Down Goes Hoxha

Pocket-sized Albania has always been the most backward of the Iron Curtain countries and to the Kremlin presents the additional problem of being the only satellite isolated from Moscow by unfriendly territory (since the defection of Tito in Yugoslavia). Albania's 1,222,000 people, 70% Moslem, are vigorous and nationalistic. In trying to rule them, the Communists have involved themselves in a succession of purges and intramural rivalries. Last week a long-simmering feud between Albania's Premier Enver Hoxha and its Red police chief boiled up anew. When the steam lifted, handsome Hoxha was out and Colonel General Mehmet Shehu, hard-boiled army chief of staff and Minister of Interior, was in as Premier of Albania. Hoxha apparently still hung on to his job as head of the Albanian Communist Party.

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