View source for Enver Hoxha

{{Infobox person
| name               = Enver Hoxha
| image              = Enver Hoxha photo.jpg
| caption            = Enver Hoxha in the 1980s
| birth_date         = 16 October 1908
| birth_place        = Gjirokastër, Janina vilayet, [[Ottoman Empire]]
| death_date         = 11 April 1985
| death_place        = Tirana, [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania]]
| nationality        = Albanian
| alma_mater         = University of Montpellier<br>Free University of Brussels
| known_for          = Founder and effective leader of [[PSR Albania]], [[Anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] author
| notable_works      = ''[[Imperialism and the Revolution]]''<br>''[[Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism]]'', and others
| title              = First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania
| term               = 8 November 1941–11 April 1985
}}
'''Enver Halil Hoxha''' (16 October 1908 – 11 April 1985) was an [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania|Albanian]] [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] politician and revolutionary who served as First Secretary of the [[Party of Labor of Albania]] from 1941 to his death in 1985, and ''de-facto'' head of state of Albania from 1944 to his death. He was the twenty-second prime minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times served as his own foreign minister and defense minister. 

A major [[Anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] author, he has written dozens of works attacking perceived [[revisionism]] and [[opportunism]], including [[Titoism]], [[Maoism]], and [[Khrushchevism]]. He is considered a defender of [[Joseph Stalin|Joseph Stalin's]] legacy against revisionist condemnations. For these reasons, he is upheld by many anti-revisionists (often known as "[[Hoxhaism|Hoxhaists]]") as a major disciple of Leninism in an era of widespread opportunism in the international [[Communism|communist]] movement.
==Biography== 
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Hoxha was born on 16 October 1908 to a patriotic family in Gjirokastër, located in Southern Albania. Becoming the secretary of a student association at the age of 16, he promoted progressive sentiments of democracy and national independence as well as resistance particularly to the [[Kingdom of Albania|semi-fascist monarchy]] under [[Zog I]] which was ruling Albania at the time. In the late 1920s, Hoxha would begin to be enthused by the French Revolution of the 18th century, and later, the [[October Revolution|October Socialist Revolution]] in Russia.<ref>[http://ciml.250x.com/archive/hoxha/onhoxha/english/enver_hoxha_hoxhaism_16_10_2013.html Enver Hoxha and Hoxhaism] — ''Communist International (Stalinist–Hoxhaist)''</ref>

An astute student, Hoxha would spend the early 1930s to pursue studies in France, during which, he would become active in communist organization and would familiarize himself with the writings of [[Karl Marx]] and other Marxist theorists, reading Marx's ''[[Das Kapital]]'' and [[Friedrich Engels|Engels']] ''[[Anti-Dühring]]''.

Hoxha would return to Albania in 1936, becoming a school teacher involved in the education of French and morals in the city of Korça. His career in education would end as a result of, in 1939, his refusal to join the Albanian Fascist Party and, by extension, collaborate with the [[Fascist Italy|fascist Italian]] occupiers who had recently invaded Albania. Forced into illegality, Hoxha would involve himself in the communist movement in Albania with him being, at the founding conference of the Communist Party of Albania,{{Efn|The original name of what would become the Party of Labor of Albania.}} elected to hold membership in the party's central committee.<ref>[https://archive.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=465 Celebrating the 100th birthday of Enver Hoxha] ''Proletarian''</ref>{{Better source needed}}

==External links==
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works-index.htm Enver Hoxha Internet Archive] 
==See also==
* [[Hoxhaism]]
* [[Party of Labor of Albania]]
* [[International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations]]
==References==
{{Reflist}}
===Notes===
{{Notelist}}
[[Category:Communist rulers]]
[[Category:Anti-revisionists]]
[[Category:Albanian revolutionaries]]
[[Category:1908 Births]]
[[Category:1985 Deaths]]