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This article analyses the political life of two important European communist activists who, in the aftermath of the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s, decided to support China and Albania against the Soviet Union: Kazimierz Mijal, a Polish communist who, in the mid-1960s, decided to exile himself to Albania, from where he promoted the 'China way' of communism; and Jacque Grippa, a Belgian communist who struggled to find space between the Western European left, Beijing, and Moscow. The article analyses how apparently marginal protagonists of the Cold War gained a prominent position and played an important role in the dynamics created within the communist world following the Sino-Soviet split. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the central decades of the Cold War, China was Albania’s only ally. The aim of this article is to analyse how the Chinese Cultural Revolution affected Sino-Albanian relations. This article argues that the events in China threatened to undermine the Sino-Albanian alliance, because Albania did not endorse most of the Cultural Revolution’s policies, but supported it only for the sake of relations with China and the benefits received from this alliance. In a time when the Cultural Revolution caused enormous difficulties to the Chinese economy, Albania nonetheless received an increasing amount of aid. Based on recently released archives, this case study sheds light on this underexplored Cold War alliance and adds to our understanding of how the Cultural Revolution had implications beyond China’s borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]