Bernd Fischer: Albania and Enver Hoxha's Legacy
[Bernd Fischer is a specialist in Albanian history. He is the author of Albania at War, 1939-45 (C Hurst, 1999), and Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian rulers of Southeast Europe (C Hurst, 2007).]
When Enver Hoxha, Albania's long-term Stalinist dictator, was buried with honour under the socialist-realist statue of Mother Albania in the martyrs' cemetery in Tirana, the date of his death - 11 April 1985 - was omitted from his tombstone. Ramiz Alia, who followed Hoxha as secretary of the ruling Albanian Party of Labour (ALP), was responsible for the omission; he argued (in a spirit that would find an echo today in Pyongyang) that such a man could never die.
It is arguably Albania’s misfortune that as the country marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Hoxha's death - with debate and reflection rather than the enforced festivity of his era - that a plausible case can be made that Ramiz Alia was right.
True, the most brutal aspects of the Hoxha regime (and of the one-party regime that lasted until 1990-91) are long gone: including its state-of-siege isolation, its endless political murders, its prisons, its forced-labour camps, and the hardships of long internal exile. But some aspects of its authoritarian rule live on: the elite’s general disregard for the well-being of the people and for the best interests of the state, brutal and intolerant politics, and the lack of a rule of law. These have obstructed the path to Albania's self-declared goals of establishing a functioning democracy, a sustainable market economy, and Euro-Atlantic integration....
Enver Hoxha’s death left a vacuum that was filled by his protege Ramiz Alia. The new leader was immediately faced with increasingly serious economic and social problems, the product of a dangerous cocktail: over-centralisation compounded by inept and ideological decision-making, high birthrates, rural overpopulation, and widespread unemployment. These woes were further exacerbated by inefficient enterprises, rampant corruption and constant shortages....
Sali Berisha, Albania's leading cardiologist, had been both a communist and a candidate-member of the party’s central committee. But by the time he became Albania’s president in 1992, he saw the anti-communist banner as the wave of the future and found revenge against former communists useful in distracting the population from his own record. But leaving Hoxha behind was more difficult than anyone had anticipated....
Indeed, his Democratic Party became a personal vehicle for his own power as (like Hoxha) he refused to permit internal dissent and struck out against challengers with everything at his disposal (even violence), whatever the cost to Albania's fledgling democracy. His election campaigns recalled communist-era propaganda, with Berisha branding the opposition as “terrorists” and a “red front” subsidised by Albania's traditional enemies, the Serbs and the Greeks. His security forces and thugs were deployed to disrupt opposition rallies, and to harass and assault opposition supporters, candidates and even the press....
The fatal combination of these policies and the inept handling of a scandal surrounding a pyramid investment-scheme, swept Sali Berisha away in 1997 - amid what could be considered Europe's first successful popular armed uprising since the 19th century.
The growing unrest spread into full-scale rebellion while the army disintegrated. Berisha's brutal secret police could not prevent people from raiding abandoned armouries and seizing close to a million Kalashnikov assault-weapons, along with tanks, artillery-pieces and even sophisticated Chinese surface-to-air missiles. The ensuing violence caused thousands of deaths, forcing Berisha to resign in disgrace and hold new elections. The opposition came to power in a process that was a democratic disgrace, but the international community had no choice but to endorse the outcome....
The Enver Hoxha years were a story of personal and elite survival, ruthless power, pitiless repression, regular purges, and ideological zealotry. A quarter-century after his death and nearly two decades after the fall of communism, Albania is still struggling to complete its democratic transition. Its fulfilment would be the old dictator’s last and most definitive defeat.
Read entire article at openDemocracy
When Enver Hoxha, Albania's long-term Stalinist dictator, was buried with honour under the socialist-realist statue of Mother Albania in the martyrs' cemetery in Tirana, the date of his death - 11 April 1985 - was omitted from his tombstone. Ramiz Alia, who followed Hoxha as secretary of the ruling Albanian Party of Labour (ALP), was responsible for the omission; he argued (in a spirit that would find an echo today in Pyongyang) that such a man could never die.
It is arguably Albania’s misfortune that as the country marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Hoxha's death - with debate and reflection rather than the enforced festivity of his era - that a plausible case can be made that Ramiz Alia was right.
True, the most brutal aspects of the Hoxha regime (and of the one-party regime that lasted until 1990-91) are long gone: including its state-of-siege isolation, its endless political murders, its prisons, its forced-labour camps, and the hardships of long internal exile. But some aspects of its authoritarian rule live on: the elite’s general disregard for the well-being of the people and for the best interests of the state, brutal and intolerant politics, and the lack of a rule of law. These have obstructed the path to Albania's self-declared goals of establishing a functioning democracy, a sustainable market economy, and Euro-Atlantic integration....
Enver Hoxha’s death left a vacuum that was filled by his protege Ramiz Alia. The new leader was immediately faced with increasingly serious economic and social problems, the product of a dangerous cocktail: over-centralisation compounded by inept and ideological decision-making, high birthrates, rural overpopulation, and widespread unemployment. These woes were further exacerbated by inefficient enterprises, rampant corruption and constant shortages....
Sali Berisha, Albania's leading cardiologist, had been both a communist and a candidate-member of the party’s central committee. But by the time he became Albania’s president in 1992, he saw the anti-communist banner as the wave of the future and found revenge against former communists useful in distracting the population from his own record. But leaving Hoxha behind was more difficult than anyone had anticipated....
Indeed, his Democratic Party became a personal vehicle for his own power as (like Hoxha) he refused to permit internal dissent and struck out against challengers with everything at his disposal (even violence), whatever the cost to Albania's fledgling democracy. His election campaigns recalled communist-era propaganda, with Berisha branding the opposition as “terrorists” and a “red front” subsidised by Albania's traditional enemies, the Serbs and the Greeks. His security forces and thugs were deployed to disrupt opposition rallies, and to harass and assault opposition supporters, candidates and even the press....
The fatal combination of these policies and the inept handling of a scandal surrounding a pyramid investment-scheme, swept Sali Berisha away in 1997 - amid what could be considered Europe's first successful popular armed uprising since the 19th century.
The growing unrest spread into full-scale rebellion while the army disintegrated. Berisha's brutal secret police could not prevent people from raiding abandoned armouries and seizing close to a million Kalashnikov assault-weapons, along with tanks, artillery-pieces and even sophisticated Chinese surface-to-air missiles. The ensuing violence caused thousands of deaths, forcing Berisha to resign in disgrace and hold new elections. The opposition came to power in a process that was a democratic disgrace, but the international community had no choice but to endorse the outcome....
The Enver Hoxha years were a story of personal and elite survival, ruthless power, pitiless repression, regular purges, and ideological zealotry. A quarter-century after his death and nearly two decades after the fall of communism, Albania is still struggling to complete its democratic transition. Its fulfilment would be the old dictator’s last and most definitive defeat.