Qemal Stafa: His Life and Struggle

Qemal Stafa: His Life and StruggleQemal Stafa was one of the most outstanding personalities in the 20th century, whose life only lasted 22 short years. However, Qemal did not waste what time he had his life was a culmination of 22 years of rich activity, which Nasho Jorgaqi has described in details hitherto unknown. From his youngest days at the Lyceum of Shkodra, even coming from a well off family, he was drawn by the backward feudal conditions of his fellow countrymen to what he

Qemal Stafa was one of the most outstanding personalities in the 20th century, whose life only lasted 22 short years. However, Qemal did not waste what time he had -- his life was a culmination of 22 years of rich activity, which Nasho Jorgaqi has described in details hitherto unknown. From his youngest days at the Lyceum of Shkodra, even coming from a well-off family, he was drawn by the backward feudal conditions of his fellow countrymen to what he called the great social ideas, socialism and communism. He led the youth in those days, taking them on excursions every May 1st and celebrating with the masses, pointing out obscurantist customs, explaining to the youth patiently the source of their misery -- the bourgeois world system and the feudal Zogu regime. Nor did he spare from the youth knowledge of the great experience of the Soviet Union, with the great Stalin at the head, which eradicated every remnant of the old society and built the new society. Oh, how he rejoiced at reading and sharing his favourite book "Mother" by Gorky or at finding foreign translations of the books by the classics of Marxism-Leninism, which he would translate into his beloved Albanian and spread as far as he could! But Qemal was more than a youth leader -- even though he founded and led the Communist Youth Union of Albania -- he was also, alongside Comrade Enver Hoxha, one of two main founders of the Communist Party of Albania (later the Party of Labour of Albania), the Party which led Albania in the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War and for 40 years as the red star which illuminated the entire globe against the capitalist-revisionist encirclement. Every May 5 -- the day Qemal fell to the fascist bullets after hours of gunfighting in 1942 -- the Day of the Martyrs of the Nation is celebrated by the Albanian people, still to this day. The name of Qemal Stafa represents a mature, brave, fierce, educated, organized, light-hearted, optimistic youth, led by the working class and people, ready at once to die for its immortal cause and its inevitable goal. Comrade Enver Hoxha has remarked to the Pioneers that Qemal died "for the people, for the Homeland, for you." He did not mean that in a narrow sense -- he died for all of us, the entire humanity.