efined by Enver Hoxha, who has headed it since 1945 and was still its
president in 1970, as the greatest political revolutionary organization
of the Albanian people and as a powerful weapon of the Party for the
political union of the people. In 1970 the Democratic Front continued to
be a key element in the Party's control mechanism. Considered officially
as the broadest mass organization, it was supposed to give expression to
the political views of the entire population and to serve as a school
for mass political education.

The tasks and objectives of the Democratic Front, as set forth in its
statute and as constantly reiterated by Party leaders, include the
strengthening of political unity among the people and the mobilizing of
the people for the implementation of Party policies. The spreading of
the Marxist-Leninist ideology is also a task of the front, as is the
purging of any attitudes that are considered backward and reactionary.
In essence, the front is an instrument of the Party, expressly designed
for the political control of the entire population. Enver Hoxha declared
in a speech to the Fourth Congress of the Democratic Front in 1967 that
all citizens over age eighteen were members of the front, including
Party members and members of all other mass organizations.

The Union of Albanian Women is also referred to as a powerful weapon of
the Party. The union, headed in 1970 by Vito Kapo, wife of Secretary of
the Party Central Committee Hysni Kapo, controls and supervises the
political and social activities of the country's women, handles their
ideological training, and spearheads the Party's campaign for the
emancipation of women. The campaign was launched by Hoxha in June 1967
and renewed in October 1969 in a Hoxha speech to the Party Central
Committee.

The Union of Albanian Women, according to reports by visitors has a good
record of assistance to the Party in making legal, economic, and social
equality for women a reality. By 1970 women shared responsibility in the
government at all levels, had entered all the professions, and worked
side by side with men for equal pay in most occupations.

By 1967 the union was able to boast that more than 284,000 women took
part in production in some way, mostly in industrial plants and
agricultural collectives. In the same year there were about 40 women,
out of a total of 240 deputies, in the People's Assembly; 1,878 women in
the people's councils; and 1,170 in the peop