$Unique_ID{COW00063}
$Pretitle{298}
$Title{Albania
Chapter 6B.   Political Dynamics}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Eugene K. Keefe, Sarah Jane Elpern, Willaim Giloane, James M. Moore, Jr., Weston White}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{party
organizations
central
people's
state
committee
political
albania
union
hoxha}
$Date{1971}
$Log{}
Country:     Albania
Book:        Albania, A Country Handbook
Author:      Eugene K. Keefe, Sarah Jane Elpern, Willaim Giloane, James M. Moore, Jr., Weston White
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1971

Chapter 6B.   Political Dynamics

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

     As officially defined by the Constitution, the state is a form of
dictatorship of the proletariat. The power of the state constitutionally
belongs to the workers and peasants, represented locally by the people's
councils, which supposedly make up the political base of the state. In
legislation and in official documents dealing with elections, it has been
stated that the people not only enjoy freedom of choice concerning candidates
but also have the right to supervise the work of their elected representatives
and the right of recall if they are dissatisfied. In practice, such people's
democracy does not exist, and the dictatorship of the proletariat-that is, the
rule of the people over themselves-is a facade behind which the real
dictatorship of the Party elite operates.

     The Constitution provides for direct, secret vote to elect
representatives to all governmental bodies, from the people's councils in
villages to the highest organ of the state, the People's Assembly. The voters
themselves do nothing on their part to be registered in the electoral lists.
These lists are drawn up for every type of election by the people's councils
and are supposed to include all citizens who reach age eighteen on or before
the day of the elections.

     The democratic character of these elections is allegedly guaranteed by
the procedure or right for nominating candidates. This right legally belongs
to the Party, the Democratic Front, trade unions, and social organizations and
is exercised by the central organs of these organizations and their organs in
the districts. Nominations, with Party approval, also are made at the general
meetings of workers and employees in the enterprises and state farms, of
soldiers in their detachments, and of peasants in their agricultural
collectives or villages.

     All meetings for the selection of candidates are held under the auspices
of the Democratic Front, in whose name all the candidates are presented for
election. The only legal requirement of a candidate is that he enjoy the right
to election, that the organization which proposes him confirm its intention in
writing, and that he accept his candidacy for that of the Assembly was a
"vivid expression of the socialist demochim. In practice, all candidates are
preselected, and the meetings simply confirm the Party choice.

     Political power, according to official documents, is thus vested in the
broad masses who, through various organizations to which they belong, choose
the candidates to be elected to all state organs, including the people's
courts. The candidate who receives one more vote than half the number of
voters registered in the electoral zone is proclaimed the winner and becomes,
in theory, the agent representing the sovereignty of the people.

     The highest organ of state power, according to official dogma, is the
People's Assembly, composed of representatives elected by direct vote who
exercise the sovereignty and will of the people. The aim of the People's
Assembly, this dogma alleges, is to carry out the main functions of directing
and supervising the people's democratic state. The Assembly's sphere of action
includes practically all the political, economic, social, and cultural fields
through the passage of laws. "These laws," according to an official document
published in 1964, "on their part determine the juridical form of the line
pursued by the Albanian Workers' Party in building socialism in Albania." The
same document that stated that the laws passed by the Assembly were but the
juridical form of Party policies declared that the concentration of all state
power in the hands of the Assembly was a "vivid expression of the socialist
democracy of the state system of the People's Republic of Albania."

     Another document, published in 1963, asserted that economic power and
political power were indivisible and that a combination of the two formed the
state power. The representative nature of the socialist state, the document
declared, was rooted in the socialist economic basis of the country, derived
from the state ownership of the means of production and from the property of
the cooperative and collective organizations, principally the agricultural
collectives. All mines and subsoil resources, waters, forests and pastures,
industrial enterprises, the means of air, rail, and sea communications, post,
telegraph, telephones, radio broadcasting stations, and banks had become the
property of the people.

     It is thus the contention of the regime that the creation of the
socialist sector of the economy not only placed all economic levers in the
hands of the people but also altered old relations in production, resulting in
a planned organization of the economy. Economic planning, it is argued, makes
possible the elimination of exploitation of man by man. Also, through the
planned organization of the economy the people are guaranteed the right to
work.

     With a view to regulating relations in work, the regime passed a series
of legislative acts that were subsequently embodied in the Labor Code. As a
result of this legislation, it was asserted, conflicts between a worker and an
enterprise were no longer possible, for the enterprise was the property of the
state and the state was of and for the worker. Accordingly, both the worker
and the enterprise strove to achieve the same results, namely, to increase
production and improve the material and cultural conditions of all the
workers. To assure their own welfare, the workers in turn had to assume
certain obligations; they were dutybound to guard socialist property, which
was the "sacred and inviolate basis of the people's democracy, the source of
power of the homeland and of the welfare and culture of the workers."

     The theoretical mechanism evolved for the exercise of power through
freely elected representatives had no resemblance to the actual locus of power
and the state institutions created to wield this power. The source of
political and economic power was neither the workers and peasants nor the
organs presumably elected by them. A perfect example was the actual power and
influence of the People's Assembly, to which official documents attributed the
power to appoint all the higher state organs and on which all state organs
were dependent. In actual practice, the People's Assembly held only two
sessions a year, each lasting about two days; the delegates heard reports made
by Party and government officials, approved without debate all bills and
appointments presented to them, and then adjourned. The Presidium of the
People's Assembly was also given wide constitutional powers in the fields of
legislation and control of the state apparatus, but in reality its main
function was to promulgate draft laws submitted to it by the Council of
Ministers.

The Albanian Workers' Party

National Organization

     The real source of all power was the Party, whose all-powerful Politburo
was the country's top policymaking body. But even this body, composed of
eleven regular and five candidate members, was under the firm control of Party
First Secretary Enver Hoxha, who has headed the Party since it was founded on
November 8, 1941, and Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, who emerged as the military
strategist in the Communist-dominated Army of National Liberation during World
War II.

     Although Hoxha, as first secretary and as the only surviving member of
the small group of Communists who founded the Party, was considered the leader
and the foremost Albanian Marxist-Leninist, he and Shehu have shared almost
equal power since 1949 (see ch. 2, Historical Setting). The real base of their
power has rested in the security and armed forces, and Hoxha and Shehu have
divided this power. As minister of defense until 1953, Hoxha personally
controlled the armed forces, and since then he has controlled them through
Beqir Balluku, his lieutenant (see ch. 9, Internal and External Security).

     Shehu, as minister of the interior from 1948 to 1954, personally
controlled the security forces, composed of the Directorate of State Security
(Drejtorija e Sigurimit te Shtetit, commonly known as the Sigurimi), the
People's Police, and the Frontier Guards. Since then he has controlled them
through his brother-in-law Major General Kadri Hasbiu, who succeeded Shehu as
minister of the interior in 1954 and who still held that position in 1970.

     The top executive branches of the Politburo were the four-man Secretariat
and the various directorates of the Central Committee. In 1970 the Secretariat
was composed of Hoxha as first secretary and Ramiz Alia, Hysni Kapo, and
Xhafer Spahiu as secretaries. Hoxha supervised the whole work of the
Secretariat; the other three secretaries were responsible for general areas of
operation. Alia was responsible for ideological affairs, Kapo for
organizational matters, and Spahiu for the state administration.

     Policy guidelines adopted by the Politburo were passed by the Secretariat
to the appropriate directorate, which elaborated and drafted them in final
form for implementation by the respective Party and state organs. The
directorates had direct connections with all implementing bodies. For
instance, the Directorate of Agitation and Propaganda, known as Agitprop,
issued directives not only to the Agitprop sections of the District Party
Committees but also to all propaganda outlets in the government, mass
organizations, and the armed and security forces.

     The most important directorates were the: Directorate of Cadres and
Organizations, headed by Hysni Kapo, the third ranking man in the Party
hierarchy; Directorate of Agitation and Propaganda, headed by Ramiz Alia;
Directorate of Education and Culture, headed by Nexhmije Hoxha, wife of the
first secretary; Directorate of State Administrative Organs, headed by Llazi
Stratoberdha; and Directorate of Mass Organizations, headed by Politburo
member Adil Carcani.

     When important policy issues were decided by the Politburo, special
commissions were created in the Central Committee to draft implementing
guidance for a specific decision. Thus, for instance, in the spring of 1968
the Politburo decided on a complete reorganization and reorientation of the
country's educational system. A Central Commission on Education was
immediately created in the Party Central Committee; the commission was headed
by Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu and included some fifty experts in the
ideological, academic, and military aspects of education.

     After a year's work the commission completed its report and, in June
1969, submitted it to the Central Committee, which gave its formal stamp of
approval. In December of the same year the government submitted a bill to the
People's Assembly for the reorganization of the educational system; in its
preamble the bill said that it was based on the report of the previous June as
approved by the Party Central Committee (see ch. 5, Social System).

     The Central Committee was the next highest echelon in importance in the
Party organization. In 1970 it was composed of sixty-one regular and
thirty-six candidate members. It was to the Central Committee that the
Politburo submitted its policy decisions for formal approval. As a rule, in
recent years the Central Committee has approved Politburo reports and
decisions with little, if any, debate. But there have been occasions when the
Central Committee has been called upon to decide on issues of the utmost
importance for the country. For example, in February 1948 the Central
Committee was convened to discuss and decide the issue of a possible merger of
Albania with Yugoslavia. Although the forces favoring such a merger were in
the majority, the dissenting voices were sufficient to block the proposed
merger. Another Central Committee meeting, held in September of the same year,
purged the top Party group that had advocated the merger with Yugoslavia. A
similar crucial issue arose in the fall of 1961 on the question of relations
with the Soviet Union. The Central Committee approved the Politburo decision
to break with Moscow and issued a declaration to that effect.

     The Party's ideological principles, tasks, and organizational structure
were delineated in the Party's statute, originally adopted by the First Party
Congress in 1948 and amended several times since then. In it, control by the
Party was detailed specifically, and the statute rather than the Constitution
was the fundamental law of the land. According to the statute, the highest
leading organ of each organization was: the general meeting for the basic
Party organizations; the conference for the Party organizations of districts
and cities; and the congress for the entire Party.

     The guiding principle of the ideological and organizational structure of
the Party was the Leninist dictum known as democratic centralism. As described
in the statute, this principle provided in theory that the leading organs of
the Party were elected from bottom to top at general meetings, conferences,
and congresses; these organs were obliged from time to time to give account of
their activities before their Party organizations.

     Strict Party discipline was to be maintained under any circumstances, the
minority being subject to the majority; decisions were to be reached on the
basis of so-called free discussions but, from the moment a decision was
reached, unanimously or by a majority of votes, all Party members were obliged
to execute it without question; and the decisions of the higher Party organs
were binding on the lower organs. The statute also provided that collective
leadership was the highest principle of the leadership of the Party and that
the elected organs as well as the basic Party organizations examined and
solved collectively all Party problems.

     The Party statute considered the Party Congress as the highest Party
organ. The congress, usually called every four years, heard, examined, and
approved the reports of the Central Committee and of other central Party
organs; reviewed and made changes in the Party program and statute; determined
the Party's tactical line on major policy problems; and elected the Central
Committee and the Central Control and Auditing Commission and fixed the number
of members of these two bodies. In actual practice, however, the Party
Congress merely heard and approved reports submitted by the Politburo.

     According to the statute, the Central Committee, which should meet in
plenum at least once every four months, performed such formal functions as
electing both the Politburo for guiding the affairs of the Central Committee
between sessions and the Secretariat for "guiding the day-to-day affairs of
the Party, especially for organizing the control of the execution of decisions
and for the selection of cadres." During the period between two congresses the
Central Committee guided the activities of the Party; represented the Party in
its relationships with other parties, organizations, and institutions;
organized and guided different Party institutions; named the editors of the
Party's central press organs and granted permission for publication of the
local Party press; distributed the cadres and the means of the Party and
administered the central treasury; and guided and controlled the activities of
the central organs of the people's democratic authority and social
organizations by means of Party groups in them.

Regional Organization

     Regionally, the highest Party organ is the Party Conference at district
and city levels, which is supposed to meet once a year and is comparable to
the Party Congress at the national level. In practice, the periodic Party
Conference becomes a pro forma meeting held for the purpose of displaying
unanimity of opinion. Between conferences, operations are conducted by Party
committees, and real power is exercised by a bureau of each committee that
usually consists of about eleven members, who must first be approved by the
Party Central Committee in Tirana. Bureau membership includes two secretaries
who are the leading Communist officials in the city or district and, by virtue
of their positions, the most powerful individuals.

     The principal functions of the district or city committees are to guide
the activities of all Party organizations in the district or town so as to
assure the precise application of the Party line; approve the establishment of
basic Party organizations; maintain records on members and look after their
ideological and political education; distribute within the district or city
the Party cadres; and administer the Party finances. More importantly, the
district or city committee guides and regulates the activities and work of the
local governmental bodies and social organizations by means of Party groups
within them.

     The statute describes the basic Party organizations as the foundations of
the Party because they serve to link the working masses of the town and
village with the Party. The basic Party organizations are established in
factories and plants, agricultural enterprises, machine tractor stations,
villages, units of the armed and security forces, state administration,
schools, and other work centers where there were no less than three Party
members. When deemed necessary and where there are less than three Party
members, there can be created joint groups of the Party and of the Union of
Albanian Working Youth. These groups are directed by a Party member chosen by
the district or city committee.

     The basic Party organizations are assigned a multitude of duties and
responsibilities. They must ensure that Party orders are fully implemented,
the masses are politically oriented, the Communists obtain the required
ideological and political education, new members are accepted into the Party,
the masses are mobilized in production work, the activities of the mass
organizations are checked and guided, and control is exercised over all
economic sectors and over all local governmental bodies.

     The statute provides that in the armed forces Party affairs are to be
directed by the Political Directorate of the Ministry of People's Defense and
in the Ministry of the Interior they are to be directed by appropriate
political organs. Party organizations in the armed forces operate on the basis
of special instructions issued by the Party's Central Committee. All chiefs of
political branches in military units and installations must be Party members
with no less than five years of membership. The political organs in the
military units are required to maintain close contact with the local Party
committees (see ch. 9, Internal and External Security).

     The latest official figures for Party membership were given by Party
 First Secretary Hoxha in his report to the Fifth Party Congress in 1966. He
placed the total membership at 66,327, of which 3,314 were candidate members.
Since the Fourth Party Congress in 1961 the membership had grown by 12,688.
According to Hoxha, the social composition of the Party membership was as
follows: workers, 32.9 percent; collective farmers, 25.8 percent; private
farmers, 3.2 percent; state, Party, and mass organization officials and armed
forces personnel, 37.2 percent; and students and housewives, 0.9 percent. Of
the total Party membership, women comprised 12.5 percent. Hoxha also said that
nearly 68 percent of all Communists lived in cities and only 32 percent in
villages, despite the fact, he commented, that the rural population was three
times as large as that of the cities.

Party Operations

     A fundamental factor in the Party's exercise of political power and
control is the selection of candidates for all elected positions. Although the
candidates for such elective organs as the People's Assembly, the people's
courts, and the people's councils at all levels are formally nominated by the
meetings of mass organizations or of workers and peasants, they have been, in
fact, handpicked by the local Party organizations and approved by the Party
Central Committee.

     The procedure at all nominating meetings is standard and simple: a list
of candidates, previously prepared by the Party district or city committee, is
read; the qualifications of each candidate are described; and the list is
unanimously approved. Since the first national and local elections held in
1945 in which the list of candidates included non-Party people, lists have
been restricted to Party members only. Veterans of Hoxha's partisan forces of
the so-called War of National Liberation still predominate among candidates
for office.

     A similar situation prevails with regard to the appointment of government
officials. After each national election, the People's Assembly has appointed
a new government. The procedure for this appointment has never varied: at the
first meeting of the new People's Assembly the Party First Secretary has
submitted for approval the list of the new ministers, which invariably has
received unanimous approval. Because of purges in the top echelons of the
Party, especially in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the government list has
undergone several changes. Since the elimination of the pro-Yugoslav faction
in 1948, however, these changes have affected mostly the technical and
economic ministries. The three key posts in the government, however-namely,
those of prime minister, minister of the interior, and minister of defense-
have been consistently held by Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu or their trusted
lieutenants.

     The appointment of all government officials as well as the managers of
the state economic enterprises rested formally with the agencies involved, but
no official has been appointed without the prior approval of the appropriate
Party organization. In reality, all key positions are held by Party cadres who
have been selected and appointed by the Party district or city committees.
The Party statute empowers the basic Party organizations in all governmental
organs and economic enterprises to check and guide the activities of all
officials and to see that they are properly oriented in the political and
ideological fields. The prime requisite in filling these positions is Party
loyalty.

Party Schools

     In 1970 the Party operated a number of schools and courses for
its cadres as well as three research and study institutes, attached to
the Central Committee. The highest school was the V.I. Lenin Institute, headed
by Fiqrete Shehu, wife of the prime minister. It was attended by the higher
and more promising Party members.

     The three Party institutes were the Institute of Marxist-Leninist
Studies, headed by Nexhmije Hoxha, wife of Enver Hoxha; the Institute of Party
History, headed by Ndreci Plasari, who was also editor in chief of the Party's
theoretical monthly, Rruga e Partise (Party Path); and the Institute for
Economic Studies, under the direction of Myqerem Fuga. In addition, there were
a number of secondary Party schools for training low-level Party functionaries
and one-year schools for refresher ideological courses, attended both by Party
officials and leaders of mass organizations.

     The Party also operated intermittently, as the need arose, political
courses and study groups for its activists and propagandists. In 1969, for
example, more than 20,000 study centers were organized throughout the country
for the study of the official, newly published History of the Workers' Party
of Albania. The teaching program of all the Party schools and study centers
included such topics as the importance of Communist education; the origins and
development of Communist morality; socialist attitudes toward work and
property; the importance of patriotic education; the history, theories, and
tactics of the international Communist movement; and the history and statutes
of the Party.

Mass Organizations

     In its exercise of power and control over every phase of the people's
lives, the Party also utilizes several mass, or social, organizations, the
most important of which are the Democratic Front, the Union of Albanian
Working Youth, the Union of Albanian Women, and the United Trade Unions of
Albania. In a speech at the Fourth Congress of the Democratic Front held in
September 1967, Enver Hoxha said that the mass organizations, as components of
the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat were "levers of the Party
for its ties with the masses" and that they carried out their political,
executive, and organizational work in such a way as to enable the Party
directives to be correctly understood and implemented by all segments of the
population.

     Party Secretary Hysni Kapo, in a speech delivered at a Party seminar in
January 1970, declared that the Party carried out its mission through its own
organizations and through the activities of its "levers, the mass
organizations, such as the trade unions, youth, Democratic Front, women's, and
the people's councils," thus revealing that even the people's councils were
mere Party levers. By relying on these powerful levers, Kapo added, the Party
guaranteed its links with the masses and obtained their support for its
policies. He remarked further that, although there were not Communists in
every family in the country, everyone in the family belonged to some kind of
organization.

     The Party has set the implementation of its line as a general primary
goal for all mass organizations. Considered as powerful Party levers, they are
required to convey the Party line to the people and to bring to the Party the
people's attitudes and grievances. As Party instruments they must mobilize,
organize, and orient the people during the process of the building of
socialism. The mass organizations also assist the Party in its control over
the administration and management of state enterprises and initiate new
actions and new movements in all work centers.

     The Party places particular importance on the Union of Albanian Working
Youth, described officially in such terms as the "greatest revolutionary force
of inexhaustible strength," a "strong fighting reserve of the Party," and a
"vital force of our revolution." According to the Party statute, the union
operates directly under the guidance of the Party, and the union's local
organizations are guided and checked by the appropriate district or city Party
committees. Organized in the same way as the Party, the union has parallel
basic organizations, district and city committees, a Central Committee, a
Politburo, and a Central Control and Auditing Commission. In 1967 official
reports credited the youth organization with 210,000 members, ranging in age
from fifteen to twenty-five and, in a few cases, even older.

     The main function of the union is to select and prepare future Party
members. It is also required by the Party to control all Pioneer
organizations, which embrace all children from seven to fourteen years of age;
to see to it that all Party directives and policies are implemented by the
country's youth, especially in schools and in military units; and to mobilize
the youth into so-called voluntary labor brigades to work on production
projects. The Party often gives the union special storm trooper or Red Guard
types of missions to perform. For example, in February 1967 Enver Hoxha
assigned to the organization the mission of shutting down all places of
worship in the country; within a period of a few months, the union had
accomplished its mission.

     The Democratic Front, successor to the National Liberation Front, was
defined by Enver Hoxha, who has headed it since 1945 and was still its
president in 1970, as the greatest political revolutionary organization of the
Albanian people and as a powerful weapon of the Party for the political union
of the people. In 1970 the Democratic Front continued to be a key element in
the Party's control mechanism. Considered officially as the broadest mass
organization, it was supposed to give expression to the political views of the
entire population and to serve as a school for mass political education.

     The tasks and objectives of the Democratic Front, as set forth in its
statute and as constantly reiterated by Party leaders, include the
strengthening of political unity among the people and the mobilizing of the
people for the implementation of Party policies. The spreading of the
Marxist-Leninist ideology is also a task of the front, as is the purging of
any attitudes that are considered backward and reactionary. In essence, the
front is an instrument of the Party, expressly designed for the political
control of the entire population. Enver Hoxha declared in a speech to the
Fourth Congress of the Democratic Front in 1967 that all citizens over age
eighteen were members of the front, including Party members and members of all
other mass organizations.

     The Union of Albanian Women is also referred to as a powerful weapon of
the Party. The union, headed in 1970 by Vito Kapo, wife of Secretary of the
Party Central Committee Hysni Kapo, controls and supervises the political and
social activities of the country's women, handles their ideological training,
and spearheads the Party's campaign for the emancipation of women. The
campaign was launched by Hoxha in June 1967 and renewed in October 1969 in a
Hoxha speech to the Party Central Committee.

     The Union of Albanian Women, according to reports by visitors has a good
record of assistance to the Party in making legal, economic, and social
equality for women a reality. By 1970 women shared responsibility in the
government at all levels, had entered all the professions, and worked side by
side with men for equal pay in most occupations.

     By 1967 the union was able to boast that more than 284,000 women took
part in production in some way, mostly in industrial plants and agricultural
collectives. In the same year there were about 40 women, out of a total of 240
deputies, in the People's Assembly; 1,878 women in the people's councils; and
1,170 in the people's courts.

     Since 1967 task forces of women from the cities have been dispatched to
tour backward regions, particularly the highlands, explaining the Party's line
on the emancipation of Albanian women. Reforms such as giving women equal
rights to inherit property, an equal voice in the people's councils, and equal
political rights, however, have created considerable hostility in a country
where man has traditionally been the master of the family.

     The tasks of the United Trade Unions are similar to those of the
Democratic Front, albeit on a more limited scale. During ceremonies in
February 1970 marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the
trade unions, it was stated that they were created by the Party, that they had
since struggled to implement the Party line, and that they recognized the
Party leadership as the "decisive factor of their force and vitality." It was
stated further that they were created jointly with the dictatorship of the
proletariat for its consolidation and defense and as an important component
part of this dictatorship.

     In a conference in Tirana on February 10, 1970, Gogo Nushi, then
president of the trade unions, boasted that they had become powerful levers of
the Party in implementing the Party line among all the country's workers, who
had grown from some 30,000 in February 1945 to about 400,000 in February 1970.
At the same conference Politburo member Adil Carcani, in a speech dealing with
the functions of the trade unions, attributed to them the task of exercising
control over all workers.

     Other duties and responsibilities of the trade unions in 1970, according
to Tonin Jakova, General Secretary of the General Council of the United Trade
Unions of Albania, were to carry out the political and ideological education
of the workers; to influence all the other strata of the population so that
the class ideology should gradually become the sole ideology of the society;
to broaden their control and sphere of action in all fields of
life-political, ideological, cultural, artistic, social, economic, and
educational; to increase labor productivity by increasing work norms; and to
struggle against old traditions and backward customs, with emphasis on
religious beliefs. In listing the duties and responsibilities of the trade
unions not a word was said about their safeguarding the interests of the
workers, such as improving their living and bargaining with the management.

     Organizationally, the United Trade Unions of Albania was composed in 1970
of three general unions-the Trade Union of Workers of Industry and
Construction, consisting of workers in industry, mines, construction, and
transportation; the Trade Union of Workers of Education and Trade, made up of
the workers in the state administration, trade, health, education, and
culture; and the Trade Union of Workers of Agriculture and Procurements,
composed of workers in agriculture, forestry, and procurements. Over 2,000
individual trade union organizations existed in enterprises, factories,
plants, offices, schools, and other work centers and cultural and social
institutions.

     In the exercise of political power through the Party, the mass
organizations, the state organs, and the security and armed forces, the Tirana
rulers have consistently followed Stalinist methods of rule. In major policy
speeches these rulers have in recent years often praised Stalin's political
system and have consistently attempted to emulate it in Albania. As Zeri i
Popullit (Voice of the People) phrased it on April 13, 1963, "without
reinstating Stalin and his work, [throughout the Communist world] our
revolutionary movement and the cause of Marxism-Leninism can make no
headway."

FOREIGN RELATIONS

     After centuries of foreign domination, Albania in 1912 was ill prepared
for independence, and the chaos brought by the Balkan wars and by World War I
allowed little opportunity for the development of statehood. One of its first
moves in foreign relations was to secure support for its independence from
some of the great powers of Europe. In the years between World War I and World
War II, Albanian foreign policy was dominated by the Italians.

     In the years immediately after World War II, Albania was a satellite of
Yugoslavia, which in turn was a satellite of the Soviet Union. This situation
deprived Albania of any initiative in foreign affairs, and it remained out of
the mainstream of Eastern European affairs until 1948, when ties with
Yugoslavia were broken and Albania became a full-fledged satellite of the
Soviet Union. Albania's position vis-a-vis the other satellite countries was
improved when it came under the direct tutelage of the Soviet Union; it then
became the recipient of economic aid, military assistance, and military and
economic advisers, not only from its powerful sponsor but also from the other
Communist nations. In time it also became a member of the Warsaw Pact and the
Council for Economic Mutual Assistance.

     Soviet influence in Albanian affairs was pervasive from 1948 to 1960 but,
from a material point of view, Albania benefited from the relationship. The
Soviets canceled a large debt and sent aid and advisers to help develop the
backward Albania economy. Internally, the ruling elite, headed by Enver Hoxha,
maintained a rigid regime of the Stalinist type. In foreign affairs the
country became a cold war participant completely accepting directions from
Moscow.

     Its thirteen years as a Soviet satellite were years of turmoil for
Albania, particularly after the death of Joseph Stalin and the rise of Nikita
Khrushchev to the Soviet leadership. Khrushchev's policy of seeking a
rapprochement with Yugoslavia worried both Hoxha, the Party leader, and Shehu,
the premier, because of the difficulties they had encountered in purging their
Party of a strong pro-Yugoslav faction while in the process of securing their
own positions of power. In the Albanian view Stalin had been a great hero, and
Tito of Yugoslavia, a great villain. Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin and
wooing of Tito brought consternation to Tirana, but reliance on Soviet aid
apparently tempered Albanian reactions.

     During the 1950s the Albanian leadership, coaxed by Moscow, made some
attempts at restoring normal relations with Yugoslavia. After the riots in
Poland and the revolt in Hungary in 1956, however, the Albanians raised
strident voices against Yugoslavia's so-called revisionism-that is the alleged
perversion of Marxism-Leninism-which they asserted was the basis for the
troubles afflicting Eastern Europe. According to official Albanian dogma the
two greatest evils in the world were revisionism and imperialism, personified,
respectively, by Yugoslavia and the United States. Toward the end of the 1950s
it became apparent to Hoxha and Shehu that they were closer ideologically to
Peking than to Moscow, and only the latter's economic aid prevented an open
break.

     In 1960, as Khrushchev sought to line up Communist parties for a
condemnation of Communist China, Albania refused to participate and, by the
end of the year, the Soviet-Albanian dispute was made known openly. By the end
of 1961 diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed, Soviet
aid ceased, and Soviet advisers and technicians left Albania, to be replaced
by those of Communist China. Although not formally breaking off diplomatic
relations, the other Eastern European Communist countries also halted aid
programs and withdrew advisers. Khrushchev then became the object of violent
attacks in the Albanian press, being castigated as more of a revisionist than
Tito. Khrushchev counterattacked to defend himself but, in addition, used
Albania as a proxy for violent propaganda blasts that were obviously directed
against the Chinese Communists.

     After the final break with the Soviet Union, Albania entered the third
stage of its Communist existence-the alliance with Communist China. Stages one
and two had been as a satellite, first of Yugoslavia and then of the Soviet
Union. In stage three, if not a satellite, it was a client of a powerful
sponsor. Albania, throughout the 1960s and into 1970, continued to require the
economic support of an outside power. Communist China has provided that
support, though apparently on a much reduced scale.

     In return for Chinese support the Albanians accept the Chinese view of
world affairs and speak for their sponsor in Eastern Europe and in the United
Nations. Albania successfully defied Moscow, but its internal and
international positions remained weak. In 1968 Hoxha withdrew his country from
the Warsaw Pact in protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia, but this
was primarily a symbolic move because Albania had not participated in Warsaw
Pact affairs since 1961.

     By 1970 Albania was attempting to normalize relations with its Balkan
neighbors, but its main propaganda thrusts continued to be against revisionism
and imperialism. Overtures toward both Greece and Yugoslavia were made in
1970, which may indicate that the Hoxha regime recognized the futility and
danger of an isolationist policy. Official attitudes toward the Soviet Union
remained as they had been for ten years-strident and abusive-but better
relations were being sought among Eastern European nations as well as with
some non-Communist states. Seemingly the regime recognized that Communist
China was a distant ally, that the Chinese could not support the Albanian
economy, and that, if Albania was to remain a viable national entity, it would
have to relate to its European neighbors and, in effect, become a part of
Europe.