Re-evaluate#1: Enver Hoxha

chiefly as the creator of the most lunar capital in Europe

we all used to love Hoxha when I was in college. mainly because Marxist-Leninist News was such fun to read.

it's actually quite hard to see what difference he made in the long run... Albania's isolationist regime collapsed at the same time as the other eastern bloc countries, leaving communism there as as much of a historical blip as it would have been if the country had remained in the orthodox soviet camp.

having said that, didn't Hoxha preside over a politburo meeting that turned into a shoot-out which he won? thus he continues the proud tradition of Albanian leaders who are handy with a gun.

I liked how they banned goatees and had people shave them off at the airport upon entering the country. Too bad they don't still have that rule, if they did every nu-metal band on earth could be forced to tour there

More bizarre was Hoxha's love of Norman Wisdom. His legacy lives on, demonstrated by that tosser Tony Hawks using Wisdom to front a record recently.

There's a great descrption in Paul Theroux's Pillars of Hercules about Albania.

It wasn't the only regime to have idiosyncratic grooming regulations. Dr Hastings Banda wins hands down every time.

arguably the most demented post-WWII european dictator of them all. i mean, a guy who thumbed his nose at the Kremlin, allied himself with Chairman Mao (as if the Chinese would aid Albania if the Warsaw Pact wanted to kick their asses), and then gave the finger to Chairman Mao's successors (for not being pure enough!) has to rate somehow.

actually, the Ceausescus were probably more demented and certainly killed more people.

Tad, stop arguing with yourself.