Tag Archives: socialism

New Albania

Posted on by
Reply
With Spring - Nexhat Hajellari

With Spring – Nexhat Hajellari

More on Albania ……

View of the world

Ukraine – what you’re not told

New Albania

New Albania was a political, social and cultural illustrated periodical appearing bi-monthly in Albanian, Chinese, Russian, French, English and Arabic. It started its publication in the early days of the Socialist Republic, in 1947, and was published until everything fell apart in Albania in 1991.

Through the use of pictures, cartoons, stories and short pieces about the people and the lifestyle of ordinary Albanian workers the magazine sought to provide a view of the country that was otherwise never publicised in the rest of the world. This covered such aspects of Albanian society as Socialist industry, collectivised agriculture and education. Also it sought to give an introduction to the history of the country with articles on archaeology, linguistics, folklore and traditional dress and activities, literature, cinema and the history of art in the pre-Socialist era.

The magazine, which was lighter in its presentation, preceded the publication of ‘Albania Today’ (from the end of 1971), which was much more of a theoretical magazine that made a contribution to the various debates in the International Communist Movement.

At the moment we only have access to a limited number of issues and they will be posted as soon as possible. As with the request made on the ‘Albania Today’ page we would always welcome the loan of missing issues so that they, too, can be made available to a wider readership.

1969

New Albania – No 6

  • JV Stalin – Lenin’s faithful disciple and comrade in arms
  • The revolutionary spirit in Albanian painting and sculpture by A Kuqali
  • A chapter from ‘The Castle’ by Ismail Kadare
  • Andrea Aleksi – a distinguished sculpture of the XV century  

1970

New Albania – No 1

  • ‘Ideas engraved on stone’ – the story of sculpture in Socialist Albania
  • Our folk dances
  • Attempt upon the king’s life
  • Our Encyclopedia – answers to questions about Albania

New Albania – No 2

  • The school which gives eyesight to the blind
  • A happy old age
  • We, the youth of the plant
  • Cadres who are engaged in production work

New Albania – No 3

  • The most ‘privileged’ – young children in Socialist Albania
  • The patient and the scalpel – medicine in Socialist Albania
  • Past Values Preservation Institute – restoration of religious buildings

New Albania – No 4

  • What do we vote for?
  • Together with the geologists
  • The Green Laboratories
  • Youth taking part in mass undertakings
  • A nation rising in arms

New Albania – No 5

  • Electrification of Albania
  • The way of copper
  • ‘The Golden Necklace’ is brought to Tirana
  • Our Riviera
  • A children’s hospital

New Albania – No 6

  • Nuclear Energy in the service of mankind
  • Albania in International Fairs and Exhibitions
  • Saplings of music
  • Illyrians and Albanians
  • The Mosaics of Lini

1971

New Albania – No 1

  • Capital investments in the years 1961-1970
  • Land and water
  • Monuments modeled in rock
  • Students in overalls
  • Our glass …

New Albania – No 2

  • Prospectors for Black Gold
  • Divjaka renewed
  • Fields with roofs
  • Horizons opened to our Power Industry
  • Bertolt Brecht on the stage of the Albanian Theatre

New Albania – No 3

  • From the spark the flame was born
  • The light and food industry
  • Compulsory education
  • Albanian Folk Costume
  • Our Agricultural Cooperatives at their present stage

New Albania – No 4

  • A preview of the New Five-Year Plan
  • The wartime press
  • Greetings to you, Mirdita!
  • Rails penetrate mountains
  • Development of horticulture

New Albania – No 5

  • In November 1941 (Party Foundation)
  • The Agricultural Cooperative ‘Partisan’ in 1971
  • A word from those born 30 years ago
  • Albania at International Fairs
  • Folk instruments of our people

New Albania – No 6

1972

New Albania – No 1

  • For protecting and strengthening the health of the people
  • Albanian painting of the 19th century
  • Commemorative remembrance of Fan S Noli
  • Underground waters

New Albania – No 2

  • The Cooperative members discuss their problems
  • The Southern Illyrians and the origin of the Albanians in the light of a new scientific synthesis
  • Jan Myrdal on Albania
  • The making of an artist – Abdurrahim Buza
  • The trade union organization at the oil refinery
  • The young pioneers at their palace

New Albania – No 3

  • The Congress of the class in power
  • Anti-epidemic barriers
  • Our folklore during the period of the war for national liberation and that of socialist construction
  • Good care is being taken of our monuments of culture
  • In sculptor Janaq Paço’s studio

New Albania – No 4

  • On the founding of the Academy of Sciences in the People’s Republic of Albania.
  • Higher education reaches new records
  • Agricultural cooperative members receive pensions
  • The birthplace of the National Liberation Front
  • Our painters – to be touring the country

1974

New Albania – No 2

  • The iron generation
  • Industrialized Albania
  • The counter-offensive of the Albanian National Liberation Army in February and March 1944
  • The congress which solved the problem of political power
  • Guaranteeing the right to work

1975

New Albania – No 4

  • People and light
  • Fields of prosperity
  • A beautiful tradition of the younger generation
  • Physical-military tempering
  • Seven questions on the medical service
  • The occupiers were thrown back into the sea

New Albania – No 5

  • Comrade Enver Hoxha among the workers of Korça and Pogradec
  • The first revolution in the social-economic relations of the countryside
  • Six questions on education in Albania
  • At the construction sites of the five- year plan
  • Those who feel no old age
  • The medical service in a remote mountainous area

New Albania – No 6

  • November 29th – the day crowning the great victory
  • On drawing up the New Constitution of the People’s Republic of Albania
  • The day of independence
  • What do you know about the Albanian countryside?
  • What is indirect income?
  • The Lura Lakes
  • Malai – short story

1976

New Albania – No 1

New Albania – No 2

  • Comrade Enver Hoxha among the workers of Vlora
  • On the lowering of higher wages
  • On the further narrowing of the fundamental distinctions between town and countryside
  • Participation in production and in political-social life – the way to the emancipation of women
  • The village doctor
  • Albanian school – past and present
  • An entirely new town – Kukes

New Albania – No 3

  • May Day – 1976
  • They live in the hearts and work of the people
  • Comrade Enver Hoxha receives a group of workers and specialists of the metallurgical complex
  • In the days of the National Liberation War
  • Shkodra – past and present
  • Cooperative members as amateur artists

New Albania – No 4

  • The way to prosperity
  • Promoter of the Revolution and Socialist Construction
  • Mass actions of our youth
  • For self and for society
  • The upper agricultural institute
  • The hero of the new Albanian literature
  • What does this monument stand for? – Mushqeta

New Albania – No 5

New Albania – No 6

1977

New Albania – No 1

  • The Fifth Session of the People’s Assembly
  • The rapid development of Albanian science
  • Vanguard medical service aiming mainly at preventing disease
  • Public health and preventive medicine in the People’s Republic of Albania
  • Geologists without diplomas
  • Among our future artists

New Albania – No 2

  • Gjirokastra
  • Mathematics to the aid of medicine
  • Study of the methods of popular medicine
  • The 90th Anniversary of the first Albanian school
  • The opinion of the masses in the activity of our courts of justice
  • Sport among women

New Albania – No 3

New Albania – No 4

New Albania – No 5

  • The younger generation of Socialist Albania
  • Seven questions about education
  • Great achievements and projects in hydro-electric power
  • One day at the kindergarten
  • Health and Environment
  • The workshop in the field
  • Legends about musical instruments

New Albania – No 6

1978

New Albania – No 1

  • Comrade Enver Hoxha amidst pioneers
  • 30th anniversary of the magazine, ‘New Albania’
  • Fierza, 1978
  • The Albanian League founded in Prizren
  • The Socialist countryside in the works of our painters and sculptors
  • Afforestation of hills and mountains
  • Preservation and restoration of the monuments of culture
  • ‘Profarma’ – trade mark of Albanian medicines

More on Albania ……

View of the world

Ukraine – what you’re not told

The Relevance of James Connolly Today

Posted on by
Reply
James Connolly

James Connolly

More on Ireland

View of the world

Ukraine – what you’re not told

The Relevance of James Connolly Today

Although James Connolly was murdered by the British Empire more than a hundred years ago his analysis of the situation in Ireland then is still valid today.

The writings of James Connolly

Ireland – The Historical Background

The ‘Troubles’ – 1968-98

The Teachings of James Connolly, with a brief outline of his life, Joseph Deasy, New Books, Dublin, 1972?, 23 pages.

Connolly was a Marxist Socialist. This truth is at the heart of his life’s work; without it his struggles and sacrifice cannot be understood.

James Connolly and Irish Freedom, a Marxist analysis, Historical reprints No 1, G Schüller, Cork Workers Club, Cork, 1974, 30 pages.

When James Connolly, Marxian Socialist and Commander-in-Chief of the Irish revolutionary army of Easter Week, 1916, was awaiting his doom at the hands of a British firing squad, his last words spoken to his daughter Nora, expressed a fear that his comrades would not understand this action. And few of them did.

The Relevance of James Connolly in Ireland To-day, George Gilmore, Dochas, Dublin, 1969, 8 pages.

If we believe that working class struggle for better conditions within the society in which we live must, to achieve a worthwhile result, be pushed ahead to the overthrow of the social system that rests on the exploitation of the working classes, and to the organisation of society on a socialist basis instead then we can consider the question of the relevance of Connolly’s teaching to the tactics of today.

More on Ireland

View of the world

Ukraine – what you’re not told

The Writings of James Connolly

Posted on by
Reply
James Connolly - Irish Citizen's Army

James Connolly – Irish Citizen’s Army

More on Ireland

The Relevance of James Connolly Today

The ‘Troubles’ – 1968-98

Ireland – The Historical Background

View of the world

Ukraine – what you’re not told

The Writings of James Connolly

James Connolly was, without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest Irish Republican and Socialist leader – but he was born in Edinburgh. Not too much of a surprise when you realise that due to the conditions under which Irish workers were forced to live under the rule of the British that running away was preferable to staying and fighting. Connolly’s parents left, he returned to take the fight to the British Imperialists.

Unlike most of the leaders that preceded him, and most that have come since, he understood that the only way that the Irish would be truly free was when the working class and peasantry took control of their own country, and not allowing Irish exploiters to take the place of the British variety. His adoption of the ideas of Marxism make him stand out in Irish Republican history. He realised that national liberation for the majority meant nothing if it did not come, at the same time, with their freedom from capitalist exploitation.

He also understood that if they remained unarmed the working class would always face defeat from a ‘armed to the teeth’ occupation force. One of his most important achievements was the formation of the Irish Citizen’s Army, an armed (although initially not with fire arms) and organised group of men who defended workers in the 1913 Great Dublin Lock Out. It was from this organisation that the Irish Republican Army (the IRA) evolved – though too often without the same ideological basis.

James Connolly also stands as one of the few who realised that the war of the capitalists, that sent millions to the slaughter fields of the First World War, was yet another ‘game’ of capitalism and imperialism and which true working class leaders should shun like the plague. Although the so-called working class leaders and parties of the Second Socialist International, had declared that they would not call upon their respective working classes to fight in an imperialist war (in The Stuttgart Resolution of 1907 and The Balse Manifesto of 1912) they almost all adopted nationalistic and jingoistic stances once war was declared in 1914 – including the British Labour Party. The two international leaders who stood on principal at this moment of decision were Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (who later led the Russian working class and peasantry to victory in the 1917 October Revolution) and James Connolly.

Despite this seeming understanding of revolutionary reality of the early part of the 20th century Connolly ended up in the futile and doomed to failure Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. Whereas Lenin had learnt from the past Connolly still had aspects of Blanqui‘s (the 19th century French revolutionary) ‘small group who will stir the rest of the population’ mentality. They were isolated by the much more organised British Imperialist forces, even at a time when they were involved in the biggest war (at that time) in world history on the other side of the English Channel. In less than a week the uprising was crushed and 12 days later Connolly was shot by firing squad by the vengeful British.

In a chair!

Connolly had been wounded in the ankle and was unable to stand so the arrogant British provided him with a seat so he wouldn’t be inconvenienced. This attitude that the British displayed in Ireland, that they had displayed another part of the world before and since, angered the Irish working class and although the Rising was not the most astute of political moves it did result in a realisation that the British had only total contempt for the Irish and their sensibilities.

This was immortalised in a verse of the 1957 song by Dominic Behan, the Patriot Game

They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair,
His wounds from the fighting all bloody and bare.
His fine body twisted, all battered and lame
They soon made me part of the patriot game.

It’s unfortunate that revolutionary movements around the world have since made similar mistakes in ensuring the success of a proletarian revolution, perhaps most notably the idea of the ‘foco’ followed by Che Guevara in Bolivia in the late 1960s.

Nonetheless Connolly left a legacy in his writings that could be useful for revolutionaries in Ireland and other parts of the world. For that reason as many as possible are reproduced here.

Erin’s Hope – the end and the means, and The New Evangel, with an introduction by Joseph Deasy, New Book Publications, Dublin, 1968, 44 pages.

Erin’s Hope is Connolly’s first published pamphlet and is a strong exposition of the Socialist case published in 1897.

The New Evangel is a collection of short essays published in 1901.

The axe to the root and Old Wine in New Bottles, Repsol pamphlet No. 14, Republican Education Publications, Dublin, 1973?, 52 pages.

The Axe to the Root and Old Wine in New Bottles are two articles where Connolly stresses the need for solidarity, militancy and organisation in the work of Trade Unions in the class struggle.

Labour in Irish History, New Books Publications, Dublin, 1967, 180 pages.

Labour in Irish History is not an academic tract but is based upon well researched facts. Here Connolly passionately argues that for the Irish working class to know where they are going in the future they should be aware of their past.

Socialism Made Easy, Labour party Publications, Dublin, 1972, 64 pages.

Contains two articles:

Workshop Talks takes the form of statements made by a typical sceptical worker and Connolly’s refutations.

In Political Action of Labour argues for the necessity of industrial and political unity in any trade union or class struggle.

The Re-Conquest of Ireland, New Books Publications, Dublin, 1968, 92 pages.

The Re-Conquest of Ireland develops the ideas of Labour in Irish History showing that the domination of Ireland by imperialism was political, economic and social.

Workshop Talks, The Meaning of Socialism, Repsol pamphlet No. 1, Republican Education Publications, Dublin, 1973?, 32 pages.

Workshop Talks takes the form of statements made by a typical sceptical worker and Connolly’s refutations.

Revolutionary Warfare, New Books Publications, Dublin, 1968, 44 pages.

In Revolutionary Warfare Connolly analyses insurrections, revolutions and uprisings in the previous 150 years, or so, with the argument that the Irish Citizen’s Army should develop from a defensive to an offensive force of the working class.

Labour Nationality and Religion, New Books Publications, Dublin, 1969, 68 pages.

Being a discussion of the Lenten Discourses against Socialism delivered by Father Kane, S.J., in Gardiner Street Church, Dublin, 1910.

The James Connolly Songbook, Cork Workers’ Club, Cork, 1973?, 38 pages.

‘No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses, they will seek a vent in song for aspirations, the fears and hopes, the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle.’ James Connolly.

More on Ireland

View of the world

Ukraine – what you’re not told