LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Albania: Enver Hoxha
built 278 days ago
Until 1990, five years after the death of Hoxha, Albania was an isolationist communist state. A multi-party democracy is emerging, but the country suffers from economic problems, organised crime, and a large number of Albanian refugees from Kosovo.
Source:
Albania is a fellow European country treated extremely badly by history, so badly that Hoxha type isolationism is understandable. The alternative to that isolationism is not to continue the old tradition of using Albania as a plaything for economic self-help and military exercises.
Source:
![Sign at the Albanian - Macedonian border crossing on the southern shore of Lake Ohrid [Photo: Rolf Palmberg]](http://retrieverimages.lycos.com/images/a/l/b/albania/i/017.jpg)
[I]n 1992, several years after the death of Hoxha, the Communist party finally relinquished power and Albania established a multi-party democracy with a coalition government. The transition has proven difficult, as corrupt governments have tried to deal with high unemployment, a dilapidated infrastructure, widespread gangsterism, and disruptive political opponents. Today Albania is making progress, with EU integration as its goal; Albania signed the SAA on June 2006... completing the first major step towards joining. In 2008 Albania is also expected to receive an invitation to join NATO.
Source:
From 1944 to 1991, Albania became a People's Republic and was a one-party state in which Enver Hoxha ruled with an austere hand. In 1961, he broke with Albania’s closest ally, the Soviet Union, because he believed Khrushchev had abandoned the teachings of Stalin. Subsequently, Albania’s closest ally was the People’s Republic of China. However, when the PRC established diplomatic relations with the United States in 1978, Hoxha denounced the Chinese as well and decided to pursue a policy of self-reliance. The result was not only extreme isolation but ... absolute financial ruin for Albania. An example of this may be drawn from the construction between 1974 and 1986 of approximately 700,000 reinforced concrete bunkers to defend against an anticipated multi-front attack.
Source:
During the Second World War, Albania was occupied first by Italy (1939-43) and then by Germany (1943-44). After the war, Communist Party leader Enver Hoxha, through a combination of ruthlessness and strategic alliances, managed to preserve Albania's territorial integrity during the next 40 years, but exacted a terrible price from the population, which was subjected to purges, shortages, repression of civil and political rights, a total ban on religious observance, and increased isolation. Albania adhered to a strict Stalinist philosophy, eventually withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact in 1968 and alienating its final remaining ally, China, in 1978.
Source:
Chinese influence and economic aid replaced Soviet, and Albania became China's only ally in Communist Eastern Europe. Albania ceased active participation in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) and, after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, withdrew from the Warsaw Treaty Organization. In the early 1970s continuing Soviet hostility and Albanian isolation led the Hoxha regime to make overtures to neighboring Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy. The alliance with China lasted until 1977 when Hoxha broke ties in protest of China's liberalization and the U.S.-China rapprochement.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Enver Hoxha