ABSTRACT
Albania’s ruling Communist party (renamed Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë, Party of Labor of Albania in 1948) was a product of war – a war not only against fascism, following the country’s occupation by Italian troops in 1939, but also a war waged within the party’s ranks. This latter struggle outlived the country’s liberation from Nazi Germany in late 1944. Over the years, as political alliances with Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and China rose and fell, the ranks of so-called enemies of the state periodically swelled. Making enemies served domestic uses, but relations with the outside world became enmeshed in local struggles. Geopolitical insecurity in the Balkans, in turn, fueled even more conspiratorial thinking, which outlived the alliances with the foreign powers. Throughout these ups and downs, party operatives grew to appreciate the importance of maintaining ties to foreigners. At the same time, they learned the hard way that breakdowns in alliances came with a price. To consider the party’s origins and development against this broader regional and international background is to come to terms with how secrecy became a way of life, how conspiratorial thinking turned into an enforced routine, and how personal loyalties became imperative as the broader socialist world fractured.
