Enver Hoxha
Enver Hoxha (
October 16,
1908 -
April 11,
1985) was
prime minister of
Albania from
1944 to
1954 and minister of foreign affairs from
1946 to
1953. He headed the Party of Labour of Albania from its foundation (as the Communist Party) in
1941. Under Hoxha, whose
dictatorial rule was characterized by isolation from the rest of
Europe and firm adherence to
Stalinism, Albania emerged from semi-
feudalism to become an
industrialized socialist state.
Hoxha was born in
Gjirokastėr, a city in southern Albania. In
1930, he went to study at the
University of Montpellier,
France on a state scholarship, but he soon dropped out. From
1934 to
1936 he was a secretary at the Albanian consulate in
Brussels. He also studied law at the university there. He returned to Albania in 1936 and became a teacher in
Korēė.
Hoxha was dismissed from his teaching post following the
1939 Italian invasion of
World War II for refusing to join the Albanian
Fascist Party. He opened a tobacco shop in
Tiranė where soon a small
communist group started gathering. He was helped by
Yugoslav communists to found and become political leader of the Albanian Communist Party (called Party of Labour afterwards) and the resistance movement (National Liberation Army), which took power in November
1944.
Hoxha was an ultra-orthodox
Marxist-Leninist and strongly admired
Joseph Stalin. He adopted the model of the
Soviet Union and severed relations with his former
Yugoslav communist allies following their ideological breach with Moscow in
1948. He executed defence minister Koēi Xoxe (pron.
Kochi Dzodze) a year later for alleged pro-Yugoslav activities.
Hoxha confiscated farmland from wealthy landowners and consolidated it into collective farms (
Cooperatives) that eventually enabled Albania to become almost completely self-sufficient in food crops. He also developed the industry and brought electricity to most rural areas. Epidemics of disease and
illiteracy were stamped out, but so were political and
human rights as Albania became a
totalitarian state. Many people were sent to
internment camps and prisons while others were killed for speaking out or because they were believed to be against the government. The families of the condemned would likely also suffer because of the association. It would not be until
1992 that political prisoners were released and the atrocities of the regime became known.
He remained a firm Stalinist despite new Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev's repudiation of Stalin's excesses in
1956 at the
Twentieth Party Congress of the
Soviet Communist Party, but this meant Albania's isolation from the rest of socialist Eastern Europe. In
1960, Hoxha aligned Albania with the
People's Republic of China in the
Sino-Soviet split, severing relations with
Moscow the following year. In
1967, at the height of Chinese leader
Mao Zedong's
Cultural Revolution, Hoxha procaimed Albania the world's first
atheist state. Hoxha was also responsible for the destruction of thousands of
mosques and
synagogues around the country. To defend against foreign invasion, he built almost ten thousand pillboxes around the country's borders.
Mao's death in
1976 and the defeat of the
Gang of Four in China's subsequent inner-party struggle in
1977 and
1978 led to Albania's retreat into political isolation, with Hoxha claiming the
anti-revisionist mantle to criticize both
Moscow and
Beijing.
In
1981, Hoxha ordered the execution of several party and government officials in a purge. Prime minister
Mehmet Shehu was reported to have committed suicide following a further dispute within the Albanian leadership in December
1981.
Later, Hoxha withdrew into semiretirement and turned most state functions over to
Ramiz Alia. Hoxha's death on
April 11,
1985 led to some relaxation in internal and foreign policies under his successor Ramiz Alia, as communist party rule weakened throughout eastern Europe, culminating in Albania's abandonment of one-party rule in
1990 and the reformed Socialist Party's defeat in the
1992 elections.
See also
\n*History of Albania
External link
\n*Enver Hoxha tungjatjeta (in Albanian)\n*
Enver Hoxha Reference Archive at marxists.org
Hoxha, Enver
\n\n\n\n
