war.

The emissaries of the Yugoslav Communist Party interpreted the agreement
as a victory for the nationalists and demanded that the Albanian
Communist Party not only denounce the agreement but also launch a
full-scale attack on the Balli Kombetar. The Albanian Communists bowed
to this demand and, in September 1943, launched the attack against Balli
Kombetar and subsequently against the Legality Movement. This movement
was founded in November 1943 by Abas Kupi, who until August 1943 had
been a member of the Central Council of the National Liberation Movement
but broke away from it after the Mukaj agreement was denounced.

In May 1944 the National Liberation Front, as the movement was by then
called, sponsored the Congress of Permet for the purpose of creating the
necessary machinery to seize power. The Congress appointed Hoxha
commander in chief of the Army of National Liberation and elected the
Albanian Anti-Fascist Liberation Council, which in turn created the
Albanian Anti-Fascist Committee, under the presidency of Hoxha, as the
executive branch of the council. The Congress of Berat, convened by the
front in October of the same year, converted the committee into a
coalition provisional "democratic" government, which in the following
month seized control of the whole country and on November 28, Albania's
traditional Independence Day, installed itself in Tirana.

In many respects the 1943-44 civil war in Albania followed a course
similar to that which took place between the partisan forces (Communist)
of Josip Broz (Tito) and General Mihailovich's Chetniks (loyalist) in
Yugoslavia. The Communist operations and final seizure of power in
Yugoslavia played a major role in the Communist takeover in Albania.
Albania was the only European Communist country that was freed from the
Axis invaders without the actual presence of Soviet forces and without
direct military assistance from the Soviet Union. Political direction
was supplied by the emissaries of the Yugoslav Communist Party attached
permanently to the Albanian Communist Party after its founding in 1941.
The Anglo-American command in Italy supplied most of the war material to
the Albanian partisan forces.

Albania's future was never specifically discussed by the Big
Three--Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States--at either
the Teheran or the Yalta conferences. Nor did Albania figure in the
discussions in Moscow in October 1944 between Churchill and