Plans For a Nation

Thus the day would come when Tito and his henchmen in the course of all sorts of savage accusations and slanders against us would openly publicize one of their most absurd and unscrupulous claims – the claim that they – the Yugoslavs – had allegedly formed the Communist Party of Albania! –Enver Hoxha in his book “The Titoites”

The Tito-Stalin split affected more than the relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.  It also greatly affected the relationship between Yugoslavia and other Balkan countries.  The largest changes occurred between Yugoslavia and Albania. 

Initially, post World War II, Albania had been firmly presumed by nearly all to be within the Yugoslav hemisphere.  Despite the protests of Enver Hoxha, Albania’s leader, the truth was that Yugoslavia was responsible for bringing the Albanian Communists together into one cohesive unit.  As a result, Tito fully expected that Albania would be added into the republics making up the new nation.

 For over two years after World War II ended, Stalin seemed on board with Tito’s plan.  There was no way to the Soviet Union but through Tito for the Albanian communists.

 Hoxha also took offense at Yugoslav claims that they were instrumental in driving the Axis soldiers out of Albania.  Yugoslavia’s participation on the Albanian front was a large part of their justification for absorbing the other country.  If the Yugoslavs were telling the truth, Albania owed them a huge debt.  If the Yugoslavs were exaggerating, they were building a tremendous amount of blood debt for libel.

What was undeniable was that Albania was the least modernized country in Europe after World War II.  There were less than 500 miles of roads, and most of them were only passable during summer.  There was no train.  Less than 5% of the national income was due to industry.  

Albania’s best chance for advancement lay, not with a Yugoslavia that was progressively on the outs with an increasingly paranoid Stalin, but with the Soviet Union itself.  In distinguishing himself from Tito, Hoxha became more Stalinist than Stalin.  

To read more about the Tito-Stalin split, please click here.

To read more about Enver Hoxha and Albania, please click here.