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CHAPTER 5

SOCIAL SYSTEM

The Communist regime was still striving in 1970 to alter the traditional
tribal and semifeudal social patterns of the country and to restructure
the whole system to fit Marxist-Leninist principles of a socialist
society. Until after World War II the strongest loyalties of the people
had been toward family and larger kin groups, which have been the most
important units in Albanian society. Kin groups had been held together
by strong spirit and loyalties, as well as by economic factors. The head
of the family, usually the eldest male member, historically exercised
patriarchal authority, with general responsibility for the welfare and
safety of the members. In this patriarchal society, respect for parental
authority was dominant.

Local autonomy and suspicion of central authority had for centuries been
a way of life for Albanian society. This way of life persisted until the
twentieth century, despite the foreign cultural and political influences
to which the society was subjected during the long domination by the
Ottoman Turks.

Of particular social importance during this domination was the
conversion of the majority of the people to the Islamic faith. Even
before this conversion, however, the people had been segmented by the
schism between the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches. The people in
the north were usually Roman Catholic, and those in the south, Eastern
Orthodox. Tolerance, however, has been a marked feature of the people
and, accordingly, religious divisiveness has had no great effect on the
tribal and semifeudal structure of the society. Indeed, the three
religious faiths in the country--Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Eastern
Orthodox--have represented traditional loyalties rather than living
creeds for the Albanians.

Until the Communist takeover in 1944, there had been two broad social
classes in the country, an upper and a lower class. The upper class was
composed of the landowning _beys_ (see Glossary); some _bajraktars_
(relatively well-to-do tribal chieftains); and a smaller number of rich
Christian farmers, merchants, small industrialists, some intellectuals,
and the higher clergy. The lower class, amounting to about 90 percent of
the population, was composed of a small group of workers, the peasant
masses, livestock breeders, and the lower clergy.

The Communist regime's political, social, and economic measures aimed at
redirecting the traditional social patt