Ideology and the cult of the leader
Enver Hoxha invested heavily in the State Security service, the Sigurimi. His aim was to create an obedient person, someone who would worship him and the “sacred” objects he (Hoxha) had created, while at the same time being terrified of them. Although Hoxha did not achieve this model 100% (through the Sigurimi), he succeeded in creating a taboo. If we analyse it with reference to Freud’s book “Totem dhe Tabu” [Totem and Taboo] [1], he always linked this taboo to ideology, to what was itself the totem of communist societies. This totem, ideology, was personified by the ideological figures themselves: Marxism-Leninism was personified by Marx and Lenin.
Marxism-Leninism was the central axis of the ideology propagated throughout the socialist camp, while for us (Albanians), Stalin was the closest figure in living flesh, its concrete manifestation, the “embodiment of the totem”. He was this because he had made possible “the coming of the totem to our lands”; he had succeeded in identifying himself with it and had made possible the “protection” and “survival of our society” on many occasions. Among the most difficult was “the break in relations with Tito’s Yugoslavia and its threats of annexation”.
Hoxha worshipped Stalin (very probably worshipping the position he held more than the man himself). He remained faithful to Stalin’s principles and methods, and even imitated him. In this context, after Stalin’s death, Hoxha took his place (for us Albanians). In the circumstances dictated by the times (with Nikita Khrushchev’s arrival at the helm in Moscow and his attack on the personality cult, that is, on the totem), he (Hoxha) managed, largely for his own political survival, to detach the totem from Moscow and bring it to Albania, proclaiming his defence of it (the defence of ideals, just as Stalin had done). By taking Stalin’s place as protector of the totem, Hoxha acquired a new status. Society began to see him differently, for he now held the “mechanism” that determined what was right and what was wrong. He held the totem, because in our society’s eyes he had become its “embodiment”.
With this new status, Hoxha not only strengthened his position but gave himself the right to “offer up as sacrifices” those members of the totem who threatened the continuation of his dynasty, spreading the taboo still further. In these circumstances, Hoxha’s faithful weapon was unquestionably the State Security service (the so-called effective weapon of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the one that buried the class enemy, or so-called revolutionary vigilance).
Obedience, class struggle and fear
By presenting himself as the “embodiment of the totem”, Hoxha began, in the literal sense of the word, to “mould” the human being (he began to “mould” the Albanian). By restricting and conditioning behaviour (always through the Sigurimi’s activity), Hoxha had in mind and sought (as I said at the beginning) “the creation of an obedient person”. The taboo created by his totemism undoubtedly played a part in this.
The so-called “class struggle” was the most direct expression of this taboo. Whoever violated the taboo became a taboo themselves, because they possessed the dangerous ability to tempt others to follow their example; they infected others with the desire to imitate them. They therefore had to be avoided and given only menial work, never work of importance. They had to be isolated, pointed out and put in their place, shown the class to which they belonged: no one spoke to them, no one befriended them; they had to remain and associate only with their own class. In this way, Hoxha succeeded in institutionalising fear, spreading paranoia and the delusion that punishment was always close at hand.
In this way he managed to preserve the totem, but more than the totem, he managed to preserve his position until his death.
[1] Sigmund Freud – Totem dhe Tabu [Totem and Taboo]; Dituria 2003