were built during Hoxha's rule to avert the possibility of external invasions. By 1983 over 173,000 concrete bunkers were scattered throughout the country. As Hoxha's leadership continued, he took on an increasingly
theoretical stance. He wrote criticisms which were based on theory and current events which occurred at the time; his most notable criticisms were his condemnations of
Maoism after 1978. During World War II, the Albanian Communists encouraged women to join the partisans and following the war, women were encouraged to take up menial jobs, as the education necessary for higher level work was out of most women's reach. In 1938, 4% worked in various sectors of the economy. In 1970, this number had risen to 38%, and in 1982 to 46%. In 1978, 15.1 times as many females attended eight-year schools as had done so in 1938 and 175.7 times as many females attended secondary schools. By 1978, 101.9 times as many women attended higher schools as in 1957. During the
Cultural and Ideological Revolution, women were encouraged to take up all jobs, including government posts, which resulted in 40.7% of the People's Councils and 30.4% of the People's Assembly being made up of women, including two women in the Central Committee by 1985. Hoxha said of women's rights in 1967: The entire party and country should hurl into the fire and break the neck of anyone who dared trample underfoot the sacred edict of the party on the defense of women's rights. An electrification campaign was begun in 1960, and the entire nation was expected to have electricity by 1985. Instead, it achieved this on 25 October 1970. During the
Cultural and Ideological Revolution of 1967–1968 the
military changed from traditional Communist army tactics and began to adhere to the
Maoist strategy known as
people's war, which included the abolition of
military ranks, which were not fully restored until 1991. Hoxha's legacy also included a
complex of 173,371 one-man concrete bunkers across a country of 3 million inhabitants, to act as look-outs and gun emplacements along with
chemical weapons. The bunkers were built strong and mobile, with the intention that they could be easily placed by a crane or a helicopter in a hole. The types of bunkers vary from machine gun pillboxes and beach bunkers to underground naval facilities and even Air Force Mountain and underground bunkers. Hoxha's internal policies were true to Stalin's paradigm which he admired, and the personality cult which was developed in the 1970s and organised around him by the Party also bore a striking resemblance to that of Stalin. At times it even reached an intensity which was as extreme as the
personality cult of
Kim Il Sung (which Hoxha condemned) with Hoxha being portrayed as a genius commenting on virtually all facets of life from culture to economics to military matters. Each schoolbook required one or more quotations from him on the subjects being studied. The Party honored him with titles such as Supreme Comrade, Sole Force and Great Teacher. He adopted a different type
military salute for the People's Army to render honors which was known as the "Hoxhaist salute", which involves soldiers curling their right fist and raising it to shoulder level. It replaced the
Zogist salute, which was used by the
Royal Albanian Army for many years. Hoxha's governance was also distinguished by his encouragement of a high birthrate policy. For instance, a woman who bore an above-average number of children would be given the government award of
Heroine Mother (in Albanian: Nënë Heroinë) along with cash rewards. Abortion was essentially restricted (to encourage high birth rates), except if the birth posed a danger to the mother's life, though it was not completely banned; the process was decided by district medical commissions. As a result, the
population of Albania tripled from 1 million in 1944 to around 3 million in 1985.
Relations with China poster promoting Albanian-Chinese cooperation featuring Hoxha and Mao; The caption at the bottom reads, "Long live the great union between the Parties of Albania and China!" The two leaders only met twice—first in 1956 during Hoxha's visit to China, and again in 1957 at the Moscow meeting of Communist and Workers' parties—before the formation of the Sino-Albanian alliance. At the start of Albania's third five-year plan, China offered Albania a loan of $125 million, which would be used to build twenty-five chemical, electrical and metallurgical plants in accordance with the plan. However, the nation discovered that the task of completing these building projects was difficult because Albania's relations with its neighbors were poor and because matters were also complicated by the long distance between Albania and China. Unlike Yugoslavia or the USSR, China had less economic influence on Albania during Hoxha's rule. During the previous fifteen years (1946–1961), at least 50% of Albania's economy was dependent on foreign commerce. By the time the 1976 constitution was promulgated, Albania had mostly become self-sufficient, but it lacked modern technology. Ideologically, Hoxha found that Mao's initial views were in line with Marxism–Leninism due to his condemnation of Khrushchev's alleged revisionism and his condemnation of Yugoslavia. The financial aid which China provided to Albania was interest-free, and it did not have to be repaid until Albania could afford to do so. China never intervened in Albania's economic output, and Chinese technicians and Albanian workers both worked for the same wages. Albanian newspapers were reprinted in Chinese newspapers, and they were also read on Chinese radio, and Albania led the movement
to give the People's Republic of China a seat on the
UN Security Council. During this period, Albania became the second largest producer of
chromium in the world, which China considered important. Strategically, the Adriatic Sea was attractive to China because China hoped that it could gain more allies in Eastern Europe through Albania - a hope which was misplaced.
Zhou Enlai visited Albania in January 1964. On 9 January, "The 1964 Sino-Albanian Joint Statement" was signed in Tirana. The statement said of relations between socialist countries: Like Albania, China defended the "purity" of
Marxism by attacking
American imperialism and "Soviet and Yugoslav revisionism", both of them were equally attacked as part of a "dual adversary" theory. Yugoslavia was viewed as both a "special detachment of U.S. imperialism" and a "saboteur against world revolution". However, these views began to change in China, which was one of the major issues which Albania had with the alliance. Additionally, unlike Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, the Sino-Albanian alliance lacked "... an organisational structure for regular consultations and policy coordination, and it was also characterized by an informal relationship which was conducted on an
ad hoc basis." Mao made a speech on 3 November 1966 in which he claimed that Albania was the only
Marxist–Leninist state in Europe and in the same speech, he also stated that "an attack on Albania will have to reckon with the great
People's Republic of China. If the U.S. imperialists, the modern Soviet revisionists or any of their lackeys dare to touch Albania in the slightest, nothing lies ahead for them but a complete, shameful and memorable defeat." Likewise, Hoxha stated that "You may rest assured, comrades, that come what may in the world at large, our two parties and our two peoples will certainly remain together. They will fight together and they will win together."
Shift in China's foreign policy after the Cultural Revolution During the
Cultural Revolution, China entered into a four-year period of relative diplomatic isolation, however, its relations with Albania were positive. On 20 August 1968, the
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was condemned by Albania, along with the
Brezhnev doctrine. Albania refused to send troops to Czechoslovakia in support of the invasion, and it officially withdrew from the Warsaw Pact on 5 September. Albania's relations with China began to deteriorate on 15 July 1971, when United States President
Richard Nixon agreed to visit China in order to meet with Zhou Enlai. Hoxha believed that China had betrayed Albania, and on 6 August, the Central Committee of the PLA sent a letter to the Central Committee of the CCP in which it called Nixon a "frenzied anti-Communist". The letter stated: The result of this criticism was a message from the Chinese leadership in 1971 in which it stated that Albania could not depend on an indefinite flow of aid from China, and in 1972 Albania was advised to "curb its expectations about further Chinese contributions to its economic development". By 1972, Hoxha wrote in his diary
Reflections on China that China was no longer a socialist country, instead aligning itself with the interests of a powerful nation that prioritized pragmatic relations over socialist principles. In 1973, he wrote that the Chinese leaders had "cut off their contacts" with Albania, reducing their interactions to merely formal diplomatic exchanges. While China maintained its economic agreements, Hoxha remarked that their "initial ardor" had waned. In response, trade with COMECON (although trade with the Soviet Union was still blocked) and Yugoslavia grew. Trade with Third World nations was $0.5 million in 1973, but $8.3 million in 1974. Trade rose from 0.1% to 1.6%. Following Mao's death on 9 September 1976, Hoxha remained optimistic about Sino-Albanian relations, but in August 1977,
Hua Guofeng, the new leader of China, stated that Mao's
Three Worlds Theory would become official foreign policy. Hoxha viewed this as a way for China to justify having the U.S. as the "secondary enemy" while viewing the Soviet Union as the main one, thus allowing China to trade with the U.S. He condemned this as a "diabolical plan" for China to position itself as a superpower at the head of the "third world" and the "non-aligned world".
Political repression and emigration , and a section of the
Berlin Wall Certain clauses in the 1976 constitution circumscribed the exercise of political liberties, which the government interpreted as being contrary to the established order. The government denied the population access to information other than that which was disseminated by government-controlled media outlets. Internally, the
Sigurimi used the same repressive methods which were used by the
NKVD, the
MGB, the
KGB and the
East German Stasi. At one point, every third Albanian had either been interrogated by the Sigurimi or they had been incarcerated in
labour camps. The government imprisoned thousands of people in forced-labour camps or it executed them for alleged crimes such as treachery or disrupting the
proletarian dictatorship. After 1968, travel abroad was forbidden to all but those people who were on official business.
Western European culture was looked upon with deep suspicion, resulting in bans on all unauthorised foreign materials and arrests: Art was required to reflect the styles of
socialist realism. Beards were banned as unhygienic in order to curb the influence of
Islam (many
imams and
babas had beards) and the
Eastern Orthodox faith. The justice system's legal proceedings regularly degenerated into
show trials. An American
human rights group described the proceedings of one trial, noting that the defendant was not allowed to question the witnesses. While he could express objections to certain aspects of the case, the prosecutor dismissed them, telling him to "sit down and be quiet" because they claimed to know better. In order to lessen the threat which political dissidents and other exiles posed to the regime, relatives of the accused were often arrested,
ostracised, and accused of being "
enemies of the people". Political executions were common, and at least 5,000 people—possibly as many as 25,000—were killed by the regime.
Torture was often used to obtain confessions: During Hoxha's rule, there were six institutions for political prisoners and fourteen labour camps where political prisoners and common criminals worked together. It has been estimated that there were approximately 32,000 people imprisoned in Albania in 1985. Article 47 of the Albanian Criminal Code stated that to "escape outside the state, as well as refusal to return to the Fatherland by a person who has been sent to serve or has been temporarily permitted to go outside the state" was an act of
treason, a crime punishable by a minimum sentence of ten years and a maximum sentence of death. The Albanian government went to great lengths to prevent people from defecting by leaving the country: An electrically wired metal fence stands 600 meters to one kilometer from the actual border. Anyone touching the fence not only risks electrocution but also sets off alarm bells and lights which alert guards stationed at approximately one-kilometre intervals along the fence. Two meters of soil on either side of the fence are cleared in order to check for footprints of escapees and infiltrators. The area between the fence and the actual border is seeded with booby traps such as coils of wire, noise makers consisting of thin pieces of metal strips on top of two wooden slats with stones in a tin container which rattle if stepped on, and flares that are triggered by contact, thus illuminating would-be escapees during the night.
Religion After the
demise of the Ottoman Empire, Albania was a
predominantly Muslim country, in which social structure was based on
confessional communities, rather than
ethnic groups. After the
rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire,
Muslims were classified as
Turks,
Eastern Orthodox Christians were classified as
Greeks, and
Catholics were classified as
Latins. Hoxha believed that this division of Albanian society along religious and ethnic lines was a serious issue because it fueled Greek separatists in southern Albania in particular, and it also divided the nation in general. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1945 confiscated much of the church's property in the country.
Catholics were the earliest religious community to be targeted because the
Vatican was considered an agent of
Fascism and
anti-Communism. In 1946 the
Jesuit Order was banned and the
Franciscans were banned in 1947.
Decree No. 743 (On religion) sought the establishment of a
national church, and it also forbade religious leaders from associating with foreign powers.
Mother Teresa, a Catholic nun whose relatives resided in Albania during Hoxha's rule, was denied a chance to see them because she was considered a dangerous agent of the Vatican. Despite multiple requests and despite the fact that many countries made requests on her behalf, she was not granted the opportunity to see her mother and sister. Mother Teresa's mother and sister both died during Hoxha's rule, and the nun herself was only able to visit Albania five years after the Communist regime collapsed. Starting on 6February 1967, the party began to promote
secularism in place of
Abrahamic religions. Hoxha, who had launched a
Cultural and Ideological Revolution after being partially inspired by China's
Cultural Revolution, encouraged Communist students and workers to use more forceful tactics in order to discourage people from continuing their religious practices; the use of violence was initially condemned. According to Hoxha, the surge in
anti-theist activities began with the youth. The result of this "spontaneous, unprovoked movement" was the demolition or conversion of all 2,169 churches and mosques in Albania.
State atheism became official policy, and Albania was declared the world's first atheist state. Town and city names which echoed Abrahamic religious themes were abandoned for neutral secular ones, as well as personal names. By 1968, Hoxha stated in a speech in that "Religion is a fuel kindling fires of all evils". During this period religiously based names were also made illegal. The ''Dictionary of People's Names'', published in 1982, contained 3,000 approved, secular names. In 1992, Monsignor Dias, the Papal Nuncio for Albania appointed by
Pope John Paul II, said that of the three hundred Catholic priests present in Albania prior to the Communists coming to power, only thirty were still active. The promotion of religion was banned, and all clerics were labeled reactionaries and outlawed. Those religious figures who refused to embrace the principles of Marxism–Leninism were either arrested or carried on their activities in hiding.
Cultivating ultranationalism During the anti-religious campaign, Enver Hoxha declared that "the only religion of Albania is Albanianism", a quotation from the poem
O moj Shqypni ("O Albania") by the 19th-century Albanian writer
Pashko Vasa.
Muzafer Korkuti, one of the dominant figures in post-war Albanian
archaeology and now the Director of the Institute of Archaeology in Tirana, stated the following in an interview on 10 July 2002: Efforts were focused on an
Illyrian-Albanian continuity issue.) continued to play a significant role in Albanian nationalism, resulting in a revival of given names supposedly of "Illyrian" origin, at the expense of given names associated with
Christianity. At first, Albanian nationalist writers opted for the Pelasgians as the forefathers of the Albanians, but as this form of nationalism flourished in Albania under Enver Hoxha, the Pelasgians became a secondary element The Illyrian descent theory soon became one of the pillars of Albanian nationalism, especially because it could provide some evidence in support of the belief that there was a continuous Albanian presence in
Kosovo and
Southern Albania, i.e. areas that were subjected to
ethnic conflicts between Albanians, Serbs and Greeks. Under the government of Enver Hoxha, an
autochthonous ethnogenesis They claimed that the Illyrians were the most ancient people in the
Balkans and greatly extended the age of the
Illyrian language.
Rejecting Western mass media culture Hoxha and his government were also hostile to
Western popular culture as it was manifested in the
mass media, along with the
consumerism and
cultural liberalism which were associated with it. In a speech on the Fourth Plenum of the Central Committee of the PLA (PLA-CC) on 26 June 1973, Hoxha declared a definitive break with any such Western bourgeois influence and what he described as its "
degenerated bourgeois culture". In a speech in which he also criticised the "spread of certain vulgar, alien tastes in music and art", which ran "contrary to socialist ethics and the positive traditions of our people", including "degenerate importations such as long hair, extravagant dress, screaming jungle music, coarse language, shameless behaviour and so on", Hoxha declared: == Later life and death ==