Following the death of Enver Hoxha, Albania's longtime (1945-1985) dictator in April 1985, Ramiz Alia (born 1925) became the dominant political personality in the country.

Ramiz Alia was born on October 18, 1925, into a poor working-class family from the northern Albanian city of Shkoder. His parents subsequently moved to Tirana, the capital of Albania, where Alia was a student at the city's Gymnasium (academic high school) at the time of the Italian occupation of the country in April 1939.

Like many of his contemporaries, Alia joined the Fascist Lictor Youth Organization. By 1941 he had severed his ties with this group and had become a member of the Albanian Communist Youth Organization. Two years later he abandoned his studies and was admitted to the Albanian Communist Party. The following year he was appointed political commissar with the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Fifth Combat Division of the Albanian Army of National Liberation...