Later Rule of Enver Hoxha

Enver Hoxha's last years were marked by paranoia, persecution of the common people and increasing isolation. Ultimately abandoned by both Russia and China, the Stalinist cult of personality that Hoxha had built up around himself only served to inflate his ego further and did nothing to mitigate his increasingly erratic decisions until Hoxha's death in 1985.

Persecution and nationalism

In 1967, Hoxha began a campaign to extinguish religion in Albania, pretending it was a grassroots movement. All religious buildings were converted to use as gymnasiums and the like, beards were forbidden in an effort to curb Islam and even violence was tacitly condoned. It was a success, by Hoxha's terms; he boasted that Albania was the first nation free of religion.

The new constitution

During 1976, Hoxha and his government wrote a new constitution. Though it supposedly guaranteed freedom of speech, press, organization and more, it subordinated those freedoms to an individual's duty to Albania, essentially making those liberties worthless. After China's perceived betrayal of Marxism, Hoxha also included in the new constitution clauses forbidding owing money to or creating joint companies with foreign "bourgeoisie and revisionists" in an effort to strengthen nationalism. It worked, after a fashion; Albania's foreign debt was nonexistent for years. However, it had the side effect of depressing the economy and making Albania into one of the poorest countries in Europe.

The final years

By 1980, Hoxha's health was sharply declining; a heart attack years earlier and chronic diabetes were taking their toll. He turned away from his long-time comrade, Mehmet Shehu, and began grooming Ramiz Alia as his successor. Though Hoxha tried to convince Shehu to step aside peacefully, in 1981 Shehu allegedly committed suicide - though it is suspected Hoxha had him killed. Hoxha then purged the members of Shehu's family and his supporters from the government and military. In 1983, Hoxha went into semi-retirement, with Alia taking over his duties until Hoxha's death in 1985.

Although Hoxha left Albania with a legacy of xenophobia, isolation and poverty, he also instilled a strong sense of independence and national pride into its populace. To dismiss Enver Hoxha as another Soviet bloc strongman is foolhardy; studying his final years shows a man intent on gaining for his nation freedom from any foreign power.