Hoxha banned boxing?

[Deicide]

I read that boxing was banned from 1965 to 1991 in Albania until the 'Communist' regime collapse. Is this true? If so, why was it banned :confused:

[Red Rabbit]

Yes, supposedly it was banned because Enver Hoxa's sons came home bruised...

[Drosophila]

According to the LA Times, it was banned in 1963...so YOU'RE WRONG, you shit.

[Ismail]

Probably because it was seen as foreign to socialist values and society. Jazz was banned as well since it was seen as a Western import alien to socialist realism and national traditions, and also because the national music festival of 1972 had some songs blatantly copying the West, a process generally rectified after that year.

It's worth noting that Hoxha looked at what the Soviet revisionists were doing and saw that they were letting Western music and influences come in from virtually all angles. He evidently didn't support that.

"No, comrades, we cannot and should not follow 'the European road'; on the contrary, it is Europe which should follow our road, because, from the political standpoint, it is far behind us, it is very far from that for which Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin fought, and for which our Party fights today."
(Enver Hoxha. On the Further Revolutionization of the Party and the Whole Life of the Country. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1974. p. 261.)

And, in speaking of the hypocrisy of the Soviet revisionists who talked about "defending socialism" in Czechoslovakia by invading it, he said amongst other things that:

"Of what fight against bourgeois ideology can the Soviet revisionists speak while revisionism is nothing else by a manifestation of the bourgeois ideology in theory and practice, while egoism and individualism, the running after money and other material benefits are thriving in the Soviet Union, while careerseeking and bureaucratism, technocratism, economism and intellectualism are developing, while villas, motor-cars and beautiful women have become the supreme ideal of men, while literature and art attack socialism, everything revolutionary, and advocate pacifism and bourgeois humanism, the empty and dissolute living of people thinking only of themselves, while hundreds of thousands of western tourists that visit the Soviet Union every year, spread the bourgeois ideology and way of life there, while western films cover the screens of the Soviet cinema halls, while the American orchestras and jazz bands and those of the other capitalist countries have become the favorite orchestras of the youth, and while parades of western fashions are in vogue in the Soviet Union? If until yesterday the various manifestations of bourgeois ideology could be called remnants of the past, today bourgeois ideology has become a component part of the capitalist superstructure which rests on the state capitalist foundation which has now been established in the Soviet Union."
(Enver Hoxha. The Party of Labor of Albania in Battle with Modern Revisionism. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1972. pp. 508-509.)

[Vanguard1917]

"Of what fight against bourgeois ideology can the Soviet revisionists speak while revisionism is nothing else by a manifestation of the bourgeois ideology in theory and practice, while egoism and individualism, the running after money and other material benefits are thriving in the Soviet Union, while careerseeking and bureaucratism, technocratism, economism and intellectualism are developing, while villas, motor-cars and beautiful women have become the supreme ideal of men, while literature and art attack socialism, everything revolutionary, and advocate pacifism and bourgeois humanism, the empty and dissolute living of people thinking only of themselves, while hundreds of thousands of western tourists that visit the Soviet Union every year, spread the bourgeois ideology and way of life there, while western films cover the screens of the Soviet cinema halls, while the American orchestras and jazz bands and those of the other capitalist countries have become the favorite orchestras of the youth, and while parades of western fashions are in vogue in the Soviet Union? If until yesterday the various manifestations of bourgeois ideology could be called remnants of the past, today bourgeois ideology has become a component part of the capitalist superstructure which rests on the state capitalist foundation which has now been established in the Soviet Union."
(Enver Hoxha. The Party of Labor of Albania in Battle with Modern Revisionism. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1972. pp. 508-509.)

Sounds a bit like the Taliban.

[Ismail]

No, it doesn't.

"Engels says that marriage based on love is moral, and only where love lasts is there marriage... Frequently, if not always, love is stigmatized as something amoral 'which leads women to prostitution and men to degeneracy'. These are erroneous concepts. If there is one thing which has nothing at all to do with prostitution, it is genuine love. There is no love in prostitution. Fortunately our country has not been afflicted with the terrible plague of prostitution, the slightest tendency towards which we must fight and which might appear as a result of a wrong anti-Marxist-Leninist approach to the question of love and marriage, of our failure to fight, both in practice and in theory, against bourgeois and idealist views and practices on this matter. Our country has known marriages through violence, the enslavement and torture of women under the polygamous laws of the Sheriat, it has known the laws of Catholicism, of the Vatican, which not only enslaved and degraded women, but also savagely tortured them spiritually... we would be wrong to think that we have put everything in order on these problems and that we need no longer worry about them, or to leave it to time to correct them. Work must be done to use the time well to create socialist customs and the appropriate public opinion for the present and future generations... Marriage is an act, a social fact, and should not be considered as a philosophical concept."
(Enver Hoxha. Selected Works Vol. IV. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1982. pp. 276-277.)

[Rafiq]

Engels clearly opposed marraige as Bourgeois...

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[Ismail]

Engels noted that it was possible to have marriages based on love through the development of monogamous relationships. Hoxha was contrasting marriages entered into by two equal partners with ones dictated by Albanian tribal law or Sharia-based polygamy.

[Goblin]

Profesional boxing is illegal here in Norway. I have no idea why.

[Krano]

Jazz was banned as well

Sounds a bit like the Taliban.
It was also banned in the third reich.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

In the US boxing was illegal for a time in the 1890s.

I have friends of mine who are avid boxing fans and I understand the appeal of it, to an extent, but to be blunt, its a barbaric sport. Two guys deliberately punching the shit out of each other until someone is knocked out?

[thriller]

Well the Communist Party banned it, not just Hoxha by himself.

(Side note: fuck banning Jazz)

[Rafiq]

Engels noted that it was possible to have marriages based on love through the development of monogamous relationships. Hoxha was contrasting marriages entered into by two equal partners with ones dictated by Albanian tribal law or Sharia-based polygamy.

Well, seeing Albania was a backward Feudal country, it would take time to surpass something like marriage, which is most likely why Albania still adopted the Bourgeois family structure.


What we can now conjecture about the way in which sexual relations will be ordered after the impending overthrow of capitalist production is mainly of a negative character, limited for the most part to what will disappear. But what will there be new? That will be answered when a new generation has grown up: a generation of men who never in their lives have known what it is to buy a woman’s surrender with money or any other social instrument of power; a generation of women who have never known what it is to give themselves to a man from any other considerations than real love, or to refuse to give themselves to their lover from fear of the economic consequences. When these people are in the world, they will care precious little what anybody today thinks they ought to do; they will make their own practice and their corresponding public opinion about the practice of each individual – and that will be the end of it.


There is little talk of Marriage here. Sure, relations between individuals similar would exist, but not marriage.

[Ismail]

Albanian family standards were even more archaic; they were tribal, e.g. if a woman "dishonored" her husband by disagreeing with him, he could simply shoot her and that was that. Women's blood was considered valueless. There was a case of a traveler visiting the Albanian highlands in the 1910s and seeing a wife who rarely left one area of the house. She didn't know what England was, or what the concept of a "sea" was. Stories of vampires and magic potions to cure ills were widespread. In 1920 or so there were only 3 cars in the entire country.

One of the main things Hoxha's government is praised for is for pretty dramatically improving women's rights and likewise dramatically reducing the destructive influences of tribalism in the country, from blood feuds to betrothals before a baby was even born.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

Profesional boxing is illegal here in Norway. I have no idea why.
That sucks! I was in boxing from ages 13 - 21. I love that sport!

[Deicide]

This only serves to reaffirm my already held belief: Hoxha was a tin-pot dictator.

[Bostana]

Listen I criticize Hoxha like anybody else hear, but are we really judging someone Socialistic ideals on him banning a small sport?

[Red Rabbit]

It reminds me of how Stalin banned homosexuality because of some shit about "bourgeois decadence".

Reality: Stalin was a homophobe and Hoxha was an asshole dictator.

[Lee Van Cleef]

Listen I criticize Hoxha like anybody else hear, but are we really judging someone Socialistic ideals on him banning a small sport?
Yes. Communists shouldn't just go around banning anything they don't like, and get away with it on the basis that it is "Western." There might have been an argument that boxing is little more than a spectacle of violence. People make money off of boxing in much the same way as dog fighting. However, that doesn't seem to be the argument.

All the dribble about "Western art" is a load. True revolutions have always brought a revolution in the arts along with them. Dada and surrealist art grew out of the revolutionary atmosphere of the period between the wars. Eisenstein and Vertov are still two of the most influential figures in the history of film. Lenin said that film was the most proletarian form of art, at a time when most of the Western art world viewed it as worthless.

It's very doubtful that "Western art" and fashion had anything to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union, whose problems were almost all at the top. Hoxha is just using it as a scapegoat to justify his backward views on art and pop culture.

Also, his statements on marriage and prostitution sound pretty conservative to me. Okay, so it proved he was better than the Taliban, but it didn't sound much different from something Nixon probably would have said on the issue.

[Ismail]

This only serves to reaffirm my already held belief: Hoxha was a tin-pot dictator.The phrase is just a buzzword to describe Castro or what have you. Regardless, Hoxha considered himself as leading the last socialist state in existence, and as the 'leader' (like Lenin and Stalin, or Mao for Maoists) of the international communist movement after 1976. In economic, social and foreign policy fields Albania was advancing consistently and held principled lines all the way to the 1988-1990 period. I know a number of persons who belonged to pro-Albanian parties and who talked to Albanian officials, etc. and to this day have good impressions. The bourgeois historian Nicholas C. Pano noted that, "Although it is the smallest and least-developed of the East European Communist states, the People's Socialist Republic of Albania has at various times since 1945 enjoyed a prominence far out of proportion to its size and power." (Communism in Eastern Europe, 1984, p. 213.)


It reminds me of how Stalin banned homosexuality because of some shit about "bourgeois decadence".

Reality: Stalin was a homophobe and Hoxha was an asshole dictator.Actually the NKVD sent reports that basically linked male homosexuality to intrigue and Nazism. And pedophilia for good measure. Stalin, Kaganovich, etc. decided "we need to stop these scoundrels" and that was that. At Yezhov's interrogation, for instance, he confessed to homosexual relationships in the 20's and 30's (he was bisexual), and this was used as "proof" that it wasn't hard for him to become an agent of multiple foreign intelligence services. Soviet society was already homophobic, it didn't need Stalin to step in and create homophobia.

Speaking of homophobia...


Also, his statements on marriage and prostitution sound pretty conservative to me. Okay, so it proved he was better than the Taliban, but it didn't sound much different from something Nixon probably would have said on the issue.Well, for instance, male homosexuality was also outlawed in Albania, but female homosexuality was explicitly not illegal (Albanian law forthrightly said "unnatural sexual relations" between a man and woman and between two women were not criminalized.) Apparently this was because female homosexuality was seen a a reaction to centuries of chauvinism, whereas male homosexuality was used to "degrade" women and reinforce chauvinism.

Women's rights in Albania were amongst the best in the Eastern Bloc. I can provide plenty of bourgeois sources if you'd like.

[Vanguard1917]

Yes. Communists shouldn't just go around banning anything they don't like, and get away with it on the basis that it is "Western." There might have been an argument that boxing is little more than a spectacle of violence. People make money off of boxing in much the same way as dog fighting. However, that doesn't seem to be the argument.

Strong post - though even that hypothetical argument would have been pretty worthless. Boxers aren't dogs; nor are they chattel slaves forced into combat like the gladiators of Rome. The average professional boxer is an enthusiast and devotee of his chosen sport - just like pro athletes elsewhere. Yes, people can make lots of money from all his blood, sweat, tears and hard work, but that happens in many other sports. And although boxing can be dangerous, there are a bunch of sports with higher fatality rates.

[Thirsty Crow]

I can't see why anyone should pretend that Marxism-Leninism in the hands of the CP of Albania was anything other than a nationalist doctrine, at least considering the relationship to "foreign" cultural forms.

[Ismail]

I can't see why anyone should pretend that Marxism-Leninism in the hands of the CP of Albania was anything other than a nationalist doctrine, at least considering the relationship to "foreign" cultural forms.Probably because the Party of Labour denounced nationalist deviations from Marxism-Leninism, whether it be of the Castroite, Juche, Titoist, Maoist, or any other variety. At the same time he denounced xenophobia, which he saw much of in China during its "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution."

If you want Hoxha's views on culture, which were based on those of Lenin and Stalin, you can find them here: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1965/10/26.htm

Hoxha stressed that Albania had value not just for its own people, but as a model for the world. He believed that the unique circumstances of Albania and the PLA's responses to them weren't some sort of isolated phenomenon, but were practical lessons that other communists could learn from.

[Omsk]

Yes, Hoxha and the communist party were nationalists, but they somehow acted against the interests of the national-bourgeois and basically fought nationalism.

Another thing about Hoxha's "nationalism" : (This comes from the "Zeri i Popullit" , it was also broadcasted by Radio Tirana on January 19th 1980 ) It was basically a reminder of this: Our policy towards Yugoslavia has not changed and will not change, provided that the Yugoslav government, too, is correct towards us. The declaration of the Party of Labour of Albania, that in case of any eventual aggression against Yugoslavia by the Soviet Union or some other power the Albanian people will stand by the Yugoslav peoples, will always hold good. But the Yugoslav side must respond to this stand of Albania with just and correct actions towards us.
Enver Hoxha ‘Report on the Activity of the C.C. of the Party of Labour of Albania’ submitted to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, November 1, 1976,Tirana, 1977, pp. 202-203.
(http://espressostalinist.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/mapa-de-yugoslavia.jpg)
I know you "anti-antirevisionists" hate reading actual books on the subjects we are debating, but take a lot at some old Yugoslav border-line propagandic works like the writings of Vladimir Dedijer or Pero Zlatar, for a start, than move on to serious literature and ask questions. Some of it is available on English.

[Ismail]

Yes, Hoxha and the communist party were nationalists, but they somehow acted against the interests of the national-bourgeois and basically fought nationalism.The interesting thing is that unlike the rest of Eastern Europe, including even Yugoslavia (which had a brief coalition government after liberation), Albania never had a coalition government and no anti-fascist parties were created during the war outside of, of course, the Communist Party which led the war effort.

[ComradeOm]

Probably because it was seen as foreign to socialist values and society. Jazz was banned as well since it was seen as a Western import alien to socialist realism and national traditions, and also because the national music festival of 1972 had some songs blatantly copying the West, a process generally rectified after that year."The fox trot was banned. Now in the ballroom, in public at youth parties, the fox trot is danced under the guise of the waltz. When one watches the dancers, one sees what an aroused state they get into. It seems that we can expect nothing from such a waltz but depravity. That is why such waltzes should be forbidden at our parties. Parties are not for debauchery, but for the cultural rest of our youth" (Soviet newspaper, 1928)

A Puritan tendency to ban certain dances and music and sports seemed to come easy to Stalinist regimes

[Omsk]

The interesting thing is that unlike the rest of Eastern Europe, including even Yugoslavia (which had a brief coalition government after liberation), Albania never had a coalition government and no anti-fascist parties were created during the war outside of, of course, the Communist Party which led the war effort.

Yes, percisely, as Hoxha noted in his work : "(Imperialism and the Revolution)"

”The Marxist-Leninist parties, all revolutionaries, however few in numbers establish themselves among the people, organise the masses systematically, with great care and patience, convince them that they are a great force, that they are able to overthrow capital, to seize state power and wield it in the interest of the proletariat and the people. Such parties do not think that, being small, they cannot stand up to the coalition of the parties of the bourgeoisie and the opinion formed by them.”

No matter how dark the situation was, the contemporary ML revolutionaries fought on,inspired by the efforts of their comrades in Yugoslavia, and in the USSR, and with help from other elements and parties, they formed the CPA out of a number of minor parties, like Skadar and Korca, i wrote about these events in my short post :

The main problem of the Albanian communists and the Comintern was the lack of an organized Communist Party,which could lead the Albanian people in the struggle against Fascism.The Communist party was formed only in 1941,when the struggle against Fascism began in other countries. The situation was grim. There were many reasons which had a huge influence on the lack of a communist party - Albania was one of the backward countries,and the teachings of Lenin and Marx reached it some time after they reached other countries.Another problem was the fragmented revolutionary left,which had little unity and a lot of hostile leaders.The most famous of these small revolutionary groups were : "Korca" which had it's main power circle in Berat,later in Tirana,than "Skadar",and a group of student 'intellectual' Trotskyites, "Zjari" with various other youth groups and other movements. Some of these groups were hostile but most of them had their own 'paths' and ideas,each willing to fight for power. The Comintern,as the supreme organ of the world socialist movement,and the guiding hand of the smaller parties,proposed a unification in 1937,but the efforts were futile. A figure called Ali Kelmendi who tried to unite the small groups failed, because he died on the 11t of February 1939 in Paris, although he had plans to return to his homeland with directives from the Comintern. Ali Kelmendi also participated in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side as a soldier in the Internationl brigades. The CC of the CPY decided to help the Albanian communists in mid-1939 ,the Comintern supported this initiative. In Belgrade,demonstrations against the Italian invasion of Albania was held. However,in 1940 the first signs of a clear resistance came into being. The first partisan groups were formed and some fought the Fascists,while others,non-communists simply refused to fight for the Italians.

However,the single and weak revolutionary groups failed to launch a nation-wide uprising. Some also shared the Fascist ideal of a "Greater Albania". The Yugoslav communists sent Miladin Popvic with orders from the CPY to Albania trough Fadil Hoxha (Albanian communist.) However,he fell into enemy hands and was traped in a prison near Elbasan,the group "Skadar" sent Fadil Hoxha to meet the Yugoslav communists and negotiate and plan a rescue operation.The Yugoslavs sent Dusan Mugosa to Albania,and he organized a rescue operation in which he along with Albanian communists rescued Miladin Popovic and the efforts to form an Albanian CP got their first victories. Dusan Mugosa wrote in his diaries about the situation,and he noted that the "Korca" was the oldest of the groups,it was led by Koco Tasko,a formed diplomat and Koci Xoxe,a worker who was with the "Korca" from 1939 onward and the worker Mihalj Lako. - In total,there were 8 groups of various ideological background,of which two were Trotskyite. After many talks,wrangling and persuasion the deal was done. The 3 main groups were to form an Albanian CP,the conference was held illegally on the 8th of November 1941 in Tirana.The main task of the new party were mainly related to the struggle against Fascism,the forming of new party cells and unions,the fight against sectarianism,forming the friendship and the bond between the friendly Serbian,Greek,Macedonian and Bulgarian people which were fighting against the same Fascist invader. On this meeting,the first Central Committee was elected - in the first temporary Central Committee the following figures got elected: (Seven members.) - Enver Hoxha, Kemal Stafa, Ramadan Citaku, Koci Xoxe, Nako Spiru, Kristo Temeljko and Tuk Jankova. The general secretary was not elected,but the head of the CC was Enver Hoxha. The new party was quite small - some 700 communists were present in 1943,and when the party was formed,about 200-300 members were present. The communist party very soon got popular,and more and more workers joined,so the numbers were always increasing.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

No, it doesn't.

"Engels says that marriage based on love is moral, and only where love lasts is there marriage... Frequently, if not always, love is stigmatized as something amoral 'which leads women to prostitution and men to degeneracy'. These are erroneous concepts. If there is one thing which has nothing at all to do with prostitution, it is genuine love. There is no love in prostitution. Fortunately our country has not been afflicted with the terrible plague of prostitution, the slightest tendency towards which we must fight and which might appear as a result of a wrong anti-Marxist-Leninist approach to the question of love and marriage, of our failure to fight, both in practice and in theory, against bourgeois and idealist views and practices on this matter. Our country has known marriages through violence, the enslavement and torture of women under the polygamous laws of the Sheriat, it has known the laws of Catholicism, of the Vatican, which not only enslaved and degraded women, but also savagely tortured them spiritually... we would be wrong to think that we have put everything in order on these problems and that we need no longer worry about them, or to leave it to time to correct them. Work must be done to use the time well to create socialist customs and the appropriate public opinion for the present and future generations... Marriage is an act, a social fact, and should not be considered as a philosophical concept."
(Enver Hoxha. Selected Works Vol. IV. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1982. pp. 276-277.)
Dang, this is some reactionary stuff. Engels wrote about the nuclear family being a source of oppression, Stalinists, like Hoxha, glorified it. Marriage is a social construct that can be oppressive by defining roles of men and women and by decreeing that monogamous sexual relations are the only acceptable ones.

All this social realist crap about the degeneracy of various forms of modern art is about as philistine as you can get. The state should not decide by fiat the types of art that are appropriate, even a revolutionary state. And Jazz is one of the few types of art that originated in the US that is worthwhile.

[Rafiq]

It reminds me of how Stalin banned homosexuality because of some shit about "bourgeois decadence".

Reality: Stalin was a homophobe and Hoxha was an asshole dictator.

We all know my heavy opposition to Hoxha's works and followers.

But criticizing someone as a "dictator" rather than divulging into a class analysis is nothing short of Bourgeois Liberalism. Sure, Hoxha was to be opposed, for many reasons. Him being a "dictator" isn't one of them.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Why is this a problem?
He was part of the defeat of fascists, build a (in my opinion) socialist country, and you are going to criticize him for banning boxing?
If you want to criticize Hoxha, at least criticize him on something a bit more significant than boxing.

[ComradeOm]

He was part of the defeat of fascists, build a (in my opinion) socialist country, and you are going to criticize him for banning boxing?Because a puritan state that takes it upon itself to regulate what music or sports its citizens indulge in is an awkward fit with what most of us perceive a "socialist country" to look like. It's part of the case, albeit obviously not a significant part, against the suggestion that Stalinist police states are something to emulate

[Tifosi]

Why is this a problem?
He was part of the defeat of fascists, build a (in my opinion) socialist country, and you are going to criticize him for banning boxing?
If you want to criticize Hoxha, at least criticize him on something a bit more significant than boxing.

Cause all the small things add up to a world of mind numbing tedium.

[REDSOX]

I think hoxha banned a lot of things in albania but not apparently norman wisdom films which were very popular in albania. Hoxha apparently though the films were a critique on capitalism

[Tim Finnegan]

According to the LA Times, it was banned in 1963...so YOU'RE WRONG, you shit.
I'm sorry, is there something wrong with you?

(Edit: Never mind, lack of humour on my part...)

[Ismail]

I think hoxha banned a lot of things in albania but not apparently norman wisdom films which were very popular in albania. Hoxha apparently though the films were a critique on capitalismSoccer was also quite popular in Albania. I'm fairly sure sex wasn't banned either.

One could also read books by Jack London, Mark Twain and various other recognized American (along with European) writers and not die.

The idea that Albanian leisure time consisted of going outside to study Hoxha, sitting down for a nice work by Stalin, or singing the words of articles by Marx, Engels or Lenin isn't very accurate, truth be told.

[Art Vandelay]

Actually the NKVD sent reports that basically linked male homosexuality to intrigue and Nazism. And pedophilia for good measure. Stalin, Kaganovich, etc. decided "we need to stop these scoundrels" and that was that.

I hope you are not trying to justify or rationalize it. :confused:


Soviet society was already homophobic, it didn't need Stalin to step in and create homophobia.

Which really isn't the point.

[Ismail]

I hope you are not trying to justify or rationalize it.I don't see how I could possibly be doing that. Marx believed in phrenology and Engels was a pretty blatant homophobe; evidently this demonstrated that they were, as all people are to varying extents, products of their times. There were homophobic attitudes in the CNT-FAI as well, as there were in pretty much every organization on earth at that time.

I don't see the recriminalization of homosexuality as a sign of the "Soviet bureaucracy" triumphing or whatever. Trotsky evidently didn't either, since he never mentioned it even though he mentioned and attacked various other things like restrictions on abortion, a more traditional emphasis on the family, etc.

[pastradamus]

It was also banned in the third reich.

Probably something to do with Joe Louis beating Max Schmelling. Schmelling is a fascinating guy. He was forced to give the Nazi salute during a fight (not sure if it was the louis fight or what) but he was an excellent boxer. Not at all racist and also very much left-wing. Im going to have to look into him a bit more but this is what I heard. Horrible to see giants fall like that and sportsmen become mere political tools.

[revolt]

It's worth noting that Hoxha looked at what the Soviet revisionists were doing and saw that they were letting Western music and influences come in from virtually all angles. He evidently didn't support that.if you think that western music had any role in the fall of the USSR then you do not understand political situations very well.

[Ismail]

if you think that western music had any role in the fall of the USSR then you do not understand political situations very well.It contributed to the idea that the West was a wonderland and became a way of promoting "dissident" activities towards "liberalization," hence why Hoxha remarked that Albania shouldn't follow the "European road," which was being promoted by right-wingers in economics and foreign policy (the supposed need for "European security," Helsinki Accords, etc.) along with culture.

Obviously it didn't play a big role, but it was there.

[Raúl Duke]

No jazz in Albania?

I took a class about music, particularly jazz and rock, within the Soviet bloc...

We didn't cover Albania...

Were there any youth culture similar to stiliagi and such in Albania (or a different kind of youth culture)?

[Ismail]

No jazz in Albania?Not after 1972.


Were there any youth culture similar to stiliagi and such in Albania (or a different kind of youth culture)?Not that I've heard of. There were no dissident movements either, so no Solzhenitsyns or Sakharovs or Havels or what have you.