The end of Stalinist rule in Albania

The collapse of communism in Albania, the world's last Stalinist state, transformed from a closed society of absolute state control into a fledgling democracy through the eyes of Lea Ypi, now a professor at the London School of Economics. Growing up as a devoted "pioneer" in a system that banned private cars and enforced rigid political indoctrination, Ypi describes the jarring transition in 1990 when the decapitation of a Stalin statue signaled the regime's end. This political upheaval unraveled a complex web of family secrets; her parents revealed that her grandfather had not been at "university," but was actually a political prisoner serving a fifteen-year sentence. The family used elaborate linguistic codes, such as "studying international relations," to mask convictions for treason. These revelations forced Ypi to reconcile her socialist upbringing with the discovery that her ancestors were the very "class enemies"—aristocrats and landowners—she had been taught to despise.