A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

1206 Ch. 29 • Democracy and the Collapse of Communism

Communist backlash, particularly in the countryside, where Hoxha had
been a cult figure. In elections, the Communists won 68 percent of the
vote. Despite this victory, the handwriting was on the wall. In June 1991,
the Communist government resigned. For the first time since 1944, a coali­
tion government came to power. Elections in 1992 gave the Democratic
Party a majority of the seats in the National Assembly, and Alia resigned as
Albania’s president. For the next decade, the Democratic Party and the
Socialist Party battled it out against the background of economic hardship,
the arrival of tens of thousands of refugees from Kosovo, political corrup­
tion and assassination, and the bizarre events of 1997 when a series of
pyramid investment schemes collapsed on naive purchasers, leading to riots
and a period of total chaos. Greek troops had to intervene to maintain
peace. Despite some periods of relative political stability, Albania has
changed very little in some ways: between 1991—the fall of Communism—
and 2008, more than 9,000 people had been killed as a result of blood
feuds between families.

The Collapse of the Soviet Union

As one by one the former Eastern European satellites of the Soviet Union

abandoned communism, unhappiness with the system became more vocal

within the Soviet Union itself. In March 1990, the Communist govern­

ment voted to permit non-Communist parties in the Soviet Union, and cre­

ated the office of president. State restrictions on religious practice ended.

That month, the Congress of People’s Deputies elected Mikhail Gor­

bachev president of the Soviet Union, a significant change, since previ­

ously the head of the Communist Party was the titular head of state.

Pressure for the breakup of the Soviet Union mounted from the republics.

In Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, a human chain of more than 1 million

people formed to support the independence of their nations. In June 1990,

the Russian Republic declared that laws passed by its legislature could over­

ride those of the Soviet Union. The other republics followed suit with similar

legislation. Gorbachev’s attempt to enhance government decentralization

fell short of what nationalists in the republics sought. In June 1990, Lithua­

nia unilaterally declared its independence from the Soviet Union; Gorbachev

responded by ordering an embargo on Soviet oil and gas shipped to the

Baltic state.

Gorbachev still wanted to maintain a role for the Communist Party in

the new era, and he wanted to ensure the existence of the Soviet Union

itself. Moreover, he probably still believed that Soviet influence over its for­

mer satellites in Central and Eastern Europe could continue even after the

fall of communism in those states. In 1990, he appointed several hard-line

government officials and ordered a crackdown on nationalist movements in

the Baltic states. This led to the dramatic resignation of Shevardnadze, the

popular foreign minister.