Albania's Road from Communism

Albania’s Road from Communism: Political and Social Change, 1990-1993

Fatos Tarifa

ABSTRACT

Until the late 1980s, Albania was one of the least known countries in the world and virtually inaccessible to foreigners. Most studies on Eastern Europe lacked reliable and complete information about Albania; it was usually either mentioned as the smallest and the least developed country of Europe or totally ignored. For their part, Albanian scholars have made little contribution, if any, to analysing their society under Hoxha’s Communist regime. As with all totalitarian systems, Albania’s Communism was immune to criticism for almost forty-five years, and information on domestic issues was tightly controlled. This article aims to throw some light on and to systematically analyse Albania’s road from Communism. The country’s inherited social, political, cultural, and economic conditions have made Albania’s move from Communism the most difficult and convulsive of all the East European countries. They are also likely to put considerable obstacles in the path of establishing a true democracy, making Albania’s post-Communist transition highly uncertain.

BACKGROUND

Until the end of 1944, with a brief interlude of formal independence between 1912 and 1939, Albania was subject to domination by foreign powers: the Ottoman Empire for five centuries, rule by other European countries during the First World War, and then occupation by fascist Italy (1939-43) and Germany (1943-44).

The end of World War I1 found Albania a semi-feudal society with an extremely primitive and predominantly agrarian economy and virtually no industrial base. Eastern Europe has always been the poorest part of the continent, and Albania has been the poorest country of the region. By 1944 Albania was the only sizeable country in Europe without a national railway system and with no paved roads. Until the end of the 1940s, 85 per cent of Albania’s population was illiterate (among women the figure was well over 90 per cent), and archaic social relations and norms derived from the Islamic Law (Shariah) prevailed, particularly in the northern part of the country.

Albania differed in many ways from the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Unlike Czechoslovakia, where a democracy existed even

Development and Change Vol. 26 (1995), 133-162. 0 Institute of Social Studies 1995. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Rd, Oxford OX4 IJF, UK.

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before the Communist take-over, Albania’s only experience of democracy was the short-lived government of Fan Nolii, which lasted for just six months in 1924.’ During its independent political life Albania was subject either to monarchic rule, under King Zog? or to the most extreme form of Communist totalitarian rule, under Enver Hoxha. Similarly, whilst in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, for example, the political parties of the pre-war era remained in the political arena even after the Communist take-over, the two political organizations of Albania, the nationalist Balli Kombetar (National Front) and Legaliteti (the royalists) that were created during the War to oppose the Communists, were defeated along with the Italian fascists and the Nazis with whom they had ~ollaborated,~ and quickly disappeared to operate in exile. In the political vacuum that existed in the aftermath of World War 11, the Communists were able to seize full power, having no rivals. The Communist movement in Albania had a history of no more than ten to fifteen years4 and the Communist Party - the Labour Party (LP) after 1948 -was created on Comintern instructions only three years prior to the end of the War (Nove:mber 1941). None the less, the Albanian Communists, who had organized and led a strong partisan movement, found themselves undisputed rulers of post-war Albania.

ALBANIA’S GO-IT-ALONE POLICY

The success of the Communists was all the more remarkable given that Albania was the only country in Eastern Eu.rope in which not a single Soviet soldier fought during the National Liberation War. This was of exceptional importance both in establishing the legitimacy of Hoxha’s Communist rule and in determining the curious independent path that Albanian foreign policy would take in the decades to come (de Gaay Fortman and Tarifa, 1994; Glenny, 1990). Immediately after the: Communist take-over, Albania followed the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe in adopting the Soviet pattern; indeed, Albania was subject to the Soviet sphere of influence until 1960.

The democratic experiment under Fan Noli (Jun(zDecember 1924) failed mainly because of a lack of popular support for radical reforms, and because of the military intervention by the future King Zog who was assisted by White Russian troops exiled in Yugoslavia. A clan chieftain and landowner who overthrew Noli’s democratic government and became Albania’s prime minister in 1924. In 1928 he proclaimed himself King Zog I of the Albanians and ruled the country as an autocrart within the frame of a ‘constitutional monarchy’ until the Italian fascist invasion of Albania in April 1939. Glenny (1990: 145) remarks that the collaboration of the Bulk Kombetur with the Nazi occupiers against the Partisans in a civil war paralleled the struggle between the Cherniks and the Partisans in Serbia, Montenegro and other parts of Yugoslavia. The first Communist group in Albania was forrned in 1929.

Albania’s Road from Communism 135

The Labour Party remained the sole political power in the country for forty-six years. It controlled all aspects of society and of people’s lives: the state, the economy, the army, culture and education. The citizens of Albania were not able to take part in democratic elections, nor could they voice their opinions freely. The economic system evolved strictly along the lines of the orthodox model provided by early Soviet socialism (Sjoberg, 1991). It was based on two principles: complete reliance on central planning and the rejection of private ownership of the means of production. The enforcement of these principles was carried out to an extreme unknown in any other socialist country, resulting in the elimination of almost all forms of private property. Virtually no modification was made to this system until the late 1980s.

The Albanians, indeed, suffered longer and more silently under Commun- ism than any other nation in Eastern Europe. Few people knew, or cared, about the brutality of its leaders or the persecution of its people. Although other Central and East European countries experienced similar forms of authoritarianism, Albania, the most backward country in the region, was uniquely isolated from the rest of the world and deprived of any foundation for democratic participation. Indeed, it was isolated even from the former Communist Bloc. It did not undergo any period of liberalization such as that experienced by other East European countries in the post-Stalinist era, where a cultural form developed opposing totalitarian terror, and encouraging criticism and a more open interpretation of official ideology. Although this was a short-lived phenomenon and varied in intensity in the socialist countries, it played an important role in the destruction of Communist ideology (Kolakowski, 1992). In Albania, Enver Hoxha avoided any revisionist thinking or movement: all foreign influence, however innocuous, was denounced. No civil society in the sense of ‘a network of underground organizations outside of communist control’ (Osiatynski, 1991) ever emerged in Albania. The political system which prevailed was, to quote Walter Laqueur (1992: 548), ‘a curious mixture of primitive communism and nationalism in which clannishness played a crucial role’.

In Poland (after 1976) and in Hungary dissident groups were allowed to form, even though their freedom of action was very limited; in East Germany opponents were frequently permitted to leave for the West; even in Bulgaria a small opposition existed for some time. In Communist Albania a dissident movement has never existed. The complete lack of an organized opposition was one of Albania’s main features under Communism (Glenny, 1990: 160). After assuming power in 1944, the Communist party maintained control over the country through the politics of permanent purge, the brutal use of violence by the Sigurimi (Security police), and a vast network of informers. During Hoxha’s reign, all his political or ideological opponents were either assassinated or given severe prison sentences on the pretext of being agents of imperialism and revisionism. From a population which had only recently reached the three million level, thousands of Albanians were

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imprisoned on political grounds, for voicing thoughts which differed from the official cliches, or for making statements which expressed disappointment or dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. These were considered crimes of ‘agitation and propaganda against the state’. Many families also suffered internal exile in remote areas when someone in the household was imprisoned. Communism not only survive:d longer in Albania than in the rest of Eastern Europe, it also survived with most of its Stalinist trappings in place. It is therefore no surprise that the breakdown of Communism found this country with no democratic traditions or institutions. Under Hoxha’s dictatorship, every spark of democracy hatd been extinguished.

Being well aware of the major role that communication plays in the form- ation of public opinion, Hoxha severely restricted the flow of information into and within Albania. Albania, more than any other Communist country, was subject to extraordinary censorship an’d isolation. Until Hoxha’s death, people in Albania were not allowed to watch foreign television programmes, in case they should learn that the West was not the ‘dark devil’ described in Communist propaganda. Similarly, Albanians were denied access to Western books and magazines, especially those dealing with philosophy and fiction, for fear that they would make the people more difficult to control. Moreover, there was no chance for people to leave their ‘socialist island of happiness’; many were killed in their efforts to escape Albania.

Throughout the period of Communist rule, Albanians were told that their government was right and the rest of the waald was wrong.’ A tedious refrain of Enver Hoxha’s propaganda machine was that the entire capitalist world, and the American and the Soviet superpowers above all, considered socialist Albania ‘a thorn in their flesh’. Propaganda claimed that the outside world wanted to isolate Albania and make her give up her socialist ways.

After a long quarrel with Khrushchev, Hoxha, who was a Stalinist fundamentalist, abandoned the Soviet line, and in 1961 diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries were broken. Relations between Albania and all the other countries of the former Soviet bloc immediately chilled as

After the break with the Soviet Union Hoxha became a political and ideological ally of China’s Mao Tse-tung, embracing with great enthusiasm his revolutionary doctrine and setting about adopting it for use in Albania’s peculiar conditions. In 1966-67 Hoxha launched a Chinese-type ‘cultural

5 . In 1973, replying to the complaint by the youth organization that Albania was, after all, a European country and therefore ‘should follow . . . the course of European developments’, Hoxha said: ‘No, we cannot and should not follow “the European road”, on the contrary it is Europe which should follow our road, because from the political standpoint, it is far behind us . . . far from that for which Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin fought’ (Hoxha, 1973: 240).

6. From 1961 Albania was a sleeping partner in the Warsaw Pact. In August 1968 Hoxha used the excuse of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to withdraw his country from the military alliance.


and ideological revolution’ in Albania, aimed at strengthening the control of the party over all aspects of society.

After Mao’s death in 1976, economic and political relations with China practically came to an end. With his paranoid policy that strictly adhered to Marxist ideology and Stalinist practices, Hoxha attempted to carry out one of the most far-reaching experiments in socialist orthodoxy, leaving Albania with no international support. The dire consequences of this policy were felt in all aspects of life. The Albanian economy had been heavily dependent on external sources of technology and development assistance, first from the USSR and latterly from China. The level of industrial development in Albania had therefore been closely related to the scale of foreign assistance she obtained (Alia, 1992: 65; Blejer et al., 1992: 18; Schnytzer, 1982: 101; Sjoberg, 1991). Consequently the break with the Soviet Union in 1961 and with China in 1978 hit Albania’s economy hard. The isolation that had been a constant element of Hoxha’s reign became virtually complete after the break with China: Albania was deliberately cut off from the outside world and remained, until the death of its Communist dictator, as remote to its European neighbours as ‘a mountaintop Himalayan kingdom’ (Laber, 1993).

After Mao’s death, Hoxha claimed that Albania was the only country in the world that was building socialism. Splitting with China, Hoxha tried hard, and with some success, to make little Albania the centre of the world Communist movement, denouncing both the Soviet and the Chinese revisionism. Albania, the smallest and the poorest of all Communist countries, subsidized a couple of dozen Communist (Marxist-Leninist) parties throughout the world. Hoxha believed that Albania could be ‘a light-house’ for the world Communist revolution and he himself the sole and undisputed theorist of latter-day Mar~ism-Leninism.~

The 1970s and the first half of the 1980s were characterized by a virtually autarkic policy of economic development. The 1976 Constitution formulated as one of the main postulates of ‘socialist construction’ in Albania the principle of ‘self-reliance’. This go-it-alone economic policy prohibited any foreign credit, aid or investment: from that time until 1990, Albania received virtually no financial assistance from international organizations or foreign countries. This period, therefore, witnessed a severe slowdown in economic performance. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Albania’s real net material production (NMP) had grown by nearly 44 per cent, and during the second half of the 1970s by about 20 per cent. Between 1980 and 1989, however, NMP rose by an average of less than 1 per cent a year. It dropped from an average of 1.6 per cent in the period 1980-85 to zero growth in the years 1985-90 (Blejer et al., 1992: 10-11). Critical areas of economic activity such

7. In his last years Enver Hoxha wrote a series of volumes aimed at scrubbing the Marxist-Leninist doctrine clean of all filth attached to it by renegades and revisionists of all colours, such as Trotskyists, Titoists, Khrushcevites, Maoists, Eurocommunists etc.

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as agriculture and extractive industries declined, causing drastic shortages in consumer goods and foodstuff.

Albania’s isolation was reflected domestically in extremely rigid policies that violated several basic human rights including the freedoms of belief, conscience, expression, and peaceful assembly. Many rights that existed in theory were ignored in practice; even on paper, many rights were limited and incomplete. Religion was banned in 1967, and all houses of worship were either closed or demolished at once. With the 1976 Constitution Albania became the first self-proclaimed atheist stiite in the world, recognizing ‘no religion whatever’ (Article 37). Philosophies other than Marxism-Leninism were also prohibited, making atheism and Marxism legal obligations for all Albanian citizens (Tarifa, 1992).8 The case of Albania confirms Kolakowski’s argument that totalitarian regimes need an ideological foundation in the form of an obligatory doctrine with all-embracing pretensions (Kolakowski, 1992).

The strong repression and the isolation of Albania from world events explain why the Communist rule in this country, although it had begun to show signs of serious erosion, was the last to come under attack.

LOST OPPORTUNITIES A DESPERATE MOVE TO FIND A PLACE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

Enver Hoxha, who remained an orthodox Communist throughout his life, died in 1985. His hand-picked successor was Ramiz Alia.’ Alia was not as strictly orthodox as Hoxha, but neither did he possess the strong authority of his predecessor. Therefore, in order to ensure full support from the population and to prove to the party his loyalty to Hoxha’s political line, he had no choice but to follow closely in the footsteps of his mentor. Glenny (1990: 156-7) points out that Alia was faced with the same dilemma that Khrushchev encountered when he decided to confront the criminal legacy of Stalin. During his first years in power, M a made virtually no change to Hoxha’s policies.”

8. Indeed, Hoxha’s fanatical ideas became the mainsprings of Albanian politics and legislation, as well as part and parcel of people’s daily lives. His works were the Albanian Bible-sacred in every way-without which, he claimed, life would make no sense.

9. Alia had been appointed by Hoxha as President of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania in 1982 and took over as party leader after Hoxha’s death. To a large extent, Aha owed his position and his popularity to Hoxha.

10. In the 9th Congress of the Labour Party (November 1986) Alia vowed to follow Hoxha’s path. He again professed his fidelity to Hoxha.’s political line in his book Our Enoer, published in 1988. Alia wrote: ‘Enver Hoxha hars shown us the road we must follow . . . Continuity on the road of socialism and continuity on the road of Enver are one and the same thing’ (Alia, 1988: 479, 481). Alia’s loyalty to Hoxha’s policies and approach made many people believe that Hoxha was still rulinlg the country from the grave.


By the end of the 1980s, however, with the extreme brutality of Hoxha’s regime very gradually easing, Alia began to relax the rigid isolationism of his predecessor and to make some minor adjustments to the previous system. Many people started to believe that he would be the ‘Albanian Gorbachev’. The economy had become a major problem, and political solutions were needed. First of all the 1976 Constitution, with its ban on foreign credits and investments, had to be revoked. This was clearly no easy task for Alia, given the ideological fanaticism prevailing among the hardliners who still dominated the party leadership, its strong bureaucracy, and the state, and Alia’s own pledge to continue Hoxha’s line. Alia himself had neither a clear vision for future changes nor the courage to bear the responsibility for his country’s destiny. However, he realized that there were only two choices: to try to save socialism in Albania at any cost, as Hoxha had done for many decades, or initiate and promote changes in both domestic and foreign policies. To his credit, he understood that isolation and ‘self-reliance’ were leading the economy ‘to the edge of the abyss, which, in fact, was a threat for the country’s freedom and independence’ (Alia, 1992: 134). If Albania was to be less poor, it had to open up and become more democratic.

Although Alia remained loyal to Hoxha until the end, he was more of a pragmatist than his mentor. After decades of centralist rule Alia started, albeit slowly and gingerly, to move away from the principle of self-reliance. He tried to reconcile Albania’s ideological rigidity with the pragmatism required to manage a modern economy, feed the people, and broaden ties with the West. Gradually he adopted a perestroika-style ‘new economic mechanism’, introducing a raft of limited reforms designed to make life a little easier for his long-suffering compatriots. I ’ These reforms were, in fact, a desperate move aimed at integrating Albania into the world economy and at promoting a gradual transition from central planning to a market- oriented system (see Blejer et a]., 1992: 55). Despite the introduction of the new mechanisms, however, all economic indicators continued to decline.

Ramiz Alia appeared to be more successful in foreign affairs than on the domestic front. In 1986 he began to show serious interest in emerging from isolation and gravitating toward the West in search of new political and economic ties. Diplomatic relations were established with several countries,

1 1 . Some modifications implying a more decentralized management of the economy were put on the agenda in 1986. In the years that followed greater autonomy was accorded to enterprise managers about what to produce and how; the number of plan indicators was reduced and enterprises and farms were granted more discretion in planning, finance, and pricing (Sjoberg, 1991; World Bank, 1993). People were now given more opportunities to build their own houses, helping to ease the housing shortage. Workers were able to earn extra bonuses for extra work. In the spring and summer of 1990, a wide range of new policies were promulgated, aimed at introducing a larger measure of market-conformity (Sandstrom and Sjoberg, 1991); they included new laws on enterprises, banks. and prices, and they condoned private economic activities.

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including the German Federal Republic, Canada and Spain. At the same time Albania’s diplomatic missions with the: GDR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were upgraded to the ambassadorial level.’* In the 10th Central Committee Plenum of the Labour Party (April 1990), to the surprise of many, Alia declared that Albania was now ready to resume diplomatic relations with the United States and the Soviet Union.I3 Following this statement, in May 1990, Albanian prime minister Adil Carcani announced to parliament the leadership’s decision to abandon its boycott of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) and sign the previously scorned Helsinki Final Act. In a matter of months the USSR and the USA opened diplomatic offices in Tirana, while negotiations were going on to exchange ambassadors with Israel, Great Britain and the Vatican.I4 In October 1990 Albania, having participated in the first Conference of Balkan Foreign Ministers held in Belgrade iin 1988, played host to the second Balkan Conference.

Joining the CSCE and re-opening rdations would give Albania a chance to make the new ties to the outside world-both political and commercial - which were so badly needed after the long years of isolation. On the other hand, participating in the Helsinki process would necessarily impose obligations on the Albanian gove:rnment to abolish a number of repressive and discriminatory laws, and to fundamentally improve its human rights record. Indeed, the move to sign the Helsinki Final Act was accompanied by a series of laws and governmental decisions restricting the death penalty, giving those on trial the right to a legal defence and the right to appeal, allowing the distribution of religious material and the performance of religious activities, as well as allowing Albanian citizens to apply for passports and to travel abroad into the previously prohibited world.

All these changes were enthusiastically received by the majority of citizens, but while conservative forces were concerined that too many changes were being made, other people seemed to be dissatisfied with the scope and the speed of change. Even two years earlier, these reforms might have seemed adequate, and Alia would have gained tremendous political credit; but the time for half-measures had passed. Alia’s mild relaxations merely made people more restless. Far from thanking him, they felt frustrated that the changes were being carried out too slowly and that more time was being lost.

12. Diplomatic relations with these countries had dwindled after the break with the Soviet Union.

13. Both superpowers were seen as incarnations of ideological evil during Hoxha’s rule, and the mere suggestion of talks with Washington and Moscow would have been dismissed as a perfidious plot at that time.

14. In September 1990, for the first time, Alia addressed the United Nations, where he was spotted shaking hands with Britain’s former pnime minister Margaret Thatcher (see The Economist, 15 December 1990).

Albania’s Road .from Communism 141

Once minor changes were put on the agenda, the people, headed by the intellectuals, demanded total change, as they did all over Eastern Europe. We must assume that Alia did not realize that Albania had embarked upon the spiral which had become familiar in Eastern Europe: pressure for change brings minor concessions, which in turn create pressure for greater change, which elicits fresh concessions, and so on until the old system cracks.

By the end of 1989 and during 1990, Alia was recognized as a reformer. Many, however, began to wonder whether he was a real reformer, seriously committed to substantial changes, or a time-server, merely interested in making minor cosmetic adjustments. An increasing number of people put little faith in what Alia said. Indeed, although not opposed to moderate economic reform, Alia wanted a minimum of political change and certainly no reform of the political system, having every intention that the Labour Party should remain in power. This was spelt out quite clearly by Foto Cami, Alia’s ideology chief, in a speech to the Academy of Sciences in March 1987, in which he indicated that changes could be made, as long as the country’s freedom and independence were protected and the social order preserved.

Although this pragmatic approach left the door open to a number of possibilities, Alia remained fearful of radical change. He ignored the per- sistent demands being made in many quarters, especially by the intellectuals, who were establishing a reformist wing within the party, and by the urban youth for the abrogation of the 1976 Constitution, which was the greatest hindrance to the democratization of Albanian society. Revoking the Con- stitution would imply consenting to a multi-party system; replacing a police- state with the rule of law; removing the barriers built into the Communist legal system by restoring freedom of conscience and belief; permitting people to freely express their opinions, to organize societies and hold meetings without fear of punishment. Abandoning the old Constitution would not simply mean rectifying the many human rights violations and social injustices of Hoxha’s dictatorship; it would mean creating a new legal framework, essential for democracy and for economic and social progress, and a new set of democratic institutions. But these demands were rejected by Alia and the ruling elite, who believed them to be the demands of exclusive intellectual circles, lacking in popular support. Alia sincerely believed that the Albanian people had bound their life to socialism.

Although Alia made a remarkable move forward, he underestimated the iron rule of reform - that one change leads to another. Furthermore, having seen every other East European Communist leader fall, Alia did not know what lessons to draw and what mistakes to avoid. The official line adopted by Alia vis-u-vis events in Eastern Europe was simple and self-serving: it was not Socialism that had failed, but revisioni~m.’~ Even when the Berlin Wall

15. In September 1989 Alia denounced the Soviet and East European models as bourgeois perversions and irrelevant to Albania’s approach toward a socialist society: ‘we are a small

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crumbled and the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed, Alia made no effort to alter his orientation. His interlude in power was a period of lost opportunities.

In the weeks after Ceausescu was toppled, Alia showed his political myopia by believing that Albania could remain unaffected by the tremors shaking Eastern Europe. It was at this time that Alia designed the political slogan: ‘Albania is neither West nor East’. However, nothing proved to be further from the truth. Although the Communist system in Albania had not yet come under the same degree of attack as the other regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, it was not going to be exceptional. There were, certainly, differences between these countries with regard to historical traditions and political and economic development, but the political system in Albania was of the same basic type as that prevailing throughout Eastern Europe. Moreover, Albania’s was the drabbest and most repressive regime among the Communist countries, and a growing number of people had, by this, time, no illusions left about it. In many ways, therefore, the need for change was even more pressing in Albania.

THE LAST DOMINO: WHAr NEXT?

In 1989, all the East European countries - ‘Hungary, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania - moved away from Communism. The one exception was Albania, which survived the 1989 revolution more or less intact. But how long would it last? The collapse of the Communist system in Central and Eastern Europe had been assisted by what Laqueur (1992: 551) has called the echo effect: ‘once the onslaught against the old establishment had been successful in one country, revolutionary uprisings tended to be infectious’. The term more frequently used in the literature on post-Communist transition is the ‘domino effect’, which is perhaps a better description of the crumbling process which took place in the former socialist countries.’6 This irreversible process made lit inevitable that, after Romania,

_ _ _ ~ ~~~~ ~

(Footnote 15 continued)

country, but the sole country that is building socialism and developing without looking to anyone else for help’ (Zeri ipopullit 17 September 1989). Two months later, Alia told the Communist-controlled Trade Unions Council: ‘There are people abroad who ask: “Will the processes like those taking place in Eastern Europe also occur in Albania?’ We answer firmly and categorically: “No, they will not occur in Albania” ’ (quoted by Biberaj, 1992: 188). This position was repeated in Alia’s year-end address to the nation in which he underlined that what happened in Romania could not happen in Albania because the ‘party had served the people well’ and therefore it need not fear a popular uprising. Yet he admitted that events in Eastern Europe ‘have inspired certain known anti-Albanian forces to resume the campaign of slanders against the country’ (quoted by Stavrou, 1990).

16. Osiatynski (1991) describes this process most eloquently: ‘As with waves at sea, each revolution picked up some energy from the preceding one and could not avoid building its own momentum’.


Albania would be the last domino to fall. Being last could have been an advantage for Albania; at least the country’s leaders would have the chance to learn from the mistakes of their neighbours - for example from the reform Communists in Bulgaria and Romania who miscalculated that, because the opposition was too weak and divided to govern, it could safely be ignored.

At this point, the people of Albania were fairly well aware of what was happening elsewhere in the world; it was now possible to watch foreign television programmes, mainly Italian and Yugoslav, almost all over the country. The ‘Romanian story’ that had dominated world radio and television had a particularly profound effect on the Albanian people. Besides showing the dramatic effects of the ending of Communism, this story carried the message that even brutal regimes, such as the one under which the Albanians were living, could be toppled.

Though the situation in Albania appeared calm, the first signs of accumulated tension soon began to show. In spring 1990, the first strikes were recorded, and in Shkoder, the northern-most city of the country, the monument of Stalin disappeared. For many people, it gradually became evident that radical change was inescapable. The outside pressure on Alia’s regime was also increasing. The CSCE refused to admit Albania because of its poor human rights record and its opposition to a multi-party system. The West made it clear that Albania should expect nothing until essential changes were made and free elections were held. Yet, there was no organized force to take the initiative for change. The first half of 1990 passed without major incident, even though it was evident to many that the system had started to crumble. Finally, on 2 July 1990, tens of thousands of mostly young people took to the streets of Tirana; after anti-regime demonstrations which the police tried hard to put down by force, more than 6,000 of them invaded fourteen foreign embassies, asking for asylum.” This flood of asylum-seekers (which had, in fact, begun as a trickle three months earlier), dealt a decisive blow against the Communist establishment. It wrong-footed Alia and signalled to both the people and the ruling elite that things could not continue as they were. The rules of forty-five years of Communism had now been brought into question and it seemed that the country would have no rest in the days to come.

17. The West German embassy was the most popular refuge, with some 3,200 asylum-seekers; many Albanians had watched on TV as thousands of East Germans had flooded the West German embassy in Prague the year before. The Italian and French embassies were second and third choices. Mdst of the asylum-seekers, according to western diplomats, were not political dissidents but economic refugees, in search of the better life seen on foreign television; see The Economisi, 14 July 1990. (In Tirana, where almost every family at that time had a black-and-white TV set, the joke circulated that people had stormed the foreign embassies to make sure of seeing the football World Cup Final in colour!) With the advice and the assistance of the United Nations’ representatives, and after some initial hesitation, Alia agreed to let these people leave for the West.

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The embassies event was a turning-point in Albania’s political life; it effectively announced the end of the old regime. After the refugees’ departure, tension appeared to die down and the explosive atmosphere which had built up in the early days of July relaxed. In fact, however, the people were in shock. Uncertainty prevailNed both in the cities and in the countryside. Later that same month, workers staged a sit-in at the big ‘Stalin’ leather-processing factory in Tirana. Rumours spread that the borders would open for three or four days so that anyone who wanted could leave. There were further signs of upheaval, pa:rticularly in the main towns of Tirana, Shkoder and Durres. However, Alial appeared not to have learnt any lessons from earlier events. Again he reacted1 rather than taking the initiative, and again his reaction was inadequate, consisting only of minor changes in the Politburo and in the government. Soine members were removed but those who took their place were no better. Instead of gaining the support of the people, Alia’s ‘measures’ merely irritated them even more.

Fearing turmoil in the capital city when the Tirana University students returned from summer holidays, the party elite tried to play another card, appealing to the patriotic spirit of the Albanians. On 1 September, tens of thousands of people were brought to Scanderbeg Square in the heart of Tirana to demonstrate their support for Aliil and to denounce the thousands of ‘hooligans’ who had left Albania. As clever as it seemed, the idea of holding such a large rally was also perilous: the story of Ceausescu’s last rally in Bucharest was still very fresh in people’s memories. Alia did not appear in public that day and, indeed, the events of Bucharest were not repeated in Tirana; party propaganda claimed this ‘ecstatic’ rally as proof of the unity between the Party and the people.

The deterioration of the economic situation during the summer and autumn unquestionably added to the unsettled public mood. Given the country’s long isolationist policy and the state of its economy, the collapse of COMECON plunged Albania into a more savage recession than any other Central or East European country.“ Food shortages were more severe than ever. Thousands of jobless workers would flow into the streets of Tirana and other towns, just waiting for something to happen.

The defection of leading Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare in October 1990’’ was the final proof that Alia no longer had the trust or support of the Albanian intellectuals: there had already been evidence of this, for example in the August 1990 meeting between Alia and some leading

18. In addition, the dry summer of 1990 parched Albania’s rivers, halting hydro-plants which make most of the country’s electricity. Chrome production, Albania’s industrial staple, slowed. Antiquated factories in other industries were shutting down as they ran out of raw materials and spare parts for their outdated ma’chinery. Irreparable Soviet and Chinese tractors rusted in fields, and private gardens went dry. Kadare was given asylum in France. 19.


intellectuals. Kadare’s prestige among Albanian intellectuals and youth, however, made his defection a major factor in accelerating the process of change and in establishing a multi-party system. It was no accident that Kadare’s portrait was found in the hands of Tirana University students during their demonstrations in December 1990.

In the other Central and East European countries, youth, and students in particular, played a major role. Glenny (1990: 155) likened them to ‘the engine of rebellion that generated such powerful change in the whole region while the intellectuals provided the fuel’. Albania was no exception. A three-day demonstration of the Tirana University students (9-1 1 December 1990) gave the signal for a nation-wide democratic movement. The students’ initial demands were of an economic character,” but within a few days a group of intellectuals had joined their movement, and their goal was clearly pronounced to be the transformation of the political system. The students’ movement, which was also joined by many workers, provided the greatest momentum for change. The students refused to talk to prime minister Adil Carcani or any leader other than Ramiz Alia. When the two sides did finally meet, the students made their uncompromising demand: freedom for other political parties.

There was no way to ignore the students’ position if a confrontation was to be avoided. Thus, bowing to demands for more democracy, Alia announced on 1 1 December that ‘independent political organizations’ - i.e. political parties other than the Labour Party-were to be allowed ‘in accordance with the laws in force’. Given that the 1976 Constitution, which banned the creation of political parties, was still in force, this last qualification was meant to ensure that any ‘independent’ parties would be acceptable to the Labour Party.

For several days after this, an expectant atmosphere prevailed across the country. A new political system had been launched within the framework of the old one and a period of transition would now begin. The mood and perception of the people were different in various parts of the country and among different social and age-groups. An increasing number of questions, dilemmas and uncertainties were pressing, but there seemed to be no-one who could offer the people a clear picture of what was going to happen in the coming weeks or months, let alone further into the future. What political parties would emerge? Was Albania’s social soil fertile enough to nurture independent political organizations? What programmes would they have? Was there going to be a coherent and cohesive opposition? What would happen to the Labour Party? What were Ramiz Alia’s plans? Would there be free elections soon, as in all the other East European countries? What about the economy: would there be foreign credits or investments?

20. The demonstration started as a boycott of school in protest at the poor living conditions for students.

146 Fatos Targa

There were, as yet, no answers to these questions. The ‘domino game’ was over, but if a new game had begun, no-onte seemed to be sure of the rules.

A DRAMATIC SPLIT WITH COMMUNISIM

Only three days after Alia’s decree on political pluralism, Albania had a second political party. Their numbers would later increase with each passing month, but the first opposition party which emerged in the euphoria after the triumph of the Tirana University students’ movement was the Democratic Party (DP). In fact, the Dernocratic Party grew out of the students’ protests. Its founders were a group of university professors, students, writers, journalists and actors. From among them, Sali Berisha, a cardiologist, and Gramoz Pashko, a Tirana University reader in economics, emerged as party leaders.”

Subsequent developments in Albania followed a similar pattern to those of other Central and East European countries, particularly Bulgaria and Romania. The Democratic Party was more of an anti-Communist movement, or an umbrella organization, than a political party. Its militant members were a mixed lot: many reformed Communists, as well as anti- Communists, intellectuals, students, workers, former political prisoners and members of their families, and even people who had never before shown any interest in politics. Within a few months, their ways would again part; for the moment, as Laqueur (1992: 551) noted for other East European countries, these people were united in the belief that there would be no future for any of them unless the old order was defeated.

More than anything else, the oppositioin movement was helped by the Democratic Party’s newspaper Rilindja Demokratike (The Democratic Renaissance), in the pages of which dozens of talented young writers and journalists waged a pugnacious campaign against totalitarianism and the legacy of Hoxha’s Communist regime. Of course, one of the first demands of the opposition movement was the holding of free elections. The DP immediately organized a western-type electoral campaign and, in fact,

21. At first, many people believed that the new opposition was not as independent as it claimed. Pashko, a former Labour Party member, came from a small elite, his father having been minister in Hoxha’s government in the 1960s. Malign tongues called him ‘an official dissident’. Berisha, also a party member for 25 years, was party secretary of the Tirana University Faculty of Medicine. As a cardiologist, Berisha had also been, for several years, in charge of Enver Hoxha’s probllematic health; as such, he was regarded as part of the intellectual elite. Alia (1992) reveails that during the students’ riots, he had advised Berisha to meet and negotiate with the :students, with the aim of bringing them back to their classrooms. In fact, many of the Democratic Party’s senior members had belonged to the Labour Party; they now resigned from the old Communist organization in order to begin creating a multi-party state in Albania.

Albania’s Road From Communism 147

managed it quite well. The DP widely publicized its plans for ridding Albanian society of Hoxha’s influence, and mobilized large segments of the urban population, including many young and unemployed people. The Labour Party, paralysed by the sudden changes, did almost no campaigning on its own behalf. All the same, many people were clearly not convinced that the election, first called for February 1991 and later, at the demand of the Democratic Party, postponed until the end of March, would change anything.

Unlike some of the other Central and East European countries, such as East Germany, Poland and Hungary where the post-Communist transition was negotiated through round-table talks between the Communists and a reasonably well-structured opposition, Albania’s first free elections were organized by the Labour Party without any prior negotiations with the opposition parties. The electoral system22 was a variant of majority voting with r~n-offs.*~ The Democratic Party originally fought for proportional representation but later, as they gained in confidence, accepted the majority system.

The road towards the first multi-party elections was hazardous. There was an atmosphere of uncertainty throughout the country. Many people believed, quite correctly, that life in Albania would get worse before it could get better, even if pluralism prevailed. Towards the end of the year, rumours swept through the towns and villages that the Greek authorities would close the border on 31 December. During the last days of December, the regular trickle of fugitives swelled to a flood of some 16,000.24 In February, thousands of people flocked to Durres, the country’s main port, in response to a rumour that a visiting Italian ship would pick up passengers without passports or visas. This time, however, there was to be no repetition of July’s mass exodus. The crowd found the harbour gates locked and turned violent, while the army was called in.

De -Hoxhaization became the main focus of the opposition’s propaganda crusade and quickly brought Albania to the brink of civil war. Although the opposition leaders played successfully on the accumulated anger of the population, once the crowds took to the streets, the DP leaders seemed unable to control their destructive instincts. Consequently, throughout the winter, the electoral campaign of the modern Democratic opposition was compromised by anachronistic forms of political protest akin to those of the

22. Adopted by the Communists before the introduction of a multi-party system. 23. In this, Albania was in line with other Eastern European countries where the Communists

advocated majority vote in single-member districts, because their candidates were believed to have higher recognition, whilst the opposition advocated proportional voting (see Elster, 1991).

24. On the night of 31 December 1990 alone, more than 5,000 people, the bulk of them young people from the Greek minority villages of Southern Albania, escaped across a snow- bound mountainous frontier into Greece (The Economist, 12 January 1993).

148 Fatos Tarifa

Luddites in early nineteenth century England. Events were running out of control and Albanian society was sliding closer and closer to total chaos. Law and order broke down; unemployment was rampant; anarchy, crime and violence in the streets reached frightening proportions. Free from the constraints of the past, more and more of the country’s youth, and especially the least educated, equated democracy with anarchy. Hundreds of schools, hospitals, health and day-care centres, shops, post offices, collective farms, and industrial plants were either looted or d.estroyed, causing further damage to an economy which was already in virtual ruins. The public transport- ation system broke down, and disorder prevailed. Abhorrence of Hoxha’s dictatorship and socialism led to the destruction of everything that had been state or collectively owned, and the rule of the day became ‘everyone for him~elf’.’~

The situation reached its climax in February 1991, when hundreds of students of the Enver Hoxha Tirana University staged a hunger strike, demanding the removal of Hoxha’s name from their University. Although their demand was hardly a surprise, it placed Alia in an uncomfortable position. On one side were the students’ demands and strong pressure from the opposition to get rid of Communist synibols and Hoxha’s legacy. On the other side, there were tens of thousands of Labour Party members and large sections of the population, especially in the rural areas, reminding him of his oath to follow Hoxha’s path. Negotiations between Alia’s emissaries and the students failed to reach a compromise. Finally, on 20 February, the government announced the decision to reorganize the Tirana University into two separate universities: it was left unsaid that neither of the two would bear the name of the late dictator.

Although the students were barely satisfied, this was another triumph for the opposition movement and another step back for the ruling elite. On the same day many citizens of Tirana, mostly young people, streamed through the streets chanting ‘Enver-Hitler’ and trying to topple the nine-metre gilded statue of Enver Hoxha that towered over the Scanderbeg Square. The police

25. This is how a BBC TV News correspondent described the situation during those days: ‘the country was in economic chaos, its people queuing sometimes for hours just to get bread. To watch the excitement of children walking home with a loaf under each arm, you would have thought they were carrying bars of gold . . Firewood was fast running out. Along some country roads there was hardly a tree left standing, such was the desperation. The shops were empty - no meat, no fish, no coffee. At one stage the railway network had to be closed down completely . . . Railway sleepers had been removed to be used as a source of fuel, and signalling wire was torn down by those who had thought of an innovative way of connecting electrical supplies liom street lights into their homes. Nearly 70 per cent of the adult population were out of work. There were no raw materials for the factories . . . Machines stood idle and resilience was wearing thin. One electrical worker trying to mend a severed cable was machine-gunned to death by an angry mob. Lethargy had set in with Albanians losing the desire to work and becoming almost totally dependent on Western aid‘ (Hamilton, 1992: 18).


and special troops (the sampists) were sent to stop them, but with tens of thousands of protesters in the main square, the police were helpless. The conflict had reached its zenith, and a civil war seemed to be only a hair’s breadth away. Alia again had two choices: to order the demonstrators to be shot, and turn the Scanderbeg Square into a Tienanmen, or to let them accomplish their aim.26 Alia did not imitate Honecker’s actions in East Germany, and he is widely credited as having avoided a civil war in Albania.

By the evening of 20 February, Enver Hoxha’s statue was no longer standing in the capital city. Reacting to this latest burst of popular anger Alia declared that evening on national television: ‘Busts may be removed, but the figure of Enver Hoxha cannot be toppled’. However, everybody knew that the real target of the demonstrators was not Hoxha’s good name but his appalling system. Later that evening, Alia also announced that he was setting up a Presidential Council to help the nation through its emergency. He sacked Prime Minister Adil Carcani and named what was meant to be a government of talents. On closer inspection, however, the Presidential Council and the new government led by Fatos Nano, a thirty-nine year-old western-style economist, turned out to be filled mainly by younger or less tired Communists.

In the following days, all the other monuments of the late dictator were dismantled. The ‘Pyramid of the Pharaoh’, the name Albanian students gave to the multi-million-dollar museum built to hold everything Hoxha ever possessed, was closed. In the meantime, several pro-Hoxha rallies were organized, and a movement comprising tens of thousands of mainly rural people called the ‘Volunteers for the defence of the memory of Enver Hoxha’ unsettled the political atmosphere even more. The situation became extremely tense and remained that way throughout the spring.

The election campaign was short and bitter. In fact, the programmes of the Communists and the Democrats were not very different. Both concentrated on economic reform, advocating a market economy system, but while the Socialists were in favour of a gradual approach, the Democrats supported radical measures. The Democrats waged a Western-style campaign, holding outdoor rallies with dramatic posters and the two-fingered V-for-Victory sign, while Alia and his Labour Party conducted the more traditional, unimaginative, heavy-handed campaign that East European Communists have waged for years (see Lucas, 1991).

The campaign became more intense in March when, on the eve of the first free elections, more than 25,000 people vowed to get out of Albania at all costs, invaded the boats at the Durres harbour and escaped to Brindisi

26. Later Alia would describe the country’s situation in February 1991 as closer to bloodshed than any other moment during the transitory period (Alia, 1992: 193).

150 Fatos Tarifa

in Italy.27 Prime Minister Nan0 claimed that the government had had no choice but to let the people go: the alternative would have been ordering soldiers to shoot them. Opposition politicians countered that the Communist government was only too happy to wave farewell to thousands of pro- spective anti-Communist voters three weeks before the general elections, speaking of the exodus as ‘a safety valve’.

ALBANIA’S FIRST YEAR OF TRANSITIOIN A MIRROR IMAGE OF OTHER BALKAN STATES

Albania’s first free parliamentary elections in sixty years were held on 31 March 1991. With a 98 per cent voter turnout, the Labour Party survived its first real test at the polls in its forty-six years of unchallenged rule. It won a clear majority (68 per cent), taking 169 seats in the 250-member single chamber Parliament, which enabled it to hold on to power. The LP did much less well in Tirana and in other predominantly working-class regions, the populations of which had long ago lost faith in the party. As in Bulgaria one year earlier, the Labour Party maintained its position, for the time being, due to its strong support in the countryside. The rural population** was still fearful of change and therefore reluctant to make the break with the past (Austin, 1993; Hamilton, 1992: 17).

The opposition parties had relatively little chance of winning this first election, given their inexperience, lack of resources, and restricted time for preparation. An extreme right-wing force, the Republican Party (RP), did not win any seats, showing that it had virtually no support. The DP, however, took 75 seats. It swept the board in the cities, winning almost every seat in Tirana, and even managed to defeat Alia, who won less than 40 per cent of the vote in a contest against an unknown engineer in a Tirana

27.

28.

Giulio Andreotti, the former Italian prime miniijter, appeared on Italian TV to appeal to Albania’s government and its youth not to sele Italy as a land of plenty. On another occasion, Andreotti stated that most of the Albanians who docked in Italy were economic, and not political, refugees. The Italian government was totally unprepared to receive over 20,000 refugees and even threatened to use its navy to stop refugee ships at sea and to escort them back to Albanian waters. This prompted the UNHCR to appeal to Italy to let the Albanians land. The Italian deputy prime minister, Claudio Martelli, then made a short trip to Albania offering the Albanian government food and medical aid if they would stop the refugees. Following this visit, Nano’s government declared its main ports military zones (The Economist, 16 March 1991‘). Estimated to comprise two-thirds of Albania’s population, the rural population is mainly located in small settlements in extremely mountainous regions with minimal communication. About 43 per cent of the villages in Albania have fewer than 500 inhabitants. Very poor roads (or no roads at all) and underdeveloped public transport and telecommunica- tions (over 1,000 villages have no access to telephones) made the rural population virtually unreachable for the newly-formed opposition parties during the election campaign.


constituency. Given the limited opportunities and the very short time (less than four months) that it had been in existence, winning 30 per cent of the parliamentary seats was a very significant achievement for the fledgling opposition, and increased its political ~tature.’~

The Communists’ overall victory in Albania came as no surprise, and mirrored other Balkan experiences. The opposition, however, immediately rejected the results of the elections and refused the Socialists’ offer to join a coalition government. The Democrats claimed that their party’s success in the main towns amounted to a moral victory. They were pinning their hopes on the next elections, which they claimed should come soon, through popular demand and political necessity.

Ramiz Alia, who still looked like the best hope for those who wanted peaceful change, was re-elected President of Albania by the new pluralistic Parliament. He immediately stepped down from his post as First Secretary of the Labour Party. A draft constitution due to be approved by the new parliament, while allowing Alia to remain President, forbade the President to hold an official position of party leadership. Fatos Nan0 was reappointed by Alia to form the new government. Alia’s widely recognized contribution to a peaceful transition and his new presidential mandate, however, did not help him escape attack by the opposition.

Disappointed by the outcome of the first multi-party elections, the opposition adopted the tactics of obstruction (in parliament), disorganiza- tion and economic destabilization. In this, the opposition was actively supported by the independent trade unions which showed their anger at the Democrats’ defeat by staging violent protests. The DP’s leaders would not have been able to keep their supporters off the streets, even if they had wanted to. Under such circumstances, the flow of would-be emigrants to neighbouring countries looked set to resume.

Although Nano’s government had opted for gradual economic reform, it was not in fact given a chance to do anything. Following prolonged unrest and a three-week general strike in Tirana and other major towns - which was supposedly apolitical but was obviously influenced by the opposition parties - Nano’s government was forced to resign within two months of taking office. The opposition immediately called for new elections, claiming that the LP was unable to run the country and that, as in Bulgaria and Romania, the promised western economic aid would not be forthcoming until the Communists were defeated.

The most important event of this period was the abrogation by the Parliament of the 1976 Constitution and the adoption of the ‘Law on Major Constitutional Provisions’, designed to remain in force until a new

29. Summarizing the results of the elections, Lucas (1991), an eyewitness during those days, wrote that ‘while the Democratic Party won the public relations campaign, the Labor Party won the election’.

I52 Fatos Tarifa

Constitution had been drafted and apprloved. After angry parliamentary debates on the presidency, the Communists and Democrats finally reached a compromise, vesting relatively weak powers in the still-Communist head of state. Once Nano’s government resigned, it became evident that the political power delegated to the Labour Party through free parliamentary elections had slipped out of its hands. The breakdown of Communism in Albania, and the initial post-Communist transition, were following a pattern surprisingly similar to that of other Balkan states.

In May, a Social-Democratic Party (SIDP) was created which, although left-of-centre in orientation, sided with the DP and RP to gain credibility as an opposition party. In its 10th Congress (June 1991) the LP decided to transform itself into a Socialist Party (SP).30 Fatos Nan0 was elected chair- man of the party.3’ Some months later, a small faction of the LP would create the Communist Party (CP), as a rightful heir to the former LP.

After the fall of the socialist government, it became clear to many that a country such as Albania, with no democratic tradition, could not be ruled by a single party, albeit a party which had won the election. As in Bulgaria, where the ex-Communists were unable to govern on their own despite their parliamentary majority, in Albania too, at the very early stage of transition, the Socialists and the opposition parties found themselves forced into concessions and power-sharing. In June 1991 a government of national stability was formed, comprised of a coalition of Communists and non- Communists from the five major parties (Socialist, Democratic, Republican, Social-Democratic, and Ag~arian),~’ with the aim of steering the country through the difficult period until the new e:lections planned for May or June 1992. Ylli B ~ f i , ~ ~ a modern, untainted socialist technocrat in his early 40s, was appointed by Alia to form the new cabinet. Democratic Party represent- a t i v e ~ ~ ~ took charge of economic affairs in the cabinet, with the intention of giving Albanian economic reform some Polish-style shock therapy.

The change of government created the necessary political conditions for radical transformation of the economy -- an economy which, at the time,

30.

31.

32.

33. 34.

Delegates at the 10th Labour Party Congress fiercely criticized the long years of Stalinist misrule and seemed ready to exorcise the ghost of Enver Hoxha (see for example Agolli, 1992). All the hardliners of the former Politburo were expelled from the party. In July 1993, Fatos Nano, leader of the main opposition party in Albania, was imprisoned by Albania’s current government, accused of mismanaging foreign aid during his brief stint as prime minister (April-June 1991). It is generally believed that the charges against him were politically motivated. After being ke:pt in jail for eight months without trial, Nan0 was convicted and sentenced in April 11994 to twelve years’ imprisonment. The Economist (9 April 1994) described Nano’s trial as ‘a sad and grubby affair’, ‘the last great political show trial in Europe’. All members of the coalition government had to drop their party affiliations while in power. Former Minister of Food in the two-month government of Nano. Gramoz Pashko as Deputy Prime Minister ansd Genc Ruli as Minister of Finance.


looked almost hopeless.3s In August, just two months after Bufi’s government took office, a new wave of 17,000 refugees escaped to Bari in Italy,3b depairing of any real improvement in Albania’s situation.

The economic programme designed by the coalition government followed the current conventional wisdom gleaned from the stabilization programmes of other former Communist countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. Aslund and Sjoberg (1 992) point out that there was no ambition to be original, but rather to simplify the systemic change as much as possible to make its implementation easier and quicker. During its six-month duration, the coalition government undertook several important economic reforms, including a partial removal of price controls and the abolition of the central plan. However difficult it was, Pashko and his cabinet colleagues managed to get privatization off the ground through the legalization of new private activities and the distribution of land from the agricultural co-operatives. Despite important breakthroughs, however, the pace of reform remained slow, the measures taken were inadequate and the economic administration was weak (Blejer et al., 1992: 55).

Far from improving in the second half of 1991, the economic situation deteriorated as a result of the measures being implemented. However, in general, the country was sympathetic to the coalition government, which displayed goodwill and proficiency in carrying out democratic reforms. Marody (1992: 171) has said of the Polish case that confidence in and support for the reformist actions of a non-Communist government are based mainly on confidence in the persons who form them, given that the necessity of introducing market-economy reforms by the government is taken for granted while willingness to accept their consequences is rather a moral __

35.

36.

In summer 1991 Albania’s exports were half their 1990 levels, as were industrial and farm output. GDP per person had dropped to $350, on a par with the GDP of Indonesia or Sri Lanka. The budget deficit was 20 per cent of GDP, and although reliable figures have never existed, unemployment was estimated to be about 35 per cent (The Economist. 27 July 1991). Fearful of another exodus, Italian Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis made a generous offer of $85m in aid - enough to cover all the food imports Albania needed for the next three months to prevent mass starvation and civil unrest - and another $5Om to keep the country’s factories ticking over. (The European Commission had so far earmarked only $5m for Albania, together with 50,000 tonnes of wheat.) In return, Burs government placed Albania’s ports under military control once more to ensure there would be no more mass departures, and agreed to joint coastal patrols by Italian and Albanian warships (The Economist, 17 August 1991). Another agreement was reached between the governments of Italy and Albania in the autumn, under which the Italian army would launch Operation Pelican -over 1,OOO unarmed soldiers together with helicopters and hundreds of army trucks - to distribute staple foods around the country. Operation Pelican played a major role in reducing hunger and anger in Albania. Although the Italians hoped to pull out quickly, they continued performing their operation throughout 1992 and in the first months of 1993.

154 Fatos Tarifa

choice. This seems to apply to the Albaniain case, and I believe it is also true for other East European countries in transition. The first multi-party coalition government team in Albania consisted of young professionals who were not compromised by the old Communist rule, though several had been LP members.37 The positive mood of the people was encouraged by the international support the government received, which was understood as a message that Europe and several major international organizations were watching political developments in Albania and were willing to accept her move toward dem~cracy.~’

A number of new political parties emerged between June and December 1991, but they did not change Albania’s political configuration. The Socialists and the Democrats remained1 the foremost political forces, although they themselves were undergoing some mutations. The SP was trying to detach itself completely from the legacy of Hoxha’s LP, and suffered an identity crisis as a result. It also tried to distance itself from President Alia, assuming that this would make people believe that it had washed its hands of the Communist legacy of the LP (Alia, 1992: 216-17). Among the Democratic Party leaders, on the other hand, the first political divergences had began to show. The party came close to splitting because of the autocratic ways of DP President 13erisha, who had taken personal control over all party matters.

In December 1991, quite contrary to the public mood, and without consulting his deputy prime minister Pashko and other DP representatives in the government, Berisha decided to walk out of the ruling coalition, thus provoking a new government crisis. When two coalition partners - the Democrats and the Republicans - withdrew, Ylli Bufi resigned. Alia was forced to move the general elections forward to March 1992. With this new political crisis and with the onset of a harsh winter, Albania entered another critical period on its road from Communism. A caretaker government comprised of non-party professionals and headed by Vilson Ahmeti replaced the multi-party coalition government to see the country through until the elections.

37. When Alia later resigned as President, he would portray the Stability Government as ‘one of the most proficient governments Albania has ever had’ (Alia, 1992: 219).

38. After the new coalition government was formed in June 1991, Albania received a number of senior foreign delegations, notably a visit by the US Secretary of State James Baker (June 1991). Pashko, who was widely recognized as Albania’s reform leader, and his fellow moderates became the key to attracting foreign investment and aid. It was, indeed, during the time of the national coalition government that Albania joined several international organizations, including the IMF and the World Bank.


‘WE GOVERN, THE WORLD HELPS US’: AMERICA’S ‘BLANK CHEQUE’ IN THE 1992 ELECTIONS

The new electoral campaign was dramatic from the start. Although the number of political parties seeking parliamentary seats had doubled since the first multi-party elections, the main parties in the race were again the SP and the DP. This time, however, the Socialists had more disadvantages than advantages, being in a defensive position from the start. They had been defeated in their first attempt to govern the country; they had been losing membership with each passing month; their support in urban areas had diminished considerably, while in the countryside, the farmers who had been left scrambling for land after the dismantling of collective farms were seriously demoralized. The Socialists were consistently attacked by the Democrats as being unable to run the country or to solicit credit and investment from the West; nor did they have much to offer the electorate which, exhausted by poverty and the barren political race, had become apathetic. Furthermore, the Socialists’ campaign lacked any spirit, as if they did not want to retake power. Given the political atmosphere prevailing in Albania, another Socialist victory would unquestionably have meant an upsurge in urban violence and perhaps civil war (Austin, 1993). Many socialists recognized for themselves that an SP victory would not serve their country’s needs.

Every Socialist disadvantage was an advantage for the opposition, especially for the Democrats, whose leader Sali Berisha waged a furious campaign throughout the winter. In the year since the last parliamentary elections, the DP‘s membership had increased considerably. They had not only consolidated their position in the major towns but, with more time to organize their campaign, had reached out to rural voters and increased their support significantly in the countryside.

The deterioration in the economic situation, which reached catastrophic levels during the winter of 1991-92, had an increasing impact on the political process. Industrial production had fallen by more than 60 per cent compared to 1991, with factories closing down. About 50 per cent of the urban labour force was out of work. Since liberalization, prices had risen by up to 500 per cent, while wages remained fixed. Inflation reached an annual rate of almost 300 per cent in early 1992. Agricultural output was forecast to decline by 75 per cent.39 Little wheat was sown in 1991 because of arguments over carving up the collective farms into private plots. Life was becoming increasingly short of the most basic comforts. It was hard to see how people could get through the winter without more foreign aid. Fortunately, the international community responded swiftly to the urgency of this situation, first by providing food aid, then by financing urgently-needed imports to jump-start

39. Data from World Bank and European Community (1992), World Bank (1993), The Economist (28 March 1992).

156 Fatos Tarifa

the economy (World Bank and European Community, 1992). Albanians would certainly have starved that winter without the humanitarian aid received mostly from Italy,40 and to a lesser extent from Greece and the European C~mmunity.~’

Aware of the important role that foreign aid and investment would play in Albania’s economic and political revival, the Democrats made excellent use of the Western aid card. Their slogan ‘We govern, the World helps us’ became a refrain in their electoral propaganda. Pashko, one of the most popular politicians of the Democratic Party, had declared during the first election campaign that the US State Department had promised a ‘blank check’ in humanitarian aid if the anti-Communist opposition won (Zanga, 1991).42 All parties running in the 1992 e:lections were looking westward, seeking integration with Europe, foreign investment, and so forth. In this sense, the election was essentially a struggle for outside aid (Austin, 1993). The Democratic Party promised the sky to poor Albanians in exchange for their votes, raising their expectations to unsustainable levels with no thought for the consequences. Weeks before the elections it was clear that the DP would win and that Berisha woiuld replace Alia as President of Albania.

The elections were held on 22 March 19912. Although the DP’s victory had been forecast, the results were spectacular. With a voter turnout of some 90 per cent, the Democrats polled well over twice as many votes as the Socialists (62 per cent to 26 per cent). In the new, xeduced, 140-seat Parliament, the Democratic Party took 92 seats and the SP just 38. The Social-Democratic Party won 7 seats, the Human Rights Union 2 seats, and the Republican Party just one. As if to confirm general expectations, Alia resigned as President two days after the election, although his term still had four years to run. Berisha, the only candidate proposed, was elected President by a majority of the Parliament.

With backing from the fringe democratic parties such as the Social- Democrats, the Republicans, and the Human Rights Union, the DP was able to muster the two-thirds majority required to amend the constitution. From

40. During his visit in Albania in Spring 1992, Italian Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis praised Operation Pelican, saying it had prevented economic collapse and a bloodbath in Albania. Berisha hardly mentioned it and laced his speech with pleas for Japanese and American help. Many DP leaders felt that Operation Pelican was artificially prolonging the life of the Socialist regime (see The Econoniisr, 2 May 1992). During 1991 and 1992 Italy provided the bulk of the aid to Albania. By the end of 1992 the European Community had become the principal donor (Zanga, 1993). The State Department neither confirmed nor denied the statement, but American activity in Albania through US ambassador William Rayerson had made Washington’s position on the elections abundantly clear (Austin, 1993). The Socialist Party repeatedly claimed that the USA was actively supporting the Democratic Party through agencies such as the Voice of America, as well as through American end west European right-wing institutions and forces (see also Alia, 1992: 207-8).

41.

42.


the beginning, Berisha sturdily refused to co-operate with the Socialists. He appointed as Albania’s new prime minister Aleksander Meksi, an amiable structural engineer unknown to most Albanians. Although politically allied with the Republicans and the Social Democrats, Meksi’s government, which was called a coalition government, was composed almost entirely of Democratic Party members.43

HOPES AND DISILLUSIONMENT

The victory of the Democratic opposition opened up new prospects for democracy in Albania. In the aftermath of the election, optimism in Albania was running high. However, this was based almost entirely on grandiose hopes and unrealistic promises. Euphoria was soon replaced by disappointment, first among the intellectuals and urban youth who had been the major force in the overthrow of the old system, and then through the rest of the population. The first disappointment came with the new governing team chosen by Berisha.” The inexperience and inadequate professionalism of the new government did not bode well for continuing economic and institutional reform. Further disappointment came as a consequence of the D P s extra- vagant promises of massive amounts of aid and investment from abroad, especially from the United States. The people soon came to a more realistic understanding that no foreign capital investment was going to be made in Albania unless there was a legal framework to protect the investment and unless the country was politically stable.

The greatest disillusionment among the Albanian people was, however, caused by the worsening economic situation and the inability of the new government either to speed up the implementation of the promised reforms or to find coping strategies to deal with the pressing social problems confronting the country (see also Zanga, 1993). At the time of writing- more than two years after taking office - Meksi’s government has not yet been able to present to Parliament a detailed programme or even an outline for economic reform. It has effectively transferred its economic policies to the IMF, which is using Albania as a laboratory to experiment with macroeconomic adjustment ~trategies.~’ Although shock treatment has been

43. Pashko, the leading reformer in the previous coalition government and Berisha’s main rival in the Democratic Party, was consigned to the outer circles, with no government post at all.

44. Of eighteen ministers in the new cabinet most had experience neither of government nor of politics in general. With few exceptions, the cabinet members were not experts in their respective fields and were not people of public reputation. Economic reform in Albania is being implemented on the basis of a macroeconomic stabilization and restructuring programme under an IMF standby agreement approved in August 1992. Albania is regarded by IMF officials as its ‘most obedient student’ in applying IMF economic policies.

45.

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applied, there has been little Albania has been hindered every step of the way by its lack of knowledge relevant to a market economy: the general feeling among the population is that the situation is getting worse with no signs of impr~vement .~~

Albania’s economic situation has continued to deteriorate. Having almost no self-generated investment resources the country remains critically dependent on foreign aid, humanitarian assistance, and private remittances from abroad. Over 80 per cent of all industries remain closed. Although agricultural co-operatives were among the first economic units to break down, the redistribution of land to farming families is not yet complete. As of early 1994, privatization had made significant progress only in the area of small retail shops and other commercial services; very few state enterprises in the food industry were privatized. No new jobs had been created in the public sector; indeed, the unemployment growth rate increased from 29 per cent in 1990, to 88.3 per cent in 1992 (World Bank, 1994). In April 1993, unemployment was still around 465,000, a figure which represents more than 50 per cent of the labour force in the cities (Cani, 1994). Engaged in a daily battle for survival, Albanian people today have only four sources of income: remittances from family members abroad; income from small trade services which they have started at home; humanitarian aid; and meagre government assistance (Tarifa, forthcoming).

This situation puts the democratization of Albania at serious risk. Attali (1991: 12-13) argues that the political arid economic freedom so far won in Eastern Europe could vanish if the market economy does not deliver relatively quickly the consumer goods and basic necessities promised by the bold reformers who demanded harsh sacrifices. This takes an alarming significance when applied to Albania. Economic recovery has proved extremely slow and at times the population has shown signs of restlessness and even anger. The electorate at large, including many of those who voted for the DP, changed their voting behaviour significantly during the first democratic local elections held in July 1992. At 70 per cent, turnout was well below the 90 per cent of eligible voters who voted in the March 1992 parliamentary elections. In only four months the Democrats lost considerable

46.

47.

After the breakdown of the economy in 1990-92, 1993 showed minor signs of recovery in agriculture, construction and commerce, while manufacturing industry remained inert (Cani, 1994). At the end of 1993 Albania’s economic output, although stabilized, still represented only 58.7 per cent of its 1989 level (World Bank, 1993). Albania’s population growth rate has created a young population, with some 64 per cent of the total population under thirty. Yet an Albanian under the age of thirty who wants to remain in Albania is a rarity; many see their only salvation in departure to the West. It is estimated that as many as half a million people (out of 3.3 million) have already fled the country, the bulk of them urban and rural youths. In other words, about one in six Albanians, or one member from each Albanian family, is an emigrant today. Over half of these left the country after the March 1992 elections.


support, while the Socialists made impressive gains, winning a significant number of mayorships and seats in town and village councils. In all, the Socialists received over 50 per cent of the votes.48 As a consequence, a new and difficult situation emerged in which the Democrats continued to dominate the parliament and remained in control of the central government while the Socialists increased their power and autonomy at the local level. Both parties claimed victory in the elections, opening a debate in the media about the election result and its significance for Albania’s political future. The Democrats insisted that they would not work with Socialist local authorities; indeed, this partisan division of central and local power, not unique to Albania, has led to a constitutional impasse. Since July 1992, local authorities have been severely restricted in the exercise of their functions.49

The political configuration of Albania today has been reshaped, again following a pattern similar to other East European countries. There are now twenty-seven parties covering a wide spectrum, from the left-wing Socialist Party and the Party of National Unity to organizations such as the Republican Party, Balli Kombetar, Legaliteti, the Democratic Party and the Right-Wing Democratic Party on the right. The Democratic Party, once an anti-Communist front, has split into three; the Republicans have similarly crumbled into three different Republican parties. The old BaNi Kombetar and Legaliteti have re-emerged under their former names. The political attitudes of the electorate have also changed, mirroring the changes in the political parties.

In contrast to the optimistic public mood in the aftermath of the March 1992 elections, the majority of people today have come to believe that, rather than a strong hand and a single-colour government that is incapable of dealing with the country’s problems, Albania needs political and professional collaboration across its political forces. As Poland and Hungary also demonstrate, it is becoming clear that the post-Communist countries cannot be governed without some degree of co-operation with ex-Communists (see Holmes, 1993).

Although the Albanian Democratic Party and President Berisha took office as a result of their victory in free elections, a democratically-elected government is not necessarily a democratic or a legitimate government. Elections - open, free and fair - are the sine qua non of democracy, but the definition of democracy in terms of elections is a minimal definition (Huntington, 199 1 : 9). Like all post-authoritarian rules, post-Communist

48. The stronger showing by the Socialist Party in the local elections, coupled with the lower voter turnout, seems to suggest that many who voted for the Democratic Party in March 1992 simply did not turn out to vote in the local elections, disillusioned by the continued economic hardships and the growing rift within the Democratic Party (Zanga, 1993).

49. In early 1993, Meksi’s government appointed members or supporters of the Democratic Party to virtually all the 395 posts for secretaries of city, district, and commune councils. The Socialists appointed could be counted on one hand.

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regimes are inherently low in legitimacy (:Lipset, 1993). The electorate may soon lose confidence in their government, and the government’s legitimacy may be put at risk if it cannot produce efictive strategies for economic and political reform to satisfy the basic government functions as most of the population sees them, or if frustrations develop as a result of unrealized government promises (Holmes, 1993; Huntington, 1991: 48; Lipset, 1993). As in other former Communist countries of Eastern Europe, the new non- Communist rulers will enjoy popular support only for as long as they prove able to carry out the changes anticipated by the majority of people (de Gaay Fortman and Tarifa, 1994). Viewed in this light, the unrealistic expectations raised by the Democratic Party during the electoral campaign have proved very expensive for the current government’s credibility and legitimacy.

Writing of post-Communist Hungary, Kis (1991) stated that ‘the legitimacy of the new leaders barely exceeds that of the old ones; the new government will have to demonstrate economic success in order to be accepted’. The 1994 elections in Hungary proved Kis’s point. Generally speaking, the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe face a major challenge: achieving legitimacy as part of a continuous process. The period of post-Communist transition in these countries may be characterized as a period in which many alternatives are open, raising expectations and increasing disillusionment among large segments of the East European populations. Periods of transition tend riot to support regime legitimacy (de Gaay Fortman and Tarifa, 1994). Confronted with this erosion of legitimacy, and the increasing political instability, the Albanian government and President Berisha have, on the one hand, amplified their democratic rhetoric while, on the other hand, they have been relying more and more heavily on force and on police power: the number of policemen has increased tenfold in the last two years.

CONCLUSIONS

This article is not the place for an atte:mpt at definitive answers to the new problems created during Albania’s transition from a totalitarian to a democratic system of government. Howewer, one lesson might be drawn from the chronicle of Albania’s post-Communist transition: holding free elections and transferring political power from a Communist Party to a party which is labelled ‘democratic’, is not in itself sufficient to achieve democracy. On the contrary, Albania’s recent experiences can only provoke concern. At this point it seems clear that the social, cultural and economic conditions necessary for the establishment of a sustiainable democracy do not as yet exist in Albania. The post-Communist transition here is constrained by a number of poorly understood forces and faces a challenge that is without precedent, even compared to the experiences of other post-Communist societies (Cviic, 1991: 62; Imholz, 1993; Tarifa, 1993; Tarifa, forthcoming).


There is no Eastern European country whose future is more difficult to predict than Albania’s (Glenny, 1990: 162). The legacy of the past, which has resulted in extreme poverty and the lack of a democratic culture, is the main factor inhibiting Albania’s democratization.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Fellowship support from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, and the Speerpunt Research Programme (DSTjSO) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands is gratefully acknowledged. For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper I am indebted to Jay Weinstein, Bas de Gaay Fortman, Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Martin Doornbos. Paskal Milo, and two anonymous references.

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Fatos Tarifa (Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Studies, PO Box 29776, 2502 LT The Hague) received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Tirana in 1985. He is currently Director of the New Sociological Research Centre in Tirana, Albania. He ir; the author of several books and journal articles, including a 1991 book ZIZ Search of the Sociological Fact (published in Albanian).

Albania's Road from Communism

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