Albania

[ComradeRobertRiley]

BBC News - Albania (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/1004234.stm)

One of Europe's poorest countries, Albania is nevertheless a rich blend of religions, cultures and landscapes - and its political landscape has been equally varied.
After World War II, Albania became a Stalinist state under Enver Hoxha, and remained staunchly isolationist until its transition to democracy after 1990.

One result was the end of a ban on religious worship. Now Muslims, Orthodox and Roman Catholics co-exist alongside Albania's atheists.

OVERVIEW



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The 1992 elections ended 47 years of communist rule, but the latter half of the decade saw a quick turnover of presidents and prime ministers.

Many Albanians left the country in search of work; the money they send home remains an important source of revenue.

Early in 1997 the collapse of pyramid investment schemes sparked anti-government riots and brought down the government.

During the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, nearly 500,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo spilled over the border, imposing a huge burden on Albania's already fragile economy.

Criminal gangs have a lucrative trade smuggling immigrants from Albania across the sea to Italy, a business that has escalated following the fall of communism.

The country is still littered with hundreds of thousands of concrete bunkers - some now brightly painted - which are a lasting reminder of Albania's long period of isolation from the outside world.

[Bolshevika]

Yes, comrade Hoxha gave them a much better life than they do now.

[ComradeRobertRiley]

Yes I agree, I have been to Albania during Hoxha's reign but I was in Albania about 3 months ago and the country is in a bad state.

[Bolshevika]

What is your/ your parent's opinion of Hoxha?

[ComradeRobertRiley]

They wouldnt know who he is.

There reply would be....."hoxa the boxa"........"another communist?"


They are not leftists, they are central, not right wing.

They vote for labour and love tony blair

[apathy maybe]

Since when was Albania communist? It may well have been Stalinist but never communist.

[ComradeRobertRiley]

A.M. - no country ever has been truely communist.

[Nyder]

Albania is about as far from capitalism as you could get. Usually transitional economies have a long and difficult road to get to capitalism because of the damage done from years of a communist regime.

From the CIA World Factbook:

Background:
Between 1990 and 1992 Albania ended 46 years of xenophobic Communist rule and established a multiparty democracy. The transition has proven difficult as corrupt governments have tried to deal with high unemployment, a dilapidated infrastructure, widespread gangsterism, and disruptive political opponents. International observers judged legislative elections in 2001 to be acceptable and a step toward democratic development, but identified serious deficiencies that should be addressed through reforms in the Albanian electoral code.

Economy - overview:
Poor and backward by European standards, Albania is making the difficult transition to a more modern open-market economy. The government has taken measures to curb violent crime and to revive economic activity and trade. The economy is bolstered by remittances from abroad of $400-$600 million annually, mostly from Greece and Italy. Agriculture, which accounts for half of GDP, is held back because of frequent drought and the need to modernize equipment and consolidate small plots of land. Severe energy shortages are forcing small firms out of business, increasing unemployment, scaring off foreign investors, and spurring inflation. The government plans to boost energy imports to relieve the shortages.

[LuZhiming]

Capitalism only works to an extent, when a country is rich. And that's not even always the case. Just look at how worse off Russia has been since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Note: I am not using this arguement to justify the actions of the tyrannical Soviet Union, but only to point out flaws in Capitalism.

[ComradeRobertRiley]

Enver Hoxha (1908-1985) - prime minister of Albania

The first communist chief of state of Albania. As that country's ruler for 40 years after World War II, he forced its transformation from a semifeudal relic of the Ottoman Empire into an industrialized economy with the most tightly controlled society in Europe. In 1930 he went on a state scholarship to the University of Montpellier, France, and then from 1934 to 1936 he was a secretary at the Albanian consulate general in Brussels and studied law at the university there. Returning to Albania in 1936, he became a teacher at his old school in KorcÔ. In 1939, when Italy invaded Albania, Hoxha was dismissed from his teaching post for refusing to join the newly formed Albanian Fascist Party, and he opened a retail tobacco store at Tiran‘, which became headquarters for a communist cell. After Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, Yugoslav communists helped Hoxha found the Albanian Communist Party (afterward called the Party of Labour). Hoxha became first secretary of the party's Central Committee and political commissar of the communist-dominated Army of National Liberation. He was prime minister of Albania from its liberation in 1944 until 1954, simultaneously holding the ministry of foreign affairs from 1946 to 1953. As first secretary of the Party of Labour's Central Committee, he retained effective control of the government until his death. Albania's economy was revolutionized under Hoxha's long rule. Farmland was confiscated from wealthy landowners and gathered into collective farms that eventually enabled Albania to become almost completely self-sufficient in food crops. Industry, which had previously been almost nonexistent, received huge amounts of investment, so that by the 1980s it had grown to contribute more than half of the gross national product. Electricity was brought to every rural district, epidemics of disease were stamped out, and illiteracy became a thing of the past. In order to enforce his radical program, however, Hoxha resorted to brutal Stalinist tactics. His government imprisoned, executed, or exiled thousands of landowners, rural clan leaders, Muslim and Christian clerics, peasants who resisted collectivization, and disloyal party officials. Private property was confiscated by the state; all churches, mosques, and other religious institutions were closed; and all cultural and intellectual endeavours were put at the service of socialism and the state. As ardent a nationalist as he was a communist, Hoxha excoriated any communist state that threatened his power or the sovereignty of Albania. In 1948 he broke relations with Yugoslavia and formed an alliance with the Soviet Union. After the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, for whom Hoxha held a lifelong admiration, his relations with Nikita Khrushchev deteriorated until Hoxha broke with him completely in 1961. He then forged close ties with China, breaking with that country in turn in 1978 after the death of Mao Zedong and China's rapprochement with the West. From then on, Hoxha spurned all the world's major powers, declaring that Albania would become a model socialist republic on its own. In order to ensure the succession of a younger generation of leaders, Hoxha in 1981 ordered the execution of several leading party and government officials. Thereafter he withdrew into semiretirement, turning over most state functions to Ramiz Alia, who succeeded him upon his death.

[Se7en]

So much good, yet so much bad. Seems like such a common thread among the 20th century socialist states. It's too bad that people ONLY remember the negatives. It's also too bad that these leaders, when given the chance to revolutionize the world, turned to brutal tactics just to stay in power. Maybe we'll have better luck in the next 100 years...if we aren't all destroyed by a nuclear holocaust first.

[ComradeRobertRiley]

se7en - Hoxha was not that long ago voted greatest Albanian (by Albanians)
couldnt have been that bad.

Plus the country now is in a dreadful state, I was in Albania about 3 months ago and its a real mess, its a shame capitalism is back, its really fucked the country up.

[Se7en]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11 2003, 06:27 PM
se7en - Hoxha was not that long ago voted greatest Albanian (by Albanians)
couldnt have been that bad.


perhaps not...i just don't like the idea of mass imprisonment and executions.

[Exploited Class]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2003, 05:35 AM
Albania is about as far from capitalism as you could get. Usually transitional economies have a long and difficult road to get to capitalism because of the damage done from years of a communist regime.

From the CIA World Factbook:

Background:
Between 1990 and 1992 Albania ended 46 years of xenophobic Communist rule and established a multiparty democracy. The transition has proven difficult as corrupt governments have tried to deal with high unemployment, a dilapidated infrastructure, widespread gangsterism, and disruptive political opponents. International observers judged legislative elections in 2001 to be acceptable and a step toward democratic development, but identified serious deficiencies that should be addressed through reforms in the Albanian electoral code.

Economy - overview:
Poor and backward by European standards, Albania is making the difficult transition to a more modern open-market economy. The government has taken measures to curb violent crime and to revive economic activity and trade. The economy is bolstered by remittances from abroad of $400-$600 million annually, mostly from Greece and Italy. Agriculture, which accounts for half of GDP, is held back because of frequent drought and the need to modernize equipment and consolidate small plots of land. Severe energy shortages are forcing small firms out of business, increasing unemployment, scaring off foreign investors, and spurring inflation. The government plans to boost energy imports to relieve the shortages.
Albania is not about as far from capitalism as you could get. Just because it is a failing capitalist country, doesn't mean you get to untie it from your capitalist strings.

The government has taken measures to curb violent crime and to revive economic activity and trade.
That is what America does on a daily basis. 100% steel tarriffs, agrocultural aid, NAFTA...

The economy is bolstered by remittances from abroad of $400-$600 million annually
It is engaged in trade, it is capitalist.

Severe energy shortages are forcing small firms out of business, increasing unemployment, scaring off foreign investors, and spurring inflation.
Infation is captialist, foreign investors is capitalism, unemployment is capitalism.

I mean to say that Albania isn't capitalist just because it doesn't live up to best capitalism is pathetic. That is like saying that because inner compton can't attract buisness because of its crime rate, high unemployment and low education, compton is not capitalistic, even through it is in America.


Usually transitional economies have a long and difficult road to get to capitalism because of the damage done from years of a communist regime.
What a bullshit statement. Why not try, transitional economies from countries that had controlled economies that have been in direct competition with capitalist countries and were financially deystroyed and wrecked by foreign countries that used large debt spendings to break down controlled econonomy countries have a hard time getting into the capitalist countries' market.

If you took 1950's russia and tore down the controlled economy and put it on the open market it would have done great but because it hadn't started to go into direct competition with capitalist countries. It had gone from a 3rd world country to a 1st world country. It wasn't untill the America's foreign and domestic policy to rid the world of communism at any price, did the overall medium of life in those countries begin to fall.

After capitalism relentlessly ran those countries into the ground through over budgeted spending, do those countries emerge as uncessful and damaged.

[RebeldePorLaPAZ]

I actually had a chance to talk to the Albanian ambassadors in the Albanian Embassy in NYC. They were so cool! :D I went there for the model UN, after the field trip I quit because the whole thing sucked or at least at my school. (model UN)

But what I found interesting was that the ambassador was telling me how mostly all parties try to keep some kind of socialism (he saw my Che Guevara shirt and liked it) in them because Albania is in a transitional phase right now so get an economy going because after communism left it went flat. Thus, saying that Albania still acquires socialist beliefs to try to get back up.

I think I saw once while researching that country that the socialist party had a large number of votes. If somebody can double check on that it would be nice. Thanks.



--Paz