Essay/Term paper: Albania wwii

Essay, term paper, research paper:  World War

During World War II

the country was occupied by the Germans. When they

retreated in 1944, a leader of the Communist-led resistance

movement, Enver Hoxha, became head of the Albanian

government. In 1946 a people's republic was declared;

private land was confiscated and industry nationalized. After

the war Yugoslavia controlled Albania. When Yugoslavia left

the Soviet bloc in 1948, Albania broke its ties with that

country and became an ally of the Soviet Union, joining the

Warsaw Pact in 1955. Albania broke with the Soviet Union

and became an ally of China in 1961; these ties to China

were severed in 1978 but were renewed in 1991. At his

death in 1985 Hoxha was the longest-serving head of a

Communist country. Under his successor, Ramiz Alia,

Albania slowly emerged from the isolation that had marked

the Hoxha era. Diplomatic relations were established with

many countries, and Albania began to take an active role in

Balkan affairs. In December 1990 the Democratic party was

established, and in March 1991 the first multiparty elections

in 68 years were held. A non-Communist multiparty regime

took control in June 1991, but this regime fell in December

1991. Thousands of Albanian refugees fled to Italy in August

1991, but few were allowed to remain there. In April 1992

Sali Berisha, a heart surgeon, was elected Albania's first

non-Communist president since World War II.