Assertion: Leadership of the Army instead of the Party

At the Third National Congress of the Youth League in 1957, Mao Tsetung said:

"The Chinese Communist Party is the core of leadership of the whole Chinese people. Without this core, the cause of socialism cannot be victorious."(39)

But Hoxha claims that, according to Mao Tsetung, the army is the core of leadership and stands above everything! In his book Imperialism and the Revolution he vilifies Mao Tsetung Thought concerning the Party, calling it "anti-Marxist" and declaring:

"So the army was above the party, above the state organs, above everything. From this it emerges that Mao Tsetung's words regarding the role of the party, as the decisive factor of the leadership of the revolution and socialist construction, were only slogans. Both at the time of the liberation war and after the creation of the People's Republic of China, in all the never ending struggles that have been waged there for the seizure of power by one faction or the other, the army has played the decisive role. During the Cultural Revolution, too, the army played the main role: it was Mao's last resort.…
In order to liquidate his ideological opponents, Mao Tsetung has always set the army in motion."(40)

He cites a quotation, isolated from its context, from the article "Turn the Army into a Working Force" (41). This is a Party directive for the army's work in the liberated areas, not a definition of the relationship between the Party and the army.

How does Hoxha know this, having said about himself that he "did not have full knowledge about the internal life in China"?

The Communist Party of China experienced 30 years of war and civil war during its existence – a party in arms. For this reason Mao Tsetung says:

"Every communist must grasp the truth. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party."(42)

"All our officers and fighters must always bear in mind that we are the great People's Liberation Army, we are troops led by the great Communist Party of China. Provided we constantly observe the directives of the Party, we are sure to win."(43)

In spite of these clear statements of Mao Tsetung, Hoxha insists on his fallacy and applies it to the situation today:

"Power in China is still in hands of the army, while the party tails behind. This is a general characteristic of countries where revisionism prevails."(44; emphasis by the ed.)

With this eclectic method Hoxha implies that China was revisionist under Mao Tsetung.