World: ALBANIA: STALIN'S HEIR

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This same national touchiness is continually displayed by Red Boss Enver Hoxha, and represents much of his strength. Albanians have a Mediterranean fondness for florid and denunciatory speeches, and Hoxha is recognized even by his enemies as a master of this sort of oratory. Tall and handsome, with thick, pomaded hair now greying at the temples, Hoxha draws stormy applause for his insults to Khrushchev.

Hoxha's picture is plastered on just about every wall in the land. His profile adorns Albania's monetary unit, the lek, and at meetings of the Communist Central Committee (most of whom are related to each other and to the boss by blood or marriage) Hoxha speaks from a podium decorated with a plaster bust of himself. Like his country, Hoxha is full of surprises. Instead of being a rough, tough mountain chieftain, he is a former schoolteacher and was the pampered son of a well-to-do Moslem merchant. Though he has the mentality of a brigand, his manners are those of a cultivated bourgeois and reflect his education at universities in France and Belgium.

The Jet Class. During World War II, Hoxha seized the leadership of a Communist guerrilla band and not only cleared Albania of Italian invaders but also eliminated rival guerrillas. He literally slit throats among his own followers—of the 14 members of the first Central Committee, Hoxha is the only survivor.

His pocket-Stalinist regime has done little for Albania's limp economy. The few paved roads and sizable buildings are relics of the Italian occupation. There are no private cars or buses; Albanians travel from village to village by donkey or in open trucks. The only railroad is scarcely 70 miles long, and the main seaport at Durres can unload only one ship at a time. -

The most striking contrast is between the poverty of the masses and the grotesque luxury of the Communist elite. There is no middle ground between the peasant donkey cart and the chauffeur-driven Mercedes from the state motor pool. Farm land is almost totally collectivized, and most peasants are virtually paid off with a lek and a promise. Tirana has a TV transmitter that broadcasts to a total of 200 TV sets owned by party officials. Albanian workers patch holes in their trousers with bits of vulcanized rubber, but in the new "jet class" "the men wear Italian-cut suits, and the girls have flaring cocktail dresses.

Chip on Shoulder. Soviet and satellite technicians have been replaced by Red Chinese experts since the break with Moscow. The Chinese draw the same low wages as their Albanian counterparts and earnestly spend their free time studying the difficult native language, but most of the xenophobic Albanians regard them as something straight out of a zoo. Chinese films are being shown at the numerous open-air cinemas (one visitor commented that Albania has "drive-in movies for pedestrians"), and in the darkness students frequently boo and whistle at the heavy propaganda.