In the southeast of Europe, there is such a small socialist country in the Balkan Peninsula, before modern times, the country was repeatedly invaded and occupied by foreign nationalities, until 1912 with the assistance of Western powers to break away from the ottoman empire, but the good times did not last long, the country's independence did not take long, in the blink of an eye ushered in World War II, small countries were then occupied by Italy, German fascists successively occupied, until January 1946 ushered in liberation, this country is our China's former "good friend" - Albania.
Top attractions in Albania
As a small country, if you want to mix in the international wind and water, then it is a very safe way to find a big country to be a backer. Having said that, like Albania, it has changed three big countries as backers in less than 20 years, which has a sense of "three surnames and family slaves". Between 1945 and 1961, Albania allied itself with Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and our country, but eventually fell to the Americans, which was really helpless and embarrassing.
Most people may not be impressed by this country, but if you are still a little impressed by the history textbook, you will definitely remember that the textbook mentions that we returned to the United Nations with Albania's vote. Albania is extremely small, only 28,748 square kilometers, but it was one of the only two self-liberating countries in Eastern Europe during World War II, so its reputation in Eastern Europe is not small. But when Albania declared its liberation in 1946, it faced a new crisis: Greece's territorial claims to its southern regions, korce and Gjirokaster.
At that time, Greece, with the support of the United States and the British, brazenly demanded that the nascent Albania cede the territory of these two regions, or else take military measures. At the Paris Peace Conference in July 1946, the Greek prime minister even secretly proposed to Yugoslavia a joint partition of Albania. At this time, Albania can be described as internal and external troubles, with reactionary forces everywhere in the interior and Greece on the outside. In the face of the crisis, the Communist government of Albania should have turned to the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union in order to seek the protection of the Soviet Union.
Albanian architecture
However, at this time, the Soviet Union was in a state of flux after the war, and the Soviet Union was busy negotiating post-war interest arrangements with the United States and Britain, and did not want to spare time and resources to help Albania. So Albania turned around and asked for help from its neighbor, Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia, which is also the socialist camp under the leadership of Marshal Tito, has a thriving national strength, and even has the strength to compete with the Soviet Union, which can be said to be a good choice, and south Afghanistan is adjacent to each other, and has many origins in history, nationality and other aspects, during World War II, Yugoslavia also contributed to the establishment and development of the Albani Communist Party, so Yugoslavia naturally became the big brother of Albania.
The leader of Yugoslavia – Tito
In the face of Albania, which came empty-handed, Yugoslavia showed particular enthusiasm, not only giving great assistance, but also generously expressing the hope that it would ally with Albania to become a "Balkan alliance" and make everyone a true brother. In 1947 alone, the two countries jointly established a joint company for banking, electricity, mining, food processing, etc., and Yugoslavia also began to help Albania build the country's first railway, and even aided more than 10% of the Argentine government's fiscal revenue that year.
At first, Albania was naturally grateful to this enthusiastic big brother, but later it was found that Yugoslavia was constantly interfering in Albanian diplomacy on the grounds that the Afghan regime was new and did not understand diplomacy, and in order to strengthen Albania's dependence on it, Yugoslavia deliberately did not develop heavy industry in Afghanistan, which made the Albanian government hold its breath. Just as there was a gap between the two countries, the Soviet Union was at odds with Yugoslavia, and out of the needs of international strategy, the Soviet Union also intended to co-opt Albania in order to strengthen its control over the Eastern European countries. So Albania, which had always been afraid of being annexed by Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union could be described as a love affair, the two looked at each other at a glance, and Albania quickly abandoned the big brother Yugoslavia and turned to the arms of the new big brother, the Soviet Union.
Compared with Yugoslavia, the rich Soviet Union can be described as a heroic hand, after the alliance between the Soviet Union and Albania, according to statistics, in 1949-1955, the trade volume with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe always accounted for more than 60% of the total Trade with Afghanistan, and in 1950-1960, the Soviet Union also provided 226 million rubles of interest-free loans to Afghanistan, and also helped Afghanistan build several large hydropower stations, various mining stations, and heavy industry projects; militarily, it also helped develop special forces, navies, and submarines. At the same time, Allah was included in the Warsaw Pact, making it one of the founding countries of the Warsaw Pact.
For such a huge assistance from the Soviet Union, Afghanistan not only copied the Stalin model, but also in the mouths of Albanian leaders and in the organ press, the CPSU was called the "Mother Party", Stalin was enshrined as a "respected father", and the cult of personality of Stalin was set off in the country, and every year Stalin's birthday was solemnly celebrated throughout Albania.
The man holding the portrait of Stalin
Logically, in the face of such a huge favor from the Soviet Union, Albania had no need to leave this big brother at all, so why did Albania finally break away from the Soviet Union? Khrushchev is to blame for this.
When Khrushchev came to power, Khrushchev began to improve relations with Yugoslavia, which made Albania, which regarded Yugoslavia as an enemy, feel like a man's back. On February 24, 1956, Khrushchev published a secret report entitled "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, criticizing Stalin's serious mistakes and comprehensively negating Stalinism, which triggered a shock in Eastern European countries.
Khrushchev
As soon as this secret report came out, Albania immediately jumped back, because Stalin can be described as sacrosanct in the image of The Country, whether it is political, economic, cultural or even military, it is based on Stalin's learning, and the Albanian leaders are also engaged in a cult of personality. For example, at the eleventh council meeting of the World Confederation of Trade Unions in Beijing, the Albanian representatives did not echo the pro-Soviet remarks of other Eastern European countries and remained silent, which made Khrushchev extremely dissatisfied.
On the other hand, Sino-Soviet relations are breaking down, and Afghan leaders Hoxha and Shehu are visiting China in this context. In October 1956, Hoxha visited Chairman Mao on a visit to Beijing, and the two sides agreed on the Stalin issue and believed that it could not be completely denied. In 1960, there was a major drought in Albania, and the Afghan government urgently asked the Soviet Union and China for help, but the Soviet Union, in the attitude of punishing the Country, procrastinated on the aid and did not really implement it, while China generously gave a large amount of food to help, and in early 1961, provided an interest-free loan of 100 million rubles to Albania.
Visit Chairman Mao
When the two severance of diplomatic relations between Albania and The Soviet Union, China fully accepted aid to Albania, not only continued to complete the loan of 650 million rubles that the Soviet Union had previously promised to Albania in the Third Five-Year Plan, but also added 25 new projects worth 550 million rubles, while a large number of daily necessities and weapons were provided to Albania, and various engineers were also stationed in Albania to help the construction of Albanian nationals.
In order to aid Albania, China provides billions of yuan of aid to Albania every year, and even the poor quality cloth that is unsalable in Albania is accepted in full; all kinds of new weapons, our own army has not yet been fully equipped, we have provided a lot of aid to Albaya, and even during the most difficult ten years of turmoil, we have not stopped our assistance to Albania.
Chinese-aided aircraft
However, The country has never cherished the assistance we have given. China sent a large number of construction steel, but they all used it to build statues of personality cults and expensive and sophisticated instruments worth millions, but they all did not keep them well, and when they were broken, they directly asked China to give them again, and as for those advanced weapons, they sold them to other countries at a low price, and turned around and continued to ask China for assistance.
The so-called "sheng mi en bear rice revenge", the appetite of the Argentine country is getting bigger and bigger, and even the ravine is difficult to fill, when China's aid is slightly less, or even a little slower, they threaten to make peace with the Soviet Union. When China could not meet Afghanistan's demands, Algeria took advantage of Nixon's visit to China in 1972 to scold China for abandoning its allies and saying that China was revisionist. Despite the unreasonableness of the Albanian state, in the spirit of the Sino-Argentine friendship between the two sides, China still did not absolutely cut off the aid of the Albanian state, and did not cut off the aid to the Argentine country until 1978.
Nixon visited China
Ironically, Albania talks about Chinese revisionism, but it turns around and joins NATO and throws itself into the arms of the United States. Even Albania, in order to show its determination to the US-controlled NATO, did not hesitate to give NATO the airport where China tightened its belts and donated aircraft, and treated the aircraft donated by China as scrap copper and rotten iron, allowing it to rust on the side of the road.
NATO member states
At the same time, when China cut off its aid, Albania did not recognize China's aid to it for 10 years, which is chilling. But despite its fertile land and strategic location, the country remains one of the poorest in Europe because of the laziness of its people and the fact that they enjoy the days of receiving aid.