NEWS ANALYSIS : A Forbidding Future Awaits Albanians as They Take First Steps to Democracy : Eastern Europe: A protracted battle looms between reformers and Stalinists reinvigorated by election triumph.

A forbidding future of turmoil and bloodshed looms inescapably for Albanians, whose first steps toward multi-party democracy have served to polarize this devastated Balkan nation into forces intent on union with Europe and those seeking to resurrect the totalitarian past.

Deadly clashes between opposition protesters and Communist-controlled police are likely only the first salvos in a protracted battle between reform advocates and the Stalinist hard-liners who were reinvigorated by last weekend’s election.

The Communist landslide has shifted political power from better-educated party figures in Tirana and other major cities to peasant leaders in the staunchly conservative countryside.

President Ramiz Alia, whose modest reforms have cracked the isolationist shell that has encased Albania for 4 1/2 decades, may be forced from power unless he caves in to the rural reactionaries seeking to restore social order by force.

The Communists of the Albanian Party of Labor won a commanding majority of the 250-seat People’s Assembly during balloting Sunday that was the first attempt at parliamentary democracy since the 1920s.

But Alia and other top figures associated with the recent relaxation of social and political controls lost their parliamentary seats to opposition figures from the pro-Western Democratic Party.

Democrats captured huge majorities in the major cities, while the Communists’ overall victory was due to their success in the most remote and backward constituencies, where about 60% of Albania’s 3.3 million people live.

The new Parliament is expected to assemble in a few weeks--after the last 19 seats are decided by runoff elections--to name a president and Cabinet. While there is no prohibition against nominating politicians outside of the assembly, hard-liners from the peasantry have made no secret of their distaste for democratic reforms and are considered unlikely to support Alia or other moderate Communists.

Rumor and speculation, the chief ingredients of Balkan political analysis, contend that the widow of Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha is rallying the most tyrannical elements of the party Old Guard to recover the leadership and protect the image and legacy of her late husband.

Nexhmije Hoxha campaigned vigorously in the ardently Communist south, and the ruling party’s resounding success there may indicate more tolerance for a return to the policy of order through terror than urban intellectuals would like to think.

The election has brought about a sharp polarization of Albanian society, with city dwellers largely favoring the opposition Democrats and villagers standing by the Communists, who have ruled unchallenged for 46 years and are the only authority most have ever known.

The Democratic Party’s parliamentary minority is composed of vocal and articulate intellectuals and young activists who will challenge the inflexible conservatives despite lacking sufficient numbers to block them. That may serve to slow the nomination process, or drive the Communists into closed-door caucuses to obscure the internal fighting between reform advocates and opponents.

Meanwhile, Albania’s appalling social conditions are breeding further discontent, especially in the devastated cities. Amid the crumbling housing blocks, idle factories and critical shortages of food and most other goods, unrest is expected to escalate and prompt the hard-line authorities to respond with repression.

The first explosions have already resounded.

Authorities in the northern city of Shkoder responded with gunfire when pro-democracy demonstrators gathered outside the local Communist Party headquarters on Tuesday. Three were killed and nearly 60 injured in the ensuing melee between police and protesters. A fourth man died later of his wounds.

The Democratic Party on Wednesday called a general strike for Thursday to protest the use of force against peaceful demonstrators and to show that “we are not letting them use tanks and guns against us,” said Gramoz Pashko, a leading economist and party co-chairman.

Party spokesman Genc Pollo gave no participation figures but told a news conference late Thursday: “I could say the strike was general in Tirana and other major cities, so we consider it a success.” A government official, however, described it as a failure, Reuters news agency reported.

State-run television coverage of the Shkoder incident and official statements blaming the violence on “terrorists” appeared aimed at justifying brutal measures that may be used to quell similar incidents in the future.

On Friday, the government said it had begun an investigation into the clashes.

The concurrent decline in public order and the sharp splits in both the leadership and Albanian society threaten recurring clashes and a heightening of tensions that some fear could escalate into civil war.

Others, however, believe that the fever for reform that has gripped Albania’s cities will gradually spread to the countryside along with disenchantment with the deplorable status quo.

In this most impoverished corner of Europe, even milk and bread are rationed and unemployment is skyrocketing among the legions of working-age youths. Albania has both the highest birthrate and the youngest population on the Continent, with the average age only 27.

The reform-minded opposition enjoys strong support among the young, which suggests they may eventually carry the Democrats’ popularity to the villages, where the population is even younger.

One unanswered question perplexing Balkan analysts is how Albanian society will endure the transition, and whether its strong nationalist unity can withstand the current political division between town and country.

“I can’t see any hope for Albania right now. There’s going to be anarchy and chaos. There’s going to be increasing popular discontent--there’s already fury in the cities over the vote in the countryside,” said Robert Elsie, a Canadian scholar who has specialized in Albanian affairs since 1978.

“There is economic disaster, hunger, political polarization--all the basics are there for civil war,” he said. “But who would the conflict be between? There is historically great solidarity among Albanians. They have a very strong concept of ‘we’ rather than ‘I.’ They think like an organism, like ants.”

But the hard-liners expected to fill the governing ranks once the Parliament is seated are unlikely to give in to growing support for the opposition without a fight.

Communist power has traditionally rested on three forces that now themselves are split: the reform-oriented party administration led by Alia and other disenfranchised moderates, the staunchly Stalinist police and Sigurimi security forces, and the army, whose commanders are hard-liners but whose rank and file are likely as divided as the proletariat and peasantry from which they come.

A prominent Albanian historian who spoke on condition of anonymity said he fears a vicious circle of violence put down with brute police force, further alienating hermetic Albania from the civilized world it only recently showed an inclination to join.