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In December 1920, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) merged with the left wing of the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) under the leadership of Paul Levi. The unified party had a membership in excess of four hundred thousand. Its members had recently helped defeat an attempted far-right coup, the Kapp putsch, and had great confidence about the future. Within months, however, the KPD launched an ill-fated uprising on March 17, 1921 that became known as the March Action. The insurrection was a complete failure; in its aftermath, the KPD lost more than half of its membership.

Paul Frlich (18841953) is best remembered today for his classic biography of Rosa Luxemburg, which is still in print. Frlich was a member of the KPD leadership in the 1920s and witnessed events firsthand. In this extract from a recently discovered memoir, lost until 2007 and now translated into English, Frlich explains why the KPD came to launch the March Action and how it unfolded. He also gives his impressions of influential Communist leaders like Paul Levi and the Hungarian Bla Kun, and recalls a discussion with Lenin in Moscow after the failure of the March Action.

The following is an abridged extract from Paul Frlichs memoir In the Radical Camp: A Political Autobiography 18901921, translated by David Fernbach as part of the Historical Materialism Book Series.

It was both objective political events and psychological preconditions that led to the so-called March Action, both in the KPD and in the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI). There was a general will in the party for a more energetic policy, and the unification with the left USPD also seemed to have created the preconditions for a stronger activity. We all overestimated at this time the growth of the party.

But we made a further error of judgement. During the Kapp putsch we had been able to note almost everywhere in the provinces that a weak party such as ours could nonetheless exert a very great influence on the movement, so that large masses followed the party in action. Now we simply extended the partys radius of action by the organizational growth that the merger with the left USPD had brought.

This, however, was wrong. The party cadre was substantially strengthened, and in many districts, it was only now that a party was really formed. But the direct influence on the masses did not for a long while follow in the expected degree. Besides, it needed really major circumstances, immediately understood clearly by the masses, to bring them into a general movement.

The impatient pressure for action was still greater among the former USPD functionaries and members than in the old KPD. They felt liberated from the impediment of the right-wing leaders and experienced something like a moral obligation to prove that they had now become genuine revolutionaries.

The mood in leading Russian circles was very depressed, among many people desperate. The civil war had left in its wake scarcely anything but ruins. The war with Poland had led to defeat. The Kronstadt uprising had been a glaring alarm signal. The New Economic Policy (NEP) had been introduced, with the abolition of requisitions, the encouragement of private capitalist initiative, and the concessions policy.

It was in no way predictable where the NEP would lead. There was a very strong fear among the Bolsheviks that after the October Revolution, they might now be the pioneers of a capitalist Russia. They yearned for relief from the proletariat of the West. It is certain and understandable that the Russian comrades wanted an action that would relieve them. But this in no way means that they wanted one in the form that the March Action then took.

What was the situation with Bla Kun? He has gone down in this story as a real devil, always conjured up when the reactionary side needs a scarecrow. Truth and falsehood are also mixed together in the depictions drawn of him by his opponents in the workers movement.

He was certainly not the noblest figure in the Comintern. The first impression that he gave was that of an unusually energetic person, ruthless to the point of brutality. He was not selective in his choice of means: Ern Bettelheims revelations after the Hungarian defeat of 1919 have brought proof of this. But after these revelations, it is necessary to emphasize right away that he was entirely disinterested and gave everything without hesitation to those who were close to him.

Despite the ugliness of his facial features, he emanated a strong charm. He understood how to inspire people and carry them along. He had made great efforts to school himself theoretically and politically, but he had too unrestrained a temperament to assess situations calmly. He was attracted by adventure, and always ready for action.

Naturally, Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin, who sent him to Germany, were aware of these qualities of Bla Kun. But they counted on German caution and knew very well that even the left wing of the party displayed a strong resistance towards artificial actions. Still more so could people like August Thalheimer and Heinrich Brandler be relied on to apply the necessary brakes.

If Bla Kun was easily able to win the majority of the party leadership for a risky policy of offensive, the reasons lay essentially in the general situation. Germanys foreign policy position was as perilous as hardly ever before. The international conference in London had led to open conflict between the Allies and Germany. On March 8, Dsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort were occupied militarily by the Entente. In Upper Silesia, there was fighting between Germans and Poles. People counted on the possibility of a German-Polish war.

There was strong discontent among the working class, particularly the miners and even the agricultural workers. The devaluation of the mark, which had come to a halt for a while after the Kapp putsch, had once again rapidly accelerated, and inflation fuelled discontent among the whole population. In this situation, even Paul Levi turned sharply against the policy of pure propaganda and pressed for action.

The governments behavior also showed that it saw conflict with the working class as unavoidable. It took the necessary measures even before the will for action had taken concrete form in the party. All the same, we overestimated the tensions, did not see the inhibiting factors, and particularly failed to recognize the possibility of a compromise in German foreign policy.

It was as a result of this overestimation that Bla Kun very rapidly managed to win the majority of the party leadership for an offensive policy. I myself favoured an offensive policy from the start. I believed at that time and this had long been the basic point of contention with Paul Levi that it was our duty to make use of every possibility for a revolutionary advance.

I failed to recognize as a general strategic lesson the necessity of a retreat or escape in a dangerous situation; this would only be brought home to me under the pressure of very harsh facts in the particular case. The fact that on this occasion the party leadership shared my view naturally gave my temperament a strong impulse.

It is certain that without the work of Bla Kun, without his influence on the most prominent members of the leadership, the readiness for action would not have been aroused. But we should guard against the conclusion that the March Action was undertaken either directly or indirectly at the command of the ECCI. At this time, the ECCI had a great moral authority, and the Russians were seen as almost infallible on tactical questions. But they did not yet have in their hands the means of pressure to enforce their directives.

We would not have acted or failed to act because of a command from them. It is true that we lacked the necessary critical equipment with which to confront proposals or ideas from the Russians. At all events, no one of the then party leadership is entitled to hide behind the Russians or Bla Kun. We all bore full responsibility for the action.

On the other hand, none of us wanted a March Action. The intention was, as soon as the expected open conflict erupted in one place, to bring to a head the festering conflicts where we had the possibility of doing so in other words, on the field of social struggle. If this succeeded, then the further development would show what possibilities for action had arisen. The action should be conducted with the aim of the overthrow of the government.

What was immediately at issue was to create the readiness for action in the party by means of both propaganda and organizational methods. When the central committee of the party was convened for the middle of March, no one believed in an immediate outbreak of armed struggle. We certainly did not yet know the point where we would engage. That depended on objective conditions.

News then reached the session of the central committee that the Social Democrat interior minister Carl Severing had ordered the occupation of the Mansfeld industrial district and its factories by the police. The party found itself like an athlete poised ready to leap who suddenly receives a blow in the back: he stumbles, manages with difficulty to regain his balance, but remains confused and spoils his jump.

It is extremely important for the historical record to take due account of Severings police action. It is generally left out of consideration, thus ignoring one of the most important preconditions for the March Action, so that this seems just complete madness. In fact, Severings action had been prepared for weeks in conjunction with the big industrialists of central Germany.

It arose precisely from the general situation that led us to envisage an offensive approach. Its object, admitted by Severing himself, was to impose on the adversary a battle that would intimidate, weaken and surprise them on a particular territory, before the material for conflict had generally matured. The action was organized in such a way that it was designed to provoke armed struggle.

We found ourselves in a psychological state that did not allow calm consideration of the situation. We were just preparing to put our forces into marching order when the enemy attacked. We were mentally disposed to an offensive and saw ourselves suddenly surrounded. We were incapable of switching from the offensive idea to defence, since we generally overestimated greatly our influence over the masses.

If we were reluctant to order a complete retreat immediately after the outbreak of armed conflict in the Mansfeld region (and such an order would have meant the demoralization of the party and the resignation of its leadership), all that remained was to widen the struggle. In our already overheated mood, we committed the following mistakes:

On the central committee, we received information on March 22 of a planned action in Hamburg, which struck us as too general and dangerous. I was dispatched there immediately, in order to intervene if possible. I arrived in the night.

On the way to the headquarters of the action executive I learned the following details. This executive had issued a leaflet on March 22 calling for a general strike. On the 23rd, the day that was just dawning, the unemployed were to surround the dockyards and force the workers there to abandon work. From all the information that I received, it was clear that the dockworkers were not prepared to strike, and that force would have to be used in order to enforce a shutdown.

I was horrified by the light-hearted way in which this undertaking was approached and tried to make clear to the comrades that they were simply preparing a putsch, that the idea of forcing the workers into struggle by force was ludicrous, that an enterprise of this kind was morally condemnable, doomed to failure from the start, and bound to bring the party fearful repercussions.

I demanded in the name of the central committee that the enterprise should be immediately broken off, and the preparations made reversed. I spent a long time arguing with them, but to no avail. In the early hours of March 23, the action was carried out as planned.

The dockyards were indeed cleared out. The workers left half convinced and half unwillingly. There were demonstrations, shooting, and a number of dead. In the afternoon it was clear that the enterprise had failed.

On the central committee the decision for offensive action was not carried without the heated opposition of a minority. One part of this minority then kept its distance completely during the action. Another part kept discipline while seeking at the same time to prevent the worst.

Paul Levi seems to have been travelling at the time of the March Action. Neither he nor Ernst Dumig made any kind of attempt to influence events. They then organized a comprehensive report, the result of which was published by Paul Levi in his booklet Unser Weg (Our Way).

Levi completely misconstrued the situation in the party at this time. There was indeed a certain unease among the members about the tactic embarked on. But apart from a small group of functionaries, the members supported the action and took upon themselves the defeat. And then Levi appeared, who had neither warned nor advised during the action, with a text that was not a critique of particular party comrades, but a hostile blow against the party.

It was only this blow that was felt, and all the more strongly, as the party was subject to heavy persecution. In these circumstances, Levi found no reception for his arguments and criticism. At the beginning of April, he was expelled from the party for this text, and the party stood behind this measure.

After the end of the March Action, the party leadership felt the understandable need to justify its policy. In particular, it had to argue against Levis critique and was naturally driven to an extreme position, the so-called offensive theory.

Bla Kun, Thalheimer, Brandler, and myself were particularly involved in conceiving these ideas. They more or less corresponded to my pre-existing views. I summarised these ideas in an article in the booklet Taktik und Organisation der revolutionre Offensive (Tactics and Organization of the Revolutionary Offensive).

The offensive theory had a very short life, which was ended at the Third Congress of the Communist International in Moscow. We went to Moscow with the feeling of being completely on the right path, and we were enthusiastically welcomed by Russian functionaries. They were completely in accord with us. But this changed after a few days.

Their attitude towards us remained the same. But they explained that Lenin was against us; they could not understand this, but it had always turned out in the past that Lenins view was correct, even when he had everyone else against him. Karl Radek had told me that Lenin was extremely annoyed about the March Action and our pamphlet. He was unable to sleep, and afraid that we might commit new Blanquist stupidities again in future.

The discussion with Lenin made an extraordinary impression on me. But since I have no notes, I can only reliably recall parts of the conversation that had personal importance for me. We first had to give a report, the detailed themes of which we had rehearsed among ourselves.

After I spoke, something surprising and disturbing happened. Radek handed me a piece of paper on which he had reproached me with very crude words. Why had I said such unnecessary things? All that mattered was to win over Lenin, but I had pushed him over to the other side. I was tremendously disturbed by this note. Were things such that diplomacy was the game and we had to try and dupe one another?

I believed that we had to go over the facts together and seek the correct policy. This meant being completely open and speaking things objectively and unvarnished. I was not prepared to accede to Radeks demand. But his note was like the blow of a dagger, which never completely healed. A large part of my trust in the ECCI and the Russians went out of the window.

After the reports, Lenin spoke. He failed to convince me, speaking in too imprecise terms for my expectations. I finally asked him clearly the one question that had been for me that most important problem of the March Action. We had been attacked by Severing. The Mansfeld workers had taken up the struggle. Should we have left them in the lurch, rather than doing everything to support them? Should we not stand in the lead and widen the field of struggle if a section of the working class is struggling against reaction?

Lenin replied that it was not necessary to fight in all conditions. This seemed to me an evasion. I wanted to have a clear answer, a kind of formula, in what conditions one should engage in such a struggle and in what conditions abstain. There was nothing more to be got out of Lenin.

It was only much later that I understood that it was wrong to conduct a vanguard struggle in a bad position and with an unfavourable balance of forces for a decisive battle. Further, that it is impossible to apply suitable tactical formulas for all cases; one must rather depend in each situation on a correct view, instinct and intuition.

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The March Action and the Tragedy of German Communism Jacobin #1 - 1 day ago - Jacobin magazine

The Communist's Daughter follows 16-year-old Dunyasha McDougald (played by Sofia Banzhaf), the daughter of two happily married communists, as she tries to fit in at a new high school during the Reagan-era 80s.

Courtesy of CBC Gem

You will find the oddest things on CBC Gem. Arriving Friday is a daft time-warp comedy that makes merriment with communism.

The Communists Daughter is a very droll farce that really has no point apart from fun, frolics, jokes about the 1980s and the ineffable struggle of a teenage girl who wants to fit in but is held back by her communist parents. It doesnt make a blind bit of sense but thats fine. Its deranged enough to detain you for a splendid escape.

Its 1989 and 15-year-old Dunyasha McDougald (Sofia Banzhaf, who is tremendous) is happy to go along with most everything her dad (Aaron Poole ) and her mom (Jessica Holmes from Air Farce) have taught her about the evils of capitalism, the American media and consumerism. That is, until she moves to a new neighbourhood and falls for a strapping local boy Marc (Kolton Stewart). While wanting to stay true to her familys ideals, she knows shes marked as a dork.

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The little series is drenched in eighties pop culture and what Dunyasha really wants is to be Molly Ringwald. This is a bit tricky since her family doesnt even own a TV and she knows more about the Soviet economy than about movies and clothes popular in her Toronto suburb. All of this is played for farce, some of it very amusing. At home, theres her parents and brother, Boris (Ryan Taerk), who is finding the communist thing a bit boring. But theres also Oleg (Vieslav Krystyan) who apparently came to visit from the Soviet Union years go and just stayed, living in the basement.

Things get more complicated when dad Ian decides to run for local office, promising longer lunchbreaks and such. His main opponent is Rod Bigmann (Chris Locke), an ardent capitalist, like most local people. Turns out hottie Marc is Bigmanns son. So, right there, youve got a Romeo and Juliet thing going on. Shenanigans ensue.

What is admirable about the series eight episodes at about 10 minutes each is the sheer gusto of all involved in this dopey, harebrained adventure. Again, one is reminded of the excellent young talent working in Canada. Apart from Banzhaf, theres fine daffy comedy from Zoe Cleland as Tatiana, who is actually from the Soviet Union and finds McDougald-style communism bizarre. Tatiana also has her eye on Marc, the minx. Then theres Nadine Bhabha (from Letterkenny) as Jasmine, who tries to guide Dunyasha toward being cool. You will also find that George Stroumboulopoulous turns up several times as some guy who has a TV show covering the election. Hes good, this Strombo guy.

The Communists Daughter was written and directed by Leah Cameron (one of the main writers on CBCs Coroner) and, according to a press release, it is loosely based on her own childhood. The series was funded in part by a Kickstarter funding campaign and, yes, it was a labour of love, and the end result is adorably daft and sweet.

Tim Minchin, right, as Lucky Flynn and Milly Alcock as Meg in Upright.

Courtesy of CBC Gem

Also streaming on CBC Gem now is Upright, a beauty of a drama-comedy from Australia. An on-the-road odyssey, it is both funny and at times deeply moving. It opens with our sad-sack anti-hero Lachlan, known as Lucky (Tim Minchin), trying to take an upright piano to his childhood home, driving across the vast Australian landscape. Hes barely started when he crashes into a pickup truck driven by a very angry, extremely foul-mouthed teenage girl, Meg (Milly Alcock).

They team up, out of necessity. He needs to keep moving with that piano and shes been injured, so she needs help. Their journey is, at first, one long bickering session, much of it very, very funny. (Alcock is like a force of nature here.) Until, that is, the real reasons that have both of them on the road become clear.

Neither is a happy person and both have regrets and baggage. A strange, brittle series, with manic comic energy at times, it is deeply rewarding in the end stick with it beyond the first episodes and manages to be eloquent without being sentimental.

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Great farce material: Having fun with Communism - The Globe and Mail

Loved and Lost is a project about memorializing those lost to COVID-19 in NJ. NorthJersey.com

This story is part of Loved and Lost, a statewide media collaboration working to celebrate the life of every New Jersey resident who died of COVID-19. To learn moreandsubmit a loved one's name to be profiled, visit lovedandlostnj.com.

Nancy Blair of Lyndhurst was committed to her family foremost.

In her 20s, she left college and her accounting studies behind in Taiwan to move to New York and pave a way for her parents and her two younger brothers to one dayjoin her.

In her 30s and as a married woman living in New Jersey, she raised her three children with her husband, John Blair, and helped her parents buy a house near her home in Harrison.

And in recent years, as a grandmother, she often invited her children, spouses, and grandchildrenfor Chinese and Italian meals followed by hours-long conversations.

Nancy Blair of Lyndhurst died of complications of COVID-19 on April 22, 2020.(Photo: Courtesy from Blair family)

She always wanted the family together, especially holiday events," John Blair said. "She would do all the cooking.

Nancy died on April 22, 2020 at Hackensack University Medical Center. She was 75.

Nancywas born Jian-Hua Wang in China and was the oldest of three children.When she was a child, her family relocated to Taiwan, fleeing communism. When Nancy was in her early twenties, she moved to New York to work as a nanny, a job she didnt enjoy because she got so fewdays off,her husband said.

Eventually, she found work as a bookkeeper and accountant at Chinese restaurants in Queens, which would allow her to save money and bring her parents and brothers to the United States.

She was a very happy and kind person, with a good frame of mind, her husband said. She was always very considerate of her family.

Nancy had two children, Marsha and John Khan, during her first marriage. She met John Blair one day when he dropped envelopes at her house in Queens that he had printed for her then-husband. A friendship ensuedthat would continue for years.

After her divorce, Nancy moved in with her mother and would confide her struggles to John during their almost daily phone conversations.

The conditions werent so good with her mother, and I felt she should get out of there, and then we started to make some plans to get married, John Blair recalled.

The couple moved to Harrison, where they bought a house close to the train station so John could easily get to his printing job in Manhattan. Nancy, meanwhile, worked as an accountant at local businesses, includinga dress shopand a lumber yard. At the lumber yard, she met a builder constructing houses in Harrison and asked him to save one for her parents, who were still living in Queens.

She moved her parents into there,'' John Blairrecalled. "It was a three-family, so the other two floors they rented out.

Nancy liked to give financial advice, her husband said, andshared tips with anyone who would listen.

She was a giving person in every respect, John said.

Nancy and John, who also became parents to a son, David, eventually moved to Lyndhurst. In 2007, to celebrate their retirement, the couple toured several countries in Europe as part of a cruise.

Nancy Blair, of Lyndhurst, and her family. Blair died of COVID-19 complications on April 22, 2020.(Photo: Courtesy photo from Blair family)

Nancy, who had successfully battled stomach cancer 20 years earlier, fell sick last March, days after she and her younger brother, Jenn Wang, buried their mother, Ruoh Yeh Yong Wang, who died March 18, 2020. The siblings had visited their mother at her nursing home in Hackensack for weeks before her death.

Nancy'sbrother, who lived in Texas, returned home and soon feltsick as well. He died March 28 of COVID, 10 days after his mother.

The day her brother died,Nancy was diagnosed with pneumonia. John said Nancy was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center a few days later by ambulance and later tested positive for COVID-19. She never returned home.

Her purse still hangs on a chair in the kitchen where sheleft it, he said.

I never moved it from there," he said, "just with the idea that she would come back.

MonsyAlvaradois theimmigration reporter for NorthJersey.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news about one of the hottest issues in our state and country,please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email:alvarado@northjersey.com

Twitter:@monsyalvarado

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Loved and Lost: Nancy Blair fled communist China, paved way for family to start over in US - NorthJersey.com

Valheim / Wikimedia Commons

Like more than 5 million people who bought the game since it launched in February, Ive been playing the surprise hit game Valheim. Its potent mix of Breath of the Wild and Minecraft with a viking aesthetic is shockingly polished and doesn't feel like it's missing much despite still being in early access. But its a struggle to survive Odins trials alone and much more fun to play Valheim with friends. You can do this by simply joining a friend's session, but if you don't mind spending a monthly fee on top of Valheim's $20 price, the best way to enjoy Valheims multiplayer is to pay for a service to host a dedicated server for you.

That simple change opened up the game I wasnt expecting. By creating a home base for everyone of my friends playing Valheim, I started a commune where everyone works together for the good of the whole. On our little commune in the digital forest, communism is working beautifully.

This is what a typical day is like on our Valheim dedicated server.

I logged into Valheim on late Sunday morning. Fellow Motherboarders Jordan Pearson and Emanuel Maiberg had been hard at work. Emanuel had constructed most of a massive stone wall, complete with parapets, along the edge of our base. Jordan had been running into the fields and gathering the massive amounts of stone Emanuel needed for the project. I marveled at the wall then tended to our carrot and turnip garden, made some soups for everyone, and fed our pigs

Emanuel and Jordan logged off but my friend Jim logged on. He and I traveled to the swamps and spent a few hours pulling out a hoard of iron. We dropped off the iron scrap in boxes next to the smelters and logged off. I came back on later that evening and found that the iron had all been smelted, turned into bars, and stored in its proper place. Two other friends on the server were gathering supplies to explore the mountains. Theres talk on the server of finally finding and killing Bonemass, the games third boss, now that weve got the iron to make the equipment wed need to keep everyone alive.

Valheim is fun to play alone, but a dedicated server with a large group of people encourages this kind of asynchronous communal play, and shows Valheim at its best. When you play Valheim alone, you are rewarded with skills and equipment that make your character stronger, as you do in most video games. When you play on a dedicated server where friends are free to come and go, it is equally if not more rewarding to see what you can do for your virtual viking community.

Players could steal treasure from each other's chests or destroy what others have built, and it's fair to predict that kind of thing would happen in an online video game, but the exact opposite is true. People log in and the first thing they ask is "what do we need?" They help each other construct projects that will help the entire group. Rather than hoard treasure greedily, everyone pitches into the same pile all are free to take from as they need. Our Valheim server is a collectivist utopia.

If you want to play with others, theres a few options. Whenever youre playing, you can invite a friend into your game and play together. But when you log off, your friend cant access the world anymore. If you want an always-on, persistent world that people can jump in and out of at will, then a dedicated server is your only option. You can run one on your machine, but it can be finicky. Playing Valheim on the same machine youre running a server on can cause performance issues and if you need to reboot your machine, itll pull the server down. Thats not great if a friend happens to be logged on.

The easiest option for playing Valheim on a dedicated server is to rent a computer from a speciality service that hosts gaming servers. Theres a ton of these services out there running games like Ark, Conan Exiles, and Minecraft. I use one called g-portla and pay $14 a month to run the server. Its worth it. The only negative is that we have to input the IP address every time we want to play.

When I stood up the server, everyone I knew was playing Valheim but we were all playing solo games. Id jump between friends' servers and hang out for a bit, but eventually someone would need to log off and wed retreat to our own worlds. I bought the server and resolved to stop server hopping. This would be home, I told myself, Ill convince the others to come. I spent a solid weekend building a giant mead hall that would serve as a large base of operations for multiple people.

As I worked on the mead hall, friends would log in and look. Groups gathered to help me kill the first two bosses. Sometimes people would gather wood for me out of pity, but few put down roots. Then they started dying on their own servers, dying in ways that required hours to fix.

Valheim can be punishing. When you die, you lose some experience and everything you had on your corpse is dropped where you did. Getting that corpse can be a trial, especially if youd died near higher level enemies. As I worked the mead hall, my friends playing solo would die in some far flung region of the map. Jordan had to sail to a new continent just to take down an early boss, a trial which came with several forehead-slapping complications. These disasters pushed people to the dedicated server and the security of a group. Its much easier to make a corpse run when youve got a friend to help and the resources left over from a large group of players just sitting around the mead hall.

On the dedicated server, everyone is working towards the same goal and everyone can do the thing they like in Valheim without feeling as if they need to worry about the busy work. Emanuel has been working the wall while the rest of us adventure. Jim doesnt like the home-body life so hes helping gather resources in dangerous lands. Two other friends are wearing cheap armor and charting the map, leaving a trail of bodies they may never recover.

Most of this is happening when Im not around. I dont have to be there to run the server or worry over it crashing on my desktop PC. Thats all handled for by a server farm. Its well worth the money and has made Valheim, an already great game, into a contender for game of the year.

Sunday evening, I showed a real life friend around the digital world Id help build in Valheim.

Whos in charge? He asked.

No one, I said.

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Communism Works Beautifully On Our Dedicated 'Valheim' Server - VICE

The problem with Luljeta Bozos recent comments is that its a sentiment shared casually by many.

The Socialist Party electoral candidate sparked outrage recently when during a TV interview, she appeared to praise elements of the communist regime. As a part of a discussion on the almost 50 years of communist rule, she was asked about Dictator Enver Hoxha and the impact he had on the country.

She responded that if you put them on a scale, for me he has more positives than negatives. Bozo added that Albania was a constitutional dictatorship, that it developed Albania, and increased its industrial production.

I have heard many say similar things. I have heard people say that everyone received an education, had access to healthcare, and no one was out of work. I have heard people say there were positives and negatives, good and bad.

And maybe for the privileged, there were positives. But can we really put these above murders and the mass and systematic violation of human rights?

During communism, the countrys entire economy was controlled by the state. All production, agriculture, and industry were nationalized and private enterprise was strictly forbidden. While this did lead to economic growth for some time, towards the end of the regime, the system began to collapse. There wasnt enough food and people were forced to queue for rations. After they cut off relations with the Chinese and Soviets, shortages of everything from machine parts to wheat and animal feed were exacerbated.

A network of sigurimi and their informants amounting to a large percentage of the population, reported back to the state on their family, friends, and neighbors. I remember a hairdresser telling me she discovered her husband had been spying on her and her clients for decades and she had no clue until communism fell.

People told tales on their circle, others fabricated stories to take the heat off them. The accused were shipped off to prisons, gulags, and forced labor camps.

A friend of mine, lets call him Endri, showed me a gunshot wound in his leg. He was shipped off to work in the mines at the age of 13 because a distant family member had committed a political crime. After seven years of labor, he was released and he and a friend tried to escape to Greece. Albanian guards shot his friend in the head from behind as he ran abreast with him, the second bullet passed straight through Endris leg.

Today, 30 years after the regime fell, there are still up to 6000 people who were executed or died in prison and are still missing. Their families do not know where their remains are and excavation orders for suspected mass grave sites have been pending with the Prosecutor for three years and counting.

There has been no apology, there is no national or regional memorial and no national day of remembrance. The Socialist Party who is currently in power has not condemned the crimes of their predecessors, and the process for compensating those who were persecuted or had family members murdered has stalled.

Albania has not dealt with its past- thats what makes comments like this, even if they contain truth, so controversial. The fact that there are thousands of people in this country, still suffering the consequences of that time, means that any claims of benefits of the regime are inappropriate. Perhaps once Albania has dealt with its collective trauma, when people have located the remains of their loved ones, and when the state has apologised for its crimes, then we can begin to dissect the positives and negatives of history.

While I dont doubt the benefits of education, employment, and healthcare, I prioritize the right to life.

Perhaps we could ask the families of those who lost loved ones, whether they would prefer an education or to be able to bury their remains with dignity? Or those that were tortured and suffer PTSD decades later if they would prefer a job or an end to their suffering? Maybe we could even give them the choice between losing their ancestral homes and livelihood or getting a free checkup at the hospital.

I am pretty sure which one they would choose.

My point is that while some may believe there were positives to communism until we have dealt with the legacy and scars of the negatives, it is an insult to discuss them.

Albania needs to implement a comprehensive program of truth, memory, and remembrance. All documents and archives containing data from that time need to be made public with no limitations. School books must include full information on what led to communism, how it impacted society, and what happened after it fell. There must be a national memorial in a prominent place, a day of remembrance, and an official apology and condemnation from both the government and the Socialist Party. Anyone who worked in politics, security, or the judiciary during the communist period must be removed from public office, the legal system, or any position of authority. Everyone who is entitled to compensation must receive it and the scope of the compensation program must be widened to include everyone with a claim. Investigations into crimes of communists must be started and completed in a swift and efficient manner. Relevant institutions must prioritize the search for missing persons, excavations, and the identification of victims. Bodies must be returned to families, and perpetrators must be identified and punished. I would go so far as to say that any praising of communism or Enver Hoxha, including events held to commemorate his death should be prohibited by law.

This is just the tip of the iceberg but they are some of the steps that should be taken to allow Albania to reconcile with its past and to move forward with dignity.

Whether her comments were taken out of context or not, for me, its morally and ethically wrong to put the word positive in a sentence discussing communism while so many are still suffering.

Fjal kye: Albania, communism, Edi Rama, luljeta bozo, Socialist Party, Tirana

Link:
Comment: The Casual Sentiment that 'Communism Had Positives and Negatives' - Exit - Explain Albania