By Leke Tasi
INTRODUCTION
Events in Reshat Kripa’s book, The Circles of Hell, take place within
the ferocious years of the communist regime in Albania. The author has gathered
scores of instances of cruelty and deceit within these pages. Fiction allows
this when the country and era to be represented were truly inhumane. This work represents
not a particular
story, as it happens,
but a special
concentrate of true stories. In fact,
the quite unjustified arrest was planned by the
police simply to enhance shock and to pressure
the relatives of the victim. In the end, the rape illustrates the depravity and arbitrariness that
officials permitted themselves, though it is hard to believe that it
would have really happened in
Albania. These events depict the obsession
to oppress a
people isolated for half a
century. Without a doubt Albanians are a
conflicted nation, with a huge load of rage and strife, but the people's
spiritual and moral codes, no matter how much cruelty flows from the nature of conflict,
denies the horror to exceed certain indicators that put the event in a
debatable area beyond the possible... The question
emerges: Does the atypical event deserve to be exposed? The answer is yes,
because the typical event exceeds the specific Albanian context, and deals with
those rare circumstances called “the Evil in the world," ideas to caress
the dark instincts of man. Causes of how Evil manages to win such
freedom remain unexplained, despite the research of historians. Their analysis cannot grasp the power of evil, and thus
explains the phenomenon when it occurs, not while it is brewing. However,
the dimensions of the organization of Evil are immense, with the astonishing
wave of wrongdoing involving nations and continents, while the organization
module is the same: a limited clique imposing their will on millions by terror
through militant solidarity and iron discipline, prerogative of only those
sworn to malice...
Communism was certainly the
strongest of the triumphant waves
of Evil in modern times; the statistical
comparison of its crimes to those of Nazism proves this. But for Westerners,
distanced from the direct tragic experiences of the peoples of the East, the
initial left orientation of Communism (i.e., its ideological commitment to
emancipate the poor classes) for their eyes, even today, provides it with a humane
charm that Nazism, completely infertile and obsolete, does not. If I also add the explicable opportunism of
Western diplomacy that has treated the superpower of the East with a great deal
of tact, the result is disturbing, with an unfair bias in favor of that
"hot bed" of Evil for seven decades, and with an unacceptable ignorance
of innocent millions, mostly peasants and workers, who died in the horrors
there after having been furtively promised happiness and welfare.
In Albania, the Communist phenomenon
can be summarized briefly. It was a movement not only inspired, but also
organized by, foreigners. (The Albanian state experienced only 30 years of
independence, with delayed development and a light weight with respect to the
Balkan balance.) The organizers worked to undermine any initiative that would
benefit the country. The reason: the non-Slavic origin of our people and
keeping Kosova, predominantly Albanian, under oppression. The ultimate goal was by means of a regime in Tirana,
subdued to communist and Slavic goals, to avoid the Albanian demand to
take back the lands populated
by Albanians at the end of the Second World War.
Commanded from outside, this group used
the patriotic feelings, especially of the intellectuals - among them the
left-leaning - to raise an army in the mountains. As soon as they brought a
certain area under control, they eliminated the prominent elements of the
independent minds by qualifying some martyrs, while others (especially the
leftists) were named deviationists and traitors. These executions in the back deviationists
and traitors held the mobilized under terror and
built the foundation of a dictatorship that would
deepen for decades.
This book shows an episode from the postwar terror. It is the year 1974, the protagonist of the story is an engineer,
the son of a partisan
fallen in war. It happens that this man has studied in
Prague, has clear ideas about values and people and, therefore, also for the
situation that surrounds him. This is reflected in the books he reads, the friends
he chooses (professionals
of non-communist affiliation),
and the thoughts
he has about the
work. His
fairness, honesty and normality distinguish him in an environment where people
of the party fill life with jealousy, hypocrisy and arrogance. The dissatisfied
opinion of the main character is discussed high up, and guidance is given from
an authority that he should be tested. In a system where values are
antipodal with true morality, in order to prove he is a `positive’ citizen, he
must collaborate with slanderers to convict his peers solely for their opinions,
even those unproven. Otherwise he will face consequences. The engineer refuses and ends up in prison.
State security officers tortured him, but could not break him. Then they use a method, mentioned
above, that is beyond the possible horrors committed between Albanians. Unfortunately, in the grim circumstances that
swept over the country, this humiliating strategy, carried out with the
detainee’s knowledge, proves successful and breaks him. He signs the statement
which cements the guilt of his innocent friends, resulting in their severe
punishment. His family, involved in this horrific strategy, is finished also,
and his name is soiled forever.
In this action against innocent
citizens in order to keep people under
periodic terror, the
highest authority had given
unspecified consent to the unscrupulous subordinates to use
"Whatever means,” and they
found the opportunity to make
a shameful villainy
in violation of
the rules of the regime itself. But is this event real or does principality
serve only as a mask? In fact, the alliance of terrorist leaders within the
corrupt base, though hidden, has been the concrete foundation upon which the
real communist political action was based from the start, an unprecedented
management of the wickedness to liberate inexhaustible energies and guarantee
the success, since humankind was found unarmed in front of it, also attested to
by the Russian literature before and after the revolution. To prove this, it is interesting to
see how the superior resolves the
problem of violation of morality
and duty--he simply
avoids the scandal
and rewards the corrupt perpetrators,
while their dependents that denounced the vileness of the superiors with wicked removal... Certainly the logic used was within the
track of preservation of the valuable alliance of the leadership with the
villains, so the methodology described above is stamped as the outbreak of the Evil
in the world. And as proved in the book, it can be fatal for every kindness
shown by those who serve it but do not conform to it.
Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa
