The Press TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1951. Albania

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26398, 17 April 1951, Page 6

The Press TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1951. Albania

Albania is so effectively sealed off by the Iron Curiain that little exact information is available about what -s going on there. Diplomatic con,ac,s are at a minimum; the only non-Ccmmunist countries diplomatically represented are France and Italy, which have small missions confined to Tirana, the capital. Press representatives from the nonCommunist world are barred. Belgrade newspapers claim to have sources of information still; and Athens gets a certain amount of news from the large Greek community in southern Albania. Probably the best information channel is Trieste, which handles most of Tirana’s trickle of trade with Soviet satellite States in central Europe. Last month and this month there have been a number of reports from Trieste telling of serious unrest in Albania. The latest describes activities of a resistance movement against terrorism by the government of General Enver Hoxha. Assumptions of unrest are supported by a Russian Tass Agency report of e protest by Albania to Jugoslavia alleging frontier violations, transporting agents by ship, and leafletdropping from aircraft.

During its 40 years of independence Albania has never been prosperous; its economy has consistently been supported by foreign loans and assistance. Its post-war benefactor was Jugoslavia. The economic systems of the two countries were very closely knit together; and Jugoslavia was the only country with which Albania had any considerable trade relations. When Jugoslavia broke with the Cominform and Albania did not follow,the effects on the Albanian economic system were disastrous. An ambitious five-year plan had to be abandoned, and Albania turned to Russia for help. But the complete land isolation of the country made assistance difficult. Albania is entirely bounded on its eastern borders by Jugoslavia and Greece and is accessible from the Russian bloc only by sea and air. While Russian ships with supplies reached Albanian ports only at long intervals, Russia responded energetically with military, political, and technical missions which replaced similar Jugoslav missions. Because the Titoist movement was strong in the ranks of the Albanian Communists, the Jugoslav break with the Cominform had important political repercussions in Albania. The proRussian Hoxha regime set out forthwith to purge leading pro-Tito elements and to terrorise all potential opponents of the Kremlin dispensation. The success credited to these efforts may have been undermined by poverty, serious food shortages, and the great scarcity of consumer goods. Political intrigue and tribal

turbulence—never far below the Albanian surface—might have been stimulated afresh. But it is difficult to believe that the Albanian people, without outside help, are seriously challenging the power of their rulers. It is more difficult to believe that Russia, which is reported to have 5000 men living fa, and on, Albania, will permit another defection on the Jugoslav model. On the other hand, Russia has not vety much to gain from the very substantial effort and material help that would be needed to turn Albania into a strong, useful satellite. In favourable circumstances Albania could be a highly useful outpost, giving Russia a commanding position at the entrance to the Adriatic. But Albania’s isolation is unfavourable to any such design; it lies 103 miles west of the nearest Russian satellite, Bulgaria, and 410 miles south-west of the nearest frontier of Russia proper in the Ukraine. Albania has obvious advantages as a base for guerrilla warfare against Greece and Jugoslavia; but even for this purpose it would need to be fed copiously with arms and materials from Russia. The Albanian record provides little assurance that these would be used for the purposes intended. It is significant of Russian doubts about Albania that despite repeated requests Albania has not been admitted to the Cominform, and that Albania is the only country in eastern Europe with which Russia has not concluded a treaty of mutual aid.