Rapprochement with the United States } 307
Boda represented a policy of ideologically based friendship with Albania,
while Zhou Enlai handled Albania in a much more pragmatic fashion.
China’s rapprochement with the United States pushed the Albanian-China
relation to the breaking point. Following the announcement of Kissinger’s
first visit to Beijing in July 1971 and the revelation that Nixon would soon visit
China, the ALP sent a letter to the CCP criticizing China’s diplomatic direc-
tion. In his China diary, Hoxha outlined the contents of the letter. China’s
moves were a “major opportunist mistake,” “wrong in principle, strategy and
tactics.” China should wage a “stern and uncompromising, blow for blow
struggle ... with American imperialism and with Soviet social-imperialism,”
not cavort with their leaders. Nixon was a “fascist” and a “murderer of peo-
ples, an enemy of communism, of socialism, especially of China” and Albania.
Such warm reception of US imperialist representatives as was given Kissinger
would “confuse the world revolutionary movement and damp down the rev-
olutionary impetus ... and gravely damage the new Marxist-Leninist parties
which have looked upon China and Mao Tsetung as the pillar of the revolution
and defenders of Marxism-Leninism.”^35 According to Hoxha, Beijing never
replied to or even mentioned the ALP letter to the CCP, a treatment Hoxha
termed a “silent boycott.”^36 Several months after the APL letter to the CCP, the
Chinese party informed Tirana that the CCP would not send a delegation to
the upcoming Sixth Party Congress of the APL. Hoxha saw this as a statement
of “opposition to our party on matters of principle” in response to the APL’s
July 1971 letter. Hoxha found China’s attitude “cold” and “insulting.”
Shortly before Nixon arrived in Beijing in February 1972, the Albanian
newspaper Zëri i popullit carried an article criticizing those who failed to
follow the principles of Marxism-Leninism. According to Hoxha’s diary,
the article was directed at the CCP’s mistaken diplomacy. A “primary duty”
of Marxist-Leninist parties was to assist the new Marxist-Leninist parties
“which have just been formed in nearly all the countries of the world.” China’s
recent diplomatic moves failed to do this, and were premised on “nationalist
motives” camouflaged with revolutionary propaganda. “China is gradually
abandoning its revolutionary line ... and [adopting] an opportunist, liberal,
revisionist line,” undertaking “softening and agreement with American im-
perialism and the other capitalist countries.”^37 After the Albanian article was
published, Ambassador Geng Biao dispatched a Xinhua reporter to inquire
who had authored it. From Beijing’s perspective, Hoxha was waging open,
polemical warfare against China’s policies and principles, charging Mao and
the CCP with unprincipled betrayal of the world revolution.
Beijing dispatched Qiao Guanhua to Tirana in September 1972 to attempt
to persuade Albanian leaders to endorse Beijing’s new relation with the United
States.^38 Qiao did not mention the APL letter of July 1971, but Hoxha understood
Qiao’s presentation as the CCP response to that letter. Qiao explained China’s
new diplomatic approach as exploiting contradictions between imperialist