on 1908-10-16, Enver Hoxha was born
Enver Hoxha, born on this day in 1908, was the communist leader of Albania from 1946 to 1985, leaving behind a complex legacy of feminism and greatly improved access to healthcare and education, coupled with what critics perceive as a paranoid personality cult and brutal state repression.
Hoxha is also known for having sharp ideological and political disagreements with the Soviet Union and communist Yugoslavia, siding most strongly with and receiving aid from Maoist China.
Before coming into power, Hoxha was a French school teacher and librarian, becoming a communist partisan after fascist Italy invaded Albania in 1939. In March 1943, the first National Conference of the Communist Party elected Hoxha formally as First Secretary.
It was in this position as First Secretary that Hoxha became head of state after the Albanian monarchy was abolished in 1946.
In the years after Stalin\'s death, Hoxha grew increasingly distressed by the policies of the Soviet leadership and of Khrushchev in particular. China was also disillusioned with Soviet behavior at this time, and Hoxha found common ground with Mao Zedong\'s criticisms of Moscow. By 1961, Hoxha\'s attacks on the \"revisionist\" Soviet leadership had so infuriated Khrushchev that he elected first to terminate Moscow\'s economic aid to Albania and ultimately to sever diplomatic relations entirely.
Under Hoxha\'s leadership, the Albanian literacy rate improved from 5-10% in rural areas to more 90%. Hoxha was also a proponent of women\'s rights, stating \"the entire party and country should hurl into the fire and break the neck of anyone who dared trample underfoot the sacred edict of the party on the defense of women\'s rights\". Accordingly, more than 175 times as many women attended secondary schools in 1978 than had done so in 1938.
Critics of Hoxha point out that his reign had state repression of dissidents reminiscent of the Soviet Union and what they perceived as a paranoid personality cult.
The government denied the population access to information other than that disseminated by the government-controlled media. The 1992 book \"Albania: A Country Study\" (commissioned by the U.S. government) alleges one out of three Albanians had either been interrogated by the Sigurimi secret police or incarcerated in labor camps.
Hoxha died in 1985, leading Ramiz Alia to succeed him as head of state. Although Albania was one of the poorest European nations at the time of his death, the country was also economically self-sufficient, carrying minimal foreign debt and boasting a trade surplus of \$10 million.
\"Every departure from class struggle has fatal results for the destiny of socialism.\"
- Enver Hoxha