Leader Cults in the Western Balkans (1945-90): Josip broz tito and enver hoxha

Abstract

The geographical configuration of the Balkans, the relative absence of direct interests of the great powers in this region and the existence of wellorganised communist parties loyal to Moscow favoured, during the Second World War, the development of communist resistance movements fighting for ʼnational liberation and social revolution’. The South Slav communist resistance movement, which fought in the mountains of the Western Balkans, co-operated and influenced the Albanian communist partisans. In 1941 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, headed from 1937 on by Josip Broz Tito (1892-80), supported Enver Hoxha (1908-85) to become the leader of the Albanian Communist Party and helped establish the Albanian resistance movement, with Hoxha as general commander. The successful outcome of this partisan struggle created communist regimes in Yugoslavia and Albania quite different from those in other Eastern European states. These were regimes that came to power largely by their own efforts. Both regimes were legitimised by the partisan struggle, and the struggle against the Nazi occupiers and their domestic ‘collaborators’.