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He started out as a botanist, continued as a teacher, and then ruled as a dictator until his death.
Leaf wasn’t really concerned with politics at first. He trained as a botanist at the University of Montpellier, although, by his own admission, the profession was not at all close to his heart. During his years in France, he attended various receptions at the Marxist writer Paul Vaillant-Couturier, who later also played a prominent role in founding the French Communist Party (PCF). During these meetings, and later working in Brussels, Hojsa became really interested in communist ideology and politics.
He dropped out of his studies and traveled back to Paris, where he claimed to be a member of the Albanian communist movement, thus easily merging with local communist circles.
Hojsa returned to Albania in 1936, where he taught at Korƈë primary school, where he was still a student. However, he was fired in 1939 for refusing to join the newly formed Fascist Party of Albania after the Italian occupation of the country. Because of this, he stopped teaching permanently and moved to Tirana, where he opened a tobacco shop. This business later became the headquarters of the local communist movement.
Hojza operated only in the background until 1941, then after the German occupation of Yugoslavia, with the support of local communists, he founded the Communist Party of Albania (later the Labor Party). Hoji became secretary of the internal committee of the newly formed political force and head of the National Liberation Army. From the liberation of Albania from 1944 to 1954, Hojja was the country’s prime minister, and then led the country until his death as general secretary of the Labor Party’s internal committee.
After World War II, in 1948, Hodja broke his alliance with Josip Broz Tito, President of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, and withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. From here, he ruled the country largely without outside allies. Although he maintained good relations with the Soviet Union for some time, Khrushchev was considered a traitor for his reforms, so the relationship between the two countries deteriorated. In the early 1970s, Albania tried to get closer to China, but in 1978, this alliance also disintegrated when China began to open up to the West.
At first, the Albanian economy began to flourish under Leaf and the dictator applied a series of new solutions that brought great success. He took land from the wealthy strata and created collective farms, making the country at one time almost completely self-sufficient in food.
The industry, which before practically did not even exist in Albania, received significant investment and public money.As a result, in the 1980s, Albania already accounted for more than half of GDP and electricity was distributed to all settlements and rural regions.
The big catch-up and implementation of radical programs, on the other hand, came at a price. Hojsa systematically counted those who got in his way. He expelled thousands of landowners from Albania, executed his political rivals and imprisoned others. The state seized private property, churches and other religious institutions were closed. To keep the party afloat, he ordered the execution of several political leaders and young officials in 1981, then partially withdrew and formally handed over the state administration largely to Ramiz Alia, who took full control of Albania after Leaf’s death. .
The partisans would have been guarded by the bunkers.
According to many historians, as Hojjan approached the end of his life, the paranoia that characterized his role model, Stalin, became more and more prevalent, and he constantly feared that the country would be attacked and occupied.
This fear was reinforced by the memory of the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939, when the country’s ill-equipped army was crushed by the fascists and the armed forces surrendered after five days. Furthermore, Albania has become increasingly isolated in foreign policy from neighboring countries, but even from communist allies. Although ideologically both the Soviet Union and China were important partners of the regime, the government severed diplomatic relations with both, leaving them truly hostile in a rather hostile environment.
Hojja especially feared that Greece, Italy or Yugoslavia would launch an attack against Albania. He was aware that the army would not have had much chance of pushing back countries that were much more developed in terms of numbers and military technology in traditional engagements. To change this, he also mobilized citizens, who participated in military-type preparations every year to stop the enemy as resistance in case of a defensive.
These guerrilla movements also became widespread among Albanians during the Italian occupation, and in part this led to the liberation of the country. Hojo, on the other hand, mainly wanted to avoid the need for partisans, so he planned to build a huge bunker system. With the help of these, he believed that all the coasts, towns and roads of the country could be protected from the enemy, he did not want to give anything to the potential invaders without fighting.
Concrete mushrooms cost a staggering amount
During the Cold War years, the project started in Albania, under which approximately 173,000 bunkers were built, but there is also an estimate that is a multiple of that. Most of them belonged to the type called QZ (Qender Zjarri), which housed one or two people. It was designed by the engineer Josif Zagali, who himself worked as a partisan during World War II. These bunkers are easily recognizable by their domed shape, from which bullets and other debris bounced more easily.
Another common type is the PZ (Pike Zjarri), which would have served as a kind of command center during the fighting, and from there they would have instructed the smaller QZ bunkers. Much larger than these were also planned in cities and towns, but these were mainly used to protect the population.
The engineer Pellumb Duraj was in charge of building the system, his job was not only to manufacture the bunkers, but also to transport and place them. In an interview with the BBC, Duraj said he did not have many options, he was asked and had to accept the appointment. The engineer recalled that the construction of some bunkers had already started in 1968, when Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Convention. however, the most intense period is after 1975.
Building the bunker network Hojsa dreamed of turned out to be such a task that there was practically no factory where the workers hadn’t taken care of it. New steelworks were also installed to carry out the project, and an army of workers had to be deployed to assemble and build the bunkers. Although the military supervised the processes, civilians implemented it through commando work.
The most difficult task awaited the workers who worked on the mountain. Duraj recalls that although these bunkers were generally lighter, their pieces weighed approximately 100 kilograms and the items had to be transported one by one on the back of a donkey or bare-handed to the designated location. A total of 70 panels were needed for assembly, and then the base was reinforced with iron and cement. Hojsa believed that defending the country was more important than anything else, as it was his national duty. He claimed that every drop of sweat Albanians die means one less drop of blood on the battlefields.
But how much did these bunkers cost, what sacrifice did this particular network make?
It is difficult to give a precise answer to this, for which there are no reliable statistics in the current sense of the word. However, estimates were made of how much it would cost to spread Albania with these bunkers.
By some estimates, the assembly of prefab bunkers accounted for 2 percent of the cost of materials, and the uncertain number of bunkers built in the country could cost Albania twice as much as the Maginot line built by the French between the two world wars. At that time it cost 3 billion francs, which converted into the money used today in various stages and taking inflation into account, we get approximately 534 billion guilders. If we consider twice this, then these specific concrete sarcophagi cost the receding Albania around HUF 1 billion at current prices.
The program was so high a priority that development funds were also channeled for road construction and residential housing construction.
By another estimate, a bunker cost on average as much as a two-bedroom apartment, and the resources used to build it could have solved Albania’s chronic housing problem. Twenty smaller bunkers were built from up to one kilometer of high-quality road at the time. Many bunkers were placed on land valuable for agricultural cultivation.
Of course, in addition to the material sacrifices, there were the actual dead from the bunker construction fever: According to some sources, 70 to 100 people die each year during construction.
Today these bunkers serve only as a kind of steel and concrete monument, evoking the days of the Cold War and the reign of Hojja in the locals, and foreign tourists do not always understand what could be behind the ugly monsters. .
They break, but more would leave the concrete mushrooms
In 2006, following a decision by the Albanian government, the destruction of the bunkers began. Although they formally belonged to the Ministry of Defense, after the opening of Albania, this did not bother the citizens at all. For many locals, scrap from decaying bunkers was an important source of income at the same time. The state simply does not have the ability to monitor specific fungal remains. However, systematic dismantling has become urgent because these man-made formations have claimed several lives each year. For example, several people were trapped in bunkers standing on beaches and drowned when the tide came in, but many curious tourists were also injured, wandering among their ruins.
But demolishing bunkers is not cheap, it can cost up to 800 euros on average to demolish one. Now it is estimated that the landscape has been cleared from approximately at least 40 to 50 percent of them, although there is still serious debate about their demolition. Many say that they should not be demolished but preserved as an important historical memento.
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