Albania is a peculiar country in many ways. Anyone who has ever visited the small Balkan state on the Adriatic will be able to confirm that. Even the completely unbiased visitor will quickly notice a few distinctive features of this country. If you drive through Albania's rural areas, you will not only find breathtakingly beautiful nature there. You will find one thing in particular:bunkers and fortifications as far as the eye can see. Everywhere these concrete monsters stick out like mushrooms from the Albanian soil. There used to be almost 200,000 of them in the country with less than three million inhabitants. Many are still standing today. They are the work and legacy of a dictator who is also unparalleled in Europe:Enver Hoxha.
Under Hoxha's leadership, Albania occupied a rare special position in post-war Europe. As a result of his long reign, the workers' paradise he had promised in Albania became the third poorest country in the world. After the end of the dictatorship, the country found itself in a league with the poorest ex-colonies in Africa and Asia. But Hoxha's legacy means far more to his country. As the only socialist ruler in Europe, he managed to isolate himself from all other people's republics in the world during the Cold War. First he fell out with his Yugoslav neighbors to prove his loyalty to Comrade Stalin. After his death, he fell out with his successors, approaching China instead, only to soon give that up again. At the time of Hoxha's death, Albania had no significant contacts with any country in the world. That should also have been a reason for the crazy bunker construction. The invasion of Yugoslavia was only a matter of time!
When the socialist dictatorship also came to its deserved end in Albania in the early 1990s, the country was completely ruined and internationally isolated. To give just one example of the Albanian standard of living and the inequalities of the time:In 1990 there were not even 2000 registered cars in all of Albania, which of course did not prevent the socialist leadership from building a magnificent boulevard in the capital Tirana, so that the party bigwigs could comfortably reach their villas. Meanwhile, in rural areas, the population was starving. You can probably already imagine:the image of the dictator Enver Hoxha is a bit tarnished in Albania today. Yet many had such high hopes for him when he came to power...
From lazy student to revolutionary
But who was Enver Hoxha – also known as Enver Hodscha in German? First of all, he shared a quality with some other socialist dictators of his time:he came from rather unlikely backgrounds for a head of state. Hoxha was born in Gjirokastra, southern Albania, a beautiful and historic small town that is now recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Of course, that has nothing to do with Hoxha, as much as he would have liked it. While his family there was not poor, he was not one of the city's elite either. Later, the dictator repeatedly tried to portray himself and his ancestors as long-established city nobility (that too is at least an interesting idea for a socialist), but this never really worked. All in all, Enver Hoxha probably grew up in rather inconspicuous circumstances. People who knew him at the time are said to have simply described him as a "mediocre young man with no special talents or abilities". He also had this in common with other socialist dictators.
After graduating from school, Hoxha went to France in 1930 to study botany. He was even able to obtain a scholarship from the Albanian state for his studies, which was probably due more to his family connections than to his academic achievements. He didn't exactly stand out as a diligent student at the University of Montpellier either. It was not until his third year of study that he passed his first exams, and in 1934 his state scholarship was withdrawn for poor performance. Hoxha should have paid the money back, but he never did. Instead, he boarded a train to Paris and stayed with an old friend from his youth. A year later he moved on to Brussels, where he found a job at the Albanian consulate and – at least pro forma – enrolled again at university, this time for law. In France and Belgium, Hoxha may have been active in communist circles for the first time. Otherwise, his time there was rather unspectacular. The only exciting story from the period is that once during his shift the consulate in Brussels was broken into. According to circumstantial evidence, it may have been Hoxha himself, but this has never been proven.
After six years in Western Europe, Enver Hoxha returned to Albania in 1936 and became a teacher at his old school. After a few inconspicuous years, he then moved to Tirana in 1939 with the beginning of the Italian occupation of Albania and ran a tobacconist there for a while. From that point on, everything becomes a bit hazy. However that was possible, just two years later, Enver Hoxha was suddenly a leading member of Albania's communist resistance movement. In 1943 he even became the chairman of the Communist Party and a year later prime minister of Albania. The career jump came as a surprise to some of his acquaintances at the time. An old school friend reacted to the news that Enver Hoxha was now leader of the communists like this:
This old friend was arrested on Hoxha's orders soon after the establishment of socialist rule. The same fate befell Hoxha's acquaintances who had hosted him in Paris, and even the minister who had revoked his scholarship. But that's just a side note to get a feel for what kind of man we're dealing with in Enver Hoxha.
Enver Hoxha fighting the occupiers. And everyone else
The question naturally arises:How did the mediocre pupil and lazy student become the leader of the communist movement in Albania within a few years? In fact, little is known about it. Until 1940 Hoxha was probably still in Tirana and ran his tobacco shop. The next time he becomes tangible again is in the fall of 1941. That's when he first appeared at an anti-fascist demonstration in Tirana. In the same autumn he was then already represented at the founding meeting of the Communist Party of Albania. However, Hoxha was not actually invited to this meeting. At least he is not on the original list of participants.
In later years, however, Enver Hoxha presented the story somewhat differently. The dictator was, especially in old age, a diligent – if not necessarily good – author. He wrote a large number of books, well over fifty in total, including thirteen volumes of his memoirs. In these he claimed that he not only attended the founding day of the Communist Party, but called the meeting himself! That was a fictitious claim, but by the 1980s it wasn't a problem anymore. All those who took part in the meeting were now locked up or dead. But even without his later exaggerations, Enver Hoxha was probably an important figure in the newly founded party from the start. And he began to get rid of his internal opponents. This is where Hoxha's real talent showed for the first time. He was very good at using his position, playing others off each other, and gradually eliminating any internal adversaries.
The biggest problem facing the communists at the time was actually something else:the occupation by the Axis powers. When Hoxha took over the party, the German Wehrmacht had just taken control of Albania from Italy. However, the fight against these occupiers was probably never a priority for Hoxha. He may have realized that Nazi Germany was already retreating after the failed Russian campaign and that their withdrawal from Albania was only a matter of time. He could confidently turn to other opponents. He then continued to do it quite cleverly. The Communist Party soon merged with other resistance groups into the so-called "Anti-Fascist National Liberation Committee," allowing it to postpone many of the conflicts, such as with the various nationalist groups, for a while while consolidating its own power. Within the communists, Hoxha was already beginning to build up his leader cult in those years.
In the summer of 1944 it became finally clear that the withdrawal of the German armed forces could only be a matter of months. The Wehrmacht was retreating across Europe, including the Balkans. The Liberation Committee, on the other hand, now enjoyed great recognition among the Albanian population. This need not have meant that Hoxha's Communist Party was held in high esteem. But he and the party were the most agile political organization within the committee, which was not exactly a disadvantage. In October 1944, Hoxha took advantage of the situation and finally got serious. The Liberation Committee was renamed the "Democratic Government of Albania", and Hoxha thus effectively appointed himself Prime Minister. Well, among other things at least. Incidentally, he was also interior and foreign minister in personal union. Better safe than sorry. In any case, Enver Hoxha seemed almost unstoppable.
End of Hoxhaism, Albania is free again! Or like this
But that was not how the grandees of the Communist Party bet. After all, Enver Hoxha was something like her compromise candidate! Surely, now that the German occupying soldiers were almost out of the country, it was time to replace him. In November 1944, therefore, the second general meeting of the Communist Party took place, at which members of the Politburo rose up against Hoxha's leadership. He was accused of his harsh course against political opponents, his affectations as a sole ruler, the attempted personality cult. In the end, Hoxha was even forced – in keeping with communist tradition – to practice self-criticism. In many cases, such public self-criticism was only the first step towards dismissal or even conviction. In a touch of genius, however, Hoxha managed to push through an adjournment of this personnel decision. Tirana had just been liberated from the German occupiers in those days and a triumphant entry by the "Democratic Government" was planned. After the celebrations, however, personnel decisions should be made immediately, Hoxha assured. The party grandees probably still didn't know him. You were stupid enough to agree to this proposal. Needless to say, hardly any of them lived to see the end of Hoxha as dictator forty years later.
However, the Hoxha "purges" did not end in the Communist Party. With the end of the occupation, Hoxha finally found himself at the peak of his power in autumn 1944 and now took targeted action against all other remaining political forces in the country, above all against the nationalists, royalists and supporters of the occupation regime. The "free elections" of 1945 were of course nothing of the sort. There were two separate boxes in these elections, one for the ballots for the government, one for the "reactionaries". Indeed, some poor citizens believed they had a choice. They were arrested on the spot. The other 93 percent accepted their fate and voted for the communists. In order to further guarantee the security of the country – by which all dictators always mean their own security first and foremost – the Albanian secret police, the Sigurimi, were founded at this time. By the time the socialist regime came to an end in the early 1990s, the Sigurimi had allegedly created over a million files. That roughly corresponded to the number of adult inhabitants of Albania at the time.
In the first few years after the communists took power, however, some forces actually tried to form an opposition party in the Albanian parliament! Enver Hoxha had this to say about the leader of this group:
What an impertinence! time to clean it up. Thus, during this time, all important people in Albania - whether communists or not - were bugged and consequently "liquidated", as the regime circles used to say. Partly this happened with somewhat creative circumstances. At his own trial in 1949 (yes, he didn't even last five years) the first head of the Sigurimi was accused of wiretapping the President, members of the Politburo and almost all government ministers. His reply that he had personally discussed each of these measures with Enver Hoxha and that he had approved them was of course not accepted. He died on the rope that same year.
Trouble in workers' paradise
But foreign policy and relations with the new strong partners in Belgrade and Moscow did not remain as rosy as they looked immediately after the war. From 1945, Albania began to move closer to Yugoslavia. In 1947, Hoxha even signed a customs and currency union with the neighboring country. But the plan of rapprochement went much further. Albania was supposed to become a part of Yugoslavia, which the Albanian Politburo officially accepted in March 1948. Allegedly, space has already been made for a seventh republic in the Federation Palace in Belgrade! This plan was only destroyed when Yugoslav President Tito and Stalin clashed and distanced themselves from each other just in the same month.
Hoxha sided with Stalin and the Soviet Union in this conflict. Then, within months, Hoxha reversed all of his regime's rhetoric. The Yugoslavs were now suddenly traitors and opponents of communism in Albania. The Soviet Union and Stalin were the new strong partners. He took this about-face as a welcome excuse to once again thoroughly cleanse the party. This time by "pro-Yugoslav" forces. Before March 1948, according to official understanding, that was all members of the party. How convenient! The verdict that attracted the most attention was certainly that against the aforementioned Koçi Xoxe, previously Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Interior, head of the Sigurimi and number two in the regime. He was replaced by a new confidante of Hoxha:Mehmet Shehu. With his pro-Soviet and anti-Yugoslav attitude, he was the man of the hour and he remained loyal to Hoxha for a long time. Until he was liquidated himself in 1981.
Admittedly, Albania had an even more unequal relationship with the Soviet Union than with Yugoslavia before. While Hoxha was a great supporter of Stalin, the latter may have shown precious little interest in him or in Albania. But the break with Yugoslavia also meant a new era for Soviet-Albanian relations. Albania now became part of the Warsaw Pact and COMECON, and thus Moscow's political influence on Tirana became clearly noticeable. When Stalin died in 1953, Hoxha decreed a full two weeks of national mourning for his country - longer than in the Soviet Union itself! Under Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev, however, the world looked very different again. He did a number of things that the little Stalin admirers in Tirana resented. Khrushchev first visited Belgrade in 1955, then the following year he (semi-)publicly distanced himself from Stalin and Stalinism. Yet Enver Hoxha had just discovered Stalinism as an ideology for himself! So he did what he always did when something didn't suit him. He distanced himself from the Soviet Union and had pro-Soviet Albanian communists persecuted. Before 1956, according to the official interpretation, that was all members of the party. Still practical... While the break with the Soviet Union was not quite as abrupt as that with Yugoslavia before it, relations became increasingly strained.
Around the year 1960, Hoxha also approached China, which he saw as a more reliable partner in the communist world. This finally resulted in a completely absurd constellation. Tiny Albania in an alliance with China on the other side of the world. But whatever. This alliance would not last forever either. Because one thing applies to Enver Hoxha as to almost every other dictator:He trusted absolutely no one. Now he didn't even keep up appearances anymore. He never visited China, let alone that Mao Zedong made his way to Tirana. When China began to open up in the late 1970s, it was finally time for Hoxha to end this relationship as well. For the last twelve years of the regime, Albania was completely isolated in the world.
The last years of Enver Hoxha
The last major victim of Hoxha's paranoia was his longtime confidante and Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu. In fact, in 1981, he dared to allow his son to be engaged to a woman from a "reactionary" family. And without asking Hoxha first! It was inevitable, and one evening Shehu was found shot dead in his bed, a gun beside him. Suicide. Allegedly. Enver Hoxha did what he always did again this time. He declared Shehu a traitor who worked not only for one enemy but for everyone. He is said to have worked simultaneously for the British, Italian and French secret services, the Gestapo, the Yugoslav UDBA and the KGB - let it melt in your mouth! And besides, he was still the acting prime minister of Albania. Looking at the list like this, his unnatural death could never have happened. Shehu would have succumbed to burnout a long time ago. The death of the prime minister was followed by a final major wave of "purges" in Albania. Among others, the Minister of Health was executed, allegedly only because he wondered aloud why Mehmet Shehu's autopsy had not been carried out. Incidentally, the interior minister convicted with him complained in court that he had previously been tortured. The judge replied dryly:"You don't say".
Enver Hoxha followed his many liquidated comrades only a few years later. He died in 1985. At the time, Hoxha was the only remaining founding member of the party who had not been executed or imprisoned. In his will he wrote that "Albania was fundamentally transformed under him and was able to achieve many great achievements, more than at any time in its history". At that time, his country was enjoying an average per capita income of around thirteen euros a month. Hunger and malnutrition were pervasive, and the economy had fallen far behind that of its neighbors. In a particularly bizarre episode, Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss was allowed to visit Albania in transit in 1984. Among other things, he and his delegation were shown an exhibition of Albanian technology, in which an “Enver Hoxha tractor” could be admired. A member of the delegation and representative from Mercedes-Benz remarked:"Yes, we made them around 1920".
Hoxha's death and funeral received little attention in the world press, which he must have known beforehand. This was the dictator's final insult, since five years earlier he had witnessed Tito's pompous state funeral in Belgrade, to which heads of state from all over the world had traveled. Another embarrassment suffered by Hoxha's wife, who spoke at the funeral about how her husband would now be reunited with his old comrades. On the one hand, this was obscure, since he was responsible for most of their deaths. On the other hand, that didn't exactly fit Albania's atheistic image either... One way or the other. Five years after Hoxha's death, his regime finally died. One of the first actions of the demonstrators was to leave the recently erected bronze Hoxha station in central Tirana. You really can't blame them.
Now if you want to learn more about Hoxha and the other cruel dictators of the 20th century and especially what today's so-called populists learned from them... Check out my book Populism Made Easy!