Emulating Mao

Alone among Europe's Communist countries, tiny Albania has stood steadfastly behind China in its dispute with the Soviet Union. Now it appears that there are no lengths to which the little Balkan dictatorship will not go to emulate its big brother to the east. Because of industrial and agricultural shortfalls. Communist Party Boss Enver Hoxha has decreed "a new and big fire for a chain of revolutionary undertakings in all corners of the fatherland" --in short, a "Great Leap Forward."

Since the program was launched at a party plenum in December, the official press has been full of astounding reports: a ten-mile irrigation canal was dug in the Dibra district in eight hours, 49 five-ton tractor trailers were turned out of a truck plant in twelve hours, an "assault group" cut 1,137.5 cords of wood in seven days.

The Albanians--who recently received three different Peking Cabinet delegations--have also unleashed something akin to Mao Tse-tung's Red Guards. But where Mao's obstreperous young Praetorians deliberately sought to foment anarchy as a way of reviving the regime's revolutionary spirit, Hoxha's guards have become Tirana's disciplinary watchdogs. Some purges have already begun at the district level.

Why copy a failure--and a disastrous one at that? Plainly, Hoxha is convinced that there is no other way to get Albania's tradition-oriented peasants, who comprise the bulk of the country's 2,000,000 people, to accept reforms, including the emancipation of women.

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