In 1991, the same Albanian people, who were weeping and grief-stricken at Hoxha's funeral six years earlier, angrily stormed the streets and tore down the statue of Hoxha standing in the capital square. The long-resentful Albanian people also dug up Hoxha's grave, and the remains of the coffin were thrown to the ground and trampled on at will. Hoxha's widow and son were also arrested and imprisoned, all their property confiscated, and the Albanian people condemned Hoxha as an unforgivable historical sinner.
In the distant 1960s, in order to prevent the attack of Soviet revisionists and imperialism, a total of 500,000 bunkers that had never been used were built with the help of foreign experts. Where is this country? Do you have a wicked laugh, is it to say... Brother, you are wrong, this time I am talking about a country called Albania.
The great Albanian people once had a great lamp, not very fuel-efficient, called Hoxha. Hoxha was gilded in France as a student, and after returning to his homeland as leader of the communist movement, he became a leader in 1943, known as the beacon of Albania. Albania was a small country in the Balkans, Europe's powder keg, with a population of about 2.5 million at the time, making it one of the poorest countries in Europe. Until the 80s, ox carts remained the country's main means of transportation. Such a country where birds do not, but in the 60s, it devoted its national strength to building 500,000 high-standard reinforced concrete bunkers that can withstand the attack of heavy bombs, and the average of 5 people in the country is one!
You must ask, why is Hoxha so crazy?
At the end of 1944, shortly after the establishment of the Communist Party of Arab Republic (Workers' Party) regime, Hoxha began to inflate his personality and arbitrariness. George, the second-in-command of the Party Central Committee, plotted to force the palace, and Hoxha showed no mercy, arresting all 16 of George's henchmen and executing them on charges of attempting to seize power by force. After the opposition was cleared, Hoxha's position was consolidated, but there was still noise. In particular, after Stalin's death, Khrushchev's secret report on the twentieth stone of the CPSU was issued, which made Hoxha very afraid.
There was an undercurrent in the party, and some people proposed to rehabilitate the executed George and others, and accused Hoxha of engaging in a cult of personality and the enjoyment of the privileged classes in the country, while the problem of ordinary people even having enough to eat and clothing has not been solved. Hoxha's solution was that at the exit of the meeting, the most powerful confidant, Sheihu, commanded the internal police to ambush in the shadows, sending one anti-Hoxha party member after another directly to prison to evaporate. For example, he ordered the execution of the political prisoners Dalí and Gega who even the Soviet Union had defended (Dalí was the liberator of the capital Tirana in 1944, and Gega was a famous female guerrilla fighter). At the time of the shooting, she was six months pregnant, clutching her stomach and shouting, "Don't kill my child, it's alive." She was responded by Hoxha's cold bullet.
Killing people is not exactly violent, it is also technical. There is no certain atmosphere of terror, no even false reason, for the Hoxhas, it is not painful to kill. In the prosperous world of peace, it is difficult to believe that you have to make up so many excuses such as "bourgeois spokesmans," "traitors within the party," and "foreign countries."
Therefore, Hoxha used full horsepower to threaten the Soviet revisionists and the US imperialists that their hearts would not die, and that they should base themselves on early and big fights, and the people of the whole country should build bunkers! As a result, Hoxha built a national defense spectacle of 5 people and 1 bunker with the strength of a small country of 2.5 million people. The masses repaired bunkers, the Party grasped the enemy, and the whole party worked together in harmony. In 1974, at the Fifth Plenum of the Party, Hoxha purged Balluku, a veteran member of the Politburo and defense minister, under the name of "saboteur, conspirator, traitor, and enemy of the army." In 1975, at the Seventh Plenary Session of the Party Central Committee, Hoxha purged Abdul and others, members of the Politburo in charge of the country's economy, under the name of "economic anti-party clique"... After decades of purges, the founding fathers and elders were finally killed and wounded, leaving only Hoxha and his close comrade-in-arms Shehu.
Finally, even the only remaining Shehu will be "treasonous." In 1981, Hoxha declared prime minister Sheikh to be a "multinational spy" for Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Subsequently, Shehu committed suicide.
Until Hoxha hung up in 1985, his 500,000-strong bunkers did not usher in a real enemy, and they lay in the arms of the country year after year, providing high-class shelters for all kinds of animals. But these 500,000 bunkers became a cold excuse to fight the enemy, witnessing the departure of one "traitor" after another. It became their natural tombstone.
In 1991, Albania evolved peacefully. On May 5, 1992, on the eve of "Martyrs' Day", an angry crowd rushed into the "Martyrs' Cemetery of the Motherland" and excavated the most prominent Hoxha's tomb, leaving the remains in ashes. The lights were finally completely extinguished. Hoxha was not buried in a great bunker, and I don't know if he would regret it.
At 10 o'clock on April 11, 1985, the Arabic Press Agency was authorized to issue an obituary about The death of Hoxha, and Albania immediately established a 20-member funeral committee headed by Aliya, declaring that the whole country would mourn for seven days and that all theatrical, film, musical and sports activities would cease. The Adrian Workers' Party held a special plenary session of the Central Committee at 17:30 on April 13 and unanimously elected Aliya as the First Secretary of the Party Central Committee. At the same time, the plenary session decided to build a hoxha memorial statue in three cities, including Tirana; the University of Tirana was renamed hoxha University; the Young Pioneer organization was renamed "Hoxha Young Pioneers"; and the port of Durres, the first largest port in Adelas, was also named after Hoxha.
After the plenum, Aliyah led all the members of the Politburo to Hoxha's body and kissed him on the forehead one after another. Aria raised her right hand: "Dear Leader Comrade Enver, we will hold high your sword and cut down all enemies inside and outside!" We swear!"
"We swear!" Everyone shouted. After the memorial service, the funeral procession marched southeast along Rabinot Street. Hoxha's body was buried in the Martyrs' Cemetery of the Motherland, 3 km from the city center. When the marble slabs covered the tomb, people began to cry bitterly. Aria held Madame Hoxha in her hand and said, "A man like him will never die, he only has one day— his birthday!"
It was seen that Hoxha's tombstone was indeed inscribed with only the words "Enver Hoxha 1908-". Subsequently, placards erected throughout the country read, "Comrade Hoxha only has a birthday, not a meditative day."
Time passes, and the stars shift. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the upheavals in Eastern Europe, Albania also underwent drastic changes.
On February 6, 1991, the day the first opposition party in Afghanistan, Democratic Party Chairman Berisha (later President), wrote an article criticizing Hoxha's personal superstitions, students at the University of Hoxha went on a strike, went on hunger strike, and demanded a change in the name of the school. With unrest difficult to quell, the Afghan authorities had to accede to the students' demands on February 20. On this afternoon, the bronze statue of Hoxha standing in the downtown square was torn down by Democratic demonstrators, and hoxha statues in other cities suffered the same fate. Then, more than seventy volumes of Hoxha's writings were burned, the huge placard "Gloriously belonged to the Workers' Party" in front of the Capital Palace of Culture was demolished, and the political bookstore was destroyed...
In June 1991, the Workers' Party changed its name to the Socialist Party and publicly criticized Hoxha.
5 May is Albanian Martyrs' Day. On the eve of Martyrs' Day in 1992, President Berisha, who had just taken office, made "Special Decision No. 28": to remove the remains of Hoxha and other "non-martyrs" from the National Martyrs' Cemetery. On the night of 3 May, Hoxha's grave was excavated, coffins were pried and remains removed, leaving the family of the deceased unknowing. At the Sala Civilian Cemetery in southwestern Tirana, more than a dozen large graves were added overnight, one of which had the words "Enver Hoxha" inscribed on a broken cement slab.
Hoxha's wife, Niechmie, who was awaiting trial in prison at the time, was devastated when she heard the news. Her children filed a complaint denouncing "inhumane acts of moving graves without informing the families of the deceased", which not only did not help, but also suffered further persecution. On 11 April 1995, the 10th anniversary of Hoxha's death, his eldest son, Iriel, was placed under house arrest on charges of "inciting ethnic hatred and endangering public order" and sentenced to one year in prison, Cavaya Prison, the worst condition. One night, the lights in the cell suddenly went out, and the sleeping Illyr was attacked by sand and sticks, and almost died. On October 6, 1996, Hoxha passed 84 years old. Clemante, a son-in-law who had just returned from Italy to earn a living, was arrested on charges of involvement with a criminal gang. Clement disagreed and fought off on a hunger strike. It was not until 1997 that he was released because of "unsubstantiated evidence".
Mrs. Hoxha was released from prison on 10 January 1997 after 1862 days of life in a barred window. Her views on Hoxha did not change her mind. She also admitted that Hoxha had made mistakes in his decades in power, but she could not smear him in the face and make him useless. She argues that Hoxha's main mistake was the widening of the class struggle, but this mistake was not made by him alone, because he "co-decided" with others; Hoxha was a strongman, not a tyrant.