ABSTRACT

Following the reestablishment of independence in 1920, most of the many Albanian émigré activists had returned to Albania, free to pursue their own state- and institution-building agendas. Fledgling national political parties, established soon thereafter, did not survive local rivalries and regional divisions (see Robert C. Austin’s chapter above). Then the imposition of Ahmet Zogu’s authoritarian regime pushed many back into exile. They spread out into the Albanian diaspora in Europe looking for new ways to challenge and replace his regime, soon dependent on Italian fascist assistance. By the late 1920s, Soviet communism had become the most ideologically attractive new stimulus for these new exiles. But common purpose and coordination among this cadre of radical left would prove elusive until the Italian occupation of 1939. This chapter addresses this interwar evolution before turning to its consolidation and rise to power by the end of the Second World War. Overcoming internal division by forging a popular front in the early days of the war had more to do with the growth and final success of the Albanian Communist Party in the Second World War than the often-cited Yugoslav Communist intervention in 1941.