Albania

The Communist Takeover of Albania

The communist partisans regrouped and, thanks to freshly supplied British weapons, gained control of southern Albania in January 1944. In May they called a congress of members of the National Liberation Front (NLF, as the movement was by then called) at Përmet, which chose an Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation to act as Albania's administration and legislature. Hoxha became the chairman of the council's executive committee and the National Liberation Army's supreme commander. The communist partisans defeated the last Balli Kombetar forces in southern Albania by mid-summer 1944 and encountered only scattered resistance from the Balli Kombetar and Legality when they entered central and northern Albania by the end of July. The British military mission urged the nationalists not to oppose the communists' advance, and the Allies evacuated Kupi to Italy. Before the end of November, the Germans had withdrawn from Tiranë, and the communists, supported by Allied air cover, had no problem taking control of the capital. A provisional government the communists had formed at Berat in October administered Albania with Enver Hoxha as prime minister, and in late 1944 Hoxha dispatched Albanian partisans to help Tito's forces rout Albanian nationalists in Kosovo.

Albania stood in an unenviable position after World War II. Greece and Yugoslavia hungered for Albanian lands they had lost or claimed. The NLF's strong links with Yugoslavia's communists, who also enjoyed British military and diplomatic support, guaranteed that Belgrade would play a key role in Albania's postwar order. The Allies never recognized an Albanian government in exile or King Zog, nor did they ever raise the question of Albania or its borders at any of the major wartime conferences. No reliable statistics on Albania's wartime losses exist, but the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration reported about 30,000 Albanian war dead, 200 destroyed villages, 18,000 destroyed houses, and about 100,000 people left homeless. Albanian official statistics claim somewhat higher losses.

Data as of April 1992

Albania - TABLE OF CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTION
• Historical Setting
  • THE ANCIENT ILLYRIANS
  • THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS AND THE MIDDLE AGES
  • THE ALBANIAN LANDS UNDER OTTOMAN DOMINATION, 1385-1876
    • The Ottoman Conquest of Albania
    • Albanians under Ottoman Rule
    • Local Albanian Leaders in the Early Nineteenth Century
  • NATIONAL AWAKENING AND THE BIRTH OF ALBANIA, 1876-1918
    • The Rise of Albanian Nationalism
    • The Balkan Wars and Creation of Independent Albania
    • World War I and Its Effects on Albania
  • INTERWAR ALBANIA, 1918-41
    • Albania's Reemergence after World War I
    • Social and Economic Conditions after World War I
    • Government and Politics
    • Italian Penetration
    • Zog's Kingdom
    • Italian Occupation
  • WORLD WAR II AND THE RISE OF COMMUNISM, 1941-44
    • The Communist and Nationalist Resistance
    • The Communist Takeover of Albania
  • COMMUNIST ALBANIA
    • Consolidation of Power and Initial Reforms
    • Albanian-Yugoslav Tensions
    • Deteriorating Relations with the West
    • Albania and the Soviet Union
    • Albania and China
    • The Cultural and Ideological Revolution
    • The Break with China and Self-Reliance