By the end of the 1970s, Albania, under the leadership of the ideological Stalinist Enver Hoxha, lived on complete self-sufficiency in conditions of international isolation
In the 1920s, Albania remained the only Balkan country that did not have a communist party. Supporters of the theory of Karl Marx could not unite into a common political force for a long time, and the President of the country Ahmet Zogu in 1928 declared himself king under the name Zog I Skanderbeg III.
At this time, the son of a lawyer and music teacher Enver Hoxha was just getting a higher education, but even then he was an ardent supporter of the head of the USSR, Joseph Stalin. Khoja came to the conclusion that Albania needed a party built on the model of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and began to actively publish in communist publications. He joined the Communist Parties of France and Belgium, collaborated with the Greek and Italian sections of the Comintern, became one of the leaders of the Albanian communist underground, and then led a group of like-minded people in Korca.
Khoja quickly gained popularity among the Albanian opposition. In March 1938 he was sent to the USSR, where he studied at the Moscow Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin at the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and at the Institute of Foreign Languages. Among the tasks facing him was the translation of the works of Joseph Stalin, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Vyacheslav Molotov and USSR Prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky into Albanian. After a month in the capital, Khoja met Stalin and Molotov personally.
Khoja returned to his homeland in April 1939, when Albania was occupied by Italian fascists and the communist leader was sentenced to death in absentia. He became one of the leaders of the partisan movement, while taking an active part in party building. On November 8, 1941, at an underground conference, the creation of the Communist Party of Albania (CPA) was announced. Hoxha became one of seven members of the interim central committee, and in the spring of 1943 he was formally elected first secretary of the party. On the basis of the CPA, the National Liberation Army of Albania was formed, which entered into a struggle with the forces of the Axis countries and collaborators.
In October 1944, Hoxha took over as prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. A month later, partisans drove German troops out of Albania, and a communist dictatorship was established in the country, although the monarchy was formally abolished only three years later.
The friendship between Stalin and Khoja grew stronger every year. At the Potsdam Conference, the Soviet leader opposed the partition of Albania - Italy and Greece claimed the country's territory. Khoja agreed on the supply of food, medicine and equipment from the USSR. Soviet specialists of various professions came to Albania: geologists, doctors, teachers, oilmen, engineers. Soviet universities accepted hundreds of Albanian students.
In the second half of the 1940s, relations with the formerly allied Yugoslavia began to deteriorate in Albania. Its leader, Joseph Broz Tito, tried to convince Hoxha that his country would not survive alone, and persuaded him to join Yugoslavia. The first secretary did not agree, and neighbors began to publicly accuse him of betraying the ideas of Marxism and embarking on the path of individualism. In the end, all ties between the countries were severed, and the USSR became the main ally of Albania.
Enver Hoxha, 1976. Photo: The Art Archive / AFP / East News
On Stalin's advice in 1948, the Communist Party was renamed the Albanian Party of Labor (APT). The following year, Albania joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, and in 1955 signed the Warsaw Pact.
At the first congress of the APT, held in 1948, delegates proclaimed their commitment to the experience of the USSR and the CPSU (b). Collectivization began in Albania and its own five-year plans appeared. In order to more fully adopt the Soviet experience, factories, collective farms, streets, schools and mountain peaks were named after Khoja. In 1949, one of the many purges in the party ranks took place, as a result of which, among others, one of the founders of the CPA and Khoja's main rival for leadership, Kochi Dzodze, was shot. As part of helping the country's economic development in the early 1950s, Stalin donated the ZIS and ZIM automobile factories to Albania.
March 5, 1953 became a day of national mourning for Albania. Stalin's death meant for Hodge the loss of a powerful ally, since the views of the incumbent Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev did not coincide with the ideas of the Albanian dictator. The 20th Congress of the CPSU took place, at which Khrushchev read out a report debunking Stalin's personality cult and proclaimed the concept of "peaceful existence", which angered Hodge. In 1961, Albania ceased to take part in the CMEA, and in 1968 it withdrew from the Warsaw Pact organization.
The "great helmsman" Mao Zedong became Hodge's new comrade. Albania's allied relations with the PRC lasted 10 years, the Maoists provided the Balkan dictator with significant economic support, supplying the communists with everything they needed. However, in the late 1960s, China moved closer to the hated Khodja West, and in 1977 Albania actually lost its last major ally.
Squeezed between Europe and the already unfriendly USSR, Hoxha called on the Albanians to engage in "building communism in a hostile environment of revisionists and imperialists" and began to prepare for war. About 750 thousand military bunkers appeared on the territory of the country - one for each family, given that the population of Albania was three million. According to Hoxha's plan, during the invasion of one of the hostile states, the Albanians had to hide in concrete shelters and shoot back from the invaders.
Albania became an autarky with natural exchange displacing trade. The country was completely self-sufficient in food, medicine and equipment, and all products of the Western capitalist world were banned: Albanians were not allowed to wear jeans, use imported cosmetics, have a car, listen to rock and jazz. In 1976, foreign loans and borrowings were prohibited at the legislative level. Temples and mosques were converted for state needs, since Khoja proclaimed that "Albanians have no idols and gods, but they have ideals - this is the name and work of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin," and banned religion.
At the VIII Congress of the ANT in 1981, the victory of socialism and the beginning of the construction of communism were announced. The economy of Albania was in such a deplorable state that Khoja had to resume trade with Yugoslavia, the CMEA countries and China, but he never forgave the Soviet Union, which betrayed Stalin's ideas. The USSR stubbornly ignored all attacks against it from Albania, and in the Soviet press such a country simply ceased to exist.
In 1983, the health of the 75-year-old dictator greatly deteriorated; on April 11, 1985, Hodge died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Only emissaries from Romania, Vietnam, North Korea, Kampuchea, Laos, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Nicaragua were allowed to attend the mourning ceremony at the Stalin Palace in Tirana. The mourning Albanians sent telegrams of condolences from Yugoslavia, the USSR and China back.
