I’ve seen the YouTube channel S4A posting audiobooks of Enver Hoxha lately and a lot of people here and on Reddit considered him a doctrinist or something. I’m asking what makes him so polarising in Marxist circles and what ideas he introduced for Marxism-Leninism.
Sorry if my question is a bit broad and such. I’m just starting to get annoyed.
I think it’s more of a case that Hoxhaists are dogmatic, in the same way that Maoists or any other ‘ists’ can be, including MLs. It’s not that Hoxha didn’t have interesting things to say. I’ve only read a little, mind; and one could read Hoxha every day for the year and still only have read a small portion of what he wrote. The problem is treating what he said as gospel and everyone else as wrong.
Maybe he was right about China and the post-Stalin USSR. In can’t say 100% either way as I’ve not read enough of him. But arguing that Hoxha’s analysis of China applies to modern China? That’s not sound reasoning.
Even if there are theoretical problems within Mao’s thinking, we know that he must have been broadly correct. The CPC had their revolution and kept hold of power. Even if Deng or even Xi can be criticised for their theory, we know that both were, again, broadly correct. China remains socialist and has not suffered the same fate as the USSR.
Hoxha was pretty good at building socialism for his people, but he was unnecessarily weary and distrustful of Stalin, and Hoxha even had his government torture and murder confirmed and suspected Soviet advisors, for no reason.
