Hoxha, Enver 1908-1985

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HOXHA, Enver 1908-1985

PERSONAL:

Name is pronounced "Hod-ja"; born October 16, 1908, in Gjirokastër, Albania; died April 11, 1985, in Tiranë, Albania; married; wife's name, Nexhmije. Education: Studied at the Frech School in Korcë, Albania, the American Technical School in Tiranë, Albania, University of Montpellier, France, and at the University of Brussels.

CAREER:

Ruler of Albania, 1944-85. L'Humanité, France, journalist, 1930-34; secretary to Albanian consulate general, Brussels, Belgium, 1934-36; teacher in Korcë, Albania, 1936-39; shopkeeper, Tiranë, Albania, 1939-41; Albanian Communist Party (later Party of Labor of Albania), founder, 1941; secretary general, 1943-48; led national liberation struggle, 1939-44; prime minister, 1944-54; commander of armed forces, 1944-54; minister of foreign affairs, 1946-53; secretary general of Party of Labor of Albania, 1948-54; central committee, first secretary, 1954, president of Democratic Front.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Twice decorated as Hero of the People, Albania.

WRITINGS:

Speech Delivered at the Meeting of the Electors of the Constituency No. 179, [Tiranë, Albania], 1962.

Twenty Years of New Socialist Albania: Speech Delivered at the Solemn Meeting Dedicated to the Twentieth Anniversary of the Liberation of Albania, Naim Frashëri Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1964.

Report on the Activity of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania: Submitted to the Fifth Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania on November 1, 1966, Naim Frashëri (Tiranë, Albania), 1966.

Speeches: On Further Revolutionizing Our Party and the Life of Our Country as a Whole (Volumes 2-4), Naim Frashëri Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1969-1974.

It Is in the Party-People-State Power Unity That Our Strength Lies, Naim Frashëri Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1970.

Report on the Activity of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania: Submitted to the Sixth Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, November 1, 1971, Naim Frashëri Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1971.

Study Marxist-Leninist Theory Linking It Closely with Revolutionary Practice, Naim Frashëri Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1971.

The Party of Labor of Albania in Battle with Modern Revisionism: Speeches and Articles, Naim Frashëri Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1972.

Selected Works, six volumes, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1974-1987.

Report on the Role and Tasks of the Democratic Front for the Complete Triumph of Socialism in Albania: Submitted at the Fourth Congress of the Democratic Front of Albania, September 14, 1967, second edition, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1974.

Enver Hoxha: Report to the Sixth Congress of the Albanian Party of Labor: Summary, Albania Report (New York, NY), 1975.

Our Policy Is an Open Policy, the Policy of Proletarian Principles: Speech Delivered at the Meeting with the Electors of the Tirana No. 209 Precinct, on October 3, 1974, second revised edition, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1975.

Albania Challenges Khrushchev Revisionism: Speeches, Reports, Letters, Radiograms, June-December 1960, pertaining to the Moscow Conference of the Eighty-one Communist and Workers' Parties, Gamma Publishing (New York, NY), 1976.

Report on the Activity of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania: Submitted to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, November 1, 1976, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1976.

Speeches, Conversations, and Articles, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1977.

Conversation with Chou En-Lai, Vice-Chairman of the CC of the Chinese Communist Party and Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1977.

Yugoslav "Self-Administration:" A Capitalist Theory and Practice, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1978.

Proletarian Democracy Is Genuine Democracy, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1978.

Albania Is Forging Ahead Confidently and Unafraid, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1978.

Reflections on China: Extracts from the Political Diary, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1979.

Imperialism and the Revolution, World View Publications (Chicago, IL), 1979.

With Stalin: Memoirs, Norman Bethune Institute (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1980.

The Khrushchevites: Memoirs, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1980.

Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1980.

The Anglo-American Threat to Albania: Memoirs of the National Liberation War, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1982.

Laying the Foundations of the New Albania: Memoirs and Historical Notes, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1984.

Two Friendly Peoples: Excerpts from the Political Diary and Other Documents on Albanian-Greek Relations, 1941-1984, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1985.

The Superpowers, 1959-1984: Extracts from the Political Diary, 8 Nëntori Publishing (Tiranë, Albania), 1986.

The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs of Enver Hoxha, edited and introduced by Jon Halliday, Chatto & Windus (London, England), 1986.

SIDELIGHTS:

Enver Hoxha was a school teacher before he founded the Albanian Communist Party, later called the Party of Labor of Albania, and he ruled his country for more than four decades. Soon after his death in 1985, as a Boston Globe editorial writer noted, Hoxha "earned an epitaph similar to that of his hero, Stalin: He killed off all his old comrades, ruled like an oriental despot, and died in bed."

Hoxha was born in Albania near the Greek border to a working-class Muslim family, and he studied in Albania, France, and Belgium. In 1930, after losing his scholarship to the University of Montpellier, he moved to Paris, where he joined the Communist Party and began writing for the party newspaper. His articles included attacks on Albania's King Zog I. Hoxha also served as secretary to the Albanian consulate in Brussels. He returned to Albania in 1936 and taught for three years before he was dismissed for his subversive activities.

When Italy invaded Albania in 1939, Hoxha refused to join the Fascist party that supported the newly appointed puppet regime. He opened a tobacco shop in Tiranë and continued to be active in the Communist party, organizing the Albanian Communist Party after Albania was partitioned by Germany and Italy in 1941. After the Italians fell and the Germans withdrew, Hoxha and his guerrillas took control of the country, and by the end of the war, Albania was a Communist republic under the protection of Yugoslavia. Hoxha became prime minister, as well as minister of foreign affairs and minister of defense, and he played Yugoslavia and the Soviet Republic against each other, his shrewd backing of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin enabling him to retain control of Albania.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Hoxha's hard-line Marxist-Leninist regime eliminated its nationalist and royalist opponents and imposed a reign of police terror in order to collectivize agriculture, suppress organized religion, and oversee all social, cultural, and educational activities. After the break between Yugoslavia's Tito and Stalin, Albania adopted a strong pro-Soviet position and used its alliance with Moscow as a counterweight to potential pressure from Belgrade. Hoxha built up an elaborate personality cult based on the Stalin model, and maintained it even after Stalin's death. The political and economic reforms that took effect in the Soviet Union and other East European states did not spill over into Albania. Although Hoxha relinquished his governmental titles in 1953 and 1954, he retained his position as leader of the renamed Communist Party of Albania—now the Party of Labor of Albania. Albania's relations with the Kremlin deteriorated under Hoxha. During a Communist summit in 1960, Hoxha humiliated Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev by breaking with Moscow.

The 1960s saw an Albanian version of China's Cultural Revolution, closely controlled by Hoxha. Hoxha spoke for the liberation of women and elimination of bureaucracy. He also led a drive against religion and in 1967 declared Albania to be the "first atheist state in the world." He attempted to form ties with Maoist China, which was seen as the model of authentic Marxism-Leninism, but these efforts fell apart after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Chinese aid to Albania fell off as Beijing improved its relations with the United States and other capitalist countries. Hoxha maintained his standing with hard-line Communist regimes like North Korea and Cuba, as well as anti-American, non-Communist countries in the Third World.

Hoxha produced volumes of speeches, papers, reports, letters, memoirs, and opinions, much of which has been translated into English. The best of his six volumes of memoirs is collected in The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs of Enver Hoxha, edited by Jon Halliday. A common theme of Hoxha's writings is Albania as the one true Marxist state, and he consistently defends his positions and denigrates those of his enemies. Foreign Affairs reviewer John C. Campbell noted that "the accounts of conversations which the editor has selected for this volume are both fascinating and revealing." Greg Chamberlain wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Halliday "has done Hoxha a favor by editing some of his six volumes of memoirs down to digestible proportions, thus giving us a fascinating glimpse of life at the top of international Communism through the eyes of one of its most intelligent leaders."

Hoxha's reign came to an end when he died in Tiranë in 1985. He was replaced by Alia, who initiated glastnost-style reforms and began to reach out to West European states.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Hoxha, Enver, The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs of Enver Hoxha, edited and introduced by Jon Halliday, Chatto & Windus (London, England), 1986.

PERIODICALS

Eastern European Quarterly, September, 1997, Isa Blumi, "The Politics of Culture and Power: The Roots of Hoxha's Postwar State," p. 379; fall, 1999, Isa Blumi, "Hoxha's Class War: The Cultural Revolution and State Reformation, 1961-1971," p. 303.

EuroBusiness, June, 1993, Justin Keay, "Life after Hoxha," p. 42.

Foreign Affairs, spring, 1988, John C. Campbell, review of The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs of Enver Hoxha, p. 886.

National Review, July 14, 1989, Anthony Daniels, "In the Shadows," p. 24.

New York Times Book Review, October 18, 1987, Greg Chamberlain, review of The Artful Albanian.

Time, December 1, 1986, Thomas A. Sancton, "The Eagle Spreads Its Wings; New Leaders Edge Cautiously toward the Outside World," p. 46; March 4, 1991, "Not Forever and Enver," p. 57.

U.S. News and World Report, May 11, 1987, Robin Knight, "Albania Peeks out, Never Forgetting 'Life Is Earnest,'" p. 36.