the Communist regime in its efforts to change
the traditional character of society, especially in the countryside,
were highlighted in a strong editorial in the February 8, 1970, issue of
_Zeri i Popullit_ (The Voice of the People), the Party's official daily.
According to the article, the most dangerous antisocial phenomenon in
the social life of the country was patriarchalism. This phenomenon was
particularly strong in the mountainous north where it was firmly
entrenched and involved people from rank-and-file villagers to Party
members.

The basic difficulty derived from the fact that the local Communist
leaders entertained patriarchal notions about the Party; they considered
the Party organization as one in which they found a reincarnation of the
clan. There was a tendency therefore for the Communists to admit to the
Party organization people from their own _bajrak_, or clan, in order to
have a dominant position in, and exercise command over, such socialist
organizations as agricultural collectives. In a Party organization the
head of one _bajrak_ was put in command so that he could rule over the
other, just as if he were the head of the clan. As in the old clan
society, quarrels often occurred in basic Party Organizations when one
_bajraktar_ attempted to wrest control of the organization from another.

Entrance into the Party was considered by the patriarchal-minded
highlanders as penetration into places where they could enjoy privileges
and prestige. A similar situation prevailed in the agricultural
collectives, in which the presidents of the collectives, imbued with the
traditional idea of chieftainship, behaved toward the property of the
collectives as if it were their own. The problems of the collectives
were not submitted to either the basic Party organizations or to the
general assembly of the collective. According to official criticism,
everything was settled in the "clan style, in the spirit of family
interest, of the clan, of the entity, precisely because they formed a
family within which defense and support of their interests, right or
wrong, had become the rule."

Enver Hoxha stated in a speech in 1968 that the position of the
secretary of the Party organization or of an agricultural collective was
considered in many areas as inheritable, just as the chieftainship in
the tribal society has been inherited. The difficulties faced by the
regime's attempts to eradicate the persistent patriarchal notions w