Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha (16 October 1908 in Gjirokastra - 11 April 1985 in Tirana) was an Albanian politician, soldier and dictator. He headed the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He served as General Secretary of the Party of Labor of Albania (PPSH) between 1941 and 1985, as well as the post of Prime Minister of Albania between 1944 and 1955.
He completed secondary education at the Albanian National Lyceum (Korçë) and later obtained a scholarship to study at the University of Montpellier. Although as a young man he already showed an interest in politics, his French experience would lead him to become a member of communist organizations. In 1941, at the height of World War II, he was one of the founders of the Albanian Communist Party (later the Labor Party) and would fight with the Albanian partisans who would liberate Albania in 1944, first from the Italian invaders and later from the German army. Through the "Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation" that he presided over, the new Albanian government would abrogate the monarchical regime of Zog I to establish the People's Republic of Albania.
The 41 years of uninterrupted rule of Hoxha are divided into two stages: a first (1944-1976) characterized by temporary alliances with socialist powers —Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China—, and a second (1976- 1985) marked by isolationism, anti-revisionism and the orthodox following of Marxism-Leninism. His government has highlighted the iron defense of Stalinism; the elimination of all types of opposition, both external and internal, through methods that included the death penalty; the transformation of the country towards an industrialized and self-sufficient economy; state atheism; the establishment of a secret police for the political repression of the population (Sigurimi) and, in its last years, the international isolation in which Albania was plunged.
After its break with the USSR, several international organizations declared themselves "Hoxhaists". The most important is the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations.
Childhood and youth
Enver Hoxha was born on October 16, 1908 in Gjirokastra, southern Albania, when that territory was part of the Ottoman Empire. His father Halil Hoxha was a prosperous Muslim textile merchant, while his uncle Hysen Hoxha was a prominent nationalist leader and signer of the Albanian Declaration of Independence in 1912. The family was of Tosk Albanian origin and followed the traditions of the brotherhood bektashi.
The young Enver completed basic education at the Gjirokastra school and secondary school at the local Lyceum. His first contact with politics was through the secretariat of the local Student Association, under which he organized protests against the monarchy of Zog I. In 1927 he was enrolled in the Albanian National Lyceum in Korçë, the most prestigious national institution in Albania. The time. There he was influenced by French literature and philosophers, and came into contact with a local Marxist group that facilitated the reading of the manifesto of the Communist Party.
Thanks to a scholarship, he was able to go to France in 1930 to study Natural Sciences at the University of Montpellier, although he would drop out due to lack of interest. In 1933 he moved to Paris to continue his studies, this time in Philosophy at the Sorbonne, without completing the course. In the French capital he was a regular at the conferences organized by the French Communist Party and began to write articles in the newspaper L & # 39; Humanité , signed under the pseudonym Lulo Malësori .
In 1934 he was appointed secretary of the Albanian consulate in Belgium and enrolled in law at the Free University of Brussels. However, the consul would fire him in 1936 when he discovered his Marxist links, so he had to return to Albania to work at the Korçë National High School, this time as a teacher. He also fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War.
When the Italian invasion of Albania took place in January 1939, the new puppet government banned Hoxha from teaching for refusing to join the Albanian Fascist Party. This led him to settle in Tirana, where his sister lived. There he tried to consolidate himself within the then disorganized Albanian communists, thanks to contacts in the Korçë group and clandestine meetings with other local leaders in a tobacconist's shop he ran. At that time there were very few communists given the rural environment of the country, they were divided into four regional factions and lacked a leader after the death of Ali Kelmendi.
Partisan Resistance
Enver Hoxha's rise within the Albanian communists would come at the end of 1941, linked to the invasion of Yugoslavia in the middle of World War II. With the aim of defending the Albanian front, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia sent two representatives to meet with state leaders, create a Central Committee in Albania and organize resistance. The Communist Party of Albania (PKSH) was founded on 8 November 1941 and Hoxha, representative of Korçë, assumed the general secretariat as a figure of consensus because he was one of the few members trained abroad.
As the highest representative of Albanian communism, Hoxha participated in the reorganization of the Albanian partisans together with the militiaman Mehmet Shehu. In collaboration with the Yugoslavs, the communist militia carried out a guerrilla war, with notable actions such as the sabotage of all lines of communication in June 1942. The different resistance currents - communists, nationalists and monarchists - united in September within the National Liberation Movement (Lëvizja Nacional Çlirimtare, LANÇ). Although it was an independent group in its origins, the communists ended up taking control and that is why two more organizations existed: the nationalist National Front (Balli Kombëtar) and the monarchist Legalist Movement ( Legaliteti).
On March 20, 1943, Hoxha promoted the creation of the Directorate of State Security (Sigurimi), the seed of the secret police, whose objective was to prevent the revolution and suppress opposition to the regime.
In July 1943, when it became known that Benito Mussolini had been overthrown, LANÇ and the National Front sealed the “Mukje agreement” to launch a joint offensive. The communists took control of most of the south, while the nationalists took over the north. However, the alliance was broken soon after due to disagreements over the situation of Kosovo in the postwar period.
In September of the same year the Germans invaded Albania and handed over positions to members of the Balli Kombëtar. All this was a turning point among the civilian population to embrace communist ideas, and Hoxha would take advantage of it by selling the partisans as the only guarantors of independence. As the communists fought to recover territory, the PKSH created a self-styled «National Liberation Anti-Fascist Council» led by himself. Albanian partisans took control of Tirana on November 17, 1944, and the rest of the country on November 29. Before the end of World War II, Albania sealed an agreement whereby Kosovo would be integrated into Yugoslavia as an autonomous province.
Leadership of Albania
Enver Hoxha was the general secretary of the Party of Labor of Albania from its founding on November 8, 1941 until his death on April 11, 1985, a position that since 1944 represented de facto leadership of State of communist Albania. He also arranged it with the post of Prime Minister of Albania from October 22, 1944 to July 18, 1954.
From his 41 years of uninterrupted rule, two stages can be distinguished: the People's Republic of Albania (1944-1976), characterized by alliances with socialist powers, and the People's Socialist Republic (1976-1985), with greater isolationism and the orthodox following of Marxism-Leninism.
People's Republic of Albania (1944-1976)
After the end of World War II and the German occupation, Albania came to be ruled by a regime controlled by local partisans, led by Enver Hoxha and Koçi Xoxe. The National Liberation Anti-Fascist Council took over the provisional government, making Hoxha the interim prime minister. This immediately implanted a centralized economy by which the mines, banks and foreign companies were nationalized, through state control over production and the development of industrialization. The agrarian reform, the most important plan by character Albania, completed in August 1945, would take most of the agricultural land from land-owning families and hand it over to the small peasantry on small plots, a model similar to the Soviet kolkhoz. In addition, an important social measure was carried out: the outlawing of Gjakmarrja (family revenge), formerly considered a feudal tradition.
Critics of the new communist regime were divided, a circumstance that Hoxha would use to his advantage. The monarch Zog I of Albania, exiled in France, was prohibited from returning to Tirana on pain of death. In the spring of 1945, the Special Court against "War Criminals and Enemies of the People" was set up, led by Koçi Xoxe, which would end up being a political purge of alleged fascist collaborators, monarchists and members of the Balli Kombëtar. A total of 60 people were sentenced, including former Prime Minister Kostaq Kota (life imprisonment) and Bahri Omari, former Foreign Minister and Hoxha's brother-in-law (death penalty). Many others went into exile to avoid the special court. In practice, all these measures struck down the elite that existed before the Italian occupation.
On December 2, 1945, constituent elections were held, where the Democratic Front of Albania (dominated by the Labor Party of Albania, PPSH) obtained 92% of the votes as the only candidate. On January 11, 1946 the definitive proclamation of the People's Republic of Albania took place, abolishing the previous monarchical regime and establishing a socialist state based on the example of the neighboring Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Hoxha held both the post of first secretary of the PKSH and the post of prime minister.
Yugoslav influence
The first years of the new People's Republic were marked by Titoist influence. Yugoslavia was the first country with which a trade agreement was signed, the "Treaty of Cooperation and Friendship" of 1946. In practice, this pact subordinated the Albanian economy to that of Belgrade, since the emerging industry depended almost completely on the Balkan support. On the contrary, Hoxha's long-term plans called for a highly centralized planned economy, clearly Stalinist-inspired, for which he intended to draw closer to the Soviet Union and its allies.
The internal opposition was led by Koçi Xoxe, Defense Minister and the second most important man in the government. Both Xoxe and Hoxha were considered members of the party's "hard wing", but they had strategic differences; Xoxe wanted to strengthen relations between the Albanian government and Belgrade, adopting an economy similar to its own or even integration into the Federal Republic. Hoxha's supporters within the PKSH were quick to denounce the trade conditions with Yugoslavia, reinforced by the obstacles of that country to the development of its own agrarian and industrial measures, so that a fierce internal struggle between both factions took place.
However, Hoxha took advantage of an international event to strengthen his power: the 1948 condemnation of Josip Broz Tito's policies by the Cominform assembly. In the first half of 1949, Xoxe was removed from all his charges, brought to trial for "Titoist treason" and sentenced to death. Diplomatic relations were definitively broken in 1950 and the border of both countries would remain closed until the 1990s.
Soviet Twist
After Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform, Hoxha improved diplomatic relations with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, of whom he was always a staunch supporter. The alliance made Albania the preferred partner in the Balkans and was beneficial for industrialization plans, since the Soviets paid more for raw materials and had better technology; in total they invested some 200 million dollars between 1948 and 1960. At the foreign level, the People's Republic was admitted to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) in 1949. The agreements also implied the construction of a submarine military base on the island of Sazan, the implementation of Soviet fiscal tools (among them five-year planning) and founding support for Warsaw Pact military cooperation (1955).
At the national level, Hoxha consolidated his position with the appointment of faithful to the most important posts, including Mehmet Shehu at the head of the Sigurimi. Shehu was promoted to prime minister in 1954, while Hoxha remained the first secretary of the Central Committee of the PPSH until the end of his days. As in the Soviet Union, that position had become synonymous with "Leader of Albania".
Hoxha had to deal with several Western overthrow attempts. Double agent Kim Philby revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and MI6 had recruited some 300 Albanian exiles between 1949 and 1952, infiltrated as spies in their native country, with the purpose of organizing a guerrilla war. However, Albanian intelligence was aware of the plan thanks to KGB leaks, so most of these people were jailed or killed.
Break with the USSR
Albania and the USSR maintained a good harmony until the death of Stalin in 1953. The rise of Nikita Khrushchev meant a degradation of diplomatic relations between the two states, even more so when the new president delivered the "secret speech" that gave way to to de-Stalinization.
Hoxha rejected the new Soviet plans to specialize the Albanian economy in the agricultural and mineral sector, with a view to supplying the rest of the Warsaw Pact nations, for which his partners had cut public aid for industrialization. And internationally, he was firmly opposed both to the restoration of relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia —which he continued to believe was a threat— and to the policy of "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalist bloc. All of this led him to a rapprochement with the People's Republic of China, openly in conflict with Khrushchev, as well as to denounce what he considered revisionist practices.
The USSR tried to redirect Hoxha's position with trade sanctions, diplomatic pressure and the withdrawal of troops. However, the Albanian president remained firm and took advantage of a national congress to reinforce himself in the general secretariat, by expelling the pro-Soviet members of the PPSH; some were even executed under charges of conspiracy. The turnaround was confirmed at the XXII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where Albania's Stalinist positions were condemned by most foreign delegations, with the exception of China and four other countries.
Hoxha did not hesitate to describe Khrushchev as "revisionist, anti-Marxist and defeatist", and called for the self-sufficiency of the Balkan country to preserve those values. In 1961, the USSR and the satellite countries broke all diplomatic relations. Although the president applauded the overthrow of Khrushchev in 1964, tensions continued with Leonid Brezhnev; Albania would go on to condemn both the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968) and the doctrine of limited sovereignty.
Sino-Albanian Alliance
Deteriorating relations with the USSR led to a rapprochement between Hoxha and Mao Zedong, leader of the People's Republic of China. Both Albania and China had remained faithful to Stalinist principles, and considered that de-Stalinization policies betrayed Marxist doctrine. The first secretary of the PPSH made an official visit to Beijing in 1956, and the following year both leaders repeated their meeting in Moscow. Albania thus became the only European state to support China during the Sino-Soviet breakup.
Hoxha achieved an increase in economic aid from the Asian country, which went from 4.2% in 1955 to 21.6% in 1957, essential for industrial reconversion. An example of this was the five-year plan 1961-1965, which contemplated an item of 125 million dollars for the construction of 25 chemical, electrical and metallurgical plants throughout the country, as well as the arrival of more than 2,000 Chinese advisers.
Albania's economy experienced serious difficulties during the distancing from the USSR, since almost all of its trade balance was oriented to the Warsaw Pact, with whose countries it had stopped trading. However, the Sino-Albanian alliance had become so that China could not intervene in the economic plans of its partner, unlike what happened with the Yugoslavs and the Soviets. In return, Albania gave international support to Chinese claims, including the presentation of the motion for Resolution 2758 of the United Nations, which recognized the communist People's Republic as the sole representative of China.
Richard Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972 marked a complete change in the Sino-Albanian relationship. From that moment on, the Chinese began to demand an economic return for their aid. In 1976 the new leaders of the Communist Party of China put an end to the "theory of the three worlds" and resumed contact with Yugoslavia, to which the Albanian General Secretary responded by calling them "Stalin's renegades". The Sino-Albanian break was confirmed in 1978.
People's Socialist Republic of Albania (1976-1985)
Isolationism
At the 7th Congress of the PPSH in 1976, Hoxha promoted a new constitution for the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, marked by orthodox compliance with Marxist precepts, anti-revisionism and national self-sufficiency. In the last decade of his life, the leader came to define himself as "the last defender of authentic Marxism-Leninism."
The fact of having lost the support of the three communist powers plunged Albania into a deep international isolation. On the one hand, Hoxha opted to expand diplomatic ties to non-aligned countries, although this strategy had few returns. On the other hand, the magna carta prohibited free trade, investment and even aid of foreign origin; Albania was considered the poorest and most isolated country in Europe during the 1980s.
Hoxha's deep mistrust of foreigners led him to fear an invasion in his later years. Between 1967 and 1986, a total of 173,000 cement bunkers were built for a population of three million people, with the consequent negative impact on public coffers. For the same reason, Albanians were also not allowed to travel abroad except for diplomatic exceptions, and the arrival of foreigners had been very limited.
Hoxha effected an Albanian variant of the Cultural Revolution by making all activity subject to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, from the media to art. A reform of the education system was carried out to combine "learning" with productive work and physical and military training". to death. It is estimated that a third of the Albanian population at the time came under investigation by the Sigurimi.
Another relevant aspect of the Socialist Republic was the atheism of the State, established by a 1967 decree law. Before the establishment of the regime, Albania was a predominantly Muslim, tribal country marked by feudal traditions that Hoxha judged to be a danger to national integrity. Although in the first three decades the cult was already questioned, the 1976 constitution confirmed in writing that "the state does not recognize any religion and promotes atheist propaganda", something unprecedented to date. During his government, more than 2,000 churches, monasteries and mosques were closed, and more extreme measures were approved, such as the prohibition of beards, the express serving of halal food during liturgical times, and the elimination of any name of religious origin.
Succession
In 1980, Hoxha carried out a new purge within the PPSH to secure the succession in favor of Ramiz Alia, a leader he trusted. The figure most affected in the process was that of Mehmet Shehu, president of the Council of Ministers for more than twenty-seven years and defense minister since 1974, curiously replacing the also purged Beqir Balluku. His former right-hand man refused to retire voluntarily, so Hoxha decided to expel him from the PPSH in May 1980, allegedly accused of disloyalty because his eldest son was going to marry a woman with ties to opponents.
Shehu died on December 17, 1981, at the age of sixty-eight, from a shot to the head in the bathtub of his home, in circumstances that have not yet been fully clarified. Officially it was reported that he had been a suicide, which was a crime under national law. The following day the Albanian radio broadcast the news assuring that the leader had shot himself "in a moment of nervous depression." However, other people like his son believe that they could have forced him to commit it, and there was even speculation outside of Albania with a murder case. The corpse was buried in a common grave without receiving public tributes. In fact, Shehu was excluded from the official Albanian historiography and accused of being a spy in the service of the West.
On November 22, 1982, Ramiz Alia assumed the presidency of the Presidium of the Popular Socialist Republic, replacing Haxhi Lleshi, who had held it for more than three decades.
Attempted attack (1982)
In September 1982 there was another attempted attack against Enver Hoxha, this time planned by a commando of Albanian exiles that would be nicknamed the "Mustafaj Gang" after its leader Xhevdet Mustafa, linked to the Albanian mafia. At dawn from the 24th to the 25th of that month, three members of the group crossed the Otranto channel from Italy with military equipment, disembarked in the country and reached Rrogozhinë, in the Tirana district, where they were intercepted by the Albanian Police. Xhevdet committed suicide in Lushnjë after fleeing from the authorities; the second subversive was killed by the Albanian Army, and the third was arrested.
The attack plan served for Hoxha to culminate the internal purge in the PPSH with a complete remodeling of the government. The blame for the security failures fell on Defense Minister Kadri Hazbiu, son-in-law of Mehmet Shehu, who would be expelled from the party. After a speedy trial for an attempted coup, Hazbiu was sentenced to death in September 1983 along with the Ministers of the Interior and Health.
Last years
The last stage of Hoxha was marked by health problems, as a consequence of diabetes that he had suffered for a long time. At the end of 1973, he had already suffered a myocardial infarction from which he could never recover, which made him led to prepare his succession in favor of Ramiz Alia. Although he tried to stay in charge of the general secretariat, in 1983 he had a stroke that caused him to fade into the background. For two years he remained confined to a wheelchair, under the care of a team of French doctors, for which he that he kept his public appearances to a minimum.
On April 9, 1985, he was admitted to the Tirana hospital with symptoms of ventricular fibrillation. Despite efforts to keep him alive, Enver Hoxha passed away on the morning of April 11, at the age of seventy-six. Four days later, the Albanian authorities held a state funeral and burial at the National Cemetery of the Albanian Martyrs. In 1992 it was transferred to the civil cemetery of Sharra.
Legacy
After Hoxha's death, Albania remained under a communist system until 1991. Although Ramiz Alia promised at the funeral that "Albania will always be strong, always red", the new first secretary took liberalizing measures to solve the economic crisis, including a timid international opening. At first it did not lead to a relaxation of censorship or social repression, so the 1989 revolutions in the Eastern bloc had little impact. However, in April 1990 there were spontaneous protests in Shkodër that spread to the rest of the country, demanding improvements in the quality of life, individual freedom and the ability to emigrate.
On December 11, 1990, Alia confirmed the holding of multi-party democratic elections. This announcement did not stop the protests by the opposition and the student movements, with notable episodes such as the demolition of the statue of Hoxha in Skanderbeg Square. Although the PPSH won the elections in March 1991, the situation in the country was critical due to inflation, the unemployment rate and the massive flow of Albanians abroad, so Alia resigned from power after three months. The PPSH was dissolved on June 12 into two separate parties: the Socialist Party (social democrat, led by Ramiz Alia) and the Communist Party (hoxhaist, headed by Hysni Milloshi). The 1992 parliamentary elections brought the victory of the opposition Democratic Party of Albania, confirming the end of the communist era.
Albania's economic system has completely changed since Hoxha's death. His successor began timid structural reforms to modify the centralized economy, and since the 1990s —with the establishment of democracy— they have moved towards a capitalist system comparable to the rest of Europe, with privatizations in industry and agriculture, deficit control and a comprehensive reform of the financial sector. On the other hand, restrictions on international trade have already been removed.
A 2016 survey by the Institute for Development Research and Alternatives (IDRA) showed that 45% of Albanians believe that Enver Hoxha had a positive impact on Albanian history, while 42% consider its impact to be negative. Younger generations (16–35 years old) tended to have a more negative view of Hoxha's contributions, while those born before 1981 were more positive. approval ratings were in the south-east and south-west regions of Albania, with 50% and 55% respectively.
Controversy
Effects on Albania
The 41-year term was characterized by the political purge of anyone who questioned his power, whether internal or external. Shortly after the People's Republic was proclaimed, the new Albanian government carried out a very summary proceeding, the court against "War Criminals and Enemies of the People", in which more than 60 people accused of collaborationism, monarchists or belonging the Balli Kombëtar. However, the greatest control occurred within the Labor Party, where anyone who questioned Hoxha's power was removed. Three stages can be distinguished: first, the execution in 1949 from Defense Minister Koçi Xoxe, with whom he was in conflict for his collaboration with Yugoslavia; then the dismissal of the Politburo of all pro-Soviet after the Soviet-Albanian split; and finally, the expulsion of Mehmet Shehu —who died in 1981— and the death sentence of Beqir Balluku to consolidate the succession.
The Albanian secret services (Sigurimi) were in charge of monitoring and suppressing any attempt to oppose the regime, following methods similar to the Soviet KGB and the German Stasi. It is estimated that at least one a third of the Albanian population would have been investigated, interrogated or spied on by members of the internal police. Defendants with the longest sentences were imprisoned, usually in the Spaç and Burrel prisons, or sent to forced labor camps. Some prisoners Prominent politicians included Pjetër Arbnori, jailed for 28 years for trying to found an alternative party to the PPSH; Todi Lubonja, director of public broadcasting in the 1970s and accused of "conspiracy" by allowing pop music at the Festivali i Këngës, and Bashkim Shehu, son of Mehmet Shehu. Regarding political executions, it is estimated that at least 5,000 people were killed under the death penalty, which was abolished in 1999.
The Albanian Civil Code established that "fleeing from the State, as well as refusing to return to the Motherland" was an act of treason, punishable by 10 years in prison as the minimum sentence and the death sentence as the maximum. To prevent departures, the government closed the pass with Yugoslavia and ordered the construction of an electrified fence along the border. The Albanian coast and the Otranto channel were also under special surveillance.
Although Albania was formally a dictatorship of the proletariat, the nomenklatura lived in a special neighborhood of Tirana called the "leaders' block" (blloku i udheheqjes), guarded by armed soldiers with restricted access to the rest of the population. His wife Nexhmije Hoxha was even arrested for alleged embezzlement of public funds with the advent of democracy, but when the crimes could not be proven, she was released in 1995.
Communist International
The figure of Enver Hoxha is controversial not only for his role in the history of Albania in the 20th century, but also for the role he played within the Communist International. His vision of Marxism-Leninism and his criticism of de-Stalinization, a trend that he considered "revisionist", had an enormous influence on his policies of alliances. In this sense, Hoxha considered that Albania was "the only" socialist state after the 1956, and gave rise to an ideological current, "hoxhaísmo".
By breaking with the Soviet Union due to its disagreements with Nikita Khrushchev, the CPSU filed a complaint against the leader at the XXII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for the recent purges against pro-Soviet leaders that he had carried out. Albanian-Soviet relations had worsened since Khrushchev's "secret speech" condemning Joseph Stalin's crimes. Hoxha—was the only one to congratulate him for maintaining "Stalinist orthodoxy", and made clear the Sino-Soviet split.
In the book Khrushchev's Memories (1970), the Soviet leader wrote the following reference to his Albanian counterpart at that Congress:
Especially shameful was the behavior of that Mao Zedong agent, Enver Hoxha. He has taught us fangs more threateningly than the Chinese themselves. After her speech, Comrade Dolores Ibárruri, a revolutionary veteran and tireless worker in the communist movement, got indignant and said, rightly, that Hoxha was like a dog that bites his hand to eat.
Hoxha also had notable disagreements with other Eastern bloc countries. Confronted with Yugoslavia due to a conflict of interests between the two countries, the president broke any ties after the Cominform condemned the policies of Josip Broz Tito; it has since condemned any outreach to Yugoslavia by any other state, including the communist bloc. Finally, the Sino-Albanian break in 1978 led the Balkan country to international isolation.
Cult of personality
Enver Hoxha was buried with honors in the National Cemetery of the Albanian Martyrs, where he would remain until 1992. That year President Sali Berisha, the first non-communist after democratic elections, carried out measures to eliminate the cult of the personality of the leader, which included the transfer of his body to a more modest grave in the civil cemetery of Sharra (Tirana).
Shortly after his death, the authorities promoted the construction of the Tirana Pyramid, a huge pyramid-shaped facility that would house the “Enver Hoxha Museum”. The inauguration took place on October 14, 1988, with an estimated budget of 3 million dollars, and the team of architects included Pranvera Kolaneci, daughter of the former Secretary General. However, the fall of the regime led to the closure of the mausoleum and for decades it has shown a dilapidated state. Throughout its history, new uses have been proposed without coming to fruition.
Partial list of works
- Hoxha, Enver (1974). Selected works, November 1941 - October 1948 I. Tirana: Publishing house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1975). Selected works, November 1948 - November 1965 II. Tirana: Publishing house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1980). Selected works, June 1960 - October 1965 III. Tirana: Editorial house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1982). Selected works, February 1966 - July 1975 IV. Tirana: Editorial house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1985). Selected works, November 1976 - June 1980 (in English) V. Tirana: Editorial house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1987). Selected works, July 1980 - December 1984 (in English) VI. Tirana: Editorial house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1981). Editorial house 8 Nëntori, ed. With Stalin. Tirana.
- Hoxha, Enver (1979). Editorial house 8 Nëntori, ed. Reflections on China I. Tirana.
- Hoxha, Enver (1979). Editorial house 8 Nëntori, ed. Reflections on China II. Tirana.
- Hoxha, Enver (1976). Albania in front of the jruschovista revisionists. Tirana: Editorial house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1978). Imperialism and revolution. Tirana: Publishing house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1980). The Jruschovistas. Tirana: Publishing house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1982). Anglo-American plots in Albania. Tirana: Publishing house 8 Nëntori.
- Hoxha, Enver (1985). Two friendly peoples (in English). Toronto: Instituto Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
- Hoxha, Enver (1986). The superpowers. Tirana: Publishing house 8 Nëntori.