TIRANA WATCH : Hold the Applause

Is Europe’s last bastion of Stalinism about to fall? Buffeted by economic crisis and growing public discontent, Albania’s Communist Party, after 46 years of uncontested power, has agreed to the “creation of independent political organizations,” a decision that immediately prompted the proclamation by dissident students and others of a new Democratic Party. Still in its formative stage, the party professes a commitment to a multi-party system, human rights, a free market economy and good relations with Albania’s neighbors. It sounds encouraging. But Albania is still a long way from joining the ranks of freedom-observing states.

For one thing, the Communists have not yet said that they are ready to yield their constitutional monopoly on power. For another, there’s no certainty that even if the new party can get itself organized by next February’s scheduled elections--and is allowed to run on an equal footing--it can win support from a majority of the electorate. A free vote in Romania saw the Communists holding onto power after dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown. Serbian Communists, in next-door Yugoslavia, have also just won a free election.

Albania, for centuries an outpost of the Ottoman Empire, has absolutely no democratic traditions or institutions from which its people can draw inspiration. Its long self-imposed isolationism under Communist rule has further insulated it from Western ideas of political pluralism. Stalinism in Albania may well be dying. Authoritarianism, though, could still be around for quite awhile.