly fly off to Socialist Albania in the middle of the strike he was leading became rather pressing ... impossible to resolve really. Now all out strikes do lose momentum when the first week's wages are missing, and transport strikes become tiresome for managers and politicians since transport trips once lost are never recovered (unlike commodity strikes where overtime swiftly follows settlement - unless the strike was provoked to cut unwanted production, which also happened sometimes ....) anyway a compromise was cobbled together, the conductor would have his job, but at another depot,the buses went back on the road and the naive young activist headed off to Tirana, to bring the greetings of the British Working Class to our government contacts. I mentioned this to a couple of members of the BWC, but of course it was difficult to consult all of them ...

After another four trips, Albania was finally going the way of the old Soviet Union and its satellites, and the naive young activist realised that all was not as it appeared, notably when a professor asked if a berth could be found in London for the son of his old friend the Minister of Defence ... previous alerts from a resident New Zealand communist had raised concerns and the ever sceptical Bill Bland was on to it early. 

In 1991 the old regime had fallen and elections were held to form a new government. Since there was some residual respect for the old guard, particularly for their wartime resistance and the economic achievments, the reformed PLA or communists won. Since the Americans were investing in the country, the US ambassador addressed the recalcitrant masses in Skanderbeg Square, telling them that they were getting another chance at this democracy thing and if they wanted the money they had better get it right this time.

Sali Berisha, the US favourite won and capitalism ripped through the country in the form of a series of pyramid schemes which just about destroyed the economy. After much turbulence the UN moved in the stabilise things and now a Social Democratic government has joined NATO and the list of countries applying for the place soon to be vacated by the UK (perhaps), or whatever is left of it when the dust settles, at the good old EU ... and Albania qualified for the Euro football tournament for the first time, much to the delight of the citizenry.