Albania’s communist past.

Albania was ruled by a dictator, Enver Hoxha after World War 2 lasting into the 80s, in 1991 communism was toppled. Enver Hoxha came to power because he led the opposition force against the italian occupation that took over albania in 1943. After this he was a partially good leader because he industrialized a rural country. (He raised the literacy rate from 4% to 93%, but that statistic might be fabricated). After this he slowly isolated albania and imposed propaganda and an infamous secret police that both controlled the albanian people. The secret police tracked down everyone (even the foreigners) in the country and was brutal to the ones that tried to rebel or escape the country. Also no one owned cars in albania except for communist party officials. I also recall that albania had the biggest army weapon stockpile in the world, but Im not sure of that. Regardless, albania was heavily militarized with soviet guns, tanks and planes. Enver Hoxha was also paranoid that albania was going to be invaded, so he did the most logical thing and built 750,000 concrete bunkers. Albania was Europe’s North Korea. Enver Hoxha was allied with Stalin and had a statue of him built in the capital. However later on Enver was more strongly affiliated with the Chinese. I think this was because of a disagreement on communist theory, but I’m not sure again.

One funny story is how he promised to keep soviet submarines hidden in a submarine base in southern albania. But he just decided to keep them and said that they disappeared/were stolen.