The People's Socialist Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë, links=no) was the
Marxist–Leninist one party state that existed in
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
from 1946 to 1992 (the official name of the country was the People's Republic of Albania from 1946 until 1976 and the Republic of Albania from 1991 until its dissolution in 1992). From 1944 to 1946, the state of Albania was known as the
Democratic Government of Albania
The Hoxha I Government ( Albanian: ''Qeveria e Parë e Enver Hoxhës'') better known as the Democratic Government of Albania was established on 20 October 1944 by the National Liberation Movement, as the Albanian partisan resistance of 1940 ...
.
During this time period, the country was ruled by
Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 unt ...
and the
Party of Labour of Albania
The Party of Labour of Albania ( sq, Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë, PPSh), sometimes referred to as the Albanian Workers' Party (AWP), was the ruling and sole legal party of Albania during the communist period (1945–1991). It was founded o ...
. They ruled Albania by establishing a
Albanian stalinist style of state administration and adhering to policies which stressed
national unity
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
and
self-reliance
"Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false con ...
. Travel and visa restrictions made Albania one of the most difficult countries to visit or travel from. Former President
Ilir Meta
Ilir Rexhep Meta (; born 24 March 1969) is an Albanian politician. He served as President of Albania from 24 July 2017 to 24 July 2022.
Previously Meta served as Prime Minister from 1999 to 2002 and he was Speaker of the Parliament of Albania f ...
called it the "North Korea of Europe" during an interview with
Euronews
Euronews (styled on-air in lowercase as euronews) is a European television news network, headquartered in Lyon, France. The network began broadcasting on 1 January 1993 and covers world news from a European perspective.
The majority of Eurone ...
. Being
Europe's only Muslim-majority country, it declared itself the world's first
atheist state
State atheism is the incorporation of positive atheism or non-theism into political regimes. It may also refer to large-scale secularization attempts by governments. It is a form of religion-state relationship that is usually ideologically li ...
in 1967. But after the
fall of communism in Albania
The fall of Communism in Albania, the last such event in Europe outside the Soviet Union, started in December 1990 with student demonstrations in the capital, Tirana, although protests started in January that year in other cities like Shkodra ...
in 1991, the practice of
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
slowly increased. It was the only
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
member to formally withdraw from the alliance before 1990, an action which was occasioned by the
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...
in August 1968. The government implemented reforms which were aimed at modernizing Albania and they resulted in significant gains in the areas of industry, agriculture, education, the arts, and culture, which contributed to a general increase in the Albanian population's standard of living. However, these developments coincided with
political repression
Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereb ...
by the secret police, the
Sigurimi
The Directorate of State Security (), commonly called the ''Sigurimi'', was the state security, intelligence and secret police service of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. Its proclaimed goal was maintaining state security of Albania, ...
, for the purposes of preventing a
counter-revolution
A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revoluti ...
, which included dismissal from employment, imprisonment in
forced labor camps and executions. The first multi-party elections in Socialist Albania
took place on 31 March 1991 – the Communists gained a majority in an
interim government
A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or f ...
. The
Republic of Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares l ...
was proclaimed on 29 April 1991 and the country's first parliamentary elections were
held on 22 March 1992.
The People's Socialist Republic of Albania was officially dissolved on 28 November 1998 upon the adoption of the new
Constitution of Albania
The present Constitution of the Republic of Albania ( sq, Kushtetuta e Republikës së Shqipërisë) was adopted by the Parliament of Albania on 21 October 1998 and certified by presidential decree on 28 November 1998, following a failed referendu ...
.
History
Consolidation of power and initial reforms
On 29 November 1944, Albania was liberated by the
National Liberation Movement (In Albanian: Lëvizja Nacional-Çlirimtare LNC). The Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council, formed in May, became the country's provisional government.
The government, like the LNC, was dominated by the two-year-old Communist Party of Albania, and the party's first secretary,
Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 unt ...
, became Albania's
prime minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
. From the start, the LNC government was an undisguised
Communist regime
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...
. In most of the rest of what became the Eastern Bloc, the Communist parties were nominally part of a coalition government for a few years before seizing full control and creating one-party states.
Having sidelined the nationalist
Balli Kombëtar
The Balli Kombëtar (literally ''National Front''), known as Balli, was an Albanian nationalist, collaborationist and anti-communist resistance movement during the Second World War. It was led by Ali Këlcyra and by Midhat Frashëri. The movem ...
after their collaboration with the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
, the LNC quickly moved to consolidate its power, liberate the country's tenants and workers, and fraternally link Albania with other socialist countries.
King Zog I
Zog I ( sq, Naltmadhnija e tij Zogu I, Mbreti i Shqiptarëve, ; 8 October 18959 April 1961), born Ahmed Muhtar bey Zogolli, taking the name Ahmet Zogu in 1922, was the leader of Albania from 1922 to 1939. At age 27, he first served as Albania's ...
was permanently barred from returning to Albania.
![Partizanë në Tiranë](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Partizan%C3%AB_n%C3%AB_Tiran%C3%AB.jpg)
The internal affairs minister,
Koçi Xoxe
Koçi Xoxe (pronounced ; 1 May 1911 – 11 June 1949) was an Albanian politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. He was supported by Yugoslav leader Josip Broz T ...
, "an erstwhile pro-
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
tinsmith", presided over the
trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of Party (law), parties to a :wikt:dispute, dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence (law), evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate claims or d ...
of many non-communist politicians who were condemned as "
enemies of the people
The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are ac ...
" and "
war criminals". Many were sentenced to death. Those spared were imprisoned for years in work camps and jails and later settled on state farms built on reclaimed marshlands.
In December 1944, the provisional government adopted laws allowing the state to regulate foreign and domestic trade, commercial enterprises, and the few industries the country possessed. The laws sanctioned confiscation of property belonging to political exiles and "enemies of the people." The state also expropriated all German- and Italian-owned property, nationalized transportation enterprises, and canceled all concessions granted by previous Albanian governments to foreign companies.
In August 1945, the provisional government adopted the first sweeping agricultural reforms in Albania's history. The country's 100 largest landowners, who controlled close to a third of Albania's arable land, had frustrated all agricultural reform proposals before the war. The communists' reforms were aimed at squeezing large landowners out of business, winning peasant support, and increasing farm output to avert
famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
. The government annulled outstanding agricultural debts, granted peasants access to inexpensive water for
irrigation
Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...
, and nationalized forest and pastureland.
Under the Agrarian Reform Law, which redistributed about half of Albania's arable land, the government confiscated property belonging to absentee landlords and people not dependent on agriculture for a living. The few peasants with agricultural machinery were permitted to keep up to of land. Landholdings of religious institutions and peasants without agricultural machinery were limited to . Finally, landless peasants and peasants with tiny landholdings were given up to , although they had to pay nominal compensation.
In December 1945, Albanians elected a new
People's Assembly, but voters were presented with a single list from the Communist-dominated
Democratic Front (previously the National Liberation Movement). Official ballot tallies showed that 92% of the electorate voted and that 93% of the voters chose the Democratic Front ticket.
The assembly convened in January 1946. Its first act was to formally dethrone Zog, abolish the monarchy and to declare Albania a "people's republic." However, the country had already been under out-and-out Communist rule for just over two years. After months of angry debate, the assembly adopted a constitution that mirrored the Yugoslav and Soviet constitutions. A couple of months later, the assembly members chose a new government, which was emblematic of Hoxha's continuing consolidation of power: Hoxha became simultaneously prime minister,
foreign minister
A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...
,
defense minister
A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...
, and the army's
commander in chief. Xoxe remained both internal affairs minister and the party's organizational secretary.
In late 1945 and early 1946, Xoxe and other party hard-liners purged moderates who had pressed for close contacts with the West, a modicum of political pluralism, and a delay in the introduction of strict communist economic measures until Albania's economy had more time to develop. Hoxha remained in control despite the fact that he had once advocated restoring relations with Italy and even allowing Albanians to study in Italy.
The government took major steps to introduce a Stalinist-style
centrally planned economy
A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, part ...
in 1946. It nationalized all industries, transformed foreign trade into a government monopoly, brought almost all domestic trade under state control, and banned land sales and transfers. Planners at the newly founded Economic Planning Commission emphasized industrial development and in 1947 the government introduced the Soviet cost-accounting system.
Albanian–Yugoslav tensions
Until
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
's expulsion from the
Cominform
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...
in 1948, Albania was effectively a Yugoslav satellite. In repudiating the 1943 Albanian internal
Mukaj agreement
The Mukje Conference was held on 1–3 August 1943 in Mukaj (near Krujë in Central Albania). There was signed the Mukje agreement, a treaty between the nationalist Balli Kombëtar and the National Liberation Movement representatives. The aim ...
under pressure from the Yugoslavs, Albania's communists had given up on their demands for a Yugoslav cession of
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
to Albania after the war. In January 1945, the two governments signed a treaty establishing Kosovo as a Yugoslav autonomous province. Shortly thereafter, Yugoslavia became the first country to recognize Albania's provisional government.
In July 1946, Yugoslavia and Albania signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation that was quickly followed by a series of technical and economic agreements laying the groundwork for integrating the Albanian and Yugoslav economies. The pacts provided for coordinating the economic plans of both states, standardizing their monetary systems, and creating a common pricing system and a customs union. So close was the Yugoslav-Albanian relationship that
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...
became a required subject in Albanian high schools.
Yugoslavia signed a similar
friendship treaty with the
Bulgarian People's Republic
The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; bg, Народна Република България (НРБ), ''Narodna Republika Balgariya, NRB'') was the official name of Bulgaria, when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the ...
, and Marshal
Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his deat ...
and Bulgaria's
Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov Mihaylov (; bg, Гео̀рги Димитро̀в Миха̀йлов), also known as Georgiy Mihaylovich Dimitrov (russian: Гео́ргий Миха́йлович Дими́тров; 18 June 1882 – 2 July 1949), was a Bulgarian ...
talked of plans to establish a
Balkan Federation
The Balkan Federation project was a left-wing political movement to create a country in the Balkans by combining Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.
The concept of a Balkan federation emerged in the late 19th century from ...
to include Albania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. Yugoslav advisers poured into Albania's government offices and its army headquarters.
Tirana
Tirana ( , ; aln, Tirona) is the capital and largest city of Albania. It is located in the centre of the country, enclosed by mountains and hills with Dajti rising to the east and a slight valley to the northwest overlooking the Adriatic Sea ...
was desperate for outside aid, and about 20,000 tons of Yugoslav grain helped stave off famine. Albania also received US$26.3 million from the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in November 1943, it was dissolved in September 1948. it became part o ...
immediately after the war but had to rely on Yugoslavia for investment and development aid.
Joint Albanian–Yugoslav companies were created for mining, railroad construction, the production of petroleum and electricity, and international trade. Yugoslav investments led to the construction of a sugar refinery in
Korçë
Korçë (; sq-definite, Korça) is the eighth most populous city of the Republic of Albania and the seat of Korçë County and Korçë Municipality. The total population is 75,994 (2011 census), in a total area of . It stands on a plateau some ...
, a food-processing plant in
Elbasan
Elbasan ( ; sq-definite, Elbasani ) is the fourth most populous city of Albania and seat of Elbasan County and Elbasan Municipality. It lies to the north of the river Shkumbin between the Skanderbeg Mountains and the Myzeqe Plain in central Al ...
, a hemp factory at
Rrogozhinë
Rrogozhinë ( sq-definite, Rrogozhina) is a town and a municipality in Tirana County, centrally located in the Western Lowlands region of Albania. It was formed at the 2015 local government reform by the merger of the former municipalities Gosë, K ...
, a fish cannery in
Vlorë
Vlorë ( , ; sq-definite, Vlora) is the third most populous city of the Republic of Albania and seat of Vlorë County and Vlorë Municipality. Located in southwestern Albania, Vlorë sprawls on the Bay of Vlorë and is surrounded by the foothi ...
, and a printing press, telephone exchange, and textile mill in Tirana. The Yugoslavs also bolstered the Albanian economy by paying three times the international price for Albanian copper and other materials.
Relations between Albania and Yugoslavia declined, however, when the Albanians began complaining that the Yugoslavs were paying too little for Albanian raw materials and exploiting Albania through the joint stock companies. In addition, the Albanians sought investment funds to develop light industries and an oil refinery, while the Yugoslavs wanted the Albanians to concentrate on agriculture and raw-material extraction. The head of Albania's Economic Planning Commission, and Hoxha's right-hand man,
Nako Spiru
Athanas Spiru, known as Nako Spiru, (4 January 1918 – 20 November 1947) was an Albanian politician and high-ranking official of the Communist Party of Albania (PKSh). He served as Minister of Economy and Industry from 1946 until his untimely de ...
, became the leading critic of Yugoslavia's efforts to exert economic control over Albania. Tito distrusted the intellectuals (Hoxha and his allies) of the Albanian Party and, through Xoxe and his loyalists, attempted to unseat them.
In 1947, Yugoslavia acted against anti-Yugoslav Albanian communists, including Hoxha and Spiru. In May, Tirana announced the arrest, trial, and conviction of nine People's Assembly members, all of whom were known for opposing Yugoslavia, on charges of antistate activities. A month later, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia's Central Committee accused Hoxha of following "independent" policies and turning the Albanian people against Yugoslavia. This was the closest Hoxha ever came to being removed from power. Apparently attempting to buy support inside the Albanian Communist Party, Belgrade extended Tirana credits which were worth 40 million USD, an amount which was equivalent to 58% of Albania's 1947 state budget. A year later, Yugoslavia's credits accounted for nearly half of Albania's 1948 state budget. Relations worsened in the fall, however, when Spiru's commission developed an economic plan that stressed self-sufficiency, light industry, and agriculture. The Yugoslavs complained bitterly. Subsequently, at a November 1947 meeting of the Albanian Economic Central Committee, Spiru came under intense criticism, which was spearheaded by Xoxe. Failure to win support from anyone within the party (he was effectively a
fall guy
Fall guy is a colloquial phrase that refers to a person to whom blame is deliberately and falsely attributed in order to deflect blame from another party.
Origin
The origin of the term "fall guy" is unknown and contentious. Many sources place ...
for Hoxha) he committed
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
the very next day.
The insignificance of Albania's standing in the communist world was clearly highlighted when the emerging Eastern European nations did not invite the Party of Labour of Albania to the September 1947 founding meeting of the
Cominform
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...
. Rather, Yugoslavia represented Albania at Cominform meetings. Although the Soviet Union gave Albania a pledge to build textile and sugar mills and other factories and provide agricultural and industrial machinery to Albania,
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
told
Milovan Djilas
Milovan Djilas (; , ; 12 June 1911 – 30 April 1995) was a Yugoslav communist politician, theorist and author. He was a key figure in the Partisan movement during World War II, as well as in the post-war government. A self-identified democrat ...
, at the time a high-ranking member of Yugoslavia's communist hierarchy, that Yugoslavia should "swallow" Albania.
The pro-Yugoslav faction wielded decisive political power in Albania well into 1948. At a party plenum in February and March, the communist leadership voted to merge the Albanian and Yugoslav economies and militaries. Hoxha even denounced Spiru for attempting to ruin Albanian-Yugoslav relations. During a party Political Bureau (
Politburo
A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states.
Names
The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...
) meeting a month later, Xoxe proposed appealing to Belgrade to admit Albania as a seventh Yugoslav republic. However, when the Cominform expelled Yugoslavia on 28 June, Albania made a rapid about-face in its policy towards Yugoslavia. Three days later, Tirana gave the Yugoslav advisers in Albania 48 hours to leave the country, rescinded all bilateral economic agreements with its neighbor, and launched a virulent anti-Yugoslav propaganda blitz that transformed Stalin into an Albanian national hero, Hoxha into a warrior against foreign aggression, and Tito into an imperialist monster.
Albania entered an orbit around the Soviet Union, and in September 1948 Moscow stepped in to compensate for Albania's loss of Yugoslav aid. The shift proved to be a boon for Albania because Moscow had far more to offer Albania than hard-strapped Belgrade had. The fact that the Soviet Union had no common border with Albania also appealed to the Albanian regime because it made it more difficult for Moscow to exert pressure on Tirana. In November at the First Party Congress of the
Albanian Party of Labor
The Party of Labour of Albania ( sq, Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë, PPSh), sometimes referred to as the Albanian Workers' Party (AWP), was the ruling and sole legal party of Albania during the communist period (1945–1991). It was founded on ...
(APL), the former Albanian Communist Party which renamed itself at Stalin's suggestion, Hoxha pinned the blame for the country's woes on Yugoslavia and Xoxe. Hoxha had Xoxe sacked as Albania's internal affairs minister in October, and he was replaced with
Mehmet Shehu
Mehmet Ismail Shehu (January 10, 1913 – December 18, 1981) was an Albanian communist politician who served as the 23rd Prime Minister of Albania from 1954 to 1981. As an acknowledged military tactician, without whose leadership the communist p ...
. After a secret trial in May 1949, Xoxe was executed. The subsequent anti-Titoist
purge
In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
s in Albania brought the liquidation of 14 members of the party's 31 person Central Committee and 32 of the 109 People's Assembly deputies. Overall, the party expelled about 25% of its members. Yugoslavia responded by launching a propaganda counterattack and canceling its treaty of friendship with Albania and in 1950, it withdrew its diplomatic mission from Tirana.
Deteriorating relations with the West
Albania's relations with the West soured after the Communist government's refusal to allow free elections in December 1945. Albania restricted the movement of
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
personnel in the country, charging that they had instigated anti-Communist uprisings in the northern mountains. Britain announced in April that it would not send a diplomatic mission to Tirana; the United States withdrew its mission in November; and both the United States and Britain opposed admitting Albania to the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
(UN). Albania feared that the United States and Britain, which were supporting anti-Communist forces in the
ongoing civil war in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
, would back Greek demands for
territory in southern Albania; and anxieties grew in July when a United States Senate resolution backed the Greek demands.
A
major incident
Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actuall ...
between Albania and Britain erupted in 1946 after Tirana claimed jurisdiction over the channel between the Albanian mainland and the Greek island of
Corfu
Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The isl ...
. Britain challenged Albania by sailing four destroyers into the channel. Two of the ships struck mines on 22 October 1946, and 44 crew members died. Britain complained to the UN and the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
which, in its first case ever, ruled against Tirana.
After 1946 the United States and the United Kingdom began
implementing an elaborate covert plan to overthrow Albania's Communist government by backing anti-Communist and royalist forces within the country. By 1949 the United States and British intelligence organizations were working with
King Zog
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
and the mountainmen of his personal guard. They recruited Albanian refugees and émigrés from
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, and Greece; trained them in
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
,
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
, and the Federal Republic of Germany (
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
); and infiltrated them into Albania. Guerrilla units entered Albania in 1950 and 1952, but Albanian security forces killed or captured all of them.
Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...
, a Soviet double agent working as a liaison officer between the British intelligence service and the United States Central Intelligence Agency, had leaked details of the infiltration plan to Moscow, and the security breach claimed the lives of about 300 infiltrators.
Following a wave of subversive activity, including the failed infiltration and the March 1951 bombing of the Soviet embassy in Tirana, the Communist authorities implemented harsh internal security measures. In September 1952, the assembly enacted a penal code that required the death penalty for anyone over eleven years old who was found guilty of conspiring against the state, damaging state property, or committing economic sabotage. Political executions were common and between 5,000 and 25,000 people were killed in total during the Communist era.
In the Soviet sphere
Albania primarily depended on Soviet assistance and know-how after its break with Yugoslavia in 1948. In February 1949, Albania gained membership in the
communist bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
's organization for coordinating
economic planning
Economic planning is a resource allocation mechanism based on a computational procedure for solving a constrained maximization problem with an iterative process for obtaining its solution. Planning is a mechanism for the allocation of resources b ...
, the
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (, ; English abbreviation COMECON, CMEA, CEMA, or CAME) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along wit ...
(Comecon). Tirana soon entered into trade agreements with
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
,
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
,
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
, and the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. Soviet and East European technical advisers took up residence in Albania, and the Soviet Union also sent Albania military advisers and built a submarine installation on
Sazan Island
Sazan ( sq-definite, Sazani) is an Albanian uninhabited island in the Mediterranean Sea. The largest of Albania's islands, it is a designated military exclusion zone; it lies in a strategically important location between the Strait of Otranto an ...
. After the Soviet-Yugoslav split, Albania and
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
remained the only countries that the Soviet Union could use to supply war material to the communists
fighting in Greece. What little strategic value Albania offered the Soviet Union, however, gradually shrank as nuclear-arms technology developed.
Aligned with the Orthodox line of
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, Albania's Communist Party implemented elements of
Stalinist
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
policy and economics. In 1949 Albania adopted the basic elements of the Soviet fiscal system, under which
state enterprise
A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the governmen ...
s paid direct contributions to the treasury from their profits and kept only a share authorized for self-financed investments and other purposes. In 1951 the Albanian government launched its first five-year plan, which emphasized utilizing the country's
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
,
chromite
Chromite is a crystalline mineral composed primarily of iron(II) oxide and chromium(III) oxide compounds. It can be represented by the chemical formula of FeCr2O4. It is an oxide mineral belonging to the spinel group. The element magnesium can s ...
,
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
,
nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...
,
asphalt
Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...
, and
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
resources; expanding
electricity production
Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its delivery (transmission, distribution, etc.) to end users or its storag ...
and the power grid; increasing
agricultural output; and improving
transportation
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...
. The government began a program of rapid
industrialization
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
after the APL's Second Party Congress and a campaign of
collectivization
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member ...
of farmland in 1955. At the time, private farms still produced about 87% of Albania's agricultural output, but by 1960 the same percentage came from collective or state farms.
Soviet-Albanian relations remained warm during the last years of Stalin's life, although Albania was an economic liability for the Soviet Union. Albania conducted all its foreign trade with Soviet European countries in 1949, 1950, and 1951 – and over half its trade with the Soviet Union itself. Together with its satellites, the Soviet Union underwrote shortfalls in Albania's balance-of-payments with long-term grants.
Although far behind Western practice,
health care
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
and
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
improved dramatically for Albania's 1.2 million people in the early 1950s. The number of Albanian doctors increased by a third to about 150 early in the decade (although the doctor-patient ratio remained unacceptable by most standards), and the state opened new medical-training facilities. The number of hospital beds rose from 1,765 in 1945 to about 5,500 in 1953. Better health-care and living conditions produced an improvement in Albania's dismal infant-mortality rate, lowering it from 112.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1945 to 99.5 deaths per 1,000 births in 1953. The education system, geared towards cementing
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and creating the academic and technical cadres necessary for construction of a socialist state and society, also improved dramatically. The number of schools, teachers, and students doubled between 1945 and 1950. Illiteracy declined from perhaps 85% in 1946 to 31% in 1950. The Soviet Union provided scholarships for Albanian students and supplied specialists and study materials to improve instruction in Albania. The State University of Tirana (later the
University of Tirana
The University of Tirana ( sq, Universiteti i Tiranës, abbreviated UT) is a public university located at the central borough of Tirana 10 in Tirana, Albania. It was established as the ''State University of Tirana'' in 1957 through merging of ...
) was founded in 1957 and the
Albanian Academy of Sciences
The Academy of Sciences of Albania ( sq, Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë), founded in 1972, is the most important scientific institution in Albania. In the 1980s, several research institutes began at the University of Tirana were transferred ...
opened 15 years later.
Stalin died in March 1953, and apparently fearing that the Soviet Secretaries demise might encourage rivals within the Albanian party's ranks, neither Hoxha nor Shehu risked traveling to Moscow to attend
his funeral. The Soviet Union's subsequent movement toward rapprochement with the Yugoslavs alarmed the two Albanian leaders. Tirana soon came under pressure from Moscow to copy, at least formally, the new
Soviet model for collective leadership. In July 1953, Hoxha handed over the foreign affairs and defense portfolios to loyal followers, but he kept both the top party post and the premiership until 1954, when Shehu became Albania's prime minister. The Soviet Union, responding with an effort to raise the Albanian leaders' morale, elevated diplomatic relations between the two countries to the ambassadorial level.
Despite some cautious expressions of enthusiasm, Hoxha and Shehu quickly turned against
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
's programs of "
peaceful coexistence
Peaceful coexistence (russian: Мирное сосуществование, translit=Mirnoye sosushchestvovaniye) was a theory, developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of primarily Marxist– ...
" and "different roads to socialism". Raising concerns over supposed steps towards
Marxist Revisionism
Within the Marxist movement, revisionism represents various ideas, principles and theories that are based on a significant revision of fundamental Marxist premises that usually involve making an alliance with the bourgeois class.
The term ''re ...
, the Albanian Communists relationship with the Union began to decline. Tirana and Belgrade renewed diplomatic relations in December 1953, but Hoxha refused Khrushchev's repeated appeals to posthumously rehabilitate the pro-Yugoslav Xoxe as a gesture to Tito. The Albanian duo instead entrenched their political position, expanding their control over their country's domestic life and letting the propaganda war with the Yugoslavs grind on. In 1955 Albania became a founding member of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, better known as the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
, the only military alliance the nation ever joined. Although the pact represented the first promise Albania had obtained from any of the
communist countries
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...
to defend its borders, the treaty did nothing to assuage the Albanian leaders' deep mistrust of
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
.
Hoxha and Shehu, utilizing their immediate successes and Albanians' deep-seated fear of Yugoslav domination, were able to successfully maintain power during the
Twentieth Party Congress
The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship ...
of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
"Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
in 1956, when Khrushchev denounced Stalin's Administration in his "
secret speech
"On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" (russian: «О культе личности и его последствиях», «''O kul'te lichnosti i yego posledstviyakh''»), popularly known as the "Secret Speech" (russian: секре ...
". Hoxha, deeply alarmed by the denunciation, defended Stalin and refused to follow Khrushchev's attempt at stepping away from the prior Soviet Administration. As the first years of the Khrushchev Administration passed, Hoxha continued to maintain this position, including through the
disturbances in Poland and the
rebellion in Hungary in 1956. Hoxha during this period purged party moderates with pro-Soviet and pro-Yugoslav leanings, however toned down his anti-Yugoslav rhetoric after an successful April 1957 trip to Moscow. This trip proved pivotal for the Albanian State, Hoxha having won cancellation of about US$105 million in outstanding loans and about US$7.8 million in additional food assistance. By 1958, however, tensions had re-sparked between Hoxha and Tito, with continued conflict over the issue of
Albanians in Kosovo
The Albanians of Kosovo ( sq, Shqiptarët e Kosovës, ), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovar/Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars/Kosovans, constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo.
Kosovo Albanians belong to the ethnic Albanian sub-gr ...
. There was further tension over a Comecon plan for integrating the East European economies, which called for Albania to produce agricultural goods and minerals instead of emphasizing the development of heavy industry. On a twelve-day visit to Albania in 1959, Khrushchev reportedly tried to convince Hoxha and Shehu that their country should aspire to become "
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
's orchard".
In the Chinese sphere
![Albania bunkers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Albania_bunkers.jpg)
Albania played a pronounced role in the
Sino-Soviet split
The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Len ...
. By 1958 Albania stood with the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
(PRC) in opposing Moscow on issues of
peaceful coexistence
Peaceful coexistence (russian: Мирное сосуществование, translit=Mirnoye sosushchestvovaniye) was a theory, developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of primarily Marxist– ...
,
de-Stalinization
De-Stalinization (russian: десталинизация, translit=destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension ...
, and
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
's "
separate road to socialism
Types of socialism include a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic controlArnold, N. Scott (1998). ''The Philosophy and Economics of Market Socialism: A Critical Study''. Oxford University Press. p ...
" through
decentralization
Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group.
Conce ...
of
economic life. The Soviet Union, other Eastern European countries, and China all offered Albania large amounts of aid. Soviet leaders also promised to build a large
Palace of Culture
Palace of Culture (russian: Дворец культуры, dvorets kultury, , ''wénhuà gōng'', german: Kulturpalast) or House of Culture (Polish: ''dom kultury'') is a common name (generic term) for major Club (organization), club-houses (comm ...
in Tirana as a symbol of the Soviet people's "love and friendship" for the Albanians. But despite these gestures, Tirana was dissatisfied with Moscow's economic policy towards Albania.
Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanians, Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was Secretary (title)#First secretary, First Secretary of t ...
and
Shehu apparently decided in either May or June 1960 that Albania was assured of Chinese support, and when sharp polemics erupted between the PRC and the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, they openly sided with the former.
Ramiz Alia
Ramiz Tafë Alia (; 18 October 1925 – 7 October 2011) was an Albanian politician serving as the second and last leader of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1985 to 1991, serving as First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albani ...
, at the time a candidate-member of the Politburo and Hoxha's adviser on ideological questions, played a prominent role in the rhetoric.
The
Sino-Soviet split
The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Len ...
burst into the open in June 1960 at a
Romanian Workers' Party
The Romanian Communist Party ( ro, Partidul Comunist Român, , PCR) was a communist party in Romania. The successor to the pro-Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to a communist revolution that woul ...
congress, at which
Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and Premier of the Soviet Union, chairm ...
attempted to secure condemnation of
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
. Albania's delegation, alone among the European delegations, supported the Chinese. The Soviet Union immediately retaliated by organizing a campaign to oust Hoxha and Shehu in the summer of 1960. Moscow cut promised grain deliveries to Albania during a drought, and the Soviet embassy in Tirana overtly encouraged a pro-Soviet faction in the
Party of Labour of Albania
The Party of Labour of Albania ( sq, Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë, PPSh), sometimes referred to as the Albanian Workers' Party (AWP), was the ruling and sole legal party of Albania during the communist period (1945–1991). It was founded o ...
(APL) to speak out against the party's pro-Chinese stance. Moscow also apparently involved itself in a plot within the APL to unseat Hoxha and Shehu by force. But given their tight control of the party machinery, army, and Shehu's secret police, the Directorate of State Security (Drejtorija e Sigurimit të Shtetit—
Sigurimi
The Directorate of State Security (), commonly called the ''Sigurimi'', was the state security, intelligence and secret police service of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. Its proclaimed goal was maintaining state security of Albania, ...
), the two Albanian leaders easily parried the threat. Four pro-Soviet Albanian leaders, including
Teme Sejko
Teme Sejko (August 25, 1922 – May 31, 1961) was an Albanian Rear Admiral and commander of the Albanian navy and the naval base of Durrës. In 1961 he was executed for allegedly being the leader of a pro-Soviet group that had been planning a cou ...
and
Tahir Demi
Tahir Demi (1919–1961) was an Albanian politician. He was high-ranking member of the Party of Labour of Albania and representative of Albania at Comecon. In 1960 he was arrested and sentenced to death in 1961 for being a member of a pro-Soviet gr ...
, were eventually tried and executed. The PRC immediately began making up for the cancellation of Soviet wheat shipments despite a paucity of foreign currency and its own economic hardships.
Albania again sided with the People's Republic of China when it launched an attack on the Soviet Union's leadership of the international communist movement at the November 1960 Moscow conference of the world's 81 communist parties. Hoxha inveighed against Khrushchev for encouraging
Greek claims to southern Albania, sowing discord within the APL and army, and using economic blackmail. "Soviet rats were able to eat while the Albanian people were dying of hunger," Hoxha railed, referring to purposely delayed Soviet grain deliveries. Communist leaders loyal to Moscow described Hoxha's performance as "gangsterish" and "infantile," and the speech extinguished any chance of an agreement between Moscow and Tirana. For the next year, Albania played proxy for China. Pro-Soviet Communist parties, reluctant to confront China directly, criticized Beijing by castigating Albania. China, for its part, frequently gave prominence to the Albanians' fulminations against the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, which Tirana referred to as a "socialist hell."
![Mao Zedong and Enver Hoxha](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Mao_Zedong_and_Enver_Hoxha.jpg)
Hoxha and Shehu continued their harangue against the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia at the APL's Fourth Party Congress in February 1961. During the congress, the Albanian government announced the broad outlines of the country's Third Five-Year Plan (1961–65), which allocated 54% of all investment to industry, thereby rejecting Khrushchev's wish to make Albania primarily an agricultural producer. Moscow responded by canceling aid programs and lines of credit for Albania, but China again came to the rescue.
After additional sharp exchanges between Soviet and Chinese delegates over Albania at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Twenty-Second Party Congress in October 1961, Khrushchev lambasted the Albanians for executing an allegedly pregnant, pro-Soviet member of the Albanian party Politburo
Liri Gega
Liri Gega (1917 – December 1956) was an Albanian communist activist and politician. The only female founder member of the Communist Party of Albania, she was one of the first group of women elected to parliament in 1945. However, she was later ...
, and the Soviet Union finally broke diplomatic relations with Albania in December. Moscow then withdrew all Soviet economic advisers and technicians from the country, including those at work on the
Palace of Culture
Palace of Culture (russian: Дворец культуры, dvorets kultury, , ''wénhuà gōng'', german: Kulturpalast) or House of Culture (Polish: ''dom kultury'') is a common name (generic term) for major Club (organization), club-houses (comm ...
, and halted shipments of supplies and spare parts for equipment already in place in Albania. In addition, the Soviet Union continued to dismantle its naval installations on
Sazan Island
Sazan ( sq-definite, Sazani) is an Albanian uninhabited island in the Mediterranean Sea. The largest of Albania's islands, it is a designated military exclusion zone; it lies in a strategically important location between the Strait of Otranto an ...
, a process that had begun even before the break in relations.
China again compensated Albania for the loss of Soviet economic support, supplying about 90% of the parts, foodstuffs, and other goods the Soviet Union had promised. China lent Albania money on more favorable terms than Moscow, and, unlike Soviet advisers, Chinese technicians earned the same low pay as Albanian workers and lived in similar housing. China also presented Albania with a powerful radio transmission station from which Tirana sang the praises of Stalin, Hoxha, and
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
for decades. For its part, Albania offered China a
beachhead
A beachhead is a temporary line created when a military unit reaches a landing beach by sea and begins to defend the area as other reinforcements arrive. Once a large enough unit is assembled, the invading force can begin advancing inland. The ...
in Europe and acted as China's chief spokesman at the United Nations. To Albania's dismay, however, Chinese equipment and technicians were not nearly as sophisticated as the Soviet goods and advisers they replaced. Ironically, a language barrier even forced the Chinese and Albanian technicians to communicate in Russian. Albanians no longer took part in
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
activities or
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (, ; English abbreviation COMECON, CMEA, CEMA, or CAME) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along wi ...
agreements. The other East European communist nations, however, did not break diplomatic or trade links with Albania. In 1964, the Albanians went so far as to seize the empty Soviet embassy in Tirana, and Albanian workers pressed on with construction of the Palace of Culture on their own.
The shift away from the Soviet Union wreaked havoc on Albania's economy. Half of its imports and exports had been geared toward Soviet suppliers and markets, so the souring of Tirana's relations with Moscow brought Albania's foreign trade to near collapse as China proved incapable of delivering promised machinery and equipment on time. The low productivity, flawed planning, poor workmanship, and inefficient management at Albanian enterprises became clear when Soviet and Eastern European aid and advisers were withdrawn. In 1962, the Albanian government introduced an austerity program, appealing to the people to conserve resources, cut production costs, and abandon unnecessary investment.
Withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact
In October 1964, Hoxha hailed Khrushchev's fall from power, and the Soviet Union's new leaders made overtures to Tirana. It soon became clear, however, that the new Soviet leadership had no intention of changing its basic policies to suit Albania, and relations failed to improve. For decades, Tirana's propaganda continued to refer to Soviet officials as "treacherous revisionists" and "traitors to Communism," and in 1964, Hoxha said that Albania's terms for reconciliation were a Soviet apology to Albania and reparations for damages which it had inflicted on the country. Albania had also been feuding with Moscow over suggestions that Albania should focus on agriculture to the detriment of industrial development. Soviet-Albanian relations dipped to new lows after the
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...
in 1968, and Albania felt that the Soviet Union had become too liberal since the death of
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
. The invasion served as the tipping point, and within one month (September 1968) Albania formally withdrew from the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
.
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet Union, Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gener ...
made no attempt to force Albania to remain.
Cultural and Ideological Revolution
![Mali i Shpiragut](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Mali_i_Shpiragut.jpg)
In the mid-1960s, Albania's leaders grew wary of a threat to their power by a burgeoning
bureaucracy
The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
. Party discipline had eroded. People complained about
malfeasance
Misfeasance, nonfeasance, and malfeasance are types of failure to discharge public obligations existing by common law, custom, or statute.
The Carta de Logu caused Eleanor of Arborea to be remembered as one of the first lawmakers to set up the ...
,
inflation
In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...
, and low-quality goods. Writers strayed from the orthodoxy of
socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...
, which demanded that art and literature serve as instruments of government and party policy. As a result, after
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
unleashed the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
in China in 1966, Hoxha launched his own Cultural and Ideological Revolution. The Albanian leader concentrated on reforming the military, government bureaucracy, and economy as well as on creating new support for his system. The regime abolished military ranks, reintroduced political commissars into the military, and renounced professionalism in the army. Railing against a "white-collar mentality," the authorities also slashed the salaries of mid- and high-level officials, ousted administrators and specialists from their desk jobs, and sent such persons to toil in the factories and fields. Six ministries, including the Ministry of Justice, were eliminated.
Farm collectivization even spread to the remote mountains. In addition, the government attacked dissident writers and artists, reformed its educational system, and generally reinforced Albania's isolation from
European culture
The culture of Europe is rooted in its art, architecture, film, different types of music, economics, literature, and philosophy. European culture is largely rooted in what is often referred to as its "common cultural heritage".
Definition ...
in an effort to keep out foreign influences.
After the 5th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania and Enver Hoxha's speech on 6 February 1967, the authorities launched a violent campaign to extinguish
religious life in Albania, claiming that
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
had divided the Albanian nation and kept it mired in backwardness. Student agitators combed the countryside, forcing Albanians to quit practicing their faiths. Despite complaints, even by APL members, all churches, mosques, monasteries, and other religious institutions were closed or converted into warehouses, gymnasiums, and workshops by year's end. A special decree abrogated the charters by which the country's main religious communities had operated. The campaign culminated in an announcement that Albania had become the world's first
atheistic state, a feat which was trumpeted as one of Enver Hoxha's greatest achievements. While the Albanian Constitution had formally guaranteed freedom of religion to the Albanian people right up until that time, religious freedom was virtually non-existent after 1967. The 1976
Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania
The Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania was the constitution used in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. The constitution, promulgated on 28 December 1976, established Albania as a "People's Socialist Republic". The c ...
later stipulated in Article 37 that "The state recognizes no religion whatever and supports atheist propaganda for the purpose of inculcating the scientific materialist world outlook in people" and Article 55 explicitly forbade the formation of "any type of organization of a fascist, anti-democratic, ''religious,'' and anti-socialist character" and stated that "Fascist, anti-democratic, ''religious'', war-mongering, and anti-socialist activities and propaganda, as well as the incitement of national and racial hatred are prohibited."
On 1 November 1977, Enver Hoxha claimed in his Report submitted to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania on the activity of the Party's Central Committee that the 1976 Constitution was an embodiment of the free will of the Albanian people, because genuine democracy was necessary in order for socialism to actually exist. He said that, "the broad masses of the working people freely aired their views on the new Fundamental Law of our state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. About 1,500,000 people, practically the entire adult population of the country, participated in the meetings which were held, and about 300,000 people contributed to the discussion... The great popular discussion, characterized by a free and fruitful thrashing out of opinions, by lively and constructive debate, was a clear expression of our socialist democracy in action and the genuine sovereignty of the people. It demonstrated in practice that in socialist Albania the people are the masters, that nothing is done against their will." The numerous testimonies of those who suffered under the religious persecution of this era, however, casts serious doubts into how "free and fruitful" the thrashing out of opinions in this grand debate were, and consequently as critics of the regime would argue, the genuinely socialist character of Albania's socialist democracy.
During the Cultural and Ideological Revolution, traditional kinship links in Albania, which were centered on the patriarchal family, were shattered by the postwar repression of clan leaders, collectivization of agriculture, industrialization, migration from the countryside to urban areas, and suppression of religion. The postwar regime brought a radical change in the status of
Albania's women. Considered
second-class citizen
A second-class citizen is a person who is systematically and actively discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or a legal resident there. While not necessarily slaves, ...
s in traditional Albanian society, women did most of the work at home and they also did most of the work in the fields. Before World War II, about 90% of Albania's women were illiterate, and in many areas, they were regarded as
chattel under ancient tribal laws and customs. During the Cultural and Ideological Revolution, the party encouraged women to take jobs outside the home in an effort to compensate for labor shortages and overcome their
conservatism
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...
. Hoxha himself proclaimed that anyone who trampled on the party's edict on
women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
should be "hurled into the fire."
Self-reliance
![Aleksandër Moisiu Theatre Durrës 1978](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Aleksand%C3%ABr_Moisiu_Theatre_Durr%C3%ABs_1978.jpg)
Albanian-Chinese relations had stagnated by 1970, and when China began to reemerge from isolation and the Cultural Revolution in the early 1970s, Mao and the other Chinese leaders reassessed their commitment to Albania. In response, Albania began to broaden its contacts with the outside world. Albania opened trade negotiations with
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, and the recently independent
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
n and
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n states, and in 1971 it normalised relations with
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
and
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
. Albania's leaders abhorred the contacts of China with the United States in the early 1970s, and its press and radio ignored President
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
's
trip to Beijing in 1972. Albania actively worked to reduce its dependence on China by diversifying trade and improving diplomatic and cultural relations, especially with
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
. But Albania shunned the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was a key element of the détente process during the Cold War. Although it did not have the force of a treaty, it recognized the boundaries of postwar Europe and established a mechanism f ...
and it was the only European country that refused to take part in the
Helsinki Conference of July 1975. Soon after Mao's death in 1976, Hoxha criticized the new leadership as well as Beijing's pragmatic policy towards the United States and Western Europe. China retorted by inviting Tito to visit Beijing in 1977 and ending assistance programs for Albania in 1978.
![Tirana in 1978 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Tirana_in_1978_2.jpg)
The
Sino-Albanian split
The Sino-Albanian split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the People's Republic of China in the period 1972–1978.
Both countries had supported each other in the Soviet–Albanian and S ...
left Albania with no foreign benefactor. Albania ignored calls to normalize relations by the United States and the Soviet Union. Instead, Albania expanded its diplomatic ties with Western Europe and the
developing nations
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
and it also began to stress the principle of self-reliance as the keystone of the country's strategy for economic development. Albania, however, did not have many resources of its own, and Hoxha's cautious opening to the outside world was not enough to bolster Albania's economy, and nascent movements for change stirred up inside Albania. Without Chinese or Soviet aid, the country began to experience widespread shortages of everything from machine parts to wheat and animal feed. Infrastructure and living standards began to collapse. According to the
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
, Albania netted around US$750 in gross national product per capita throughout much of the 1980s. As Hoxha's health slipped, muted calls arose for the relaxation of party controls and greater openness. In response, Hoxha launched a fresh series of purges that removed the defense minister and many top military officials. A year later, Hoxha purged ministers who were responsible for the country's economy and replaced them with younger people.
As Hoxha began to experience more health problems, he progressively withdrew from state affairs and took longer and more frequent leaves of absence. Meanwhile, he began to plan an orderly succession. He worked to institutionalize his policies, hoping to frustrate any attempt which his successors might make to venture from the Stalinist path which he had blazed for Albania. In December 1976, Albania adopted its second Stalinist constitution of the postwar era. The document guaranteed Albanians
freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
, the
press
Press may refer to:
Media
* Print media or news media, commonly called "the press"
* Printing press, commonly called "the press"
* Press (newspaper), a list of newspapers
* Press TV, an Iranian television network
People
* Press (surname), a fam ...
,
organization
An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose.
The word is derived from ...
,
association
Association may refer to:
*Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal
*Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry
*Voluntary associatio ...
, and
assembly
Assembly may refer to:
Organisations and meetings
* Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions
* General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
but subordinated these rights to the individual's duties to society as a whole. The constitution continued to emphasize national pride and unity, the idea of
autarky
Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency, usually applied to societies, communities, states, and their economic systems.
Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements, especially ...
was enshrined in law and the government was prohibited from seeking financial aid or credits or forming joint companies with partners from capitalist or revisionist communist countries. The constitution's preamble also boasted that the foundations of religious belief had been abolished in Albania.
In 1980, Hoxha tapped
Ramiz Alia
Ramiz Tafë Alia (; 18 October 1925 – 7 October 2011) was an Albanian politician serving as the second and last leader of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1985 to 1991, serving as First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albani ...
to succeed him as Albania's communist patriarch, overlooking his long-standing comrade-in-arms,
Mehmet Shehu
Mehmet Ismail Shehu (January 10, 1913 – December 18, 1981) was an Albanian communist politician who served as the 23rd Prime Minister of Albania from 1954 to 1981. As an acknowledged military tactician, without whose leadership the communist p ...
. Hoxha first tried to convince Shehu to voluntarily step aside, but when this move failed, Hoxha arranged for all of the members of the Politburo to rebuke him for allowing his son to become engaged to the daughter of a former
bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
family. Shehu allegedly committed suicide on 17 December 1981. Some suspect that Hoxha had him killed. Hoxha had Shehu's wife and three sons arrested, one of whom killed himself in prison.
In November 1982, Hoxha announced that Shehu had been simultaneously working as a foreign spy for the United States, British, Soviet, and Yugoslav intelligence agencies in planning the assassination of Hoxha himself. "He was buried like a dog," Hoxha wrote in the Albanian edition of his book, ''The Titoites''.
In 1983 Hoxha relinquished many of his duties due to poor health, and Alia assumed responsibility for Albania's administration. Alia traveled around Albania extensively, standing in for Hoxha at major events and delivering addresses laying down new policies and intoning litanies to the enfeebled president. Hoxha died on 11 April 1985. Alia succeeded Hoxha to the presidency and became the legal secretary of the APL two days later. In due course, he became a dominant figure in the Albanian media, and his slogans were painted in crimson letters on signboards across the country.
Transition
After Hoxha's death,
Ramiz Alia
Ramiz Tafë Alia (; 18 October 1925 – 7 October 2011) was an Albanian politician serving as the second and last leader of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1985 to 1991, serving as First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albani ...
maintained firm control of the country and its security apparatus, but Albania's desperate economic situation required Alia to introduce some reforms. Continuing a policy set by Hoxha,
Alia Alia or ALIA may refer to:
People
*Alia (name), a list of people with the surname or given name
Places
*Alia, Sicily, Italy, a comune
* Alia (Phrygia), a town of ancient Phrygia which remains a Roman Catholic titular bishopric
*Alía, Spain, a mu ...
reestablished diplomatic relations with
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
in return for development aid and also courted
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
.
The very gradual and slight reforms intensified as
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
introduced his new policies of
glasnost
''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
and
perestroika
''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, culminating in the
fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of eve ...
in November 1989 and the
collapse of communist governments across
Central and Eastern Europe
Central and Eastern Europe is a term encompassing the countries in the Baltics, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe (mostly the Balkans), usually meaning former communist states from the Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact in Europe. ...
.
After
Nicolae Ceaușescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu ( , ; – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He was ...
(the leader of
Communist Romania
The Socialist Republic of Romania ( ro, Republica Socialistă România, RSR) was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist One-party state, one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the s ...
) was
executed
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
in a
revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
in December 1989,
Alia Alia or ALIA may refer to:
People
*Alia (name), a list of people with the surname or given name
Places
*Alia, Sicily, Italy, a comune
* Alia (Phrygia), a town of ancient Phrygia which remains a Roman Catholic titular bishopric
*Alía, Spain, a mu ...
expedited his reforms, apparently concerned about violence and his own fate if radical changes were not made. He signed the
Helsinki Agreement
The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, betwee ...
(which was signed by other countries in 1975) which respected some
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
. On 11 December 1990, under enormous pressure from students and workers,
Alia Alia or ALIA may refer to:
People
*Alia (name), a list of people with the surname or given name
Places
*Alia, Sicily, Italy, a comune
* Alia (Phrygia), a town of ancient Phrygia which remains a Roman Catholic titular bishopric
*Alía, Spain, a mu ...
announced that the Party of Labor had abandoned its guaranteed right to rule, that other parties could be formed, and free elections would be held in the spring of 1991.
Alia Alia or ALIA may refer to:
People
*Alia (name), a list of people with the surname or given name
Places
*Alia, Sicily, Italy, a comune
* Alia (Phrygia), a town of ancient Phrygia which remains a Roman Catholic titular bishopric
*Alía, Spain, a mu ...
's party won the elections on 31 March 1991—the first free elections held in decades.
Nevertheless, it was clear that the change would not be stopped. The position of the communists was confirmed in the first round of elections under a 1991 interim law, but two months later, it fell during a general strike. A committee of "national salvation" took over but it also collapsed within six months. On 22 March 1992, the Communists were trumped by the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
in national elections.
The change from dictatorship to democracy came with many challenges. The Democratic Party had to implement the reforms it had promised, but they were either too slow or did not solve the country's problems, so people were disappointed when their hopes for fast prosperity went unfulfilled.
In the
general elections of June 1996 the Democratic Party tried to win an absolute majority by manipulating the results. This government collapsed in 1997 in the wake of additional collapses of
pyramid scheme
A pyramid scheme is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly im ...
s and widespread
corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
, which caused
chaos and rebellion throughout the country. The government attempted to suppress the rebellion by military force but the attempt failed, due to long-term corruption of the armed forces, forcing other nations to intervene. Pursuant to the 1991 interim basic law, Albanians ratified a constitution in 1998, establishing a
democratic system of government based upon the rule of law and guaranteeing the protection of fundamental human rights.
Government
During its communist era, Albania was governed by the Party of Labor of Albania.
According to the Albanian constitution of 1976, legislative powers were vested in the People's Assembly, which the constitution described as "the supreme organ of state power". Its competences included directing the internal and external policies of Albania, approving and amending the constitution and laws, approving plans for economic and cultural development as well as state budget, ratifying international treaties, granting amnesty, defining the "administrative and territorial structure", and deciding on popular referendums. It also elected and dismissed the Presidium of the Peoples Assembly, the Council of Ministers, and the Supreme Court of Albania. The People's Assembly was composed of 250 deputies who were "elected in constituencies with an equal number of inhabitants" for a term of four years. It met in normal session twice per year.
The Presidium of the People's Assembly was described as "a superior organ of the state power with permanent activity" in the 1976 constitution. It was composed of a President, three Vice-Presidents, one Secretary, and ten other members.
The supreme and executive organ of the government was the Council of Ministers. They were appointed from among the ranks of the People's Assembly. Like the People's Assembly, it also had its own presidium, which was composed of a Chairman and Vice-Chairmen
Legacy
The policies which were pursued by Enver Hoxha and his followers influenced political and economic thought around the world. Thus,
Hoxhaism, Hoxhaist parties were founded in many countries and they based their ideology on Enver Hoxha's ideas as to how a
communist state
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comint ...
should be constructed and embraced his strict adherence to
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various co ...
. Following the fall of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania in 1991, the Hoxhaist parties regrouped as an
international conference and the publication ''Unity and Struggle''.
A 2016 survey conducted by the ''Institute for Development Research and Alternatives'' (IDRA), showed that 42% of Albanians believe that Enver Hoxha had a positive impact on history – not much less than 45% who see his impact as negative.
Citizens in the regions of southern and southwestern Albania that were interviewed, had the most positive view of Hoxha, with 55%.
Approximately 35% of respondents said that the communist past was not a problem for them, while 62% saw it as "at least somewhat problematic".
List of leaders
First Secretaries of the
Party of Labour of Albania
The Party of Labour of Albania ( sq, Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë, PPSh), sometimes referred to as the Albanian Workers' Party (AWP), was the ruling and sole legal party of Albania during the communist period (1945–1991). It was founded o ...
:
*
Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 unt ...
(1946–1985)
*
Ramiz Alia
Ramiz Tafë Alia (; 18 October 1925 – 7 October 2011) was an Albanian politician serving as the second and last leader of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1985 to 1991, serving as First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albani ...
(1985–1991)
Chairmen of the Presidium of the People's Assembly:
*
Omer Nishani
Omer Nishani (5 February 1887 – 26 May 1954) was an Albanian medical doctor and political figure involved first in the struggle against Ahmet Zogu (known after 1928 as King Zog) in the 1920s and 1930s, and then in the struggle against the fascis ...
(1946–1953)
*
Haxhi Lleshi
Haxhi Lleshi (1 May 1913 – 1 January 1998) was an Albanian military leader and communist politician who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the People's Assembly of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1953 to 1982.
Biograp ...
(1953–1982)
*
Ramiz Alia
Ramiz Tafë Alia (; 18 October 1925 – 7 October 2011) was an Albanian politician serving as the second and last leader of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1985 to 1991, serving as First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albani ...
(1982–1991)
Prime Ministers
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
:
*
Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 unt ...
(1946–1954)
*
Mehmet Shehu
Mehmet Ismail Shehu (January 10, 1913 – December 18, 1981) was an Albanian communist politician who served as the 23rd Prime Minister of Albania from 1954 to 1981. As an acknowledged military tactician, without whose leadership the communist p ...
(1954–1981)
*
Adil Çarçani
Adil Çarçani (5 May 1922 – 13 October 1997) was an Albanian politician who served as the 24th Prime Minister of Albania during the Communist era led by Enver Hoxha. He served as the titular head of the Albanian government in the years immedia ...
(1981–1991)
Military
The
Albanian People's Army
The Albanian People's Army ( sq, Ushtria Popullore Shqiptare, UPSh) was the national army of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1946 to 1990. Like all other Communist states, the UPSh was subjected to the rule of the Party of Labour ...
( sq, Ushtria Popullore Shqiptare, UPSh) was the term for the national army of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1946 to 1990. After withdrawing from
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
activities in 1968, it conducted a self-reliance policy for national defence. It was dissolved in 1990 and is retained in its current form through the
Albanian Armed Forces
The Albanian Armed Forces ( sq, Forcat e Armatosura të Republikës së Shqipërisë (FARSH)) are the military of Albania and were formed after the declaration of independence in 1912. Today, it consists of the General Staff, the Albanian Land ...
.
See also
*
Bunkers in Albania
Concrete military bunkers are a ubiquitous sight in Albania, with an average of 5.7 bunkers for every square kilometre (14.7 per square mile). The bunkers ( sq, bunkerët) were built during the Stalinist and anti-revisionist government of E ...
*
Islam in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania
*
Shoqata Mbarëkombëtare e të Përndjekurve Politikë Shqiptare
The Institute for the Integration of Former Political Victims () is a budgetary entity of the Albanian government, designated with the granting of financial compensation by the state, to former political prisoners of the communist regime and to the ...
*
Captive Nations
"Captive Nations" is a term that arose in the United States to describe nations under undemocratic regimes. During the Cold War, when the phrase appeared, it referred to nations under Communist administration, primarily Soviet rule.
As a part of t ...
*
Fall of communism
The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...
*
History of Albania
The history of Albania forms a part of the history of Europe. During classical antiquity, Albania was home to several Illyrian tribes such as the Ardiaei, Albanoi, Amantini, Enchele, Taulantii and many others, but also Thracian and Greek tribes ...
Notes
References
*
Library of Congress Country Studyof Albania''
*Afrim Krasniqi, ''Political Parties in Albania 1912–2006'', Rilindje, 2007
*Afrim Krasniqi, ''Political System in Albania 1912–2008'', Ufo press, 2010
External links
{{Authority control
Communism in Albania
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
Hoxhaism
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
1946 establishments in Albania
1992 disestablishments in Albania
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
20th century in Albania
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...