Democratic Front (Albania)

The Democratic Front (Albanian: Fronti Demokratik i Shqipërisë) was an Albanian political mass organization formed on August 5, 1945^[1] to succeed the National Liberation Front as the leading political movement for recently liberated Albania under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. It was administered by the Party of Labour of Albania. Its newspaper was titled Bashkimi.

In elections it was the sole legal organization able to put up candidates during the communist period, which ended with the toppling of the government in 1991. It operated in these elections by selecting candidates from the ruling party, as well as affiliated mass organizations such as trade unions and cultural and women associations, along with candidates from industrial enterprises, agricultural cooperatives and collectives, and the Army.^[2]

Membership in the Front, as well as the minimum age to vote and run for public office was set to anyone eighteen years of age or more. Having a Front membership card was important for gaining high-level work, as it signified a "class conscious" person who would serve the Party. During Albania's alliance with China its work was also seen as embodying the mass line.^[3]

In 1946, a regional Front secretary in the prefecture of Shkodër stated that: "The Democratic Front embraces all the masses of the people without distinction or creed; but the Democratic Front combats Fascism to the end, in whatever form it may present itself."^[4] In this respect the Front was similar to other Fronts organized by Communist parties across Eastern Europe during the anti-fascist period. By the 1950s, as the role of the Party was firmly consolidated and as the state was "building socialism," it became the "mass organ" of the Party of Labour, transmitting party policies to the Albanian citizenry at large and ostensibly promoting open debate and discussion within it and within the affiliated mass organizations.^[5] In his report to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania in 1976, Enver Hoxha referred to it as "this great political organization which realizes the unity of the Albanian people under the leadership of the Party, has wide scope of action in this field. In cooperation with the other social organizations, the Front is called upon to carry out all-round work with the urban and rural masses to make the policy, orientations and directives of the Party clear to them, to educate them in the spirit of socialist patriotism, revolutionary vigilance, combat readiness and irreconcilability towards all alien manifestations, to constantly strengthen and temper the unity of the people. The Democratic Front has been and remains a great tribune of the revolutionary opinion of the masses, a powerful lever of the Party to draw the working people into governing the country and solving problems of the socialist construction and the defence of the homeland."^[6]

As the communist system unraveled in 1990-1992 the Front initially served as a limited base for calls for political and economic reform under figures such as Ismail Kadare. In November 1990 mass organizations including the Front were given greater autonomy from the Party such as being allowed to run their own separate candidates in elections.^[7]

Chairmen of the General Council of the Democratic Front:

• Enver Hoxha, August 8, 1945-April 11, 1985
• Nexhmije Hoxha, March, 1986-December 29, 1990
• Adil Çarçani, December 29, 1990-c. 1992

See also

• Albanian parliamentary election, 1945
• United Trade Unions of Albania
• Union of Albanian Women
• Association of Writers and Artists of Albania
• Labour Youth Union of Albania

References

1. ^ The First Congress of the Front was held on August 5th, with the Chairman (Enver Hoxha) elected on the 8th and the Congress concluding on the 9th. Enver Hoxha. Vepra Vëll. 3. fq. 69-81.
2. ^ William Ash. Pickaxe and Rifle: The Story of the Albanian People. London: Howard Baker Press Ltd. 1974. p. 103.
3. ^ Enver Hoxha. Report on the Role and Tasks of the Democratic Front for the Complete Triumph of Socialism in Albania. Tirana: Naim Frashëri. 1967. p. 68.
4. ^ Owen Pearson. Albania in the Twentieth Century: A History Vol. III. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2006. p. 3.
5. ^ Ash, p. 128.
6. ^ Enver Hoxha. Selected Works Vol. V. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1985. pp. 75-76.
7. ^ Elez Biberaj. Albania in Transition: The Rocky Road to Democracy. Boulder, CO.: Westview Press. 1998. pp. 61-62.

External links

• Albania - Democratic Front (Albania: A Country Study, Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1994.)
• "The Democratic Front led by the Party is the Great Organization Which Unites, Organizes and Educates the People Politically," by Enver Hoxha, Bashkimi, June 3, 1979.