rs in 1970. All cadets over eighteen years of age in the
officer candidate military schools were also Party members. Younger
cadets were members of the Union of Albanian Working Youth. Probably
only a very few of the conscripts were Party members, but nearly all
were members of the youth organization. In addition to the influence
exerted by Party cells, political commissars throughout the armed forces
structure enforced ideological conformity.

The Albanian fighting man has had an excellent reputation for 2,000
years but, with the exception of Skanderbeg, the fifteenth-century
national hero--he was born Gjergi Kastrioti and renamed Skanderbeg after
Alexander the Great--the military forces of the country have disclaimed
any heritage antedating the partisan activities of World War II.
Skanderbeg gained brief independence for the country during his
opposition to the Turkish invaders, but his exploits in support of
nationalism stood almost alone over the entire period between Roman
times and the twentieth century.

Moreover, national independence in 1912 did not result from a major
military victory. National feelings, aroused late in the nineteenth
century, became more intense during the early 1900s but, although there
were clashes between fairly sizable armed groups of Turks and Albanians,
freedom was not attained from armed struggle involving organized
military forces. Rather, in the interests of the balance of power the
greater European powers recognized the declared independence of Albania
(see ch. 2, Historical Setting).

Police and security forces were under the control of the Ministry of the
Interior. They were organized into three directorates: the Directorate
of State Security, Frontier Guards, and the People's Police. Except for
the fact that they were subject to the same system of military justice,
they were entirely separate from the armed forces of the Ministry of
People's Defense. The Albanian security police in 1970 were believed to
exert more rigid controls over the population than was exercised by
similar forces in any other East European Communist country or in the
Soviet Union.

The Directorate of State Security contained the internal security
police. Organized to protect the Party and governmental system, they
were responsible for suppressing resistance to, and deviation from,
Party ideology, and for combating crimes that had a national character.
Frontier Guards, as their name implies, accomplished