Koçi Xoxe, an activist of the communist and labor movement in Albania, participant in the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War, a high functionary of the Albanian Communist Party and the state, was sentenced and shot. He was born in the village of Negovan (today Flamburo) in the prefecture of Follorina (Greece) , in 1911. He attended high school in Thessaloniki. He settled in Korça in 1931, where he participated in the organization of the “Puna” society. He joined the communist group of Korça and was elected to its leadership. He participated in the “bread demonstration” held in Korçë on February 21st, 1936 and was one of the organizers of the anti-fascist demonstrations of April 1939 in Korçë. Participant in the founding meeting of the Albanian Communist Party, where he was elected a member of the Provisional Central Committee and was charged with the organization of the Party. In the summer of 1942, he was imprisoned by the fascists in Tirana. At the 1st National Conference of the Albanian Communist Party (March 17-22, 1943), he was elected as a member of the Political Bureau and organizational secretary of the Central Committee. After escaping from prison (summer 1943), he organized partisan formations, especially the I, IV, VIII, IX, XV, and XX Brigades. In the First National Liberation Anti-Fascist Congress (Përmet, 1944) he was elected vice-president of the National Liberation Anti-Fascist Council and was ranked lieutenant general. At the IInd Meeting of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council (Berat, October 1944) he was appointed deputy prime minister. At the 1st Congress of the National Liberation Front (August 1945) he was elected vice president of the Democratic Front of Albania, created there. He was appointed chairman of the Special Court (December 25, 1944), created to try collaborators of fascism and war criminals. In May 1945, he was appointed director of the Directorate of People’s Protection (later called State Security). Deputy in the elections of December 1945. In the government that emerged from these elections, he was appointed deputy prime minister, minister of internal affairs and chairman of the Control Commission (March 1946). In the IXth Plenum of the Central Committee of the Albanian Communist Party (September 1948) and the congress of the Albanian Communist Party (November 1948), he was accused of pro-Yugoslav activities and serious violations of legality, was dismissed from all the functions he held in the Party and the state. In May 1949 he was sentenced to death and shot. (In the photo: Koçi Xoxe in the courtroom)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 3, Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2009, page 2939.
Photo: © https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ko%C3%A7i_Xoxe.jpg
Graphic processing: AHCF
