British media write about Alia’s death

The article says:

“Alia was in complete accord with Hoxha over the necessity for Albania, a country the size of Wales with a population at the time of only a little more than two million people, to apply Marxist theory with a practical understanding of the nature of the country and the material and spiritual heritage of its people, rather than copying blindly the Soviet Union or China”.

The author, William Ash, underlines that Alia was the hand-picked successor of Albania’s Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, ads that he also was the man who presided over the country’s transition to multi-party democracy.

The Guardian writes about Ramiz Alia’s death too, considering him as the last communist ruler of Albania, and the architect of the Perestroika in his country.

The author of this article, the Balkan expert Miranda Vickers, underlines that although he was seen by many as the motivating force behind the reforms, and even non-communists credited him with resisting the pressure from conservatives within the Party of Labor of A to halt the reform process, it seems that he remained severely compromised by his close relationship with Hoxha.

“A small man of modest appearance and pleasant manners, Alia had none of the cheap charisma of Hoxha. He managed to survive the many ruthless party purges by exhibiting total loyalty to Hoxha and learning to keep a low profile on controversial issues”, says Vickers in the article.

BBC writes on the official web page that Alia did not build up the same cult of personality as Enver Hoxha. But after the death of Mr Hoxha, his longtime ally, Mr Alia reluctantly became the last eastern European leader to begin democratic reforms. BBC underlines that in his autobiography “My Life”, Mr Alia said he felt the Communist Party should apologize to Albanians for failing to develop the economy enough to give them a better life.

“I am convinced our country will not remain forever the black sheep of Europe,” BBC quotes.

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