Dictator of the Month:
August, 2001Dictator of the Month:
August, 2001
| Enver
Hoxha
Take me to the picture gallery Fact Sheet Name: Enver Hoxha
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Biography
Enver Hoxha was born in Gjirokastër on 16 October, 1908 to middle class Muslim parents in the erstwhile Ottoman Empire; his father was a landowner and textiles merchant who had traveled considerably for business in Europe and the USA. Starting at the young age of 4 he was influenced greatly by his uncle Hyen Hoxha, who was a fervent socialist and devout Albanian nationalist, who had campaigned zealously for Albanian independence from the Ottomans. Around his time dissent among Albanians increased, as several uprisings were quashed and the Young Turks clamped down on Albanian nationalism. Widespread revolt ensued in 1911, and by May 1912 Albanian forces captured Skopje, the capitol of Macedonia; the coincident First Balkan War forced the Ottoman Turks to acquiesce with the demands of the Albanians for an independent state. On 28 November, 1912 Albania declared itself independent. Enver Hoxha's primary and secondary schooling were given in Gjirokastër, and after that he enrolled in the best college prep school in Albania, the National Lycée in Korçë, where he was exposed to Communism. He attended the American Technical School in Tirana and went on to go on a state scholarship to study natural sciences at the University of Montpellier in France in 1930, attending meetings of the French Communist Party, but dropped out in 1931 and moved to Paris to study Philosophy at the Sorbonne, where he became an avid follower of Joseph Stalin. In 1934 he moved on to the University of Brussels, where he studied law while working as secretary to the Albanian consulate general in Brussels. Eventually he was forced to leave his consular post after his Communist sympathies were discovered. Returning to Albania in 1936, Hoxha became a French teacher in Korcë and joined a Communist cell in Albania. When Italy invaded Albania on 07 April, 1939, Hoxha refused to become a member of the Fascist Party and was dismissed from teaching, so he went on to open a tobacco shop in Tirana, which also served as a front for his Communist cell, which continued until authorities discovered the activities in the shop and closed it down, forcing Hoxha to flee. In the same year, Yugoslavian Communists help the Albanians found the Albanian Communist Party, with Hoxha becoming the Secretary of the Central Committee. On 23 October, 1944 he became the Prime Minister of Albania and supreme commander and of the National Liberation Front with the rank of Colonel-General. In the same year the Germans evacuated Albania, leaving it as an independent state. It is important to note what the state of Albania was at the end of World War II; the life expectancy in Albania was less than 40 years, and illiteracy was between 80-85%, with the economy largely feudalist. Hoxha introduced widespread reforms in Albania; communism and collectivism of agriculture began to be implemented on a wide scale in Albania, with the de facto feudalist system dismantled. At the same time there began an enormous push to industrialize and modernize the country, with power lines being extended to rural districts, campaigns developed to promote Albanian cultural programmes, improve education and eliminate illiteracy and the creation of a universal health care system to guarantee health care to the population and to control epidemic diseases. And in fact the reforms got results; hydroelectric power plants were built, cities and industrial complexes would spring up in the countryside, and swamp and other land reclamation projects would literally change the countryside. Primary and secondary education were also guaranteed to all students and educational standards improved markedly. However these reforms all came at a high price, as Hoxha, the still-devout Stalinist, employed strong-arm tactics that left thousands exiled, incarcerated or dead. The communists tolerated no opposition, and within the first two weeks of the Communist government's rule, more than 600 opposition leaders had been executed, and all political parties other than the Communist Party had been banned. Purges would continue through Hoxha's entire rule up until 1981, and although exact figures of victims of his regime are not obtainable, it is safe to assume that numbers would be well into the thousands. His dreaded Sigurimi secret police was extremely brutal and successfully kept the country living in a state of constant terror, practicing regular arrests, torture, and by shipping many thousands of people off to labour camps. Churches and mosques were closed, all religion was absolutely forbidden, even to the point of banning names with religious significance. Private land was confiscated from the wealthy and foreign property in Albania taken over by the government. In fact Albania proceeded to become completely isolated from the rest of the world, in an attempt to defend her sovereignty from foreign influence. Despite the extremely oppressive policies of Hoxha, a few points should be kept in mind. Firstly, Hoxha was an extreme nationalist and very patriotic to the cause of independent Albania; secondly he was a devout communist/ socialist and held the hard line throughout his whole life. Convinced that Tito was ultimately trying to turn Albania into a satellite state of Yugoslavia and perhaps even a Yugoslavian republic, Hoxha broke off relations with one-time Yugoslavia in 1948, after the schism between Yugoslavia and the USSR ended up in Yugoslavia's expulsion from Cominform and the break of relations with the USSR. Hoxha responded by moving even closer to Stalin and the USSR. In fact when Nikita Kruschev denounced Stalin in 1956 it infuriated Hoxha to the extent that he shunned the Soviet Union, establishing ties with the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong in 1960, ultimately resulting in the cessation of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Albania in 1961. Hoxha was an outward supporter of the Chinese government, and even attempted his own cultural revolution similar to Mao's, sending office workers and bureaucrats into the fields and factories. At the same time a massive push to defend Albania against Soviet invasion led to the building of thousands of pillboxes along the Albanian border. After the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia Albania severely denounced the USSR publicly and pulled out of the Warsaw Pact and COMECON in 1968. Despite massive foreign aid from the Chinese to Albania, relations with the Chinese were often strained due to ideological differences, finally after Mao's death in 1976, relations began to quickly decline, as Hoxha became critical of the new Chinese regime. The Chinese responded by cutting foreign aid to Albania until finally in 1978, Albania and China broke off relations with each other. Now bereft of allies in the world, Hoxha would go on to run Albania as a completely diplomatically isolated country, stressing self-sufficiency for Albania. This would unfortunately not prove to be tenable, and productivity would soon start a steady fall, leading the economy into a downward spiral through the 1980's until after the death of Hoxha, when it would completely collapse. In 1981, among another series of purges, Hoxha transitioned day to day leadership duties to Ramiz Alia. By this time, despite the fact that Albania had by far the lowest standard of living in all of Europe, the Albanian population had been so isolated from foreign information that they believed that they had the highest standard of living in Europe. Hoxha's health began to worsen in the 1980's, he was diagnosed with diabetes and then suffered from strokes in 1983 and 1984. Finally on 09 April, 1985 at 09.oo he suffered from a heart attack for which he would never regain consciousness. He slipped into a coma and finally died in the presence of his family members at 02.oo on 11 April, 1985. Although buried with state honours at the time of his death, his body was eventually exhumed and the red marble gravestone "recycled" for a memorial to British soldiers who died in Albania during the second World War. Original article by www.dictatorofthemonth.com
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