Europe's North Korea

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a video about the Socialist People's Republic of Albania, a state that lasted for half a century and epitomised an isolationist and quasi-xenophobic foreign policy. While today Albania is open to the world and nominally democratic, despite its issues with corruption, in the mid to late 20th century it was ruled by a paranoid tyrant akin only to North Korea's Kim Il Sung - this video intends to shed some light on this relatively unknown period of European history and specifically the life and disposition of one of the most brutal dictators Europe has ever seen.

There's so much more meat to this topic that I unfortunately didn't have time to cover, like Hoxha's prohibition of religious organisation within Albania and his innumerable purges - if you'd like to read more into this subject you'll find plenty of great sources in the script above.

Chapters:

0:00 Europe's North Korea
1:26 Albania Forged
2:57 Enver's Bloody Court
8:07 Albania’s Paranoid Isolation
12:46 Tirana’s Forbidden City
18:10 When Gods Die
21:00 A Message

*The visuals or audio herein may not be utilised to train a machine learning algorithm of any kind without express permission of the Copyright holder (IMPERIAL)*

[IMPERIALYT]

This was quite a difficult and tangled topic to cover, and I was unfortunately unable to include all of the intricacies of Hoxha's rule and every single idiosyncrasy of Albania's time as a Communist hermit state. For example, I was unable to include Hoxha's assault on religious institutions within the country, as I didn't have the time and was unable to find a good way of getting it to integrate with the rest of the video. If you'd like some more background info, I'd recommend reading Blendi Fevziu's book "The Iron Fist of Albania" along with Elidor Mëhilli's book "Albania and the Socialist World".

Anyways, hope you enjoyed the video. Feel free to use this comment to respond with any suggestions or corrections, which I'll be happy to add to the script's correction section.

[mikethespike]

I once worked for a German ship building company in the early 1980s that had sold a refurbished ship to Albania. Before it was fully handed over to Albanian authorities it was put through all kinds of tests by Albanian and German engineers which took 3 weeks. In that time both sides got to know each other fairly well. The Albanians refused to believe us when we told them that TVs, cars, washing machines, telephones, central heating etc, were basic commodities in the west that everyone could afford.
Towards the end of the tests several Albanians finally admitted to me that their disbelief was in reality just pretence, they knew just how backward their country was, but that there was a state agent among them whose only job was to watch out what they say.

[ozymandias]

As an albanian I can tell you, growing up and hearing my parents and grandparents stories about that time is bone-chilling to say the least, like sort of living in a dystopian surreal world that you'd only think exists in books. It really gives perspective in life and every time I feel like complaining in my head, there's always that thought "imagine how they had it, this you're dealing with is almost laughable". You really do learn to appreciate things most would take for granted today.

[dafnikem]

As a Greek I met a lot Albanian immigrants that came to Greece. They're very nice people, simple, hard hardworking and very similar to Greeks.

[fatihcandev]

This whole video was amazing! The storytelling, the motion graphics, the visuals… Thanks for your effort🙏🏻

[oriond]

I was 7 when Hoxha died, and I remember people wailing on the streets. They sent us home early from school, and all I remember is that I was happy to go play outside. My father told me years later that if you didn't show any emotion, they could arrest you on bogus charges

[swiatlojest]

Fun fact: In the autobiography book written by Hoxha himself, he mentioned a period of his youth where he was stealing fruits from the garden of my Grand grandfather from my father's side. He mentioned my family there and the fact that my grand grandfather was kicking him out of his property. I'm curious how later on, he didn't do anything to him knowing his habit of vendetta or revenge.

Edit : Thanks for the likes. I wanted to add to the story also something interesting and paradoxical. My grand grandfather from my mother side was part of the traders and wealthy families who were persecuted and confiscated all the wealth and belongings, aprox 1.7 million of gold napolons at the time. The communists spare his life because he didn't hide his gold so they let him keep the house. I have do have the newspaper from 1944 with the families who were impacted. It's interesting that both of the grand grandfather's could have been killed, and I wouldn't be alive now. Cheers to all

[WrestlingColin]

I visited Albania in 2017 for a few weeks. It was a beautiful country and a truly unique experience. While in the city of Gjirokastra, we toured a soviet eras (1960s) underground bunker built by Hoxha in case of nuclear war. I couldn't get over how laughably simple it was... it was just concrete rooms underground. Not very deep underground either. I didn't see any kind of ventilation systems or attempts at air filtration from radiation, or anything like that. I remember thinking "wow, this guy either didn't know a damn thing about nuclear war, or his government was just incapable of building anything advanced."

[drhughjass]

I have a good friend who grew up in Albania during the 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s. He is a very quiet man. When I asked him what it was like, he spoke of Hoxha and life during his rule. He has spoke of some things about the daily life in Alabania during this time. His descriptions of it gave me no idea it was that bad.

[fgbhysq]

Truly a very good documentary, about the communist era of Albania.
It’s crazy to see this, cause as the first Albanian/American child from my family. My father has told me vast stories of him growing up and being in the military in Albania at the time and about my grandfather and great grandfather. My father defected the country in 1988 as a soldier in the alpine division guarding the border between Greece and Albania. Long story short, my grandfather was a high ranking officer. And had gotten the news that my father/his son was a defector and collaborator to the western world, for leaving Albania. To this day I don’t know what happened my father has never truly told me, but from little things I know, civilians and probably people my father knew. where fleeing the country and the officer on the post where my father was, gave orders to kill the civilians fleeing, to not let them cross the border. My father refused and some how the officer ended up dead.
The soldiers on duty with my father, from what he said where absolutely lost and scared shitless. Some soldiers next to him joined and fled the country, and some others started shooting at him. He told me the entire southern country was on high alert chasing them for days. After days of running my father ends up in northern Greece where him and a couple of his comrades surrendered to a small Greek police station, My father said when 5 Albanians still dressed in military uniforms walk the street, the people thought it was an invasion. One of my fathers friends at the time was wounded bleeding down his leg, when they walked into the Greek police station, the front lady screamed so loud that every police officer charged out. My father and his comrades still had there AK’s drawn. He told me, that you could hear a feather fall that’s how quite and utterly still everyone was pointing guns at each other.
Nevertheless, my father came and surrendered as a refugee fleeing Albania. He ended up staying in a Greek prison for 8 months, getting interrogated..ect for them suspecting he was a spy. To this day he doesn’t have some nails and back teeth. Somehow NATO gets involved, and my dad ends up in America after almost 2 years of traveling from country to country.
Unfortunately, my father never got the opportunity to see his dad or my grandfather ever again. For my father being apart of the family of a high ranking military official, from what he told me it brought a lot of government wondering eyes to the family, and shame. My grandfather past away before my father could come back to Albanian, and way before I was born.
My father did return to Albanian with my mother in the late 90’s right before I was born, in Vlorë. To visit our family and his mother after 11 years. Unfortunately, during that time the Kosovo conflict was going on, and my father stayed in Albania and fought in Kosovo, while my mother returned to America with me.
Ik this was a long comment lol, but I wanted to share this with people. I haven’t been back home in 24 years, and this coming months I will be going back home finally. I have tons of truly old black n white photos of my family dating back to before WW1 to WW2 an later. Albania has alot of history and culture that is not talked about much. Century’s of history and culture. And I appreciate informative videos such as this. Thank you

[glurgbarble]

On a lighter note, Hoxha also stole an entire fleet, including 4 Whiskey class submarines, from the Soviets. In 1961 the Soviets stationed a fleet in Vlorë as part of Russia's endless quest to try and get a warm water port. Then a few thousand Albanian soldiers showed up and said "these are our ships now", the Soviet engineers sabotaged the fleet before being forced to hand it over but Hoxha just brought in engineers from China to fix them. And he got away with it because the Soviets didn't think it was worth going to war with this lunatic over this.

[Strwberri_Rocks]

As an Albanian I’m so happy more people are talking about this, my mother who lived in Albania at the time tells me stories about what life was like. They only survived because my grandpa was a truck driver and was able to scrape up just enough money for necessities… every time I see someone defend or agree with communism I always ask if they know about Albania’s experience, and every time they say no. When I visited Albania and saw all those bunkers still there I realized how the country is forever scarred by communism

[TimePhoenix]

I’m an Albanian and when Enver Hoxha died, my parents were crying because they thought it was the end of the country. This man told the people living in the country that everywhere else was poor and trying to be like Albania. He brainwashed the whole population into thinking that we were better off than every other country. Hoxha said he was the only reason Albania was secure and safe, so when he died, everyone feared the worse. It’s horrible because if you showed no emotion (after Hoxha died) you would be arrested under fake charges. This man was seen as a god and we had to pray to him before every meal.

[DonJuanMarco]

Fun Fact: Enver Hoxha and Kim Il Sung hated each other because Hoxha criticized Kim Il Sung's brand of Communism as revisionist.

[eldrago]

My grandfather planned to travel from the UK to Greece via Albania. He got a lucky escape when visiting someone in Yugoslavia he was informed "they might let you in, but they won't let you out."

[mffloys]

Also Enver banned all religions throughout the country. He destroyed most religious structures and praying wasn't allowed

[Soniti]

I'd really like a part 2 to this video, covering Albania to the modern day.

Rough part of the world over there.

[jenson]

Great video man! I've never really heard much about Albania and this makes it very obvious why, keep up the great work,

[gabbyn]

Could you please make a followup on this video? I remember that after the opening of Albania, the people had so little knowledge of the inner workings of a capitalist market that they fell for the lure of pyramid schemes by the millions, until the systems collapsed in 1997, and riots broke out which shook the new democracy to its very roots.

Five years before those events, right after the collapse of the Eastern Block, the poverty was so bad that men started hijacking (foreign) ships, and forced the captains to ferry them over to Italy. One AP photograph shows such a ship with about 4, 000 people on board, and even more trying to get aboard until they are hanging down from the ropes like grapevines - on the outside. The fashion company Benetton, whose advertisment strategy was to gain attention by placing shocking pictures on their posters, used this photograph in a campaign, which gave it a lasting impression.

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

Another weird nation in Europe during the Cold War was the Socialist Republic of Romania. Although Romania was part of the Warsaw Pact, they had relations with the West and wasn't that loyal to the Soviets, opting to do things their own way. I'd say it was more similar to North Korea than Hoxha's Albania. In fact, North Korea and Albania didn't necessarily like each other, relations first deteriorated during the Sino-Soviet split, and then in the 1970s, Hoxha criticized Kim Il-sung for betraying communism by accepting foreign aid and being revisionist. In the case of Romania, after Nicolae Ceaușescu visited Pyongyang in 1971, he was so impressed with Kim Il-sung that he wanted to emulate everything.

For USSR-Romania relations, Romania moving away didn't start with Nicolae but rather Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. After seeing the rapid de-Stalinization going on in the USSR, Gheorghe adopted policies in Romanian national interests rather than Soviet ones and stepped-up measures that greatly increased trade relations with Western countries. Nicolae continued this by calling out the Soviets for invading Czechoslovakia in 1968. Like Albania, they didn't participate. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan caused Romania to distance itself further. And when the other Warsaw Pact nations boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics, Romania actually attended the games!