Mehmet Shehu

Mehmet Shehu was prime minister of Albania for twenty-seven years and died in December 1981 in what the state called a suicide and almost nobody believes was one. He had fought in the Spanish Civil War in the Garibaldi Battalion of the International Brigades, was interned in France, and returned to lead a partisan brigade in the Albanian war, where he was the ablest field commander the communists had; he is credited with the destruction of the German column at Krraba. He became chief of the general staff, then interior minister running the Sigurimi during the worst of the purges, then prime minister from 1954. He was Enver Hoxha's closest associate and his designated successor for most of three decades, and the two were jointly responsible for the internment camps, the executions of successive generations of the leadership, and the isolation that left Albania without allies after the break with China. The end came fast. In November 1981 his son became engaged to a woman from a family with emigre connections; Hoxha attacked the engagement at a Politburo meeting, Shehu was forced into self-criticism, and he was found shot in his bedroom days later. Hoxha announced he had killed himself in a moment of nervous crisis, then within months declared him a lifelong agent of the American, British, Soviet and Yugoslav services simultaneously. His widow and sons were imprisoned, one son died in prison, and his body was dug up and reburied in a swamp. His remains were recovered and given a proper burial after the regime fell. The killing is the standard illustration of how the Albanian leadership consumed itself.

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