Enver Hoxha
Encyclopedia
Enver Halil Hoxha was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary and
the leader of Albania
from the end of World War II
until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania. He also served as Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954, Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs
, Chairman of the Democratic Front
from 1945 to his death, and as Commander-in-Chief of the Albanian armed forces from 1944 to his death.
Hoxha's leadership was characterized by his proclaimed firm adherence to anti-revisionist
Marxism–Leninism from the mid-1970s onwards. After his break
with Maoism
in the 1976–1978 period, numerous Maoist parties declared themselves Hoxhaist
. The International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle) is the most well known collection of these parties today.
(Ergiri), a city in southern Albania (then under the Ottoman Empire
) that has been home to many prominent families. He was the son of Halil Hoxha, a Bektashi
Tosk
cloth merchant who travelled widely across Europe and the United States of America and Gjylihan (Gjylo) Hoxha. At age 16 he helped found and became secretary of the Students Society of Gjirokastër, which protested against the monarchist government. After the Society was closed down by the government, he left his hometown and moved to Korçë
, continuing his studies in a French secondary school. There he learned French history, literature and philosophy. In this city he read for the first time the Communist Manifesto.
In 1930, Hoxha went to study at the University of Montpellier
in France on a state scholarship given to him by the Queen Mother
for the faculty of natural sciences. He attended the lessons and the conferences of the Association of Workers organised by the French Communist Party
, but he soon dropped out because he wanted to pursue a degree in either philosophy or law. After a year, not having much interest in biology
, he left Montepelier to go to Paris hoping to continue his university studies. He took courses in philosophy at the Sorbonne
, and he collaborated with L'Humanité
, writing articles on the situation in Albania under the pseudonym Lulo Malësori. He also got involved in the Albanian Communist Group under the tutelage of Llazar Fundo
who also taught him law. He soon dropped out once more, and from 1934 to 1936 he was a secretary at the Albanian consulate in Brussels
, attached to the personnel office of Queen Mother Sadijé
. He was dismissed after the consul discovered that his employee had deposited Marxist materials and books in his office. He returned to Albania in 1936 and became a grammar school teacher in Korçë. As a result of his extensive education, Hoxha was fluent in French and had a working knowledge of Italian, Serbian
, English and Russian. As a leader, he would often reference Le Monde
and the International Herald Tribune
. Some later writers of his biography have speculated on his alleged homosexuality
but such claims have not been impartially verified.
Hoxha was dismissed from his teaching post following the 1939 Italian
invasion
for refusing to join the Albanian Fascist Party
. He opened a tobacco shop in Tirana
called Flora where a small communist group soon started gathering. Eventually the government
closed it down.
in 1948) was founded. Hoxha was chosen from the "Korca group" as a Muslim representative by the two Yugoslav envoys as one of the seven members of the provisional Central Committee
. After the September 1942 Conference at Pezë
, the National Liberation Front
was founded with the purpose of uniting the anti-Fascist Albanians, regardless of ideology or class.
By March 1943, the first National Conference of the Communist Party elected Hoxha formally as First Secretary
. During the war, the Soviet Union
's role was negligible, making Albania the only nation occupied during World War II
whose independence was not determined by a great power. On 10 July 1943, the Albanian partisan groups were organised in regular units of companies, battalions and brigades and named the Albanian National Liberation Army. The organization received military support from the British intelligence service, SOE. The General Headquarters was created with Spiro Moisiu
as the commander and Enver Hoxha as political commissary. Communist partisans in Yugoslavia
had a much more practical role, helping to plan attacks and exchanging supplies, but communication between them and the Albanians was limited and letters would often arrive late, sometimes well after a plan had been agreed upon by the National Liberation Army without consultation from the Yugoslav partisans. In August, a secret meeting was held at Mukje between the Balli Kombëtar
(National Front), which was both anti-Communist and anti-Fascist, and the Communist Party. The result of this was an agreement
to fight together against the Italians. In order to encourage the Balli Kombëtar to sign, a Greater Albania
was agreed upon, which included Kosovo
(part of Yugoslavia
) and Çamëria (part of Greece
).
A problem developed however when the Yugoslav
Communists disagreed with the goal of a Greater Albania and asked the Communists in Albania to withdraw their agreement. According to Hoxha, Josip Broz Tito
had agreed that "Kosovo was Albanian" but that Serbian
opposition made transfer an unwise option. After the Albanian Communists repudiated the Greater Albania agreement, the Balli Kombëtar condemned the Communists, who in turn accused the Balli Kombëtar of siding with the Italians. The Balli Kombëtar, however, lacked support from the people. After judging the communists as an immediate threat to the country, the Balli Kombëtar sided with the Germans
, fatally damaging its image among those fighting the Fascists. The Communists quickly added to their ranks many of those disillusioned with the Balli Kombëtar and took center stage in the fight for liberation.
The Permet National Congress held during that time called for a "new democratic Albania for the people." King Zog was prohibited from visiting Albania ever again, which further increased the Communists' control. The Anti-Fascist Committee for National Liberation was founded, with Hoxha as its chairman. On 22 October, the Committee became the Democratic Government of Albania
after a meeting in Berat
and Hoxha was chosen as interim Prime Minister. Tribunals were set up to try alleged war criminals who were designated "enemies of the people" and were presided over by Koçi Xoxe
.
After liberation from the fascist occupation on 29 November 1944, several Albanian partisan
divisions crossed the border into German-occupied Yugoslavia, where they fought alongside Tito's partisans and the Soviet
Red Army
in a joint campaign which succeeded in driving out the last pockets of German resistance. Marshal Tito, during a Yugoslavian conference in later years, thanked Hoxha for the assistance that the Albanian partisans had given during the War for National Liberation (Lufta Nacionalçlirimtare). Albanians celebrate their independence day on 28 November (which is the date on which they declared their independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912), while in the former People's Socialist Republic of Albania
the National Liberation festivity date was 29 November. Both days are currently national holidays. The Democratic Front
succeeded the National Liberation Front in August 1945 and the first elections in post-war Albania were held
on 2 December. The Front was the only legal political organisation allowed to stand in the elections, and the government reported that 93% of Albanians voted for it.
. During the period of 1945–1950, the government adopted policies which were intended to consolidate power. The Agrarian Reform Law was passed in August 1945. It confiscated land from beys and large landowners, giving it without compensation to peasants. 52% of all land was owned by large landowners before the law was passed; this declined to 16% after the law's passage. Illiteracy, which was 90–95% in rural areas in 1939 went down to 30% by 1950 and by 1985 it was equal to that of the United States of America. The State University of Tirana was established in 1957, which was the first of its kind in Albania. The Medieval Gjakmarrja
(blood feud) was banned. Malaria
, the most widespread disease, was successfully fought through advances in health care, the use of DDT
, and through the draining of swamplands. By 1985 a case had not been heard of in the past twenty years whereas previously Albania had the greatest number of patients infected in Europe. A case of syphilis
had not been recorded for 30 years. In order to solve the Gheg-Tosk
divide, books were written in the Tosk dialect, and the majority of the Party's members came from southern Albania where the Tosk dialect is spoken.
By 1949 the United States and British intelligence organizations were working with King Zog and the mountain men of his personal guard. They recruited Albanian refugees and émigrés from Egypt, Italy, and Greece; trained them in Cyprus
, Malta, and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany
); and infiltrated them into Albania. Guerrilla units entered Albania in 1950 and 1952
, but they were killed or captured by Albanian security forces. Kim Philby
, 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.
had begun to change. The roots of the change began on 20 October 1944 at the Second Plenary Session of the Communist Party of Albania. The Session concerned the problems that the new Albanian government would face following Albania's independence. However, the Yugoslav delegation led by Velimir Stoinić accused the party of "sectarianism and opportunism" and blamed Hoxha for these errors. He also stressed the view that the Yugoslav Communist partisans spearheaded the Albanian partisan movement. Anti-Yugoslav members of the Albanian Communist Party had begun to think that this was a plot by Tito who intended to destabilize the Party. Koçi Xoxe
, Sejfulla Malëshova
and others who supported Yugoslavia were looked upon with deep suspicion. Tito's position on Albania was that it was too weak to stand on its own and that it would do better as a part of Yugoslavia. Hoxha alleged that Tito had made it his goal to get Albania into Yugoslavia, firstly by creating the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Aid in 1946. In time Albania began to feel that the treaty was heavily slanted towards Yugoslav interests, much like the Italian agreements with Albania under Zog that made the nation dependent upon Italy.
The first issue was that the Albanian lek
became revalued in terms of the Yugoslav dinar
as a customs union
was formed and Albania's economic plan was decided more by Yugoslavia. Albanian economists H. Banja and V. Toçi stated that the relationship between Albania and Yugoslavia during this period was exploitative and that it constituted attempts by Yugoslavia to make the Albanian economy an "appendage" to the Yugoslav economy.
Hoxha then began to accuse Yugoslavia of misconduct:
Joseph Stalin
gave advice to Hoxha and stated that Yugoslavia was attempting to annex Albania. "We did not know that the Yugoslavs, under the pretext of 'defending' your country against an attack from the Greek fascists, wanted to bring units of their army into the PRA [People's Republic of Albania]. They tried to do this in a very secret manner. In reality, their aim in this direction was utterly hostile, for they intended to overturn the situation in Albania." By June 1947, the Central Committee of Yugoslavia began publicly condemning Hoxha, accusing him of talking an individualistic and anti-Marxist line. When Albania responded by making agreements with the Soviet Union to purchase a supply of agricultural machinery, Yugoslavia said that Albania could not enter into any agreements with other countries without Yugoslav approval. Koçi Xoxe
tried to stop Hoxha from improving relations with Bulgaria, reasoning that Albania would be more stable with one trading partner rather than with many. Nako Spiru, an anti-Yugoslav member of the Party, condemned Xoxe and Xoxe condemned him. With no one coming to Spiru's defense, he viewed the situation as hopeless and feared that Yugoslav domination of his nation was imminent, which caused him to commit suicide in November.
At the Eighth Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party which lasted from 26 February – 8 March 1948, Xoxe was implicated in a plot to isolate Hoxha and consolidate his [Xoxe's] own power. He accused Hoxha of being responsible for the decline in relations with Yugoslavia, and stated that a Soviet military mission should be expelled in favor of a Yugoslav counterpart. Hoxha managed to remain firm and his support had not declined. When Yugoslavia publicly broke with the Soviet Union, Hoxha's support base grew stronger. Then, on 1 July 1948, Tirana called on all Yugoslav technical advisors to leave the country and unilaterally declared all treaties and agreements between the two countries null and void. Xoxe was expelled from the party and on 13 June 1949 he was executed by a firing squad.
and Albania remained important both as a way to put pressure on Yugoslavia and also to serve as a pro-Soviet force in the Adriatic Sea
. A submarine base was built on the island of Sazan near Vlorë
, posing a possible threat to the United States' Sixth Fleet. Relations continued to remain close until the death of Stalin on 5 March 1953. His death was met with national mourning in Albania. Hoxha assembled the entire population in the capital's largest square, requested that they kneel, and made them take a two-thousand word oath of "eternal fidelity" and "gratitude" to their "beloved father" and "great liberator" to whom the people owed "everything." Under Nikita Khrushchev
, Stalin's successor, aid was reduced and Albania was encouraged to adopt Khrushchev's specialization policy. Under this policy, Albania would develop its agricultural output in order to supply the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact
nations while these nations would be developing specific resource outputs of their own, which would in theory strengthen the Warsaw Pact by greatly reducing the lack of certain resources that many of the nations faced. However, this also meant that Albanian industrial development, which was stressed heavily by Hoxha, would have to be significantly reduced.
From 16 May – 17 June 1955, Nikolai Bulganin
and Anastas Mikoyan
visited Yugoslavia and Khrushchev renounced the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Communist bloc. Khrushchev also began making references to Palmiro Togliatti
's polycentrism
theory. Hoxha had not been consulted on this and was offended. Yugoslavia began asking for Hoxha to rehabilitate the image of Koçi Xoxe
, which Hoxha steadfastly rejected. In 1956 at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party
, Khrushchev condemned the cult of personality
that had been built up around Joseph Stalin
and also accused him of many grave mistakes. Khrushchev then announced the theory of peaceful coexistence
, which angered Hoxha greatly. The Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies, led by Hoxha's wife Nexhmije
, quoted Vladimir Lenin
: "The fundamental principle of the foreign policy of a socialist country and of a Communist party is proletarian internationalism
; not peaceful coexistence." Hoxha now took a more active stand against perceived revisionism.
Unity within the Albanian Party of Labour
began to decline as well, with a special delegate meeting held in Tirana in April, 1956, composed of 450 delegates and having unexpected results. The delegates "criticized the conditions in the party, the negative attitude toward the masses, the absence of party and socialist democracy, the economic policy of the leadership, etc." while also calling for discussions on the cult of personality and the Twentieth Party Congress.
Hoxha called for a resolution
which would uphold the current leadership of the Party. The resolution was accepted, and all of the delegates who had spoken out were expelled from the party and imprisoned. Hoxha stated that this was yet another of many attempts to overthrow the leadership of Albania which had been organized by Yugoslavia. This incident further consolidated Hoxha's power, effectively making Khrushchev-esque reforms nearly impossible. In the same year, Hoxha went to the People's Republic of China
, then enduring the Sino-Soviet Split
, and met with Mao Zedong
. Relations with China improved, as evidenced by Chinese aid to Albania being 4.2% in 1955 before the visit, and rising to 21.6% in 1957. In an effort to keep Albania in the Soviet sphere, increased aid was given but the Albanian leadership continued to move closer towards China. Relations with the Soviet Union remained at the same level until 1960, when Khrushchev met with Sophocles Venizelos, a left-wing Greek
politician. Khrushchev sympathized with the concept of an autonomous Greek North Epirus and hoped to use Greek claims to keep the Albanian leadership in line with Soviet interests.
Relations with the Soviet Union began to decline rapidly. A hardline
policy was adopted and the Soviets reduced aid shipments, specifically grain, at a time when Albania needed them due to flood-induced famine
. In July 1960, a plot to overthrow the government was discovered. It was to be organized by Soviet-trained Rear Admiral Teme Sejko
. After this, the two pro-Soviet members of the Party, Liri Belishova and Koço Tashko, were both expelled, with a humorous incident involving Tashko pronouncing tochka (Russian for "full stop
").
In August, the Party's Central Committee sent a letter of protest to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, stating the displeasure of having an anti-Albanian Soviet Ambassador in Tirana. The Fourth Congress of the Party held from 13–20 February 1961, was the last meeting that the Soviet Union or other Eastern European nations would attend in Albania. During the congress, the Soviet Union was condemned while China was praised. Mehmet Shehu
stated that while many members of the Party were accused of tyranny, this was a baseless charge and unlike the Soviet Union, Albania was composed of genuine Marxists. The Soviet Union retaliated by threatening "dire consequences" if the condemnations were not retracted. Days later, Khrushchev and Antonin Novotny, President of Czechoslovakia
(which was Albania's largest source of aid besides the Soviets) threatened to cut off economic aid. In March, Albania was not invited to attend the meeting of the Warsaw Pact nations (Albania had been one of its founding members in 1955) and in April all Soviet technicians were withdrawn from the nation. In May nearly every Soviet troop on the Oricum Sea base was withdrawn, leaving the Albanians with 4 submarines and other military equipment.
On November seventh, 1961, Hoxha made a speech in which he called Khrushchev a "revisionist, an anti-Marxist and a defeatist." Hoxha portrayed Stalin as the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union and began to stress Albania's independence. By 11 November, the USSR and every other Warsaw Pact nation broke relations with Albania. Albania was unofficially excluded (by not being invited) from both the Warsaw Pact
and Comecon
. The Soviet Union had also attempted to claim control of the Vlorë port due to a lease agreement; the Albanian Party then passed a law prohibiting any other nation from owning an Albanian port through lease or otherwise.
post-1978. A major achievement under Hoxha was the advancement of women's rights. Albania had been one of the most, if not the most, patriarchal countries in Europe. The Code of Lekë, which regulated the status of women, states, "A woman is known as a sack, made to endure as long as she lives in her husband's house." Women were not allowed to inherit anything from their parents and discrimination was even made in the case of death.
Women were absolutely forbidden from obtaining a divorce, and the wife's parents were obliged to return a runaway daughter to the husband or else suffer shame which could even result in a generations-long blood feud
. During World War II
, the Albanian Communists encouraged women to join the partisans and following the war, women were encouraged to take up menial jobs, because the education necessary for higher level work was out of most women's reach. In 1938, 4% worked in various sectors of the economy. In 1970, this number rose to 38% and in 1982 to 46%. During the Cultural and Ideological Revolution (discussed below), women were encouraged to take up all jobs, including government posts, which resulted in 40.7% of the People's Councils and 30.4% of the People's Assembly being seated by women, including two women in the Central Committee by 1985. In 1978, 15.1 times as many females attended eight-year schools as in 1938 and 175.7 times as many females attended secondary schools as in 1938. By 1978, 101.9 times as many women attended higher schools as in 1957.
In 1969, direct taxation was abolished and during this period the quality of schooling and health care continued to improve. An electrification campaign was begun in 1960 and the entire nation was expected to have electricity by 1985. Instead, it achieved this on 25 October 1970, making it the first nation with complete electrification in the whole world. During the Cultural & Ideological Revolution of 1967–1968 the military changed from traditional Communist army tactics and began to adhere to the Maoist strategy known as people's war, which included the abolition of military ranks, which were not fully restored until 1991.
Hoxha's legacy also included a complex of 750,000 one-man concrete bunker
s across a country of 3 million inhabitants, to act as look-outs and gun emplacements along with chemical weapons. The bunkers were built strong and mobile, with the intention that they could be easily placed by a crane or a helicopter in a previously dug hole. The types of bunkers vary from machine gun pillboxes, beach bunkers, to naval underground facilities, and even Air Force Mountain and underground bunkers.
Hoxha's internal policies were true to Stalin's paradigm which he admired, and the personality cult
developed in the 1970s organized around him by the Party
also bore a striking resemblance to that of Stalin. At times it even reached an intensity similar to the personality cult surrounding Kim Il Sung (which Hoxha condemned) with Hoxha being portrayed as a genius commenting on virtually all facets of life from culture to economics to military matters. Each schoolbook required one or more quotations from him on the subjects being studied. The Party honored him with titles such as Supreme Comrade, Sole Force and Great Teacher.
Hoxha's governance was also distinguished by his encouragement of a high birthrate policy. For instance a woman who bore an above-average amount of children would be given the government award of Heroine Mother (in Albanian: Nënë Heroinë) along with cash rewards. Abortion
was essentially restricted (to encourage high birth rates) except if the birth posed a danger to the mother's life, though it was not completely banned; the process being decided by district medical commissions. As a result, the population of Albania
tripled from 1 million in 1944 to around 3 million in 1985.
. Mao condemned Nikita Khrushchev
's alleged revisionism and was also critical of Yugoslavia. Aid given from China was interest-free and did not have to be repaid until Albania could afford to do so. China never intervened in what Albania's economic output should be, and Chinese technicians worked for the same wages as Albanian workers, unlike Soviet technicians who sometimes made more than three times the pay of Hoxha. Albanian newspapers were reprinted in Chinese newspapers and read on Chinese radio. Finally, Albania led the movement to give the People's Republic of China a seat
in the UN, an effort made successful in 1971 and thus replacing the Republic of China
's seat.
During this period, Albania became the second largest producer of chromium in the world, which was considered an important export for Albania. Strategically, the Adriatic Sea
was also attractive to China, and the Chinese leadership had hoped to gain more allies in Eastern Europe with the help of Albania, although this failed. Zhou Enlai
visited Albania in January 1964. On 9 January, "The 1964 Sino-Albanian Joint Statement" was signed in Tirana.
Like Albania, China defended the "purity" of Marxism by attacking both "US imperialism
" as well as "Soviet and Yugoslav revisionism", both equally as part of a "dual adversary" theory. Yugoslavia was viewed as a "special detachment of U.S. imperialism" and a "saboteur against world revolution." These views however began to change in China, which was one of the major issues Albania had with the alliance. Also unlike Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, the Sino-Albanian alliance lacked "...an organizational structure for regular consultations and policy coordination, and was characterized by an informal relationship conducted on an ad hoc basis." Mao made a speech on 3 November 1966 which claimed that Albania was the only Marxist-Leninist state in Europe and that "an attack on Albania will have to reckon with great People's China. If the U.S. imperialists, the modern Soviet revisionists or any of their lackeys dare to touch Albania in the slightest, nothing lies ahead for them but a complete, shameful and memorable defeat." Likewise, Hoxha stated that "You may rest assured, comrades, that come what may in the world at large, our two parties and our two peoples will certainly remain together. They will fight together and they will win together."
China entered into a four-year period of relative diplomatic isolation following the Cultural Revolution
and at this point relations between China and Albania reached their zenith. On 20 August 1968, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was condemned by Albania, as was the Brezhnev doctrine
. Albania then officially withdrew from the Warsaw Pact on 5 September. Relations with China began to deteriorate on 15 July 1971, when United States' President Richard Nixon
agreed to visit China to meet with Zhou Enlai. Hoxha felt betrayed and the government was in a state of shock. On August 6 a letter was sent from the Central Committee of the Albanian Party of Labour to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, calling Nixon a "frenzied anti-Communist."
The result was a 1971 message from the Chinese leadership stating that Albania could not depend on an indefinite flow of further Chinese aid and in 1972 Albania was advised to "curb its expectations about further Chinese contributions to its economic development." By 1973, Hoxha wrote in his diary Reflections on China that the Chinese leaders:
In response, trade with COMECON (although trade with the Soviet Union was still blocked) and Yugoslavia grew. Trade with Third World nations was $0.5 million in 1973, but $8.3 million in 1974. Trade rose from 0.1% to 1.6%. Following Mao's death on 9 September 1976, Hoxha remained optimistic about Sino-Albanian relations, but in August 1977, Hua Guofeng
, the new leader of China, stated that Mao's Three Worlds Theory
would become official foreign policy. Hoxha viewed this as a way for China to justify having the U.S. as the "secondary enemy" while viewing the Soviet Union as the main one, thus allowing China to trade with the U.S. "...the Chinese plan of the 'third world' is a major diabolical plan, with the aim that China should become another superpower, precisely by placing itself at the head of the 'third world' and 'non-aligned world.'" From 30 August – 7 September 1977, Tito visited Beijing and was welcomed by the Chinese leadership. At this point, the Albanian Party of Labour had declared that China was now a revisionist state akin to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and that Albania was the only Marxist-Leninist state on earth.
On 13 July 1978, China announced that it was cutting off all aid to Albania. For the first time in modern history, Albania did not have an ally.
Internally, the Sigurimi
followed the repressive methods of the NKVD
, MGB, KGB
, and the East German Stasi
. "Its activities permeated Albanian society to the extent that every third citizen had either served time in labour camps or had been interrogated by Sigurimi officers." To eliminate dissent, the government imprisoned thousands in forced-labour camps or executed them for crimes such as alleged treachery or for disrupting the proletarian dictatorship. Travel abroad was forbidden after 1968 to all but those on official business. Western European culture was looked upon with deep suspicion, resulting in arrests and in bans on unauthorised foreign material. Art was made to reflect the styles of socialist realism
. Beards were banned as unhygienic and to curb the influence of Islam
(many Imams and Babas
had beards) and the Orthodox
faith.
The justice system regularly degenerated into show trials. "...[The defendant] was not permitted to question the witnesses and that, although he was permitted to state his objections to certain aspects of the case, his objections were dismissed by the prosecutor who said, 'Sit down and be quiet. We know better than you.'" In order to lessen the threat of political dissidents and other exiles, relatives of the accused were often arrested, ostracised, and accused of being "enemies of the people".
Torture
was often used to obtain confessions:
"There were six institutions for political prisoners and fourteen labour camps where political prisoners and common criminals worked together. It has been estimated that there were approximately 32,000 people imprisoned in Albania in 1985."
Article 47 of the Albanian Criminal Code stated that to "escape outside the state, as well as refusal to return to the Fatherland by a person who has been sent to serve or has been permitted temporarily to go outside the state" is a crime of treason which is punishable by a minimum sentence of ten years or even death.
, identified religion with ethnicity. In the Ottoman Empire, Muslims were viewed as "Turks," Eastern Orthodox
as Greeks and Catholics as "Latins." Hoxha believed this was a serious issue, feeling that it both fueled Greek separatists in North Epirus and also divided the nation in general. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1945 confiscated much of the church's property in the country. Catholics were the earliest religious community to be targeted, since the Vatican
was seen as being an agent of Fascism
and anti-Communism
. In 1946 the Jesuit Order
and in 1947 the Franciscans were banned. Decree No. 743 (On Religion) sought a national church
and forbade religious leaders from associating with foreign powers.
The Party focused on atheist education in schools. This tactic was effective, primarily due to the high birthrate policy encouraged after the war. During holy periods such as Ramadan
or Lent
, many forbidden foods (dairy products, meat, etc.) were distributed in schools and factories, and people who refused to eat those foods were denounced. Starting on 6 February 1967, the Party began a new offensive against religion. Hoxha, who had declared a "Cultural and Ideological Revolution" after being partly inspired by China's Cultural Revolution
, encouraged communist students and workers to use more forceful tactics to promote atheism, although violence was initially condemned.
According to Hoxha, the surge in anti-religious activity began with the youth. The result of this "spontaneous, unprovoked movement" was the closing of all 2,169 churches and mosques in Albania. State atheism
became official policy, and Albania was declared the world's first atheist state. Religiously-based town and city names were changed, as well as personal names. During this period religiously-based names were also made illegal. The Dictionary of People's Names, published in 1982, contained 3,000 approved, secular names. In 1992, Monsignor Dias, the Papal Nuncio for Albania appointed by Pope John Paul II
, said that of the three hundred Catholic priests present in Albania prior to the Communists coming to power, only thirty survived. All religious practice and clergymen were outlawed and those religious figures who refused to give up their positions were arrested or forced into hiding.
("O Albania") by the nineteenth-century Albanian writer Pashko Vasa
.
Muzafer Korkuti one of the dominant figures in post-war Albanian archaeology and now Director of the institute of Archaeology in Tirana said this in an interview of 10 July 2002:
Efforts were focused on an Illyrian
-Albanian continuity issue and on appropriating Ancient Greek
history as Albanian.
An Illyrian origin of the Albanians (without denying Pelasgian roots) continued to play a significant role in Albanian nationalism, resulting in a revival of given names supposedly of "Illyrian" origin, at the expense of given names associated with Christianity. At first, Albanian nationalist writers opted for the Pelasgians as the forefathers of the Albanians, but as this form of nationalism flourished in Albania under Enver Hoxha, the Pelasgians became a secondary element to the Illyrian theory of Albanian origins, which could claim some support in scholarship. The Illyrian descent theory soon became one of the pillars of Albanian nationalism, especially because it could provide some evidence of continuity of an Albanian presence both in Kosovo and in southern Albania, i.e., areas that were subject to ethnic conflicts between Albanians, Serbs and Greeks. Under the government of Enver Hoxha, an autochthonous
ethnogenesis
was promoted and physical anthropologists tried to demonstrate that Albanians were different from any other Indo-European
populations, a theory now disproved. Communist-era Albanian archaeologists claimed that ancient Greek
poleis, gods, ideas, culture and prominent personalities were wholly Illyrian (example Pyrrhus of Epirus
and the region of Epirus
). They claimed that the Illyrians were the most ancient people in the Balkans
and greatly extended the age of the Illyrian language. This is continued in post-communist Albania and has spread to Kosovo. These nationalist theories have survived largely intact into the present day.
A new Constitution was decided upon by the Seventh Congress of the Albanian Party of Labour on 1–7 November 1976. According to Hoxha, "The old Constitution was the Constitution of the building of the foundations of socialism, whereas the new Constitution will be the Constitution of the complete construction of a socialist society." Self-reliance was now stressed more than ever. Citizens were encouraged to train in the use of weapons, and this activity was also taught in schools. This was to encourage the creation of quick partisans
. Borrowing and foreign investment were banned under Article 26 of the Constitution, which read: "The granting of concessions to, and the creation of foreign economic and financial companies and other institutions or ones formed jointly with bourgeois and revisionist capitalist monopolies and states as well as obtaining credits from them are prohibited in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania."
Albania was very poor and backward by European standards and it had the lowest standard of living in Europe. As a result of economic self-sufficiency, Albania had a minimal foreign debt. In 1983, Albania imported goods worth $280 million but exported goods worth $290 million, producing a trade surplus of $10 million.
In 1981, Hoxha ordered the execution of several party and government officials in a new purge. Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu
was reported to have committed suicide in December 1981 and was subsequently condemned as a "traitor" to Albania and he was also accused of operating in the service of multiple intelligence agencies
. It is generally believed that he was either killed or shot himself during a power struggle or over differing foreign policy matters with Hoxha. Hoxha also wrote a large assortment of books during this period, resulting in over 65 volumes of collected works, condensed into six volumes of selected works.
Later, Hoxha withdrew into semi-retirement due to failing health, having suffered a heart attack in 1973 from which he never fully recovered. He turned most state functions over to Ramiz Alia
. In his final days he was a wheelchair user and was suffering from diabetes, which he had suffered from since 1948, and cerebral ischemia
, which he had suffered from since 1983. Hoxha's death on 11 April 1985 left Albania with a legacy of isolation and fear of the outside world. Despite some economic progress made by Hoxha, the country was in economic stagnation
; Albania had been the poorest European country throughout much of the Cold War
period. As of the early 21st century, very little of Hoxha's legacy is still in place in today's Albania since the transition to democracy
in 1992.
, a title given to his ancestors due to their efforts to teach Albanians about Islam
. In addition, among the population he was known by the nickname of Dulla, short form for Muslim name Abdullah stemming from his former Muslim roots.
Enver Hoxha's parents were Halil and Gjylihan (Gjylo) Hoxha, and Hoxha had three sisters named Fahrije, Haxhire and Sanije. Hysen Hoxha ([hyˈsɛn ˈhɔdʒa]) was Enver Hoxha's uncle and was a militant who campaigned vigorously for the independence of Albania, which occurred when Enver was four years old. His grandfather Beqir was involved in the Gjirokastër section of the League of Prizren
.
Enver Hoxha's son, Sokol Hoxha, was the CEO of the Albanian Post and Telecommunication service, and is married to Liliana Hoxha. The later democratic president of Albania Sali Berisha
was often seen socializing with Sokol Hoxha and other close relatives of leading communist figures in Albania.
Hoxha's daughter, Pranvera, is an architect. Along with her husband, Klement Kolaneci, she designed the former Enver Hoxha Museum in Tirana, a white-tiled pyramid. The museum opened in 1988, three years after her father's death. The building now houses the International Cultural Centre.
the leader of Albania
People's Socialist Republic of Albania
The People's Republic of Albania was the official name of Albania during the communist rule between 1946 and 1976. The 1976 Constitution changed the name into People's Socialist Republic of Albania , which was the official name of the country from 1976 until 1991.-Consolidation of power and...
from the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania. He also served as Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954, Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Foreign minister
A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government . It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in...
, Chairman of the Democratic Front
Democratic Front (Albania)
The Democratic Front was an Albanian political mass organization formed on August 5, 1945 to succeed the National Liberation Front as the leading political movement for recently liberated Albania under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. It was administered by the Party of Labour of Albania...
from 1945 to his death, and as Commander-in-Chief of the Albanian armed forces from 1944 to his death.
Hoxha's leadership was characterized by his proclaimed firm adherence to anti-revisionist
Anti-Revisionist
In the Marxist–Leninist movement, anti-revisionism refers to a doctrine which upholds the line of theory and practice associated with Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, and usually either Mao Zedong or Enver Hoxha as well...
Marxism–Leninism from the mid-1970s onwards. After his break
Sino-Albanian split
The Sino-Albanian split in 1978 saw the parting of the People's Republic of China and People's Socialist Republic of Albania, which was the only Eastern European nation to side with the PRC in the Sino–Soviet split of the early 1960s.-History:...
with Maoism
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
in the 1976–1978 period, numerous Maoist parties declared themselves Hoxhaist
Hoxhaism
"Hoxhaism" is an informal term used to refer to a variant of anti-revisionist Marxism-Leninism that developed in the late 1970s due to a split in the Maoist movement, appearing after the ideological row between the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labour of Albania in 1978.The Albanians...
. The International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle) is the most well known collection of these parties today.
Biography
Hoxha was born in GjirokastërGjirokastër
Gjirokastër is a city in southern Albania with a population of 43,000. Lying in the historical region of Epirus, it is the capital of both the Gjirokastër District and the larger Gjirokastër County...
(Ergiri), a city in southern Albania (then under the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
) that has been home to many prominent families. He was the son of Halil Hoxha, a Bektashi
Bektashi
Bektashi Order or Bektashism is an Islamic Sufi order founded in the 13th century by the Persian saint Haji Bektash Veli. In addition to the spiritual teachings of Haji Bektash Veli the order was significantly influenced during its formative period by both the Hurufis as well as the...
Tosk
Tosk Albanian
Tosk is the southern dialect of the Albanian language. The line of demarcation between Tosk and Gheg is the Shkumbin River. Tosk is the basis of the standard Albanian language.- Tosks :...
cloth merchant who travelled widely across Europe and the United States of America and Gjylihan (Gjylo) Hoxha. At age 16 he helped found and became secretary of the Students Society of Gjirokastër, which protested against the monarchist government. After the Society was closed down by the government, he left his hometown and moved to Korçë
Korçë
Korçë is a city in southeastern Albania and the capital of the Korçë District. It has a population of around 105,000 people , making it the sixth largest city in Albania...
, continuing his studies in a French secondary school. There he learned French history, literature and philosophy. In this city he read for the first time the Communist Manifesto.
In 1930, Hoxha went to study at the University of Montpellier
University of Montpellier
The University of Montpellier was a French university in Montpellier in the Languedoc-Roussillon région of the south of France. Its present-day successor universities are the University of Montpellier 1, Montpellier 2 University and Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III.-History:The university...
in France on a state scholarship given to him by the Queen Mother
Sadijé Toptani
Sadiya Toptani Khanum as the daughter of Salah Bey Toptani and as sister to Essad Pasha and a member of the powerful Toptani family...
for the faculty of natural sciences. He attended the lessons and the conferences of the Association of Workers organised by the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
, but he soon dropped out because he wanted to pursue a degree in either philosophy or law. After a year, not having much interest in biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, he left Montepelier to go to Paris hoping to continue his university studies. He took courses in philosophy at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
, and he collaborated with L'Humanité
L'Humanité
L'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
, writing articles on the situation in Albania under the pseudonym Lulo Malësori. He also got involved in the Albanian Communist Group under the tutelage of Llazar Fundo
Llazar Fundo
Llazar Fundo was an Albanian Communist, later social-democratic journalist and writer. He was a former member of the Comintern and the Balkan Communist Federation. He was associated with the Fan S...
who also taught him law. He soon dropped out once more, and from 1934 to 1936 he was a secretary at the Albanian consulate in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, attached to the personnel office of Queen Mother Sadijé
Sadijé Toptani
Sadiya Toptani Khanum as the daughter of Salah Bey Toptani and as sister to Essad Pasha and a member of the powerful Toptani family...
. He was dismissed after the consul discovered that his employee had deposited Marxist materials and books in his office. He returned to Albania in 1936 and became a grammar school teacher in Korçë. As a result of his extensive education, Hoxha was fluent in French and had a working knowledge of Italian, Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, English and Russian. As a leader, he would often reference Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
and the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
. Some later writers of his biography have speculated on his alleged homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
but such claims have not been impartially verified.
Hoxha was dismissed from his teaching post following the 1939 Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
invasion
Italian invasion of Albania
The Italian invasion of Albania was a brief military campaign by the Kingdom of Italy against the Albanian Kingdom. The conflict was a result of the imperialist policies of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini...
for refusing to join the Albanian Fascist Party
Albanian Fascist Party
The Albanian Fascist Party was a fascist movement which held nominal power in Albania from 1939, when the country was conquered by Italy, until 1943, when Italy capitulated to the Allies...
. He opened a tobacco shop in Tirana
Tirana
Tirana is the capital and the largest city of Albania. Modern Tirana was founded as an Ottoman town in 1614 by Sulejman Bargjini, a local ruler from Mullet, although the area has been continuously inhabited since antiquity. Tirana became Albania's capital city in 1920 and has a population of over...
called Flora where a small communist group soon started gathering. Eventually the government
Albania under Italy
The Albanian Kingdom existed as a protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy. It was practically a union between Italy and Albania, officially led by Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III and its government: Albania was led by Italian governors, after being militarily occupied by Italy, from 1939 until 1943...
closed it down.
Partisan life
On 8 November 1941, the Communist Party of Albania (later renamed the Albanian Party of LabourAlbanian Party of Labour
The Party of Labour of Albania was the sole legal political party in Albania during communist rule...
in 1948) was founded. Hoxha was chosen from the "Korca group" as a Muslim representative by the two Yugoslav envoys as one of the seven members of the provisional Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
. After the September 1942 Conference at Pezë
Pezë
Pezë is a municipality in the Tirana District, Tirana County, central Albania....
, the National Liberation Front
Albanian National Liberation Front
The National Liberation Movement , also translated as National Liberation Front, was an Albanian resistance organization that fought in World War II. It was created in 16 September 1942, in a conference held in Pezë, a village near Tirana...
was founded with the purpose of uniting the anti-Fascist Albanians, regardless of ideology or class.
By March 1943, the first National Conference of the Communist Party elected Hoxha formally as First Secretary
General Secretary
The office of general secretary is staffed by the chief officer of:*The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace, a government agency for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace...
. During the war, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
's role was negligible, making Albania the only nation occupied during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
whose independence was not determined by a great power. On 10 July 1943, the Albanian partisan groups were organised in regular units of companies, battalions and brigades and named the Albanian National Liberation Army. The organization received military support from the British intelligence service, SOE. The General Headquarters was created with Spiro Moisiu
Spiro Moisiu
Spiro Moisiu was the Commander General of the Albanian National Liberation Army during World War II. He was the father of the former President of Albania, Alfred Moisiu.-Early life:...
as the commander and Enver Hoxha as political commissary. Communist partisans in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
had a much more practical role, helping to plan attacks and exchanging supplies, but communication between them and the Albanians was limited and letters would often arrive late, sometimes well after a plan had been agreed upon by the National Liberation Army without consultation from the Yugoslav partisans. In August, a secret meeting was held at Mukje between the Balli Kombëtar
Balli Kombëtar
Balli Kombëtar was an Albanian nationalist, anti-communist and anti-monarchy organization established in October 1939. It was led by Ali Këlcyra and Mit’hat Frashëri...
(National Front), which was both anti-Communist and anti-Fascist, and the Communist Party. The result of this was an agreement
Mukje Agreement
The Mukje Agreement was a treaty signed on August 2, 1943 in the Albanian village of Mukje between the nationalist Balli Kombëtar and the communist National Liberation Movement on how to regulate the Albanian resistance in World War II and how to prepare for the future of Ethnic Albania.The...
to fight together against the Italians. In order to encourage the Balli Kombëtar to sign, a Greater Albania
Greater Albania
Greater Albania or Ethnic Albania is an irredentist concept of lands outside the borders of the Republic of Albania that are considered part of a greater national homeland by most Albanians, based on the present-day or historical presence of Albanian populations in those areas...
was agreed upon, which included Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
(part of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
) and Çamëria (part of Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
).
A problem developed however when the Yugoslav
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
Communists disagreed with the goal of a Greater Albania and asked the Communists in Albania to withdraw their agreement. According to Hoxha, Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
had agreed that "Kosovo was Albanian" but that Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
opposition made transfer an unwise option. After the Albanian Communists repudiated the Greater Albania agreement, the Balli Kombëtar condemned the Communists, who in turn accused the Balli Kombëtar of siding with the Italians. The Balli Kombëtar, however, lacked support from the people. After judging the communists as an immediate threat to the country, the Balli Kombëtar sided with the Germans
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, fatally damaging its image among those fighting the Fascists. The Communists quickly added to their ranks many of those disillusioned with the Balli Kombëtar and took center stage in the fight for liberation.
The Permet National Congress held during that time called for a "new democratic Albania for the people." King Zog was prohibited from visiting Albania ever again, which further increased the Communists' control. The Anti-Fascist Committee for National Liberation was founded, with Hoxha as its chairman. On 22 October, the Committee became the Democratic Government of Albania
Democratic Government of Albania
As the Albanian partisan resistance of 1940-1944 came to a close, a provisional Democratic Government of Albania was established on October 20, 1944 by a second meeting of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council. It fully took power after the liberation of the country from German forces on...
after a meeting in Berat
Berat
Berat is a town located in south-central Albania. As of 2009, the town has an estimated population of around 71,000 people. It is the capital of both the District of Berat and the larger County of Berat...
and Hoxha was chosen as interim Prime Minister. Tribunals were set up to try alleged war criminals who were designated "enemies of the people" and were presided over by Koçi Xoxe
Koçi Xoxe
Koçi Xoxe was the Defence and Interior Minister of Albania for some time under Enver Hoxha. According to different sources, he was an ethnic Macedonian or ethnic Bulgarian from Aegean Macedonia and was initially a tinsmith....
.
After liberation from the fascist occupation on 29 November 1944, several Albanian partisan
Partisan (military)
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
divisions crossed the border into German-occupied Yugoslavia, where they fought alongside Tito's partisans and the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
in a joint campaign which succeeded in driving out the last pockets of German resistance. Marshal Tito, during a Yugoslavian conference in later years, thanked Hoxha for the assistance that the Albanian partisans had given during the War for National Liberation (Lufta Nacionalçlirimtare). Albanians celebrate their independence day on 28 November (which is the date on which they declared their independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912), while in the former People's Socialist Republic of Albania
People's Socialist Republic of Albania
The People's Republic of Albania was the official name of Albania during the communist rule between 1946 and 1976. The 1976 Constitution changed the name into People's Socialist Republic of Albania , which was the official name of the country from 1976 until 1991.-Consolidation of power and...
the National Liberation festivity date was 29 November. Both days are currently national holidays. The Democratic Front
Democratic Front (Albania)
The Democratic Front was an Albanian political mass organization formed on August 5, 1945 to succeed the National Liberation Front as the leading political movement for recently liberated Albania under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. It was administered by the Party of Labour of Albania...
succeeded the National Liberation Front in August 1945 and the first elections in post-war Albania were held
Albanian parliamentary election, 1945
Parliamentary elections were held in Albania on 2 December 1945. The Democratic Front was the only organisation allowed to nominate candidates, and won all 82 seats...
on 2 December. The Front was the only legal political organisation allowed to stand in the elections, and the government reported that 93% of Albanians voted for it.
Early leadership
Hoxha declared himself a Marxist-Leninist and strongly admired the Soviet leader Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. During the period of 1945–1950, the government adopted policies which were intended to consolidate power. The Agrarian Reform Law was passed in August 1945. It confiscated land from beys and large landowners, giving it without compensation to peasants. 52% of all land was owned by large landowners before the law was passed; this declined to 16% after the law's passage. Illiteracy, which was 90–95% in rural areas in 1939 went down to 30% by 1950 and by 1985 it was equal to that of the United States of America. The State University of Tirana was established in 1957, which was the first of its kind in Albania. The Medieval Gjakmarrja
Gjakmarrja
In line with Albania's social code known as Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit or simply Kanun , someone is allowed to kill another person to avenge an earlier murder or moral humiliation. Gjakmarrja In line with Albania's social code known as Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit or simply Kanun , someone is allowed to...
(blood feud) was banned. Malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
, the most widespread disease, was successfully fought through advances in health care, the use of DDT
DDT
DDT is one of the most well-known synthetic insecticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history....
, and through the draining of swamplands. By 1985 a case had not been heard of in the past twenty years whereas previously Albania had the greatest number of patients infected in Europe. A case of syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
had not been recorded for 30 years. In order to solve the Gheg-Tosk
Tosk Albanian
Tosk is the southern dialect of the Albanian language. The line of demarcation between Tosk and Gheg is the Shkumbin River. Tosk is the basis of the standard Albanian language.- Tosks :...
divide, books were written in the Tosk dialect, and the majority of the Party's members came from southern Albania where the Tosk dialect is spoken.
By 1949 the United States and British intelligence organizations were working with King Zog and the mountain men of his personal guard. They recruited Albanian refugees and émigrés from Egypt, Italy, and Greece; trained them in Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, Malta, and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
); and infiltrated them into Albania. Guerrilla units entered Albania in 1950 and 1952
Albanian Subversion
The Albanian Subversion is one of the earliest and most notable failures of the Western covert paramilitary operations behind the Iron Curtain. Based on wrong assessments about Albania, and thinking that the country was ready to shake off its Stalinist regime, the British SIS and the American CIA...
, but they were killed or captured by Albanian security forces. Kim Philby
Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a spy for and later defected to the Soviet Union...
, 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.
Relations with Yugoslavia
At this point, relations with YugoslaviaSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
had begun to change. The roots of the change began on 20 October 1944 at the Second Plenary Session of the Communist Party of Albania. The Session concerned the problems that the new Albanian government would face following Albania's independence. However, the Yugoslav delegation led by Velimir Stoinić accused the party of "sectarianism and opportunism" and blamed Hoxha for these errors. He also stressed the view that the Yugoslav Communist partisans spearheaded the Albanian partisan movement. Anti-Yugoslav members of the Albanian Communist Party had begun to think that this was a plot by Tito who intended to destabilize the Party. Koçi Xoxe
Koçi Xoxe
Koçi Xoxe was the Defence and Interior Minister of Albania for some time under Enver Hoxha. According to different sources, he was an ethnic Macedonian or ethnic Bulgarian from Aegean Macedonia and was initially a tinsmith....
, Sejfulla Malëshova
Sejfulla Malëshova
Sejfulla Malëshova was an Albanian politician and writer.- Career :In 1924, a 23 years old Malëshova was Fan Noli's personal secretary. He held that position after having studied some medicine in Italy. After Noli's government was overthrown, Malëshova fled to Paris and then to Moscow, where he...
and others who supported Yugoslavia were looked upon with deep suspicion. Tito's position on Albania was that it was too weak to stand on its own and that it would do better as a part of Yugoslavia. Hoxha alleged that Tito had made it his goal to get Albania into Yugoslavia, firstly by creating the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Aid in 1946. In time Albania began to feel that the treaty was heavily slanted towards Yugoslav interests, much like the Italian agreements with Albania under Zog that made the nation dependent upon Italy.
The first issue was that the Albanian lek
Albanian lek
The lek is the official currency of Albania. It is subdivided into 100 qindarka , although qindarka are no longer issued.-Names:...
became revalued in terms of the Yugoslav dinar
Yugoslav dinar
The dinar was the currency of the three Yugoslav states: the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1918 and 2003. The dinar was subdivided into 100 para...
as a customs union
Customs union
A customs union is a type of trade bloc which is composed of a free trade area with a common external tariff. The participant countries set up common external trade policy, but in some cases they use different import quotas...
was formed and Albania's economic plan was decided more by Yugoslavia. Albanian economists H. Banja and V. Toçi stated that the relationship between Albania and Yugoslavia during this period was exploitative and that it constituted attempts by Yugoslavia to make the Albanian economy an "appendage" to the Yugoslav economy.
Hoxha then began to accuse Yugoslavia of misconduct:
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
gave advice to Hoxha and stated that Yugoslavia was attempting to annex Albania. "We did not know that the Yugoslavs, under the pretext of 'defending' your country against an attack from the Greek fascists, wanted to bring units of their army into the PRA [People's Republic of Albania]. They tried to do this in a very secret manner. In reality, their aim in this direction was utterly hostile, for they intended to overturn the situation in Albania." By June 1947, the Central Committee of Yugoslavia began publicly condemning Hoxha, accusing him of talking an individualistic and anti-Marxist line. When Albania responded by making agreements with the Soviet Union to purchase a supply of agricultural machinery, Yugoslavia said that Albania could not enter into any agreements with other countries without Yugoslav approval. Koçi Xoxe
Koçi Xoxe
Koçi Xoxe was the Defence and Interior Minister of Albania for some time under Enver Hoxha. According to different sources, he was an ethnic Macedonian or ethnic Bulgarian from Aegean Macedonia and was initially a tinsmith....
tried to stop Hoxha from improving relations with Bulgaria, reasoning that Albania would be more stable with one trading partner rather than with many. Nako Spiru, an anti-Yugoslav member of the Party, condemned Xoxe and Xoxe condemned him. With no one coming to Spiru's defense, he viewed the situation as hopeless and feared that Yugoslav domination of his nation was imminent, which caused him to commit suicide in November.
At the Eighth Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party which lasted from 26 February – 8 March 1948, Xoxe was implicated in a plot to isolate Hoxha and consolidate his [Xoxe's] own power. He accused Hoxha of being responsible for the decline in relations with Yugoslavia, and stated that a Soviet military mission should be expelled in favor of a Yugoslav counterpart. Hoxha managed to remain firm and his support had not declined. When Yugoslavia publicly broke with the Soviet Union, Hoxha's support base grew stronger. Then, on 1 July 1948, Tirana called on all Yugoslav technical advisors to leave the country and unilaterally declared all treaties and agreements between the two countries null and void. Xoxe was expelled from the party and on 13 June 1949 he was executed by a firing squad.
Relations with the Soviet Union
After the break with Yugoslavia, Hoxha aligned himself with the Soviet Union, for which he had a great admiration. From 1948–1960, $200 million in Soviet aid would be given to Albania for technical & infrastructural expansion. Albania was admitted on 22 February 1949, to the ComeconComecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organisation under hegemony of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world...
and Albania remained important both as a way to put pressure on Yugoslavia and also to serve as a pro-Soviet force in the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
. A submarine base was built on the island of Sazan near Vlorë
Vlorë
Vlorë is one of the biggest towns and the second largest port city of Albania, after Durrës, with a population of about 94,000 . It is the city where the Albanian Declaration of Independence was proclaimed on November 28, 1912...
, posing a possible threat to the United States' Sixth Fleet. Relations continued to remain close until the death of Stalin on 5 March 1953. His death was met with national mourning in Albania. Hoxha assembled the entire population in the capital's largest square, requested that they kneel, and made them take a two-thousand word oath of "eternal fidelity" and "gratitude" to their "beloved father" and "great liberator" to whom the people owed "everything." Under Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
, Stalin's successor, aid was reduced and Albania was encouraged to adopt Khrushchev's specialization policy. Under this policy, Albania would develop its agricultural output in order to supply the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
nations while these nations would be developing specific resource outputs of their own, which would in theory strengthen the Warsaw Pact by greatly reducing the lack of certain resources that many of the nations faced. However, this also meant that Albanian industrial development, which was stressed heavily by Hoxha, would have to be significantly reduced.
From 16 May – 17 June 1955, Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin was a prominent Soviet politician, who served as Minister of Defense and Premier of the Soviet Union . The Bulganin beard is named after him.-Early career:...
and Anastas Mikoyan
Anastas Mikoyan
Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was an Armenian Old Bolshevik and Soviet statesman during the rules of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev....
visited Yugoslavia and Khrushchev renounced the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Communist bloc. Khrushchev also began making references to Palmiro Togliatti
Palmiro Togliatti
Palmiro Togliatti was an Italian politician and leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 until his death.-Early life:...
's polycentrism
Polycentrism
Polycentrism is the principle of organization of a region around several political, social or financial centres. Examples of polycentric cities include the Ruhr area in Germany, and Stoke-on-Trent in the UK. Today, the former is a large city that grew from a dozen smaller cities, the latter a...
theory. Hoxha had not been consulted on this and was offended. Yugoslavia began asking for Hoxha to rehabilitate the image of Koçi Xoxe
Koçi Xoxe
Koçi Xoxe was the Defence and Interior Minister of Albania for some time under Enver Hoxha. According to different sources, he was an ethnic Macedonian or ethnic Bulgarian from Aegean Macedonia and was initially a tinsmith....
, which Hoxha steadfastly rejected. In 1956 at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, Khrushchev condemned the cult of personality
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
that had been built up around Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
and also accused him of many grave mistakes. Khrushchev then announced the theory of peaceful coexistence
Peaceful coexistence
Peaceful coexistence was a theory developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of its ostensibly Marxist–Leninist foreign policy and was adopted by Soviet-influenced "Communist states" that they could peacefully coexist with the capitalist bloc...
, which angered Hoxha greatly. The Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies, led by Hoxha's wife Nexhmije
Nexhmije Hoxha
Nexhmije Hoxha is the widow of Albanian Socialist leader Enver Hoxha.-Personal history:Hoxha was born in Debar, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; present-day Debar, Republic of Macedonia. She studied at a high school in Tirana. After the war, she continued her studies at the State University...
, quoted Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
: "The fundamental principle of the foreign policy of a socialist country and of a Communist party is proletarian internationalism
Proletarian internationalism
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
; not peaceful coexistence." Hoxha now took a more active stand against perceived revisionism.
Unity within the Albanian Party of Labour
Albanian Party of Labour
The Party of Labour of Albania was the sole legal political party in Albania during communist rule...
began to decline as well, with a special delegate meeting held in Tirana in April, 1956, composed of 450 delegates and having unexpected results. The delegates "criticized the conditions in the party, the negative attitude toward the masses, the absence of party and socialist democracy, the economic policy of the leadership, etc." while also calling for discussions on the cult of personality and the Twentieth Party Congress.
Hoxha called for a resolution
Conflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
which would uphold the current leadership of the Party. The resolution was accepted, and all of the delegates who had spoken out were expelled from the party and imprisoned. Hoxha stated that this was yet another of many attempts to overthrow the leadership of Albania which had been organized by Yugoslavia. This incident further consolidated Hoxha's power, effectively making Khrushchev-esque reforms nearly impossible. In the same year, Hoxha went to the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, then enduring the Sino-Soviet Split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
, and met with Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
. Relations with China improved, as evidenced by Chinese aid to Albania being 4.2% in 1955 before the visit, and rising to 21.6% in 1957. In an effort to keep Albania in the Soviet sphere, increased aid was given but the Albanian leadership continued to move closer towards China. Relations with the Soviet Union remained at the same level until 1960, when Khrushchev met with Sophocles Venizelos, a left-wing Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
politician. Khrushchev sympathized with the concept of an autonomous Greek North Epirus and hoped to use Greek claims to keep the Albanian leadership in line with Soviet interests.
Relations with the Soviet Union began to decline rapidly. A hardline
Hardline
In politics, hardline refers to the doctrine, policy, and posturing of a government or political body as being absolutist and sometimes authoritarian. The hardline position is usually extremist and uncompromising....
policy was adopted and the Soviets reduced aid shipments, specifically grain, at a time when Albania needed them due to flood-induced famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
. In July 1960, a plot to overthrow the government was discovered. It was to be organized by Soviet-trained Rear Admiral Teme Sejko
Teme Sejko
Teme Sejko 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 coup d'état against Enver Hoxha by selling the Albanian navy to the Sixth Fleet.-...
. After this, the two pro-Soviet members of the Party, Liri Belishova and Koço Tashko, were both expelled, with a humorous incident involving Tashko pronouncing tochka (Russian for "full stop
Full stop
A full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...
").
In August, the Party's Central Committee sent a letter of protest to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, stating the displeasure of having an anti-Albanian Soviet Ambassador in Tirana. The Fourth Congress of the Party held from 13–20 February 1961, was the last meeting that the Soviet Union or other Eastern European nations would attend in Albania. During the congress, the Soviet Union was condemned while China was praised. Mehmet Shehu
Mehmet Shehu
Mehmet Ismail Shehu was an Albanian communist politician who served as premier of Albania from 1954 to 1981...
stated that while many members of the Party were accused of tyranny, this was a baseless charge and unlike the Soviet Union, Albania was composed of genuine Marxists. The Soviet Union retaliated by threatening "dire consequences" if the condemnations were not retracted. Days later, Khrushchev and Antonin Novotny, President of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
(which was Albania's largest source of aid besides the Soviets) threatened to cut off economic aid. In March, Albania was not invited to attend the meeting of the Warsaw Pact nations (Albania had been one of its founding members in 1955) and in April all Soviet technicians were withdrawn from the nation. In May nearly every Soviet troop on the Oricum Sea base was withdrawn, leaving the Albanians with 4 submarines and other military equipment.
On November seventh, 1961, Hoxha made a speech in which he called Khrushchev a "revisionist, an anti-Marxist and a defeatist." Hoxha portrayed Stalin as the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union and began to stress Albania's independence. By 11 November, the USSR and every other Warsaw Pact nation broke relations with Albania. Albania was unofficially excluded (by not being invited) from both the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
and Comecon
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organisation under hegemony of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world...
. The Soviet Union had also attempted to claim control of the Vlorë port due to a lease agreement; the Albanian Party then passed a law prohibiting any other nation from owning an Albanian port through lease or otherwise.
Later rule
As Hoxha's leadership continued he took on an increasingly theoretical stance. He wrote criticisms based both on current events at the time and on theory; most notably his condemnations of MaoismMaoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
post-1978. A major achievement under Hoxha was the advancement of women's rights. Albania had been one of the most, if not the most, patriarchal countries in Europe. The Code of Lekë, which regulated the status of women, states, "A woman is known as a sack, made to endure as long as she lives in her husband's house." Women were not allowed to inherit anything from their parents and discrimination was even made in the case of death.
Women were absolutely forbidden from obtaining a divorce, and the wife's parents were obliged to return a runaway daughter to the husband or else suffer shame which could even result in a generations-long blood feud
Blood Feud
"Blood Feud" is the twenty-second and final episode of The Simpsons second season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on July 11, 1991. In the episode, Mr. Burns falls ill and desperately needs a blood transfusion. Homer discovers Bart has Burns' rare blood type and urges...
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Albanian Communists encouraged women to join the partisans and following the war, women were encouraged to take up menial jobs, because the education necessary for higher level work was out of most women's reach. In 1938, 4% worked in various sectors of the economy. In 1970, this number rose to 38% and in 1982 to 46%. During the Cultural and Ideological Revolution (discussed below), women were encouraged to take up all jobs, including government posts, which resulted in 40.7% of the People's Councils and 30.4% of the People's Assembly being seated by women, including two women in the Central Committee by 1985. In 1978, 15.1 times as many females attended eight-year schools as in 1938 and 175.7 times as many females attended secondary schools as in 1938. By 1978, 101.9 times as many women attended higher schools as in 1957.
In 1969, direct taxation was abolished and during this period the quality of schooling and health care continued to improve. An electrification campaign was begun in 1960 and the entire nation was expected to have electricity by 1985. Instead, it achieved this on 25 October 1970, making it the first nation with complete electrification in the whole world. During the Cultural & Ideological Revolution of 1967–1968 the military changed from traditional Communist army tactics and began to adhere to the Maoist strategy known as people's war, which included the abolition of military ranks, which were not fully restored until 1991.
Bunker
A military bunker is a hardened shelter, often buried partly or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks...
s across a country of 3 million inhabitants, to act as look-outs and gun emplacements along with chemical weapons. The bunkers were built strong and mobile, with the intention that they could be easily placed by a crane or a helicopter in a previously dug hole. The types of bunkers vary from machine gun pillboxes, beach bunkers, to naval underground facilities, and even Air Force Mountain and underground bunkers.
Hoxha's internal policies were true to Stalin's paradigm which he admired, and the personality cult
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
developed in the 1970s organized around him by the Party
Albanian Party of Labour
The Party of Labour of Albania was the sole legal political party in Albania during communist rule...
also bore a striking resemblance to that of Stalin. At times it even reached an intensity similar to the personality cult surrounding Kim Il Sung (which Hoxha condemned) with Hoxha being portrayed as a genius commenting on virtually all facets of life from culture to economics to military matters. Each schoolbook required one or more quotations from him on the subjects being studied. The Party honored him with titles such as Supreme Comrade, Sole Force and Great Teacher.
Hoxha's governance was also distinguished by his encouragement of a high birthrate policy. For instance a woman who bore an above-average amount of children would be given the government award of Heroine Mother (in Albanian: Nënë Heroinë) along with cash rewards. Abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
was essentially restricted (to encourage high birth rates) except if the birth posed a danger to the mother's life, though it was not completely banned; the process being decided by district medical commissions. As a result, the population of Albania
Demographics of Albania
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Albania, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.-Ethnic groups:...
tripled from 1 million in 1944 to around 3 million in 1985.
Relations with China
In Albania's Third Five Year Plan, China promised a loan of $125 million to build twenty-five chemical, electrical and metallurgical plants called for under the Plan. However, the nation had a difficult transition period, because Chinese technicians were of a lower quality than Soviet ones and the distance between the two nations, plus the poor relations Albania had with its neighbors, further complicated matters. Unlike Yugoslavia or the U.S.S.R., China had the least influence economically on Albania during Hoxha's leadership. The previous fifteen years (1946–1961) had at least 50% of the economy under foreign commerce. By the time the 1976 Constitution prohibited foreign debt, aid and investments, Albania had basically become self-sufficient although it was lacking in modern technology. Ideologically, Hoxha found Mao's initial views to be in line with Marxism-LeninismMarxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
. Mao condemned Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's alleged revisionism and was also critical of Yugoslavia. Aid given from China was interest-free and did not have to be repaid until Albania could afford to do so. China never intervened in what Albania's economic output should be, and Chinese technicians worked for the same wages as Albanian workers, unlike Soviet technicians who sometimes made more than three times the pay of Hoxha. Albanian newspapers were reprinted in Chinese newspapers and read on Chinese radio. Finally, Albania led the movement to give the People's Republic of China a seat
China and the United Nations
China's seat in the United Nations and membership of the United Nations Security Council was originally occupied by the Republic of China since October 24, 1945. During the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party of China repelled the government of the ROC from Mainland China to the island of...
in the UN, an effort made successful in 1971 and thus replacing the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
's seat.
During this period, Albania became the second largest producer of chromium in the world, which was considered an important export for Albania. Strategically, the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
was also attractive to China, and the Chinese leadership had hoped to gain more allies in Eastern Europe with the help of Albania, although this failed. Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...
visited Albania in January 1964. On 9 January, "The 1964 Sino-Albanian Joint Statement" was signed in Tirana.
Like Albania, China defended the "purity" of Marxism by attacking both "US imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
" as well as "Soviet and Yugoslav revisionism", both equally as part of a "dual adversary" theory. Yugoslavia was viewed as a "special detachment of U.S. imperialism" and a "saboteur against world revolution." These views however began to change in China, which was one of the major issues Albania had with the alliance. Also unlike Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, the Sino-Albanian alliance lacked "...an organizational structure for regular consultations and policy coordination, and was characterized by an informal relationship conducted on an ad hoc basis." Mao made a speech on 3 November 1966 which claimed that Albania was the only Marxist-Leninist state in Europe and that "an attack on Albania will have to reckon with great People's China. If the U.S. imperialists, the modern Soviet revisionists or any of their lackeys dare to touch Albania in the slightest, nothing lies ahead for them but a complete, shameful and memorable defeat." Likewise, Hoxha stated that "You may rest assured, comrades, that come what may in the world at large, our two parties and our two peoples will certainly remain together. They will fight together and they will win together."
China entered into a four-year period of relative diplomatic isolation following the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
and at this point relations between China and Albania reached their zenith. On 20 August 1968, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was condemned by Albania, as was the Brezhnev doctrine
Brezhnev Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries.” Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the...
. Albania then officially withdrew from the Warsaw Pact on 5 September. Relations with China began to deteriorate on 15 July 1971, when United States' President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
agreed to visit China to meet with Zhou Enlai. Hoxha felt betrayed and the government was in a state of shock. On August 6 a letter was sent from the Central Committee of the Albanian Party of Labour to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, calling Nixon a "frenzied anti-Communist."
The result was a 1971 message from the Chinese leadership stating that Albania could not depend on an indefinite flow of further Chinese aid and in 1972 Albania was advised to "curb its expectations about further Chinese contributions to its economic development." By 1973, Hoxha wrote in his diary Reflections on China that the Chinese leaders:
In response, trade with COMECON (although trade with the Soviet Union was still blocked) and Yugoslavia grew. Trade with Third World nations was $0.5 million in 1973, but $8.3 million in 1974. Trade rose from 0.1% to 1.6%. Following Mao's death on 9 September 1976, Hoxha remained optimistic about Sino-Albanian relations, but in August 1977, Hua Guofeng
Hua Guofeng
Su Zhu, better known by the nom de guerre Hua Guofeng , was Mao Zedong's designated successor as the Paramount Leader of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China. Upon Zhou Enlai's death in 1976, he succeeded Zhou as the second Premier of the People's Republic of China...
, the new leader of China, stated that Mao's Three Worlds Theory
Three Worlds Theory
The Three Worlds Theory , developed by Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong , posited that international relations comprise three politico–economic worlds: the First World, the superpowers, the Second World, the superpowers' allies, and the Third World, the nations of the Non-Aligned...
would become official foreign policy. Hoxha viewed this as a way for China to justify having the U.S. as the "secondary enemy" while viewing the Soviet Union as the main one, thus allowing China to trade with the U.S. "...the Chinese plan of the 'third world' is a major diabolical plan, with the aim that China should become another superpower, precisely by placing itself at the head of the 'third world' and 'non-aligned world.'" From 30 August – 7 September 1977, Tito visited Beijing and was welcomed by the Chinese leadership. At this point, the Albanian Party of Labour had declared that China was now a revisionist state akin to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and that Albania was the only Marxist-Leninist state on earth.
On 13 July 1978, China announced that it was cutting off all aid to Albania. For the first time in modern history, Albania did not have an ally.
Human rights
Certain clauses in the 1976 constitution effectively circumscribed the exercise of political liberties that the government interpreted as contrary to the established order. In addition, the government denied the population access to information other than that disseminated by the government-controlled media.Internally, the Sigurimi
Sigurimi
The Drejtoria e Sigurimit të Shtetit , commonly called the Sigurimi, was the state security, intelligence and secret police service of the Socialist People's Republic of Albania...
followed the repressive methods of the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, MGB, KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, and the East German Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
. "Its activities permeated Albanian society to the extent that every third citizen had either served time in labour camps or had been interrogated by Sigurimi officers." To eliminate dissent, the government imprisoned thousands in forced-labour camps or executed them for crimes such as alleged treachery or for disrupting the proletarian dictatorship. Travel abroad was forbidden after 1968 to all but those on official business. Western European culture was looked upon with deep suspicion, resulting in arrests and in bans on unauthorised foreign material. Art was made to reflect the styles of socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
. Beards were banned as unhygienic and to curb the influence of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
(many Imams and Babas
Bektashi
Bektashi Order or Bektashism is an Islamic Sufi order founded in the 13th century by the Persian saint Haji Bektash Veli. In addition to the spiritual teachings of Haji Bektash Veli the order was significantly influenced during its formative period by both the Hurufis as well as the...
had beards) and the Orthodox
Orthodox Christianity
The term Orthodox Christianity may refer to:* the Eastern Orthodox Church and its various geographical subdivisions...
faith.
The justice system regularly degenerated into show trials. "...[The defendant] was not permitted to question the witnesses and that, although he was permitted to state his objections to certain aspects of the case, his objections were dismissed by the prosecutor who said, 'Sit down and be quiet. We know better than you.'" In order to lessen the threat of political dissidents and other exiles, relatives of the accused were often arrested, ostracised, and accused of being "enemies of the people".
Torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
was often used to obtain confessions:
"There were six institutions for political prisoners and fourteen labour camps where political prisoners and common criminals worked together. It has been estimated that there were approximately 32,000 people imprisoned in Albania in 1985."
Article 47 of the Albanian Criminal Code stated that to "escape outside the state, as well as refusal to return to the Fatherland by a person who has been sent to serve or has been permitted temporarily to go outside the state" is a crime of treason which is punishable by a minimum sentence of ten years or even death.
Religion
Albania, being a predominantly Muslim European country, largely due to Turkish influence in the region, had, like the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, identified religion with ethnicity. In the Ottoman Empire, Muslims were viewed as "Turks," Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
as Greeks and Catholics as "Latins." Hoxha believed this was a serious issue, feeling that it both fueled Greek separatists in North Epirus and also divided the nation in general. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1945 confiscated much of the church's property in the country. Catholics were the earliest religious community to be targeted, since the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
was seen as being an agent of Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
and anti-Communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
. In 1946 the Jesuit Order
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
and in 1947 the Franciscans were banned. Decree No. 743 (On Religion) sought a national church
State religion
A state religion is a religious body or creed officially endorsed by the state...
and forbade religious leaders from associating with foreign powers.
The Party focused on atheist education in schools. This tactic was effective, primarily due to the high birthrate policy encouraged after the war. During holy periods such as Ramadan
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and...
or Lent
Lent
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...
, many forbidden foods (dairy products, meat, etc.) were distributed in schools and factories, and people who refused to eat those foods were denounced. Starting on 6 February 1967, the Party began a new offensive against religion. Hoxha, who had declared a "Cultural and Ideological Revolution" after being partly inspired by China's Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
, encouraged communist students and workers to use more forceful tactics to promote atheism, although violence was initially condemned.
According to Hoxha, the surge in anti-religious activity began with the youth. The result of this "spontaneous, unprovoked movement" was the closing of all 2,169 churches and mosques in Albania. State atheism
State atheism
State atheism is the official "promotion of atheism" by a government, sometimes combined with active suppression of religious freedom and practice...
became official policy, and Albania was declared the world's first atheist state. Religiously-based town and city names were changed, as well as personal names. During this period religiously-based names were also made illegal. The Dictionary of People's Names, published in 1982, contained 3,000 approved, secular names. In 1992, Monsignor Dias, the Papal Nuncio for Albania appointed by Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
, said that of the three hundred Catholic priests present in Albania prior to the Communists coming to power, only thirty survived. All religious practice and clergymen were outlawed and those religious figures who refused to give up their positions were arrested or forced into hiding.
Cultivating nationalism
Enver Hoxha had declared during the anti-religious campaign that "the only religion of Albania is Albanianism," a quotation from the poem O moj ShqypniO moj Shqypni
O Moj Shqypni is a poem written by Pashko Vasa, a writer and activist of the Albanian National Awakening, around 1878-80. A critique of religious and political factionalism, the poem is considered to be one of the most important and influential literary works of the Albanian National Awakening...
("O Albania") by the nineteenth-century Albanian writer Pashko Vasa
Pashko Vasa
Pashko Vasa also known as Vaso Pasha or Vaso Pashë Shkodrani, was an Albanian writer, poet and publicist of the Albanian National Awakening, and Governor of Lebanon from 1882 until his death.-Secretary in the British Consulate:From 1842 to 1847 he worked as a secretary for the...
.
Muzafer Korkuti one of the dominant figures in post-war Albanian archaeology and now Director of the institute of Archaeology in Tirana said this in an interview of 10 July 2002:
"Archaeology is part of the politics which the party in power has and this was understood better than anything else by Enver Hoxha. Folklore and archaeology were respected because they are the indicators of the nation, and a party that shows respect to national identity is listened to by other people; good or bad as this may be. Enver Hoxha did this as did Hitler. In Germany in the 1930s there was an increase in Balkan studies and languages and this too was all part of nationalism."
Efforts were focused on an Illyrian
Illyrians
The Illyrians were a group of tribes who inhabited part of the western Balkans in antiquity and the south-eastern coasts of the Italian peninsula...
-Albanian continuity issue and on appropriating Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
history as Albanian.
An Illyrian origin of the Albanians (without denying Pelasgian roots) continued to play a significant role in Albanian nationalism, resulting in a revival of given names supposedly of "Illyrian" origin, at the expense of given names associated with Christianity. At first, Albanian nationalist writers opted for the Pelasgians as the forefathers of the Albanians, but as this form of nationalism flourished in Albania under Enver Hoxha, the Pelasgians became a secondary element to the Illyrian theory of Albanian origins, which could claim some support in scholarship. The Illyrian descent theory soon became one of the pillars of Albanian nationalism, especially because it could provide some evidence of continuity of an Albanian presence both in Kosovo and in southern Albania, i.e., areas that were subject to ethnic conflicts between Albanians, Serbs and Greeks. Under the government of Enver Hoxha, an autochthonous
Indigenism
Indigenism, Native nationalism, or Indigenous nationalism is a kind of ethnic nationalism emphasizing the group's indigeneity to their homeland...
ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis is the process by which a group of human beings comes to be understood or to understand themselves as ethnically distinct from the wider social landscape from which their grouping emerges...
was promoted and physical anthropologists tried to demonstrate that Albanians were different from any other Indo-European
Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
populations, a theory now disproved. Communist-era Albanian archaeologists claimed that ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
poleis, gods, ideas, culture and prominent personalities were wholly Illyrian (example Pyrrhus of Epirus
Pyrrhus of Epirus
Pyrrhus or Pyrrhos was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic era. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house , and later he became king of Epirus and Macedon . He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome...
and the region of Epirus
Epirus
The name Epirus, from the Greek "Ήπειρος" meaning continent may refer to:-Geographical:* Epirus - a historical and geographical region of the southwestern Balkans, straddling modern Greece and Albania...
). They claimed that the Illyrians were the most ancient people in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and greatly extended the age of the Illyrian language. This is continued in post-communist Albania and has spread to Kosovo. These nationalist theories have survived largely intact into the present day.
Final years
Partisan (military)
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
. Borrowing and foreign investment were banned under Article 26 of the Constitution, which read: "The granting of concessions to, and the creation of foreign economic and financial companies and other institutions or ones formed jointly with bourgeois and revisionist capitalist monopolies and states as well as obtaining credits from them are prohibited in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania."
Albania was very poor and backward by European standards and it had the lowest standard of living in Europe. As a result of economic self-sufficiency, Albania had a minimal foreign debt. In 1983, Albania imported goods worth $280 million but exported goods worth $290 million, producing a trade surplus of $10 million.
Mehmet Shehu
Mehmet Ismail Shehu was an Albanian communist politician who served as premier of Albania from 1954 to 1981...
was reported to have committed suicide in December 1981 and was subsequently condemned as a "traitor" to Albania and he was also accused of operating in the service of multiple intelligence agencies
Intelligence agency
An intelligence agency is a governmental agency that is devoted to information gathering for purposes of national security and defence. Means of information gathering may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public...
. It is generally believed that he was either killed or shot himself during a power struggle or over differing foreign policy matters with Hoxha. Hoxha also wrote a large assortment of books during this period, resulting in over 65 volumes of collected works, condensed into six volumes of selected works.
Later, Hoxha withdrew into semi-retirement due to failing health, having suffered a heart attack in 1973 from which he never fully recovered. He turned most state functions over to Ramiz Alia
Ramiz Alia
was the second and last communist leader of Albania from 1985-91, and the President of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1991 to 1992, and also the first President of the post communist Albania elected in 1991-92. He had been designated as successor by Enver Hoxha and took power after...
. In his final days he was a wheelchair user and was suffering from diabetes, which he had suffered from since 1948, and cerebral ischemia
Cerebral ischemia
Brain ischemia, also known as cerebral ischemia, is a condition in which there is insufficient blood flow to the brain to meet metabolic demand. This leads to poor oxygen supply or cerebral hypoxia and thus to the death of brain tissue or cerebral infarction / ischemic stroke...
, which he had suffered from since 1983. Hoxha's death on 11 April 1985 left Albania with a legacy of isolation and fear of the outside world. Despite some economic progress made by Hoxha, the country was in economic stagnation
Economic stagnation
Economic stagnation or economic immobilism, often called simply stagnation or immobilism, is a prolonged period of slow economic growth , usually accompanied by high unemployment. Under some definitions, "slow" means significantly slower than potential growth as estimated by experts in macroeconomics...
; Albania had been the poorest European country throughout much of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
period. As of the early 21st century, very little of Hoxha's legacy is still in place in today's Albania since the transition to democracy
History of post-Communist Albania
In 1991, the Socialist Party of Albania, with specific social democratic ideology took control of the country through democratic elections. One year later the Democratic Party of Albania won the new elections. After the year 1990, Albania has been seeking a closer relationship with the West...
in 1992.
Family
The surname Hoxha is the Albanian variant of HodjaHodja
Hodža, also spelled as Khawaja, Hoca, Hodžić, or Hoxha, is a title of respect in some Central Asian, Middle Eastern and European cultures, used for people who have performed the Hajj a difficult and often dangerous feat in the Middle Ages, especially for those living far away from Arabia...
, a title given to his ancestors due to their efforts to teach Albanians about Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. In addition, among the population he was known by the nickname of Dulla, short form for Muslim name Abdullah stemming from his former Muslim roots.
Enver Hoxha's parents were Halil and Gjylihan (Gjylo) Hoxha, and Hoxha had three sisters named Fahrije, Haxhire and Sanije. Hysen Hoxha ([hyˈsɛn ˈhɔdʒa]) was Enver Hoxha's uncle and was a militant who campaigned vigorously for the independence of Albania, which occurred when Enver was four years old. His grandfather Beqir was involved in the Gjirokastër section of the League of Prizren
League of Prizren
The League for the Defense of the Rights of the Albanian Nation commonly known as the League of Prizren was an Albanian political organization founded on 10 June 1878 in Prizren, in the Kosovo province of the Ottoman Empire....
.
Enver Hoxha's son, Sokol Hoxha, was the CEO of the Albanian Post and Telecommunication service, and is married to Liliana Hoxha. The later democratic president of Albania Sali Berisha
Sali Berisha
Sali Ram Berisha is an Albanian politician and cardiologist, currently the Prime Minister of Albania and the leader of Democratic Party of Albania ....
was often seen socializing with Sokol Hoxha and other close relatives of leading communist figures in Albania.
Hoxha's daughter, Pranvera, is an architect. Along with her husband, Klement Kolaneci, she designed the former Enver Hoxha Museum in Tirana, a white-tiled pyramid. The museum opened in 1988, three years after her father's death. The building now houses the International Cultural Centre.
Further reading
- Banja H. and V. Toçi, Socialist Albania on the Road to Industrialization, Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House, 1979
- Beloff, Nora. Tito's Flawed Legacy, Boulder: Westview Press, 1985, ISBN 0-575-03668-0
- Cikuli, Zisa. Health Care in the People's Republic of Albania 1984
- Fevziu, Blendi. Enver Hoxha: E para biografi e bazuar në dokumente të arkivit personal dhe në rrëfimet e atyre që e njohën, Tiranë: UET Press, 2011.
- Gjonça, Arjan. Communism, Health, and Lifestyle: The Paradox of Mortality Transition in Albania, 1950–1990. CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. ISBN 0-313-31586-8
- Hamm, Harry. Albania—China's Beachhead in Europe, New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1963.
- Hoxha, Enver. Selected Works, 1941–1948, vol. I, Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House, 1974.
- The Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies at the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania. History of the Party of Labor of Albania, 2nd ed. Tiranë: 8 Nëntori Publishing House, 1982.
- Jacques, Edwin E. The Albanians: An Ethnographic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present Vol. II, North Carolina 1995, ISBN 0786442387
- Jessup, John E. An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945–1996. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 1998, ISBN 0-313-28112-2
- Marmullaku, Ramadan. Albania and the Albanians, trans. Margot and Bosko Milosavljević, Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1975
- Myftaraj, Kastriot. The Enigmas of Enver Hoxha's Domination 1944–1961, Tirana 2009, ISBN 978-99956-57-10-9
- Myftaraj, Kastriot. The Secret Life of Enver Hoxha, 1908–1944, Tirana 2008, ISBN 978-99956-706-4-X
- O'Donnell, James S. A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha, New York 1999, ISBN 0-88033-415-0
- Pearson, Owen S. and I.B. TaurisI.B. TaurisI. B. Tauris is an independent publishing house with offices in London and New York.-History:I.B.Tauris was founded in 1983. Its declared strategy was to fill the perceived gap between trade publishing houses and university presses—that is, to publish serious but accessible works on international...
. Albania in Occupation and War, London 2006, ISBN 1-84511-104-4 - Pano, Nicholas C. The People's Republic of Albania, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1968
- Pipa, Arshi, Albanian Stalinism, Boulder: East European Monographs, 1990, ISBN 0-88033-184-4
Works
- Speeches (1961–1962). The '8 Nëntori' Publishing House, Tirana 1977.
- Speeches and articles (1963–1964). The '8 Nëntori' Publishing House, Tirana 1977.
- Speeches, conversations and articles (1965–1966). The '8 Nëntori' Publishing House, Tirana 1977.
- Speeches, conversations and articles (1967–1968). The '8 Nëntori' Publishing House, Tirana 1978.
- Speeches, conversations and articles (1969–1970). The '8 Nëntori' Publishing House, Tirana 1980.
- Selected works. 6 Volumes, The '8 Nëntori' Publishing House, Tirana 1974–1987.
- Reflections on China. 2 Volumes, The '8 Nëntori' Publishing House, Tirana 1979.
- Two Friendly Peoples. The '8 Nëntori' Publishing House, Tirana 1985.
- The Superpowers. The '8 Nëntori' Publishing House, Tirana 1986.
External links
- Enver Hoxha Reference Archive at marxists.org
- English collection of some of Hoxha's works
- Another English collection of some of Hoxha's works
- A Russian site with the works of Enver Hoxha
- Enver Hoxha tungjatjeta
- Disa nga Veprat e Shokut Enver Hoxha
- Albanian.com article on Hoxha
- "Albania: Stalin's heir", TIME, 22 December 1961