The situation in Albania

[Aslan]

Hey guys its redeagle! I'm just curious about your guys opinions about Albania. I'll give you guys a little summary of it's history.

Communist period: (1946-1991)

Enver Hoxha took power and established a Stalinist leaning state. He was according to my family quite secretive. Keeping to the party and for a long time keeping good relations with the USSR and China. He was very anti-american to the point where there was a potential invasion by anti-communist Albanians. Enver also had many personal manors across Albania. He was also quite paranoid and built thousands of bunkers across the coastline of Albania for any potential invasion by Italian/NATO forces. Probably his biggest weakness was that he played favorites. In Albania there are 2 tribes, the Ghegs in the north and the Tosks to the south. Enver was a Tosk; the party was comprised of Tosks with a peppering of northerners. Enver's best move was opening the borders for Cham Albanians to escape from greece. Which in my opinion was very good, and giving them housing.
However as I said he was paranoid. No-one said a word about him because he sent prisoners to very secretive places. He was esspecially though on religion. Which I find quite stupid since in Albania people live in almost complete Religious harmony. This made him feared until his death in 1985. After his death Ramiz Alia went Gorbachev on Albania and liberalized the state.

Post Communism: (1991-present)

After 1991 Albania was practically 3rd world. massive amounts of emigration to Western Europe/US. with this came the reactionary Democratic Party (PD) which was a right-wing Gheg pro-NATO party which was led by Sali Berisha. Under his oligarchic rule he caused a civil war in 1997 which left Albania as the shit-hole of europe. His party is very influential and even though corrupt has the support of the majority of northern Albania. To the opposite in the socialist party (PS), which is another Pro-NATO party but is a pink socialist party. They're less corrupt but are just as pro EU. PS is led by Edi Rama who was led the party from 2008-present. in 2004 the party was doing good until a splinter in PS split it into LSI. That party is still pink socialist in name but is led by the egotistic and ambitious Ilir Meta. From 2006-2012 Albania was an oligarchic PD republic. This is when Albania joined NATO. From 2012 on Albania is led by a coalition of PS and LSI under Edi Rama.

....so our situation now is pretty shitty. We are very friendly to Kosovo and the USA, (we even have a statue of GW bush put up during PD years). We are anti-russian to an extent, and we are very cold with Greece. and cordial with Montenegro and Macedonia. We are also very pro-German and Italian.

Any questions,comments, or concerns?

[Ismail]

There's been discussions on RevLeft in the past about Albanian relations with the USSR and China, about the bunkers, etc., so I'll just focus on two things: Albanian-American relations and the whole Gheg vs. Tosk thing.

Albania initially stood for normal relations with the USA and UK. Such relations were established sometime after the country was liberated from the Nazi occupation. But both countries wanted two things: for the new Albanian government to recognize all the treaties signed under the prewar regime of King Zog, and for de facto control over the electoral process, denouncing it as fraudulent because certain candidates were either not allowed to stand or because they supposedly didn't have a "fair" chance at winning.

Before long the Albanian government accused the Americans and British of carrying out espionage and sabotage activities inside the country, and both states responded by breaking off relations with Albania. A few years later the USA decided that Albania was the "weak link" of the People's Democracies and thus it became the first country to be subjected to a CIA-backed overthrow attempt when a bunch of Albanian anti-communist émigrés were parachuted in.

How successful that attempt was can be gauged by the following quote by an Albanian interviewed by two Swedes: "The CIA dropped some of its agents here. Flew them in from Italy and dropped them by parachute. But we got them. They had some fine radio equipment. They were going to set up a base here in Albania. At that time my brother was in the Central Committee and said he thought we ought to be able to have some fun out of the CIA too. Everyone agreed. After all, we’d gotten their radios and their codes and all the rest of it. So we informed the CIA in Rome that the revolt was going fine. All we needed was more weapons. And the CIA flew in bazookas and gelignite and all kinds of weapons. And the more they sent, the more successes we reported back. We let the CIA fly in one consignment of weapons after another, and as soon as they came flying in, we snapped them up. They were good weapons. And cheap, too. But in the end even the CIA noticed something was amiss. They’d flown in masses of weapons and still nothing was happening in Albania.Then we told them how we’d been putting them on.Transmitted it in their own code. And then we tapped out: Ha-ha-ha." (quoted in Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle, Albania Defiant, 1976, pp. 14-15.)

By the 1970s both American imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism were recognized as equally dangerous to not just the world, but to Albania's sovereignty. Since there was no way relations between Albania and these countries could be carried out on an equal basis, Hoxha would reiterate time and time again that the country would never reestablish diplomatic relations with the USA or USSR.

As for Ghegs and Tosks, there is no evidence that he "played favorites." The Communist movement developed in the south because of its relatively "advanced" social structure (led by feudal landowners mixed with a few merchants and aspiring bourgeoisie) compared with the tribal north. Ramiz Alia, who Hoxha wanted to succeed him (and who did succeed him), was himself a Gheg. As one bourgeois source (which is otherwise happy to damn Hoxha) puts it: "Hoxha made a concerted effort to include northerners in the Central Committee and Politburo. He also made clear gestures by sending teachers and doctors to the deprived areas of the north, and integrating the region into his industrialization programme. He went some way to overcoming suspicions between north and south by stressing his commitment to Albanianism. Nevertheless, in some regions the Party still had difficulty in extending its influence... communist ideology made no secret of its contempt for the traditional social structure of the north. The atomized clan system; the blood feuds and the Canon of Lek; the miserable position of women in Gheg society; the greater religiosity in the north - these were all targets for the modernizing zeal of Hoxha and his comrades." (Misha Glenny, The Balkans, 2001, p. 563.)

[Aslan]

the Ghegs have always had better representation. Back then most Ghegs in government were from Shkodra. This is one of the main reasons why PD (kleptocratic/corrupted assholes) are so popular in the north! Most high members of the party are in fact Gheg, the misrepresentations during the communist-socialist-hoxhaist-whateverist era was the main reason why northerners despise Hoxha!
Not only was Hoxha pretty much screwed to begin with but his party was pretty much composed of old males. There where no members who where at least in their 40s. I'll hand it to Hoxha though, most of his bunkers were set in the lowlands to make them defensible. I've noticed that most of them are in middle Albania, which is mostly flat/undefensible terrain, and Hoxha being a WWII partisan knew that even a pitiful army (Italy) can easily overthrow a small nation like Albania. However he was in constant fear of Greek,Yugoslav, or Italian invasions. It also didn't help that he broke off relations with the USSR to get with China. This pretty much left Albania as a backwater from 1970-1991. In fact back in the 1980s it got so bad that there were little tickets people got which allowed them to get groceries. All the government did was handwave it until it bit them in the end.
All in all the PPSH did some pretty rash decisions that weren't in the people's interests. i.e. destruction of religious artifacts and forcful Atheism, non-democratically keeping a leader for 40 years, Aggressive treatment of malcontents, forcefully keeping people in their villages, state acuisition of resources which should be given to the people.

[Ismail]

the Ghegs have always had better representation. Back then most Ghegs in government were from Shkodra. This is one of the main reasons why PD (kleptocratic/corrupted assholes) are so popular in the north!Shkodra was pretty much the only part of northern Albania with conditions akin to those of Korça, Vlora, and the other more developed parts of southern and central Albania (such as the prewar existence of a workers' movement and left-wing activity in general), so it's not surprising that cadres in the north largely derived from that town.


Not only was Hoxha pretty much screwed to begin with but his party was pretty much composed of old males. There where no members who where at least in their 40s.One major reason older people were in the leadership was because of their shared experiences in the prewar communist groups and the National Liberation War. Hoxha, Alia, Hysni Kapo, Gogo Nushi, Rita Marko, Spiro Koleka, Adil Çarçani, Manush Myftiu and still other prominent leaders of the Party of Labour and the state had either or both of those backgrounds in common.

It made sense in the first few decades to have people in leading positions who had been the reputation of dedicated communists from the earliest days. But as time went on that obviously started to become a hindrance, which is why there were efforts in the 70s and 80s to get younger people in the Central Committee and government such as Lenka Çuko and Simon Stefani. Again, Alia himself is a good example of Hoxha supporting someone succeeding him who was not only from the north, but also significantly younger than himself and many of his other colleagues.

As far as the "males" part goes, 20% of the Central Committee was comprised of women in 1981, which was a good percentage considering how terrible the status of women had been before the war and also in comparison with other countries.


However he was in constant fear of Greek,Yugoslav, or Italian invasions.Greece was claiming southern Albania for itself up until the early 70s, and it was not until 1987 that it ended its "state of war" with Albania (it had argued that, since the puppet government set up by Italy during its occupation "declared war" on Greece, Albania and Greece remained at war even after the defeat of Italy and Germany and the liberation of Albania.)

Yugoslavia after 1948 attempted to overthrow the Albanian government, such as setting up a "League of Albanian Political Refugees" which sent armed bands inside the country. By the time the building of bunkers occurred though Yugoslavia had conceded that such overt activity wouldn't be successful. In fact Hoxha noted that if the Soviet social-imperialists invaded Yugoslavia, Albania would come to Yugoslavia's assistance (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv7n2/albyugo.htm).

"Italian invasion" should more accurately be called a NATO invasion, which wasn't unreasonable considering that Greece was also a NATO member and, as noted, it considered itself in a "state of war" with Albania during the entirety of Hoxha's leadership.


It also didn't help that he broke off relations with the USSR to get with China.The USSR broke off relations with Albania, following a year of economic and political threats and other means of pressure by the revisionists in a failed attempt to get Albania to follow their line, as I've detailed in the Wikipedia article I wrote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Albanian_split).


non-democratically keeping a leader for 40 years,I don't see how it's a violation of democracy if a person is kept in the same position for 40 years, assuming that person is of sound mind and physically able to continue in his or her duties. Hoxha was the founder of the Communist Party of Albania (later the Party of Labour of Albania) and leader of the National Liberation War.


forcefully keeping people in their villages,In Albania's development strategy, as noted by Jan Myrdal in Albania Defiant, "industrialization will not mean that the country will be divided up into urban aggregations and the countryside depopulated. The present geographical distribution of the population is to be retained. 'According to one capitalist calculation, this isn't economic,' said Perikas Pikuli, a member of the planning commission, 'but Albania is a socialist country. Therefore the question is how people want the country to be built up, what kind of environment they want. We see developments in capitalist and revisionist countries. We do not want Albania to look like that. The problem of depopulated areas of the countryside in your countries, in Italy, Yugoslavia, Sweden, and the Soviet Union, are the result of an antipopular policy."


state acuisition of resources which should be given to the people.And what resources are those, exactly?

[Guardia Rossa]

I don't see how it's a violation of democracy if a person is kept in the same position for 40 years, assuming that person is of sound mind and physically able to continue in his or her duties. Hoxha was the founder of the Communist Party of Albania (later the Party of Labour of Albania) and leader of the National Liberation War.

But we must feed the people a sense of changing! Otherwise they may revolt against us, their dominus, the bourgeoisie!

Oh wait Albania at the time was socialist.


Democracy is government of and for the people, and not changing the dude that governs us with an empty iron fist every 8 years.....

[Armchair Partisan]

But we must feed the people a sense of changing! Otherwise they may revolt against us, their dominus, the bourgeoisie!

Oh wait Albania at the time was socialist.


Democracy is government of and for the people, and not changing the dude that governs us with an empty iron fist every 8 years.....

It is interesting to note, however, that most of the Warsaw Pact pretended to be bourgeois democracies. They held fake elections every 4-5 years, though only the ruling party was allowed to nominate candidates. Why is this? For that matter, I'd like to ask you and Ismail this "gotcha" question: if the Albanian working people decided that they would have liked to be represented by someone other than dear old Hoxha - some younger, less homophobic communist perhaps? - what were the legal means to effect such a change? I'm genuinely curious, actually. Were there even means to do so? Even if they were just theoretical means, like how the elections of the People's Republic of Hungary were "theoretically" fair in the Warsaw Pact era, I'm still interested to hear. I don't deny that Hoxha did good things for Albania's economy, society, and women, but that doesn't mean he should be admired, especially considering he still presided over state capitalism.

Also, Ismail, someone single-handedly ruling a country for 40 years is insane. That's more than a generation. Things change, faster than people do, actually. Time passed Hoxha by. In 1945, homophobic attitudes like Hoxha's were par for the course even in the socialist bloc. By 1985, it made him a hardcore reactionary. In 1945, Hoxha's stance on women's rights was practically revolutionary in and of itself. By 1985, it was no big deal. In general, I don't think anyone should be in a leadership position for more than 10-15 years in pretty much anything. By that time, you need a younger, or at least fresher perspective.

[Ismail]

It is interesting to note, however, that most of the Warsaw Pact pretended to be bourgeois democracies. They held fake elections every 4-5 years, though only the ruling party was allowed to nominate candidates. Why is this?They certainly didn't claim to be bourgeois democracies. They claimed to be democracies of a higher type, hence the term People's Democracies. On the features of People's Democracies, including their class character and how their governments differed from those of bourgeois republics, see: http://www.unz.org/Pub/LabourMonthly-1950mar-00124

In Albania, as in the other People's Democracies and in the Soviet Union, candidates to government positions (such as deputies to the People's Assembly of Albania or to local people's councils) could be nominated by the Party or by mass organizations such as the trade unions, the unions of the youth, women, veterans, writers and artists, etc. That is why in all such countries there were many non-party persons elected to office.


For that matter, I'd like to ask you and Ismail this "gotcha" question: if the Albanian working people decided that they would have liked to be represented by someone other than dear old Hoxha - some younger, less homophobic communist perhaps? - what were the legal means to effect such a change? I'm genuinely curious, actually. Were there even means to do so?Hoxha's positions by the time of his death were:
* First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania
* Chairman of the General Council of the Democratic Front
* General Commander of the Armed Forces and Chairman of the Defense Council (the latter existing to "direct, organize and mobilize all the forces and resources of the country in defence of the Homeland")
* Deputy to the People's Assembly and a member of its Presidium

The First Secretary was head of the Political Bureau (aka Politburo), which was appointed by the Central Committee. The Central Committee was elected at each party congress, which were held every four years. Participants in the congresses were party members from across the country elected in their respective branches by the rank-and-file. There were 814 delegates at the 8th Congress of the PLA in 1981.

The General Council of the Democratic Front (and thus its Chairman as well) was elected at every congress of the Front in a way similar to that of the Party.

The 1976 Constitution of Albania gave the positions of head of the army and Chairman of the Defense Council to whomever occupied the position of First Secretary of the CC of the PLA.

Deputies to the People's Assembly were elected by the people as you can probably guess. The Presidium of the Assembly was appointed by the deputies following elections.


Also, Ismail, someone single-handedly ruling a country for 40 years is insane. That's more than a generation.Hoxha didn't "single-handedly" lead the country though. Hoxha noted in his last interview (in December 1984) that, "The enemies of our country say that I am a dictator. But a single person can neither act nor work with the necessary strength without being surrounded by friends and comrades." He was in constant contact with fellow members of the Politburo and of the Central Committee, who collectively listened to reports given to them by representatives of lower organs of the Party, plus representatives from every other conceivable entity in society (such as academic institutes, the army, a large collective farm, the Foreign Ministry, etc, etc.) Not to mention that what animated the work of pretty much every aspect of society (from mass organizations to individual factories) was the general line of the Party, the Five-Year Plans, and other subjects worked out on the occasion of party congresses.

It's true that it isn't good to have a gap where leading positions are all filled with old people, but Hoxha himself said that many times, and practical steps were taken to alleviate that problem.

[tuwix]

Any questions,comments, or concerns?

Albania as state was never communist. Comunist state is an oxymoron.

[Ismail]

Albania as state was never communist. Comunist state is an oxymoron.He didn't call it a communist state though. He said "Communist period," i.e. when it was led by the Party of Labour of Albania.

[Armchair Partisan]

So Ismail, since you've reminded me about this thread, I'll just go ahead and ask a few more things, given that I'm not exactly that well-versed on the Hoxha period of Albania. It's not exactly easy to research this stuff on Google, let alone separate the useful info from the misleading.

You mentioned those four positions Hoxha fulfilled. What powers and responsibilities came with each one? (Well, the "armed forces" bit is obvious.) It's all well and good if a position has popular oversight, provided that it isn't a symbolic role with no value (like the president in a lot of European bourgeois democracies).

What were the conditions of getting into the PPSh? How would one advance through its ranks?

Who had oversight over the Sigurimi?

[Ismail]

You mentioned those four positions Hoxha fulfilled. What powers and responsibilities came with each one?I don't think the First Secretary actually had many functions that separated him from other Politburo members (except for automatic leadership of the Defense Council and Albania's armed forces that got added into the 1976 Constitution of the country.) Before 1954 the position of First Secretary was known as General Secretary.

As for being Chairman of the General Council of the Democratic Front, I am again pretty sure the differences between him and other members of the General Council were relatively minor. At every congress of the Front, as with every congress of the Party, he gave the main report on behalf of the General Council (or Central Committee in the case of Party congresses.)

Being a deputy in the People's Assembly meant that he was... a deputy. Unlike in bourgeois legislatures, being in the legislature was not a full-time job nor did it entail a salary. You were only paid a travel allowance for whenever the Assembly was in session, and whenever it wasn't in session (which was most of the year) you resumed your normal job. Members of the Presidium of the People's Assembly acted on behalf of the Assembly in between it sessions and were appointed by it. In other words, if a law had to be quickly passed or war declared, the Presidium would do those things. Any of its decisions would have to be voted upon at a subsequent session of the Assembly in order to remain in effect.


What were the conditions of getting into the PPSh? How would one advance through its ranks?You can find the Party's constitution here, which discusses the purpose of the Party, how membership was handled, etc.: https://archive.org/details/ConstitutionOfThePartyOfLabourOfAlbania

That should answer both those questions, although if you want more specific information feel free to ask.


Who had oversight over the Sigurimi?The Ministry of the Interior. Its minister, like all other ministers, was appointed by the People's Assembly.

[Emmett Till]

....
Yugoslavia after 1948 attempted to overthrow the Albanian government, such as setting up a "League of Albanian Political Refugees" which sent armed bands inside the country. By the time the building of bunkers occurred though Yugoslavia had conceded that such overt activity wouldn't be successful. In fact Hoxha noted that if the Soviet social-imperialists invaded Yugoslavia....



Ismail, I will not go through your rather tortured attempts to defend the Hoxha regime as true revolutionary democrats, others are doing that quite well.

I'll just note that, given the social, economic and cultural backwardness of Albania which you describe, wouldn't Albania have been much better off as part of the Yugoslav federation? Which, until Stalin vetoed the idea, both Tito and Dimitrov in Bulgaria saw as something to be expanded to the traditional Balkan revolutionary slogan of a Balkan Socialist Federation?

Of course, given the Stalin-modelled "socialism in one country" nationalism of Tito, an utterly fervent Stalinist until the break, discrimination against Albanians was not impossible. Still...

[Ismail]

I'll just note that, given the social, economic and cultural backwardness of Albania which you describe, wouldn't Albania have been much better off as part of the Yugoslav federation? Which, until Stalin vetoed the idea, both Tito and Dimitrov in Bulgaria saw as something to be expanded to the traditional Balkan revolutionary slogan of a Balkan Socialist Federation?The Yugoslav revisionist during 1945-1948 treated Albania as a neo-colonial appendage of their own economy. As the Soviet revisionists would do later, the Titoites tried to argue that Albania should forego industrial development in favor of supplying the Yugoslav market with agriculture. Besides economic exploitation, they imposed the teaching of Serbo-Croatian in Albanian schools, refused to hold a referendum in Kosova, advocated for the submerging of the Communist Party of Albania into the Democratic Front (just as the Yugoslavs themselves were doing in regards to the CPY and the People's Front in their own country), and other unpopular political and cultural endeavors.

Yugoslavia's system of "workers' self-management" promoted regional disparities between the republics and undermined the development of Kosova in particular. For example, according to a Yugoslav source (R. Marmullaku, Albania and the Albanians, 1975) 30% of the Albanian population of Kosova was illiterate in the early 1970s, whereas in Albania proper illiteracy was pretty much done away with completely. Likewise the blood feud, which destroyed many communities in northern Albania before being successfully stamped out, was still a problem in Kosova.

Then there's the fact that the federation ended in wars and genocidal acts thanks to the capitalist policies pursued by the Titoites, of which accruing massive debts from the IMF and Western banks which were placed onto the backs of workers via austerity was a major cause. The Kosovars themselves faced discrimination and even outright persecution during the 1940s-50s and in 1981.

So no, I don't think that form of "federation" would have benefited the Albanians of Albania, any more than it benefited the other non-Serbian populations of Yugoslavia including the Albanians of Kosova.

Stalin saw Tito's plans for "federation" with Bulgaria, Romania and Greece for what they were: efforts to make Yugoslavia into a regional power, just as Mao sought to turn China into a superpower. This had nothing to do with the revolutionary content of a Balkan socialist federation, which Stalin was not opposed to in principle.


Of course, given the Stalin-modelled "socialism in one country" nationalism of Tito, an utterly fervent Stalinist until the break, discrimination against Albanians was not impossible. Still...Tito was as much a "fervent Stalinist" as Mao. Both men as soon as they came into power displayed their nationalist deviations from Marxism-Leninism. They were obliged to "uphold" Stalin and the USSR only until it came into conflict with their ambitions, which it was bound to do so in both cases. The only difference is that whereas Tito broke with the USSR of Stalin and thus became an immediate apologist for US imperialism and every sort of reformism and right-wing "socialism," Mao broke with the USSR of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, which meant that during the 1960s the Chinese posed as anti-revisionists until finally making common cause with Tito and aligning with US imperialism in the 70s.

[Comrade Jacob]

Albania as state was never communist. Comunist state is an oxymoron.

That's for pointing that out. :rolleyes:

[Homo Songun]

A few years later the USA decided that Albania was the "weak link" of the People's Democracies and thus it became the first country to be subjected to a CIA-backed overthrow attempt when a bunch of Albanian anti-communist émigrés were parachuted in.

How successful that attempt was can be gauged by the following quote by an Albanian interviewed by two Swedes: "The CIA dropped some of its agents here. Flew them in from Italy and dropped them by parachute. But we got them. They had some fine radio equipment. They were going to set up a base here in Albania. At that time my brother was in the Central Committee and said he thought we ought to be able to have some fun out of the CIA too. Everyone agreed. After all, we’d gotten their radios and their codes and all the rest of it. So we informed the CIA in Rome that the revolt was going fine. All we needed was more weapons. And the CIA flew in bazookas and gelignite and all kinds of weapons. And the more they sent, the more successes we reported back. We let the CIA fly in one consignment of weapons after another, and as soon as they came flying in, we snapped them up. They were good weapons. And cheap, too. But in the end even the CIA noticed something was amiss. They’d flown in masses of weapons and still nothing was happening in Albania.Then we told them how we’d been putting them on.Transmitted it in their own code. And then we tapped out: Ha-ha-ha." (quoted in Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle, Albania Defiant, 1976, pp. 14-15.)
This is a hilarious anecdote, I really hope its true. :lol:

[Ismail]

This is a hilarious anecdote, I really hope its true. :lol:From William Blum's Killing Hope, pp. 55-56:

The task force began by recruiting scattered Albanian émigrés who were living in Italy, Greece and elsewhere. They were exposed to basic military training, with a touch of guerrilla warfare thrown in, at sites established on the British island of Malta in the Mediterranean, in the American occupation zone of West Germany, and, to a lesser extent, in England itself. "Whenever we want to subvert any place," confided Frank Wisner, the CIA's head of covert operations, to Philby, "we find that the British own an island within easy reach."

Intermittently, for some three-and-a-half years, the émigrés were sent back into their homeland: slipping up into the mountains of Greece and over the border, parachuting in from planes which had taken off from bases in Western Europe, entering by sea from Italy...

They were to distribute propaganda, obtain political, economic and military information, engage in sabotage, recruit individuals into cells, and supply them with equipment. Later infusions of men and material would expand these cells into "centers of resistance".

Cold-war conventional wisdom dictated chat the masses of Eastern Europe were waiting to be sparked into open rebellion for their freedom. Even if this were the case, the choice of ignition was highly dubious, for the guerrillas included amongst their numbers many who supported a reinstitution of the Albanian monarchy in the person of the reactionary King Zog, then in exile, and others who had collaborated with the Italian fascists or Nazis during their wartime occupations of Albania.

To be sure, there were those of republican and democratic leanings in the various émigré committees as well, but State Department papers, later declassified, reveal that prominent Albanian collaborators played leading roles in the formation of these committees. These were individuals the State Department characterized as having "somewhat checkered" political backgrounds who "might sooner or later occasion embarrassment to this government". They were admitted to the United States over the Department's objections because of "intelligence considerations". One of the checkered gentlemen was Xhafer Deva, minister of interior during the Italian occupation, who had been responsible for deportations of "Jews, Communists, partisans and suspicious persons" (as a captured Nazi report put it) to extermination camps in Poland.

In the name of the CIA-funded National Committee for a Free Albania, a powerful underground radio station began broadcasting inside the country, calling for the nation's liberation from the Soviet Union... Overall, the campaign had little to show for its efforts. It was hounded throughout by logistical foul-ups, and the grim reality that the masses of Albanians greeted the émigrés as something less than liberators...

Worst of all, the Albanian authorities usually seemed to know in which area the guerrillas would be arriving, and when.... Despite one failure after another, and without good reason to expect anything different in the future, the operation continued until the spring of 1953, resulting in the death or imprisonment of hundreds of men.And from Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA by John Prados, pp. 63-64:

Virtually all those [invasions] staged by sea or air had miscarried. In one spectacular failure in July 1951... one was obliterated on landing, one was surrounded in a house and burned alive, while two pixies [CIA name for those sent into Albania] of the last group of four were killed and the other two captured, with an embarrassing public trial in Albania that fall.

Only overland infiltration seemed to have any success. A group in September 1950 managed to survive for two months inside Albania but could raise no resistance. The most successful pixie was Hamit Matjani, a CIA favorite called the Tiger, who made fifteen incursions...

Matjani's last mission had actually been set up by Hoxha's own security men with Soviet assistance. After capturing a radio and two officers of Zog's bodyguard in the spring of 1952, they forced the captives to use their radio to mislead the CIA with rosy reports of growing resistance and appeals for more aid... The Americans carried on, to drop Matjani to his death in May 1953.

[PikSmeet]

Albanian tractor production figures under Hoxha were the envy of the World, communist and non-communist.
They can't say that now can they?