ABSTRACT
Foreign domination has had a profound impact on political developments in the ‘Land of the Eagle’. Roman and Byzantine rule was later followed by incorporation into the Ottoman Empire from 1466 to 1912. Independence was proclaimed on 18 November 1912. Zog was proclaimed king in 1928 and reigned until 1939 (he had made himself ruler in 1924). Pre-war economic dependence on Italy culminated in the invasion (and annexation) of April 1939, and the Nazi occupation lasted from 1943 to 1944. The country’s independence was attained by November 1944, without the help of foreign forces, and a People’s Republic was formally proclaimed in January 1946. Enver Hoxha and other partisans founded the Party of Labour of Albania in 1941 and he became General Secretary two years later. Until his death in April 1985 he maintained Stalin-like control of Albania. Stalinist orthodoxy led to the break with Yugoslavia in 1948. Yugoslav leaders were described as ‘anti-communist renegades’, as a result of Tito’s quarrel with Stalin. In 1950 there was an unsuccessful attempt by Albanian exiles, backed by the UK and USA, to overthrow the government. Albania broke with the Soviet Union in 1961 after the Sino-Soviet split and after Khrushchev’s denouncement of the cult of personality (1956), his acceptance of peaceful coexistence with the ‘imperialist’ United States (the Soviet Union became a ‘social imperialist’ power) and his moves of reconciliation towards Yugoslavia in the late 1950s. Albania resisted Comecon plans for agricultural specialization and after 1961 trade with the Soviet Union fell from over 50 per cent to zero. Finally came the break with China in 1978. China had allegedly adopted ‘social revisionism’ after ‘taking the capitalist path’ in economic policy, and had become more friendly towards the United States after President Nixon’s visit in 1972. Economic links with China were restored in 1983 and the Albanian foreign minister began a visit to China on 22 January 1991. In 1967 Albania banned all religious institutions and practices and became the first atheistic state in the world, an important reason being to stamp out any possible threat to national unity represented by the varying allegiances of Muslims and Christians.1
