BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS AND BOBBIS MISAILIDES
TIRANA, Albania - "Kosovo is our blood." That was among the main slogans of a demonstration of 4,000 people here March 8 in solidarity with the struggle for self- determination of Albanians in Kosovo. Similar actions took place around the country the following days.

"We gathered outside the downtown campus of the University of Tirana and then marched to Skender Bay square to join the main rally," said Kliton, an engineering student at that school who asked that his last name not be used. About 2,000 students took part in the action.

The governing Socialist Party (SP), the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), and organizations throughout the country's political spectrum endorsed the demonstration. Prime Minister Fatos Nano of the SP spoke at the rally, along with Democratic Party chief and former president Sali Berisha. The big-business media in Greece and elsewhere in the region had given the impression that Berisha initiated the action and his party was the main force behind it.

"That was a token participation by the political parties," said Neritan Bushi, another student at the University of Tirana. "They have to do something when so many people support our brothers and sisters in Kosovo. But they are not so inclined to mobilize people in the streets, especially after last year's rebellion that brought down Berisha. It was the students who played the major role." Among the main initiators of the action were Albanian students from Kosovo who go to the university here.

Since early March, the Independent Students Union at the University of Tirana, in collaboration with the Kosovo student groups, has organized weekly marches and rallies at the Yugoslav embassy and elsewhere in the city, Kliton and Bushi said in a March 19 interview here. They are demanding an end to the state of siege of Kosovo by the regime in Belgrade and supporting self-determination for Albanians there.

Nano's government requested that NATO troops be deployed at Albania's border with Yugoslavia to supposedly stem the flow of arms and guerrilla fighters into Kosovo and "assure stability." Washington and its imperialist allies in NATO agreed to provide economic and technical support to Albania's military at a March 11 meeting in Brussels, but stopped short of accepting Tirana's invitation for dispatching a "peacekeeping force" at this time.

The Atlantic military alliance, though, took another step toward intervention about two weeks later. "Nato announced yesterday the dispatch of specialist advisers to Albania to help it beef up security on its border with Yugoslavia and crack down on smuggling of arms to ethnic Albanian Kosovars inside Yugoslavia," said the March 28 Financial Times of London. By the end of March, the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe had set up a four-member civilian monitoring group at the Albania-Kosovo border to assess conditions.

Among the several dozen students, workers, and others interviewed by Militant reporters, opposition to imperialist military intervention ran deep.

"NATO means war," said Bushi. "Every time I hear `peacekeeping' I worry. Look at what the United States is doing in Iraq. Look at what they've done in Bosnia," he added, referring to the 1995 U.S.-led bombing of that Yugoslav republic and its subsequent occupation by NATO troops. "We don't want them here or in Kosovo."

Many students and others drew on their experience with imperialist troops from Italy, Greece, and other countries being deployed to Albania last year. "It was a foxy way, a sneaky way for Europe to come in and try to profit from our problems," said Imelda Shinko, a student at the University of Vlore. Shinko helped organize defense for 57 students on hunger strike in that city in February 1997, which was the prelude to the uprising against Berisha there. "Twice I was part of bringing citizens to the university who came with bats, brooms, kitchen knives, sticks - whatever weapons they could find - to defend the students when we heard Berisha's police were coming to bust up the hunger strike," she said. Many of the students and workers who led last year's revolt were also at the center of organizing the recent demonstrations supporting the popular resistance in Kosovo.

While such marches and rallies took place in neighboring Fier, as well as Shkoder, Durres, Elbasan, Korca, Gjirokaster, and many other Albanian cities, the mobilization in Vlore was reportedly the largest. Between 8,000 and 10,000 people took part in the March 9 rally at the city's Flamur Square (Square of the Flag) - the site of daily gatherings a year ago during the anti-government revolt. Vlore was the hotbed of that rebellion.

The 1997 armed rebellion
The revolt was sparked in January 1997, when fraudulent investment funds promoted by Berisha's regime, the so-called pyramid schemes, collapsed and hundreds of thousands of working people lost their life savings. "I worked for two years in Greece in construction," said Bushi, "and I had put everything I had in the pyramids. All of a sudden it was gone."

About 300,000 Albanians have emigrated to Greece since the early 1990s in search of jobs and a living income. In Albania they are faced with widespread unemployment and drastic cuts in social services as a result of Berisha's "market reforms." Hundreds of thousands of others emigrated to Italy, Germany, and other countries in Europe and North America. The majority of these workers do not have legal papers and are often deported back to Albania.

These immigrant workers and other Albanians were lured to deposit their savings into the pyramids by promises they would double their money within two months. Many returned to Albania to reclaim their deposits upon hearing of trouble with the Ponzi schemes at the end of 1996. Having gone through experiences in the class struggle in Greece, Italy, and elsewhere, these workers played a central role in the rebellion against Berisha. Bushi, for example, who came back from Greece two years ago, was among those who took up arms to bring down the regime that had pushed the pyramids as a get-rich-quick scheme. "Berisha's promises of capitalism turned into a nightmare," Bushi said. "So we fought back."

Workers, farmers, students, and others took to the streets to demand compensation from the state, relief from the already heavy burden of the government's attempt to integrate Albania into the world capitalist market, and an end to police repression. Berisha tried to suppress the protesters with brute force. But hundreds of thousands resisted and got support from sections of the military and thousands of former army officers Berisha had dismissed as loyal to his rival, the Socialist Party. By early March 1997, the government lost control of the southern half of the country. Albania's army and police were dissolved for a time, most of the population got arms, and jails were thrown open. The ruling bureaucratic caste - different than the bourgeoisie under capitalism because it owns no means of production -fractured. Residents of many towns, especially in the south, attacked agents of the hated secret police, the SHIK, and burned police stations. Rebel councils were formed and ran a number of cities in the south for several months.

To avoid the fall of the regime through revolutionary means - a development that would have boosted the self- confidence of working people and set a dangerous precedent for all the rival layers of the ruling caste - the Socialist Party joined the Democratic Party in a government of "national reconciliation." This coalition government invited imperialist troops to intervene to help it quell the rebellion under the guise of "restoring stability."

The governments of Italy, Greece, France, and other countries dispatched 7,000 troops in mid-April under the sanction of the United Nations. New elections were held in June and July, while the country was occupied by foreign troops. The Socialist Party won 101 seats in the 155-member national assembly, while the DP got only 27. Berisha resigned from the country's presidency July 23, which was one of the main demands of the rebels. Since then his party has boycotted most parliament sessions. SP leader Fatos Nano became the new prime minister. Most of the occupying troops left the country by mid-August. About 150 Greek soldiers remain in Tirana today, supposedly training Albania's military, which is still in the process of being reconstituted.

Crisis of ruling caste
The revolt threw the rule of the bureaucratic caste in Albania - the privileged social layer that has held political power in that country since the degeneration of the socialist revolution half a century ago - into deep crisis. Following the victory in the antifascist struggle that ended the country's occupation by German and Italian troops, the partisans, who had united people of different nationalities, put in power a workers and farmers government. By the late 1940s, that regime had distributed land to the poor peasants, nationalized the means of production, and put in place economic planning and monopoly of foreign trade - ending the country's domination by imperialist powers and establishing a workers state, though it was deformed at birth from Stalinist domination.

By the early 1950s, a privileged social layer of government bureaucrats, company managers, army and police officers, and professionals crystallized as a caste that usurped political power from the hands of the toiling majority. This layer was represented until 1990 by the Stalinist Albanian Workers Party, or Communist Party, headed by Enver Hoxha. Faced with a wave of strikes and demonstrations against austerity measures and for democratic rights, the Communist Party changed its name to Socialist Party in 1991. It lost elections to the Democratic Party the next year. The leaderships of both the SP and DP hail from the Communist Party and represent competing layers of the same social caste. The Democratic Party calls for rapid restoration of capitalism, while the SP presents itself as social democratic.

The rebel councils that were formed during the uprising were very heterogeneous. They were comprised of people from different social layers who often had conflicting class outlooks. They included young working-class fighters who stepped forward to lead the revolt, former military officers who held high positions in the armed forces under Hoxha's regime and were dismissed by Berisha between 1992 and 1996, and officials of the Socialist Party. These committees were unable to provide an alternative to the government in Tirana and were dissolved gradually by the fall of last year.

Between April and October of 1997, armed gangs loyal to Berisha and others composed of outright criminal elements carried out widespread attacks on the population, especially in the south. These were occasionally aimed at rebel council leaders. They often included indiscriminate robberies and murders. The rebel councils were unable to organize effective defense of many cities. A number of their leaders were incorporated into the structures of the new government, which by early 1998 was able to reconstitute the police nationwide. There is now a measure of normalcy in the country, and most people report that the activities of the gangs have diminished.

At the same time, the government was only partially successful in collecting the arms distributed last year. The heavy weaponry, such as tanks and artillery, is now back under government control. But many people still have Kalashnikovs, AK-47 rifles, or other light arms at home. During the rebellion, 1,200 of the army's 1,500 weapons depots were destroyed and 600,000 arms were taken. As of last October, the government said it had collected only about 10 percent of them. As Minella Bala, a former leader of the citizens' council in Sarande, put it, "People still need them to defend themselves."

Various assessments of revolt
The evolution of the rebellion dampened the expectations of many working people that they would get compensation for the savings they lost in the pyramids or that they would see their livelihoods improve soon. Some got demoralized and point to the taking up of arms against Berisha as an experience they wouldn't want repeated. Many others, though, are more self-confident after bringing down a hated regime.

These working people are not defeated and remain the main obstacle to the objectives of Washington and other imperialist powers, and to the hopes of the would-be capitalists here - restoring capitalist social relations in Albania and destroying the remaining gains of the revolution.

"Most of us took part in the uprising last year," said Raimoda Leva, a sewing machine operator at MC Clothing, a garment shop of 60 in Vlore, referring to her co-workers. "The revolt was a good thing, especially the first two months. But then there was too much violence and looting. For months we didn't have a job. At least now we do." The factory where she works shut down in March and reopened in September of last year. Her view was common among other workers in that plant.

Albert Shyti, 28, who worked as a laborer in Greece for five years, was one of the central leaders of the Committee for the Salvation of Vlore that was formed during the rebellion. "What we did last year belongs to the past," he said in an interview in Vlore March 20. "Taking up arms is not something I would want to repeat. Although struggle is the only way to win something." Shyti, who ran unsuccessfully for the national assembly on the ticket of the Social Democratic Party in last summer's elections, and four other members of Vlore's former defense council have formed the Committee to Defend Popular Rights. "The government is now trying to put their own people in good jobs, the police, and the army," he said. "Our committee is fighting against that, for public works to rebuild the infrastructure and create jobs, for the right to unionize in private companies, and to get some of the money back from the pyramids."

Others looked back at last year's events with more optimism. "We rose up for our dignity," said Arben Lami, 21, a student at the University of Vlore. "Berisha would have still been here without that. And what we did served notice to all politicians about what may happen if they act like Berisha."

Deputy Prime Minister Bashkim Fino told parliament on March 12 that Vefa Holding, Kamberi, and three other companies had run pyramid schemes that had attracted US$584 million from 138,500 Albanians. Hundreds of thousands of others were defrauded by schemes that shut down last year. Fino said depositors could only hope to get 10-20 percent of their money back because the assets of the five companies that are still operating were worth no more than $50 million and their cash frozen in banks was less than $11 million. Many of the managers of these schemes fled the country last year with large amounts of cash and one has been sentenced to five years in prison. The government says it will sell the remaining assets of these companies and distribute the funds to depositors sometime this spring.

Vehbi Alimucaj, the head of Vefa Holding, has been waging a campaign to be allowed to continue operating his firm. Besides defrauding 92,000 people, Alimucaj's company owns some chicken farms and real estate. He has organized a hunger strike by 20 of his "investors" who supposedly believe his claim they will get all their deposits back if Vefa stays in business. The government has ordered Vefa to sell its assets, which is popular among most people.

"These companies should be taken over by the government and their owners go to jail," said Neritan Bushi.

"The Ponzi schemes happened because we never lived under this system, capitalism," said Albana Vraneri, a University of Vlore student. "We were fooled."

Most workers, students, and others interviewed by Militant reporters said they no longer expect to get their money back from the pyramids. "The important thing is what we do now to fight for jobs and better social services," said Kliton.

Opposition to `market reforms'
Albania, still a largely agricultural country of 3.2 million people, remains the poorest in Europe with per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $340 per year. The "market reforms" implemented by the previous SP and Democratic Party regimes brought devastation to the country's economy.

As of 1993, some 92 percent of the land cultivated by collectives under Hoxha's regime and 62 percent of state farms were turned over to individuals and can now be sold on the market or inherited. Ownership of the land by foreign investors, though, is still prohibited by law. The small parcels of land farmers received amount to an average of 3.7 acres. Without any credit to purchase seed and fertilizers, or access to machinery, cultivation of the land came to a standstill in large areas of the country. An exporter of agricultural goods in the 1980s, Albania now imports about half of its needed foodstuffs. Cultivation has picked up a bit this year, a number of farmers and other Albanians reported.

After Berisha cut subsidies to state enterprises, 90 percent of industry was shut down, throwing hundreds of thousands on the streets. Despite the ambitious plans of Berisha's administration to sell off state enterprises to foreign investors, however, large-scale industries such as mining, oil refining, and electricity generating remain nationalized. Nano's government has pledged to continue the privatization plans, which many workers oppose.

The TEC thermoelectric plant outside Fier, 30 miles northeast of Vlore, has been on the long list of privatization for a number of years, but that day doesn't seem closer. "So far the privatization has remained on paper only," Moharrem Stokju complained to Militant reporters during a visit there last October. Stokju, who was the plant director at that time, had also gotten a lease from Berisha to operate Fier's state-owned hotel. These layers, whose loyalties alternate between the SP and the DP, are deeply convinced that capitalism is the future for Albania. They get a hearing among a number of workers and farmers, though limited. On this visit, workers told us the plant has a new director.

"Privatization? No way!" said turbine operator Alfonse Lamce at the TEC plant.

"We should stay with the state," added Nazife Resuli, with 25 years in the plant. "Privatization means layoffs and profits for the bosses. We run things around here."

The facility produces about a third of the country's electricity with about 650 workers, 30 percent of whom are women. Wages there range between $100 and $180 per month, higher than the country's average monthly wage of about $80. One of the workers compared the pay and conditions in this plant with those of his wife, who works in a garment shop in Fier owned by an Italian investor. "She makes a third of what I do," said Albert Dano. "She works longer hours. She has no union protection. And sick leave, vacation pay, and other benefits we take as a given don't exist in that place."

Contempt for foreign investors
Contempt for foreign investors was widespread among most students and workers interviewed by the Militant. "They come here to profiteer," said Imelda Shinko, one of the University of Vlore students, referring to the Italian investors in town. "The only factories that are working now in Vlore are the ones run by Italians. Workers there make $30-40 a month. Friends in Italy tell me workers there make that amount in one day for the same job! They pocket all the rest of the money from our sweat."

During a visit to one of these shops in Vlore, MC Clothing, Michelo Massimo, the Italian owner, boasted that the operation was quite profitable. That's why he stayed there through last year's revolt, he said, even though another plant he owned in Perat was damaged. He shut that factory down. "The T-shirts, pants, and jackets produced here are all exported to Italy," he said. "We make good money this way. But the state doesn't give me insurance."

Wages there average $55 per month. Even though there is no piece rate, many workers said employees have been fired because their production didn't meet the boss's desires. An effort to organize a union in this plant failed in 1996, said Albana Lamaj, 24, a sewing machine operator. "We don't have any rights here. We must change that."

As Militant reporters were leaving the plant, Guzmen Sejdiu, who works as a guard there, came outside and asked to speak to us. "I want to make sure you hear our side of the story," he said, referring to the comments by the owner. "These people are here for their own good only, to rob us. They pay nothing, they fire workers, and they don't even pay any taxes to the state as they are supposed to. Most of the time they bribe the tax collectors with a few shirts. It would be better if the Albanian state could take them over."

Such views are not uncommon, even though in many cases workers see foreign investment as the only way to replace backward technology, most of which comes from China; repair damages to equipment that occurred during the last year's unrest; and get production going. At the Ballshi oil refinery, for example, all 1,500 workers remain on the payroll, but with a reduced wage, even though the facility receives less than half of the 1 million tons of oil it processed in 1996 due to damages in the oil wells. A number of workers there have pinned hopes on an investor from Australia buying the plant.

The attitudes of garment and other workers in Vlore and Fier, though, are more prevalent and they play a role in making many foreign investors stay away from Albania. From the nearly 100 Italian businessmen who invested in Vlore, only 20 remain today, according to Massimo, with investments in garment shops, a shoe manufacturing plant, and in trading companies. "Most are still scared to come back after what happened last year," Massimo added.

These facts have had an impact on imperialist powers that are collaborating with the Fino regime. The Greek government, for example, that promised a $700 million loan to Tirana last summer has only come forward with 10 percent of the amount so far.

The Fino government has restored a tiny part of the social wage Berisha had cut. Unemployment compensation is now about 60 percent of a workers' wage for a year after a layoff, we were told. Joblessness is about 50 percent, though, and most of these workers have been unemployed for more than a year. In addition, the government approved austerity measures pushed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a condition for loans. A new tax package, approved by the SP- dominated parliament last year, raised the Value Added Tax (VAT) to 20 percent from 12.5 percent and imposed VAT payments on electricity and other services.

"The new VAT tax means I have to pay a quarter of my paycheck for electricity," said a worker at the Rekor shoe company in Gjirokaster, who asked to be identified only with his initials K. X. "The prices have gone up." Out of his daily wage of $3 he has to spend two-thirds on food for him and his family of four. A loaf of bread, for example, costs 50 and a pound of meat $2. "All the politicians are the same," K.X. said. "Not much has changed since last year." One of the reasons his family manages to survive is that he doesn't have to pay rent. As most Albanians, K.X. owns his house, one of the gains of the revolution.

Many workers mistrust the governing SP and other political parties that opposed Berisha. But even among them, a number point with pride to what they did in last year's revolt. "Things are better now," said Athina Soko, another worker at the Rekor plant, a joint venture between a Greek investor and the government. "Our union here organized defense of the plant and in the city. We managed to take many steps to normalize the situation. The gangs have disappeared. Berisha is gone. And four of the factories here are back working."

Opposition to NATO intervention
It is these workers and young people who are also in the way of attempts by Washington and other imperialist powers to deploy their military forces in Albania.

While the Fino regime has dispatched additional troops to the border with Kosovo and has invited NATO to send troops to Albania, many working people are not favorable to the prospect. A few are even opposed to the measures of the government to restrict movement across the border with Kosovo. "If Albanians come from Kosovo, they should be welcomed. We don't need more troops at the border," said Eddie, an English-language professor at the University of Vlore who asked that only his first name be used.

"If NATO will do what the Italian and Greek troops did last year we don't want them here or in Kosovo," said Guzmen Sejdiu. "They came supposedly to restore order and stop the criminal gangs from terrorizing the population. But for months they sat and watched as that happened."

This was a common view, even among those who had illusions in the imperialist troops. "They came here as tourists," said Albert Shyti. "They did nothing for the people even when we asked them."

Only a tiny minority among those interviewed expressed support for the deployment of foreign troops last year. "They played a positive role because they frightened the gangs," said Valentina Alika, who works at the Rekor shoe plant in Gjirokaster. She was the only one among the dozen workers Militant reporters talked to there who held that view.

Others have drawn more explicitly anti-imperialist conclusions. "The U.S. has interests of its own," said University of Vlore student Elmida Nuredini. "That's why they want to intervene, not for the good of the Albanian people."

"The United States dropped atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and has starved the Iraqi people for the last eight years," said University of Tirana student Kliton. "That alone tells you a lot."

Many of these students and others also emphasized their determination to continue actions to back the struggle for independence of Albanians in Kosovo. "We can't give practical aid, like arms, but we have to make clear our moral support," Nuredini insisted. "We will continue to raise our voices like we did on March 9 at Flamur square."

Jack Willey, organizer for the Young Socialist National Executive Committee, contributed to this article. BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS AND BOBBIS MISAILIDES

TIRANA, Albania - "Kosovo is our blood." That was among the main slogans of a demonstration of 4,000 people here March 8 in solidarity with the struggle for self- determination of Albanians in Kosovo. Similar actions took place around the country the following days.

"We gathered outside the downtown campus of the University of Tirana and then marched to Skender Bay square to join the main rally," said Kliton, an engineering student at that school who asked that his last name not be used. About 2,000 students took part in the action.

The governing Socialist Party (SP), the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), and organizations throughout the country's political spectrum endorsed the demonstration. Prime Minister Fatos Nano of the SP spoke at the rally, along with Democratic Party chief and former president Sali Berisha. The big-business media in Greece and elsewhere in the region had given the impression that Berisha initiated the action and his party was the main force behind it.

"That was a token participation by the political parties," said Neritan Bushi, another student at the University of Tirana. "They have to do something when so many people support our brothers and sisters in Kosovo. But they are not so inclined to mobilize people in the streets, especially after last year's rebellion that brought down Berisha. It was the students who played the major role." Among the main initiators of the action were Albanian students from Kosovo who go to the university here.

Since early March, the Independent Students Union at the University of Tirana, in collaboration with the Kosovo student groups, has organized weekly marches and rallies at the Yugoslav embassy and elsewhere in the city, Kliton and Bushi said in a March 19 interview here. They are demanding an end to the state of siege of Kosovo by the regime in Belgrade and supporting self-determination for Albanians there.

Nano's government requested that NATO troops be deployed at Albania's border with Yugoslavia to supposedly stem the flow of arms and guerrilla fighters into Kosovo and "assure stability." Washington and its imperialist allies in NATO agreed to provide economic and technical support to Albania's military at a March 11 meeting in Brussels, but stopped short of accepting Tirana's invitation for dispatching a "peacekeeping force" at this time.

The Atlantic military alliance, though, took another step toward intervention about two weeks later. "Nato announced yesterday the dispatch of specialist advisers to Albania to help it beef up security on its border with Yugoslavia and crack down on smuggling of arms to ethnic Albanian Kosovars inside Yugoslavia," said the March 28 Financial Times of London. By the end of March, the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe had set up a four-member civilian monitoring group at the Albania-Kosovo border to assess conditions.

Among the several dozen students, workers, and others interviewed by Militant reporters, opposition to imperialist military intervention ran deep.

"NATO means war," said Bushi. "Every time I hear `peacekeeping' I worry. Look at what the United States is doing in Iraq. Look at what they've done in Bosnia," he added, referring to the 1995 U.S.-led bombing of that Yugoslav republic and its subsequent occupation by NATO troops. "We don't want them here or in Kosovo."

Many students and others drew on their experience with imperialist troops from Italy, Greece, and other countries being deployed to Albania last year. "It was a foxy way, a sneaky way for Europe to come in and try to profit from our problems," said Imelda Shinko, a student at the University of Vlore. Shinko helped organize defense for 57 students on hunger strike in that city in February 1997, which was the prelude to the uprising against Berisha there. "Twice I was part of bringing citizens to the university who came with bats, brooms, kitchen knives, sticks - whatever weapons they could find - to defend the students when we heard Berisha's police were coming to bust up the hunger strike," she said. Many of the students and workers who led last year's revolt were also at the center of organizing the recent demonstrations supporting the popular resistance in Kosovo.

While such marches and rallies took place in neighboring Fier, as well as Shkoder, Durres, Elbasan, Korca, Gjirokaster, and many other Albanian cities, the mobilization in Vlore was reportedly the largest. Between 8,000 and 10,000 people took part in the March 9 rally at the city's Flamur Square (Square of the Flag) - the site of daily gatherings a year ago during the anti-government revolt. Vlore was the hotbed of that rebellion.

The 1997 armed rebellion
The revolt was sparked in January 1997, when fraudulent investment funds promoted by Berisha's regime, the so-called pyramid schemes, collapsed and hundreds of thousands of working people lost their life savings. "I worked for two years in Greece in construction," said Bushi, "and I had put everything I had in the pyramids. All of a sudden it was gone."

About 300,000 Albanians have emigrated to Greece since the early 1990s in search of jobs and a living income. In Albania they are faced with widespread unemployment and drastic cuts in social services as a result of Berisha's "market reforms." Hundreds of thousands of others emigrated to Italy, Germany, and other countries in Europe and North America. The majority of these workers do not have legal papers and are often deported back to Albania.

These immigrant workers and other Albanians were lured to deposit their savings into the pyramids by promises they would double their money within two months. Many returned to Albania to reclaim their deposits upon hearing of trouble with the Ponzi schemes at the end of 1996. Having gone through experiences in the class struggle in Greece, Italy, and elsewhere, these workers played a central role in the rebellion against Berisha. Bushi, for example, who came back from Greece two years ago, was among those who took up arms to bring down the regime that had pushed the pyramids as a get-rich-quick scheme. "Berisha's promises of capitalism turned into a nightmare," Bushi said. "So we fought back."

Workers, farmers, students, and others took to the streets to demand compensation from the state, relief from the already heavy burden of the government's attempt to integrate Albania into the world capitalist market, and an end to police repression. Berisha tried to suppress the protesters with brute force. But hundreds of thousands resisted and got support from sections of the military and thousands of former army officers Berisha had dismissed as loyal to his rival, the Socialist Party. By early March 1997, the government lost control of the southern half of the country. Albania's army and police were dissolved for a time, most of the population got arms, and jails were thrown open. The ruling bureaucratic caste - different than the bourgeoisie under capitalism because it owns no means of production -fractured. Residents of many towns, especially in the south, attacked agents of the hated secret police, the SHIK, and burned police stations. Rebel councils were formed and ran a number of cities in the south for several months.

To avoid the fall of the regime through revolutionary means - a development that would have boosted the self- confidence of working people and set a dangerous precedent for all the rival layers of the ruling caste - the Socialist Party joined the Democratic Party in a government of "national reconciliation." This coalition government invited imperialist troops to intervene to help it quell the rebellion under the guise of "restoring stability."

The governments of Italy, Greece, France, and other countries dispatched 7,000 troops in mid-April under the sanction of the United Nations. New elections were held in June and July, while the country was occupied by foreign troops. The Socialist Party won 101 seats in the 155-member national assembly, while the DP got only 27. Berisha resigned from the country's presidency July 23, which was one of the main demands of the rebels. Since then his party has boycotted most parliament sessions. SP leader Fatos Nano became the new prime minister. Most of the occupying troops left the country by mid-August. About 150 Greek soldiers remain in Tirana today, supposedly training Albania's military, which is still in the process of being reconstituted.

Crisis of ruling caste
The revolt threw the rule of the bureaucratic caste in Albania - the privileged social layer that has held political power in that country since the degeneration of the socialist revolution half a century ago - into deep crisis. Following the victory in the antifascist struggle that ended the country's occupation by German and Italian troops, the partisans, who had united people of different nationalities, put in power a workers and farmers government. By the late 1940s, that regime had distributed land to the poor peasants, nationalized the means of production, and put in place economic planning and monopoly of foreign trade - ending the country's domination by imperialist powers and establishing a workers state, though it was deformed at birth from Stalinist domination.

By the early 1950s, a privileged social layer of government bureaucrats, company managers, army and police officers, and professionals crystallized as a caste that usurped political power from the hands of the toiling majority. This layer was represented until 1990 by the Stalinist Albanian Workers Party, or Communist Party, headed by Enver Hoxha. Faced with a wave of strikes and demonstrations against austerity measures and for democratic rights, the Communist Party changed its name to Socialist Party in 1991. It lost elections to the Democratic Party the next year. The leaderships of both the SP and DP hail from the Communist Party and represent competing layers of the same social caste. The Democratic Party calls for rapid restoration of capitalism, while the SP presents itself as social democratic.

The rebel councils that were formed during the uprising were very heterogeneous. They were comprised of people from different social layers who often had conflicting class outlooks. They included young working-class fighters who stepped forward to lead the revolt, former military officers who held high positions in the armed forces under Hoxha's regime and were dismissed by Berisha between 1992 and 1996, and officials of the Socialist Party. These committees were unable to provide an alternative to the government in Tirana and were dissolved gradually by the fall of last year.

Between April and October of 1997, armed gangs loyal to Berisha and others composed of outright criminal elements carried out widespread attacks on the population, especially in the south. These were occasionally aimed at rebel council leaders. They often included indiscriminate robberies and murders. The rebel councils were unable to organize effective defense of many cities. A number of their leaders were incorporated into the structures of the new government, which by early 1998 was able to reconstitute the police nationwide. There is now a measure of normalcy in the country, and most people report that the activities of the gangs have diminished.

At the same time, the government was only partially successful in collecting the arms distributed last year. The heavy weaponry, such as tanks and artillery, is now back under government control. But many people still have Kalashnikovs, AK-47 rifles, or other light arms at home. During the rebellion, 1,200 of the army's 1,500 weapons depots were destroyed and 600,000 arms were taken. As of last October, the government said it had collected only about 10 percent of them. As Minella Bala, a former leader of the citizens' council in Sarande, put it, "People still need them to defend themselves."

Various assessments of revolt
The evolution of the rebellion dampened the expectations of many working people that they would get compensation for the savings they lost in the pyramids or that they would see their livelihoods improve soon. Some got demoralized and point to the taking up of arms against Berisha as an experience they wouldn't want repeated. Many others, though, are more self-confident after bringing down a hated regime.

These working people are not defeated and remain the main obstacle to the objectives of Washington and other imperialist powers, and to the hopes of the would-be capitalists here - restoring capitalist social relations in Albania and destroying the remaining gains of the revolution.

"Most of us took part in the uprising last year," said Raimoda Leva, a sewing machine operator at MC Clothing, a garment shop of 60 in Vlore, referring to her co-workers. "The revolt was a good thing, especially the first two months. But then there was too much violence and looting. For months we didn't have a job. At least now we do." The factory where she works shut down in March and reopened in September of last year. Her view was common among other workers in that plant.

Albert Shyti, 28, who worked as a laborer in Greece for five years, was one of the central leaders of the Committee for the Salvation of Vlore that was formed during the rebellion. "What we did last year belongs to the past," he said in an interview in Vlore March 20. "Taking up arms is not something I would want to repeat. Although struggle is the only way to win something." Shyti, who ran unsuccessfully for the national assembly on the ticket of the Social Democratic Party in last summer's elections, and four other members of Vlore's former defense council have formed the Committee to Defend Popular Rights. "The government is now trying to put their own people in good jobs, the police, and the army," he said. "Our committee is fighting against that, for public works to rebuild the infrastructure and create jobs, for the right to unionize in private companies, and to get some of the money back from the pyramids."

Others looked back at last year's events with more optimism. "We rose up for our dignity," said Arben Lami, 21, a student at the University of Vlore. "Berisha would have still been here without that. And what we did served notice to all politicians about what may happen if they act like Berisha."

Deputy Prime Minister Bashkim Fino told parliament on March 12 that Vefa Holding, Kamberi, and three other companies had run pyramid schemes that had attracted US$584 million from 138,500 Albanians. Hundreds of thousands of others were defrauded by schemes that shut down last year. Fino said depositors could only hope to get 10-20 percent of their money back because the assets of the five companies that are still operating were worth no more than $50 million and their cash frozen in banks was less than $11 million. Many of the managers of these schemes fled the country last year with large amounts of cash and one has been sentenced to five years in prison. The government says it will sell the remaining assets of these companies and distribute the funds to depositors sometime this spring.

Vehbi Alimucaj, the head of Vefa Holding, has been waging a campaign to be allowed to continue operating his firm. Besides defrauding 92,000 people, Alimucaj's company owns some chicken farms and real estate. He has organized a hunger strike by 20 of his "investors" who supposedly believe his claim they will get all their deposits back if Vefa stays in business. The government has ordered Vefa to sell its assets, which is popular among most people.

"These companies should be taken over by the government and their owners go to jail," said Neritan Bushi.

"The Ponzi schemes happened because we never lived under this system, capitalism," said Albana Vraneri, a University of Vlore student. "We were fooled."

Most workers, students, and others interviewed by Militant reporters said they no longer expect to get their money back from the pyramids. "The important thing is what we do now to fight for jobs and better social services," said Kliton.

Opposition to `market reforms'
Albania, still a largely agricultural country of 3.2 million people, remains the poorest in Europe with per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $340 per year. The "market reforms" implemented by the previous SP and Democratic Party regimes brought devastation to the country's economy.

As of 1993, some 92 percent of the land cultivated by collectives under Hoxha's regime and 62 percent of state farms were turned over to individuals and can now be sold on the market or inherited. Ownership of the land by foreign investors, though, is still prohibited by law. The small parcels of land farmers received amount to an average of 3.7 acres. Without any credit to purchase seed and fertilizers, or access to machinery, cultivation of the land came to a standstill in large areas of the country. An exporter of agricultural goods in the 1980s, Albania now imports about half of its needed foodstuffs. Cultivation has picked up a bit this year, a number of farmers and other Albanians reported.

After Berisha cut subsidies to state enterprises, 90 percent of industry was shut down, throwing hundreds of thousands on the streets. Despite the ambitious plans of Berisha's administration to sell off state enterprises to foreign investors, however, large-scale industries such as mining, oil refining, and electricity generating remain nationalized. Nano's government has pledged to continue the privatization plans, which many workers oppose.

The TEC thermoelectric plant outside Fier, 30 miles northeast of Vlore, has been on the long list of privatization for a number of years, but that day doesn't seem closer. "So far the privatization has remained on paper only," Moharrem Stokju complained to Militant reporters during a visit there last October. Stokju, who was the plant director at that time, had also gotten a lease from Berisha to operate Fier's state-owned hotel. These layers, whose loyalties alternate between the SP and the DP, are deeply convinced that capitalism is the future for Albania. They get a hearing among a number of workers and farmers, though limited. On this visit, workers told us the plant has a new director.

"Privatization? No way!" said turbine operator Alfonse Lamce at the TEC plant.

"We should stay with the state," added Nazife Resuli, with 25 years in the plant. "Privatization means layoffs and profits for the bosses. We run things around here."

The facility produces about a third of the country's electricity with about 650 workers, 30 percent of whom are women. Wages there range between $100 and $180 per month, higher than the country's average monthly wage of about $80. One of the workers compared the pay and conditions in this plant with those of his wife, who works in a garment shop in Fier owned by an Italian investor. "She makes a third of what I do," said Albert Dano. "She works longer hours. She has no union protection. And sick leave, vacation pay, and other benefits we take as a given don't exist in that place."

Contempt for foreign investors
Contempt for foreign investors was widespread among most students and workers interviewed by the Militant. "They come here to profiteer," said Imelda Shinko, one of the University of Vlore students, referring to the Italian investors in town. "The only factories that are working now in Vlore are the ones run by Italians. Workers there make $30-40 a month. Friends in Italy tell me workers there make that amount in one day for the same job! They pocket all the rest of the money from our sweat."

During a visit to one of these shops in Vlore, MC Clothing, Michelo Massimo, the Italian owner, boasted that the operation was quite profitable. That's why he stayed there through last year's revolt, he said, even though another plant he owned in Perat was damaged. He shut that factory down. "The T-shirts, pants, and jackets produced here are all exported to Italy," he said. "We make good money this way. But the state doesn't give me insurance."

Wages there average $55 per month. Even though there is no piece rate, many workers said employees have been fired because their production didn't meet the boss's desires. An effort to organize a union in this plant failed in 1996, said Albana Lamaj, 24, a sewing machine operator. "We don't have any rights here. We must change that."

As Militant reporters were leaving the plant, Guzmen Sejdiu, who works as a guard there, came outside and asked to speak to us. "I want to make sure you hear our side of the story," he said, referring to the comments by the owner. "These people are here for their own good only, to rob us. They pay nothing, they fire workers, and they don't even pay any taxes to the state as they are supposed to. Most of the time they bribe the tax collectors with a few shirts. It would be better if the Albanian state could take them over."

Such views are not uncommon, even though in many cases workers see foreign investment as the only way to replace backward technology, most of which comes from China; repair damages to equipment that occurred during the last year's unrest; and get production going. At the Ballshi oil refinery, for example, all 1,500 workers remain on the payroll, but with a reduced wage, even though the facility receives less than half of the 1 million tons of oil it processed in 1996 due to damages in the oil wells. A number of workers there have pinned hopes on an investor from Australia buying the plant.

The attitudes of garment and other workers in Vlore and Fier, though, are more prevalent and they play a role in making many foreign investors stay away from Albania. From the nearly 100 Italian businessmen who invested in Vlore, only 20 remain today, according to Massimo, with investments in garment shops, a shoe manufacturing plant, and in trading companies. "Most are still scared to come back after what happened last year," Massimo added.

These facts have had an impact on imperialist powers that are collaborating with the Fino regime. The Greek government, for example, that promised a $700 million loan to Tirana last summer has only come forward with 10 percent of the amount so far.

The Fino government has restored a tiny part of the social wage Berisha had cut. Unemployment compensation is now about 60 percent of a workers' wage for a year after a layoff, we were told. Joblessness is about 50 percent, though, and most of these workers have been unemployed for more than a year. In addition, the government approved austerity measures pushed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a condition for loans. A new tax package, approved by the SP- dominated parliament last year, raised the Value Added Tax (VAT) to 20 percent from 12.5 percent and imposed VAT payments on electricity and other services.

"The new VAT tax means I have to pay a quarter of my paycheck for electricity," said a worker at the Rekor shoe company in Gjirokaster, who asked to be identified only with his initials K. X. "The prices have gone up." Out of his daily wage of $3 he has to spend two-thirds on food for him and his family of four. A loaf of bread, for example, costs 50 and a pound of meat $2. "All the politicians are the same," K.X. said. "Not much has changed since last year." One of the reasons his family manages to survive is that he doesn't have to pay rent. As most Albanians, K.X. owns his house, one of the gains of the revolution.

Many workers mistrust the governing SP and other political parties that opposed Berisha. But even among them, a number point with pride to what they did in last year's revolt. "Things are better now," said Athina Soko, another worker at the Rekor plant, a joint venture between a Greek investor and the government. "Our union here organized defense of the plant and in the city. We managed to take many steps to normalize the situation. The gangs have disappeared. Berisha is gone. And four of the factories here are back working."

Opposition to NATO intervention
It is these workers and young people who are also in the way of attempts by Washington and other imperialist powers to deploy their military forces in Albania.

While the Fino regime has dispatched additional troops to the border with Kosovo and has invited NATO to send troops to Albania, many working people are not favorable to the prospect. A few are even opposed to the measures of the government to restrict movement across the border with Kosovo. "If Albanians come from Kosovo, they should be welcomed. We don't need more troops at the border," said Eddie, an English-language professor at the University of Vlore who asked that only his first name be used.

"If NATO will do what the Italian and Greek troops did last year we don't want them here or in Kosovo," said Guzmen Sejdiu. "They came supposedly to restore order and stop the criminal gangs from terrorizing the population. But for months they sat and watched as that happened."

This was a common view, even among those who had illusions in the imperialist troops. "They came here as tourists," said Albert Shyti. "They did nothing for the people even when we asked them."

Only a tiny minority among those interviewed expressed support for the deployment of foreign troops last year. "They played a positive role because they frightened the gangs," said Valentina Alika, who works at the Rekor shoe plant in Gjirokaster. She was the only one among the dozen workers Militant reporters talked to there who held that view.

Others have drawn more explicitly anti-imperialist conclusions. "The U.S. has interests of its own," said University of Vlore student Elmida Nuredini. "That's why they want to intervene, not for the good of the Albanian people."

"The United States dropped atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and has starved the Iraqi people for the last eight years," said University of Tirana student Kliton. "That alone tells you a lot."

Many of these students and others also emphasized their determination to continue actions to back the struggle for independence of Albanians in Kosovo. "We can't give practical aid, like arms, but we have to make clear our moral support," Nuredini insisted. "We will continue to raise our voices like we did on March 9 at Flamur square."

Jack Willey, organizer for the Young Socialist National Executive Committee, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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