Enver Hoxha, leader of Albania. Enver who? Where?

My theory about dictators is that they grew up as ugly, poorly educ­at­ed, untravelled and impoverished men who grabbed power illegally and held on for the rest of their miserable lives. But Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) was none of those things. He grew up in Ottoman Albania, the handsome son of a succ­ess­ful Muslim merchant who travelled all over the world. Young Enver was well educ­ated locally in a French secondary school.

Enver Hoxha

Albania achieved statehood after WW1, but it was a miserable country in which no government lasted. Ahmed Bey Zogu had first served as Prime Minister of Albania (1922–1924), then as President (1925–1928), and finally as King and Field Marshal of the Royal Albanian Army (1928–1939). And throughout these years, Ottoman Albania had remained an unhappy poverty-stricken, largely illiterate country, with little ind­us­t­ry and no nation-wide railways, universities or large cities. The peasantry were under the control of their local medieval lords, and King Zog’s regime was largely reliant on Mussolini’s Italy.

Hoxha's parents particularly disliked King Zog I and wanted their beloved son out of the country; in 1930 they sent him to the French University of Mont­pel­lier. Then he participated in philosophy classes at the Sorbonne in Paris. Albania might have been an obscure province of the old Ottoman Empire, but the Hoxha family members were not insular at all.

Hoxha didn’t gain any degree in France but he obtained a good position as a secretary at the Albanian consulate in Brussels in the mid 1930s. A fluent French speaker, he returned to Albania in 1936 and taught grammar school in a French Lyceum.

Albania and its neighbours Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro

In 1939 Mussolini annexed Albania for Italy and exiled King Zog. Hoxha lost his teaching job and had to open a tobacconist’s shop in Tirana; the shop became the head­quarters of the newly formed Albanian Communist Party.

After Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, everything changed. Yug­o­s­l­av communists made Hoxha first secretary of the party’s Central Committee and political commissar of the Army of National Liberation. When German troops occupied Albania in 1943, the nation’s resistance groups of the left and the right fought the Germans and each other. Hostile Albanian groups sometimes collaborated with the Germ­ans against Hoxha and his people, whose superior ruth­lessness enabled them to dominate the Albanian National Liberation Army.

Late in 1944, with the Germans in retreat, an anti-Fascist congress declared Hoxha prime minister of Albania; he headed a victorious parade into Tirana. Prime minister Hoxha retained the prime minster­ship from the liberation of Albania in 1944 until 1954, quickly recognised by Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union. But then as first secretary of the Party of Labour’s Central Committee, Hoxha became de facto head of state for the rest of his life.

Was Hoxha a modernising supporter of the labouring classes or a ruthless and paranoid killer of any opponents, regardless of class, politics or religion? Clearly his politics shifted regularly. At first he was a close colleague of Marshall Tito; after all, Alban­ian partisan divisions had gone into German-occupied Yugoslavia where they fought with Tito's men and the Soviet Red Army in a joint campaign to destroy German resistance. But that didn’t last. Hoxha and Tito split in 1948.

On Red Square podium, Nov 1947, with Stalin & Molotov
Photo credit: The Espresso Stalinist 

After the break between Tito’s Yugoslavia and Moscow, Albania received massive aid from the Soviet Union. So Hoxha declared himself a communist and a huge admirer of Joseph Stalin. Hoxha and his government adopted pol­ic­ies that would denude the rural land­lords of their land and power, organise the peasants into collective farms, grow enough food to feed the entire population, establish a universal health care and nation­al­ise the banks etc. The Albanian language was resur­rected, mod­ern industries were developing and the oppression of women was to end. In a country that was 90% Islamic and 10% Christ­ian, the greatest pun­ish­ment for the locals was the closing of all mosques, churches and religious institutions. All education in schools had to be secular.

Hoxha began a ruthless modernisation policy that clearly worked, but alienated his political rivals, traditional Muslims and Christians, impoverished landowners and unhappy peasants. As a result, Hoxha became more and more paranoid about growing opposition to his rule. Any opponent, or potential opponent was tried for Crimes Against the people and sent to prison camps or executed.

How many Albanians became Hoxha’s paid informants and how many Alb­anians were executed by their leader? In a population of c2.5 million people, at least 5,500 were executed, 24,200 were sent to forced labour camps and 200,000 became internal spies for Hoxha’s govern­ment.

When Stalin died in 1953 and was seen as a mass murderer in his own right, Hoxha denounced Nikita Khrushchev and turned to his very long term ally, Communist China. This relationship lasted until Mao Zedong’s death in 1976.

From then on Albania was isolated and the older Hoxha grew, the more paranoid he became. “Greece wanted to expand north and take over Albania”. “Tito apparently intended to take over Albania and make it into the 7th republic of Yugoslavia”. “Tito held ethnic Alban­ians in Kosovo under a policy of extermination”. The country sank into a decade of paranoid isolation and economic stagnation, surrounded by 200,000-700,000 concrete bunkers along Albania’s land and maritime borders. Some of the bunkers were networked by 2 ks long tunnels, built to protect members of the Interior Ministry and the Sigurimi/secret police from nuclear attack. And thousands of kilometres of tunnels were built to house political, military and industrial assets. Today the empty bunkers can be used for cheap housing, restaurants, teenage hangout spots and museums.

Three of Albania's bunkers

 Hoxha supervised an overwhelming cult of personality and a totally centralised, authoritarian form of decision-making. He was widely portrayed as a genius who commented on a wide range of life issues from culture to economics to military matters. Statues were erected in cities across the country and portraits were painted on the front of buildings. Textbooks had to include quotations from him on the subjects being studied.

Why was Hoxha worried about outside treachery? He conducted yet another mil­itary coup in 1974 where half of his own Central Committee members were executed! And in old age, Hoxha apparently murdered the Mehmet Shehu, the prime minister and minister of the interior who had been Hoxha’s ally since WW2 ended. With Shehu gone, 76 year old Hoxha could die in peace in 1985. Hoxha’s newest close ally, Ramiz Alia, immediately became Communist leader of Albania and the country's head of state. From a primitive Ottoman province to a modern industrial­ised country in only 40 years – perhaps Hoxha believed mass political murder was a small price to pay.

The National Historical Museum in Tirana might be helpful. Opened in 1981, the Museum asks visitors to inspect the Pavilions of Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Independence, Iconography, National Liberation Anti-fascist War, Communist Terror and Mother Teresa. Above the entrance of the Museum is a large mural mosaic titled The Albanians that features citizens at various times in the country's history. Still, we must ask, how much was the museum itself a product of Hoxha’s regime?

heroic Communist artwork on the facade of
the National Historical Museum in Tirana

Hoxha portrait,
Palace of Culture in Scanderberg Square, Tirana
opened in 1963.