People's Socialist Republic of Albania: Map & History

History

On 29 November 1944, Albania was liberated from German occupation by the National Liberation Movement (In Albanian: Lëvizja Anti-fashiste Nacional-Çlirimtare, or LANÇ), having previously formed a provisional government (Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council) in May that year.

The government, like the LANÇ, was dominated by the two-year-old Communist Party of Albania, and the party's first secretary, Enver Hoxha, became Albania's prime minister. From the start, the LANÇ government was an undisguised Communist regime. In most of the rest of what became the Eastern Bloc, the Communist parties were nominally part of a coalition government for a few years before seizing full control and creating one-party states.

Government

During its communist era, Albania was governed by the Party of Labor of Albania which defined itself as a Stalinist party. All oppositional parties were banned and Albania was governed predominantly as a totalitarian dictatorship.

According to the Albanian constitution of 1976, legislative powers were vested in the People's Assembly, which the constitution described as "the supreme organ of state power". Its competences included directing the internal and external policies of Albania, approving and amending the constitution and laws, approving plans for economic and cultural development as well as state budget, ratifying international treaties, granting amnesty, defining the "administrative and territorial structure", and deciding on popular referendums.

Military

The Albanian People's Army (Albanian: Ushtria Popullore Shqiptare, UPSh) was the term for the national army of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1946 to 1990. After withdrawing from Warsaw Pact activities in 1968, it conducted a self-reliance policy for national defence. It was dissolved in 1990 and is retained in its current form through the Albanian Armed Forces.

Economy

Having emerged as Europe's poorest nation in the post-war period, Albania embarked on a radical economic postwar program along the lines of Stalinism.

Beginning as early as 1945, Albania issued the agrarian reform law which saw private landholdings confiscated by the state and dismantled, although the collectivization of agriculture was the slowest sector to be government-owned in Albania, due to the rugged terrain, and was not completed until 1967. In 1946, the communist regime targeted private business owners, taxing them at prohibitive levels in order to expropriate their enterprises and bring them under state control. By 1947, the state had taken control of all domestic industry.