110 World War Two and the Partisan Struggle
Albania proper. In 1941, the CC of CPY sent an “instructor,” Miladin Popović,
to organize the local resistance. Once he was joined by Dušan Mugoša, they
managed to constitute the Communist Party of Albania by incorporating scat-
tered leftist groups. On 11 March 1943, the first pan-Albanian conference of the
party was convened and Enver Hoxha was elected secretary general. On that
occasion, they also decided to create a popular army modeled on the Yugoslav
example. In the beginning, the communists collaborated with Balli Kombëtar
but, at the end of 1942, the Yugoslavs cut all ties, fearing a movement that
favored a united Albania that included Kosovo. The CPY and the CPA could
not avoid taking into consideration the future of this province, but they barely
touched on the question, since Tito, conscious of Serb sensibilities, declared
that it would be dealt with only after the defeat of the Fascists.^314
The indefatigable Tempo also kept an eye on the Greek communists who
had in turn organized their own Partisan units, which fought successfully against
the Italians and Germans. ELAS (Ellinikós Laikós Apeleutherótikos Stratós;
the Greek National Liberation Army) had strongholds in Rumelia, Thessaly,
Epirus, and in Aegean Macedonia although, like the Yugoslav Partisans, they
had to cope with a competing bourgeois-leaning movement. ELAS was unable,
however, to give the Greek resistance that revolutionary impetus their com-
rades had given to the resistance in Yugoslavia. The Greek communists—as
Tempo observed rather indignantly in his memoirs—did not fight for power,
but only wanted to expel the occupier, so that after the victory the people could
freely decide their political future. To rectify these errors, Tempo proposed the
creation of a General Staff for the Balkans that could coordinate the common
struggle, including the Greeks and the Albanians. Since communications be-
tween Macedonia and the Supreme Staff were difficult, and there was no radio
link until the end of October 1943, for a long time Tito lacked precise informa-
tion as to what was going on in the south. The first reports on Tempo’s activity
did not reach him until mid-September. He then learned that the party in
Macedonia had been purged of the (pro-Bulgarian) “factions,” that a CC
of the CP of Macedonia and a General Staff had been formed, and that the
Partisan units numbered four hundred to five hundred combatants. In his
dispatches, Tempo also spoke about the situation in Kosovo, stressing that the
Albanians were hostile to the Serbs because of nationalist propaganda. Only
eighty of the two hundred Partisans in the province were Albanians. Tito
was less than enthusiastic about the idea of a general staff for the Balkans
because, on one hand, he feared that the British, who had their agents in
Greece, could exploit such a body in their favor and, on the other hand, he
suspected that the Russians would not be happy. From the surviving docu-
ments, it is not clear whether Tito had consulted Moscow on the matter, but