Enver Hoxha
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| Opiates for the masses |
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“”Like his country, Hoxha is full of surprises. Instead of being a rough, tough mountain chieftain, he is a former schoolteacher and was the pampered son of a well-to-do Moslem merchant. Though he has the mentality of a brigand, his manners are those of a cultivated bourgeois and reflect his education at universities in France and Belgium.
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| —Time, 22 December 1961[1] |
Enver Hoxha (pron. En-vair Hode-ja)[note 1] (1908–1985) was the Jedi[3] Stalinist dictator of Albania (from 1944-1985) and author of many[note 2] exercises in sectarian, doctrinaire hairsplitting like Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism.[5]
Under his long administration, he oversaw the economic and social transformation of Albania from a feudal relic which was formerly ruled by a despot named Zog
(yes, really)[note 3] to a relatively modernized state.[6] In his paranoia, however, he had an annoying tendency to turn on and denounce his former allies as being anti-Communist dupes and revisionists, which he did first with Yugoslavia, then the Soviet Union,[5] and finally with his sole remaining ally China.
International relations[edit]
After World War II, there was some thought of Albania becoming part of Yugoslavia, but following the Tito-Stalin split of 1948 (provoked largely by Yugoslav leader Tito refusing to submit to Soviet control), Albania sided with Stalin.[7] However, after Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin and the subsequent Sino-Soviet split, Hoxha sided with Mao Zedong. Then in the 1970s, Nixon went to China and Mao promoted the Three Worlds Theory which allowed co-operation with non-communist nations, and after Mao's death in 1976, China became more liberal; Hoxha got all appalled at this betrayal of Leninism, and bade farewell to the Tirana-Beijing friendship.[8]
As a result, Albania was led into isolation from the rest of the world, without any real help from any world power, a rarity for the era.
Domestic policies[edit]
Influenced by Mao, he launched his Cultural and Ideological Revolution in the late 1960s. This involved bizarre ideas such as de-professionalising the army: military ranks were abolished, professional soldiers stripped of their power, and the army placed under direct party control. He also sent many bureaucrats to work in the fields in an attempt to destroy the state bureaucracy, similar to what happened in China's Cultural Revolution.[8]
Along with Romania, Albania was one of the most bizarre Eastern European Communist regimes. They banned bell bottoms, for example. They also banned beards so the Muslims and Christians couldn't tell each other apart. They also tried, tortured, and executed many clergy and believers. He took Karl Marx's "opiate of the masses" line to the extreme and brutally persecuted religion in Albania.[9] After a 1967 campaign as part of his Cultural and Ideological Revolution, he declared Albania to be the world's first atheist state.[8] These campaigns against religion were unsuccessful and probably were counterproductive.[10]
He also really fucking loved bunkers. In fact, a bunker is nowadays the Albanian equivalent of the backseat of a car in America when it comes to losing one's virginity.
However, he did manage to have a stopped clock moment, because he harshly denounced Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia as "disgusting", "bloodthirsty", and "inhumane", among other things. Also, women's rights in Albania advanced significantly under his rule, as women were encouraged to take up all kinds of jobs and school attendance increased among girls and young women. Hoxha himself said in 1967:
The entire party and country should hurl into the fire and break the neck of anyone who dared trample underfoot the sacred edict of the party on the defense of women's rights.[11]
On the other hand, Hoxha rebuilt the country, which had been left in ruins after World War II. He built Albania's first railway line, built industry on a large-scale, raised the adult literacy rate from 5% to more than 90%, wiped out epidemics and provided free and universal healthcare, electrified the country, completely abolished taxation,[12] and helped Albania gain economic independence.[13][14][15]
Legacy[edit]
North Korea is probably less popular now than Albania was then, but only just. The nukes are the tiebreaker.
Not to be outdone by Stalin apologetics, there are currently Communist parties in about 25 countries that support Hoxhaism: from the late 70s, Hoxha was seen by many as the last true disciple of Lenin and Stalin.
External links[edit]
- See the Wikipedia article on Bunkers in Albania.
- See the Wikipedia article on Enver Hoxha.
- See the Wikipedia article on Hoxhaism.
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Who was named, perhaps fittingly, after an Ottoman war criminal.[2]
- ↑ 68 volumes![4]:250-252
- ↑ Not to be confused with this Nazi bullshit.
References[edit]
- ↑ "Albania: Stalin's Heir". Time Magazine. 1961-12-22.
- ↑ Gürpınar, Doğan (2012). "What is in a Name? The Rise of Turkic Personal Male Names in Turkey (1908–38)". Middle Eastern Studies 48 (5): 692. doi:10.1080/00263206.2012.703617.
- ↑ "Enver Hoxha". Wookieepedia.
- ↑ Daniel Kalder (2018). The Infernal Library: On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of Literacy. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 1627793429..
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Enver Hoxha (1980). Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism. Norman Bethune Institute. ISBN 0888030908.
- ↑ O'Donnell, James S. (1999). A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0880334150.
- ↑ Richard C. Hall, ed (2014). "Yugoslav-Soviet Split". War in the Balkans: An Encyclopedic History from the Fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Breakup of Yugoslavia. 1. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 353-354.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 "History of Albania, Chapter 11". Mother Earth Travel.
- ↑ "Hoxha's Antireligious Campaign".
- ↑ "The Revival of Religion".
- ↑ Anton Logoreci (1978). The Albanians: Europe's forgotten survivors. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ISBN 9780891588276.
- ↑ "1976 Constitution of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (Article 31)".
- ↑ "Mortality Transition in Albania, 1950-1990".
- ↑ "Celebrating the 100th birthday of Enver Hoxha". Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist). 2008.
- ↑ "Enver Hoxha". Britannica Encyclopedia.