On December 4th, frequent power shortages and poor living conditions drove about 300 students living on the campus of the University of Tirana to the street. Accustomed to government-scripted marches (manifestations) against the war in Vietnam or similar sanctioned gatherings, the protest surprised regime defenders. On December 6th, student representatives of the communist youth organization at the Faculty of Engineering posted a big-character poster criticizing the old guard of the Party’s Politburo (the old jackets) and the living conditions at the student quartier (Krasniqi 1998). They demanded an audience with the prime minister. On December 8th, after an unsatisfactory meeting with Prime Minister Carcani A, students at the Higher Institute of Arts organized a music event to commemorate the death of John Lennon. Under the influence of two popular professors, Rama E and Imami A, the meeting turned into a political gathering (Klosi and Rama 1991). At midnight of the 9th, aware of the political nature of their demand, students launched a demonstration. A steering committee and a group of representatives were elected to negotiate with the government and demanded an audience with President Alia R, also the PPSH leader. The audience did not clear the confusion (Alia 2010).

Another meeting with Alia on December 11th followed where students were more vocal but still hesitant (e.g., the discussion stuck on the issue of whether freedom of association was stipulated in the constitution). The activists seemed unprepared to lead a political movement. On the same day, two university professors, Berisha S and Pashko G joined the movement. Once they were involved, the demands were crystallized, despite creating factions in the movement (Rama 2006). Within 4 days, students and professors helped raise a popular revolt, which at first was met with violence. The regime withdrew once more students joined the movement. Some 6,000 students signed a petition demanding political pluralism and freedom of association ¹⁹ . Two student associations sprung out of the movement and competed for leadership. The recently founded Democratic Party of Albania, led by Berisha, succeeded in controlling the movement and represented both students and professors ²⁰ . After the first democratic elections and due to continuing strikes, the university was temporarily shut down in March 1991.

The cultural revolution, the revolutionization movement, was a top-down initiated and controlled adaption of the Chinese Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, it mobilized the youth and the education system (Pano 1974; Marku 2017a). Differing in degree, the movement resembles the Romanian “cultural mini-revolution” of 1971 (see here Stanciu 2013, p. 1065). Both cases of policy transfer were largely influenced by China; the Romanian case also by the Soviet Union and Poland.

In Albania, the revolutionary agenda targeted the bureaucracy, the religion, and sought to curtail foreign influences by attacking the Catholic church and the legacy of the Sovietization period (1948–1961). It restricted access to Western culture and alienated the Western-educated intelligentsia, including those educated in the Soviet Union. For example, the number of outgoing students declined from nearly 1,000 students in 1961 before the Soviet-Albanian split, to less than five in 1968. At the dawn of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the numbers increased, although mostly with China (at a total of about 290 students till 1978, Jiafu 2012), as four to five students annually were sent to France, Romania, and Italy. After losing its initial impetus because of the campaignist style (see Van Atta 1989) of similar half-hearted government reforms, the cultural revolution was actively challenged by members of the intellectual elite. Contrary to the Soviet model they had adopted enthusiastically (Mëhilli 2018), they resented the Chinese modernization model (Marku 2017b) that was euphemistically labeled the revolutionization movement.

A short relaxation period ensued by the beginning of the 1970s (Pano 1974, p. 55) to gain the support of the youth (Alia 2010), which reformists counting on the Chinese support sought to exploit. An inter-elite conflict ensued that generated a new wave of repression and purges lasting from 1973 to 1975 ²¹ . Similar conflicts involving the cultural intelligentsia, the managerial, and the revolutionary elites, were observed in Eastern Europe (Bakeret al., 2007). In Albania, the conflict was also perturbed by the decline in China’s financial commitments after its rapprochement with the United States. As in East Germany (Miethe 2006) and Czechoslovakia (Wheaton and Kavan 2018), the regime became disappointed with its youth and the Communist cultural intelligentsia.

The anti-Soviet agenda of the cultural revolution affected the curriculum, textbooks, personnel, and student life, but did not target the rigid hierarchical management system of the Soviet higher education model ²² adapted in 1947 with the help of Yugoslavia, and later the Soviet Union (Kambo 2014). The interventions strengthened the role of the party through its parallel structures; the professional bodies (Bashkimet Profesionale) and student organizations. In the course of the revolutionization, several academic programs were vocationalized (e.g., pharmacy), the nationalistic and indoctrinary components ²³ of the curriculum grew up to 50% in some subjects, and the number of translated textbooks was reduced. ²⁴ About 10%–15% of the academic personnel were purged, relocated, or rotated (i.e., sent to work in farms or industrial sites), and student life became increasingly disciplined. Although similar to other Eastern European countries (Cornell 1968), access to higher education had been restricted, and based on political and social merit, the admission criteria became much more exclusory. Like other Eastern European countries (Reisz and Stock 2006, see Figure 4), Albanian higher education was contracted due to the same inter-elite conflict (Bakeret al., 2007). In the mid-1970s, the staff was reduced by 15%, and enrollments dropped by 25.5% (e.g., from about 28,600 in 1973 to 21,200 in 1976).

By the end of the 1970s, with the beginning of the historical sequence of late Socialism, the regime and the intelligentsia began to reverse the effects of the cultural revolution. The suicide of the former Prime Minister Shehu M in 1981, the policy entrepreneur behind the transfer of the cultural revolution and the main representative of the revolutionary elite, accelerated the process. A period of relaxation began (Idrizi 2018) and the sporadic waves of the anti-intellectual campaigns abated. For example, the number of imprisoned university graduates was reduced by half (from about 700 in 1976–1980 to about 350 in 1981–1985) ²⁶ .

The expansion of higher education rebounded (see Figure 4 and Figure 5 ). By 1990, there were about 26,000 students, approaching the highest record in enrollments since 1973 (28,000). The number of academic personnel also rose after a sharp decline in 1976, from about 1,000 to almost 1,800 in 1991. ²⁸ The University of Tirana enrolled circa 13,500 students and was close to reaching its second-highest point in history (about 14,000 students in 1974). As the economy was stagnating (Pashko 1991, see Figure 5: GDP per capita), experts warned about the expansion ²⁹ . However, the lack of infrastructure and financial resources did not convince the government to contain the growth. Increased demand and lack of employment prospects drove enrollment beyond government projections ³⁰ Moreover, hooliganism and similar manifestations of disruptive behavior overwhelmed the management ³¹ . The penal doctrine treated such conduct as hostile, but legal and policing practices suggest that by the end of the 1980s, deviation and criminality among the working-class youth was tolerated as legal repression subsided, mostly due to efforts to restore socialist legality (Shahini 2021).

Less restrictive admission policies brought about changes in the student body, which previously reflected the radical affirmative action favoring the working class, and the better-educated students from the South or Tirana. For example, the proportion of new enrollments from white-collar families grew from 35% in 1977, to almost 60% in 1987 and 67% in 1988 ³² . Instead of favoring the working class, the admission criteria in the 1980s were aligned with the regional development strategy, aiming to increase access for students from Northern Albania ³³ . The propaganda discourse on the class struggle diminished and admission restrictions were relaxed for those categorized as politically and ideologically unfit; usually, they were assigned to engineering or agriculture courses. For instance, one student activist at the Agricultural University of Tirana, Zaloshnja E, managed to gain admission after several rejections ³⁴ . Clientelist transactions circumvented admission criteria, despite poor academic skills or flaws in political merit ³⁵ .

Elements of the curriculum that had been introduced during the cultural revolution were reversed. The 1-year compulsory internship in production before admission to the university was canceled in 1981. The length of study in some programs was extended, reversing the previous interventions, which prioritized technical and short-time education. By early 1990, the required course of Marxism-Leninism was canceled, the curriculum load in military training was reduced, and several directives pushed for the borrowing of modern didactical approaches ³⁶ . For example, the XI Party Congress had declared “a direct and total war against mechanical and passive learning” (Korrespondenti Studenti, 1988, p. 1).

The constitution of the academic personnel also changed. The percentage of lecturers younger than 40 years was more than 50%, that of 30 years old grew from 15% in 1979 to 22% in 1984, while the percentage of white-collar workers increased slightly, reaching almost 50% (Misja et al., 1986, p. 129). By the end of the 1980s, as a professor recalls, the elections in the professional bodies of the faculty brought new people in, not necessarily regime loyalists, although the party structures within the university remained intact (Progni 2013, p. 344). A new generation of personnel replaced the old Soviet-trained specialists silenced by the cultural revolution as the number of postgraduates and doctoral degree holders increased. Until 1991, almost 70% of academic titles and nearly 76% of postgraduate theses were conferred from 1981 to 1991. ³⁷ A form of group consciousness emerged among the new members, who then managed to organize into an independent association during the movement (Meksi 2010) ³⁸ . As members of the socialist intelligentsia, they had the same academic background from the University of Tirana, followed the party norms and the institution’s governing principles of the cultural revolution, and were deemed regime loyal (Lleshi and Starova 2017). Comparative accounts conceptualize the socialist intelligentsia on the verge of regime transition as transitional elite (see Mark et al., 2019). By 1983, as there was a more positive attitude toward the socialist intelligentsia, the regime lowered its guard and the state security unit responsible for the surveillance of the intelligentsia ceased to exist, making it difficult for the security operatives to monitor members of the intelligentsia or coerce collaboration ³⁹ .

Furthermore, the relative opening of the country’s borders enabled selected faculty members to study abroad and foment links to the international epistemic networks. In the 1980s, the relationship with the West started to improve and exchanges in the education sector were intensified. This, according to the then Minister of Education, Mrs. Cami T, was recommended by Hoxha E, who had summoned her in private ⁴⁰ . The cooperation agreements with France and Italy were expanded and the university benefitted from the technical assistance of international organizations to train its staff (e.g., the 1983 program for the transfer of information technology, UNDP/UNESCO ALB/81/001.) Consequently, by 1985 in France, there were 53 Albanian undergraduate and postgraduate students ⁴¹ ; 10 years ago, from 1971 to 1974, there had been about 20. There were plans to send as many postgraduates as possible to the Federal Republic of Germany and France, and more were trained by incoming international experts ⁴² . Monitoring students abroad became almost impossible (Kellici, 2020). When the number of postgraduates in France increased to 110 in 1990, the Albanian Embassy in France struggled to guarantee their full cooperation ⁴³ . Students trying to defect also signaled systemic changes at home.

The structural changes mentioned had a positive impact on the movement. First, the generational change of the academic personnel and their experience abroad created a critical mass of academic staff that pushed for changes, especially concerning foreign relations and the alliance with the West.

Second, the expansion of higher education brought together many dissatisfied and like-minded students and created social problems that the regime and university authorities were unable to handle. A critical mass of students with the same background and from the same region formed networks of trust, which were essential to the movement. The collective life at the dormitories, the military training, and the long trips home deepened friendships and strengthened network ties among students. Close ties affect recruitment and generate the necessary social capital to support activism, especially as activists appeal to a shared identity (Crossley 2008). Students from the towns of Shkodra and Tropoja, who harbored stronger resentment against the regime (Rama 2006), increased in number due to the affirmative action for Northern Albania (e.g., activists such as Rama Sh, Hajdari A, and Haxhia I, were from the region). They were joined by a few students from former dissident families, who had been rehabilitated. Furthermore, these students were enrolled in engineering disciplines ⁴⁴ since they were high achieving but politically unfit. This explains the difference with Western student activism, where students enrolled in social sciences and humanities have been active (Altbach 1964; Keniston 1967).

Third, as the student quarter grew beyond its capacities ⁴⁵ , the living conditions worsened, as did the morale of the administration. For example, only one-third of students used the cafeteria, while in 1981 there were more than two-thirds. ⁴⁶ As students prepared their meals in the dorm, the power grid was steadily overloaded causing frequent power shortages, which was the triggering event of the student movement on December 8th. Due to the conditions, trust in the authorities eroded and their disciplinary capacities were diminished. For instance, when the administration of the student quarter tried to discourage student activists by imposing a curfew, they were met with resistance (Krasniqi 1998). As cases of disruptive behavior at the compound increased, management and police forces had trouble differentiating political dissidence from social deviance. For example, when intelligence services reported on two key female activists, they were categorized as psychologically unstable or morally depraved ⁴⁷ .

The initial contentious events betray the legacy of the cultural revolution. The repertoire consisted of (1) the involvement of the formal student organization and their request for an audience with the highest government authority, (2) the use of big-character posters (Albanian: flete-rrufe [striking leaflet]; Chinese: dazibao), and (3) characterization of the political elite as the old guard, signaling their antagonism and framing the problem as a generational issue. Anti-government demonstrations or protests after December 8th were new actions in the repertoire of claim-making performance. Activists recall knowing only about anti-imperialist or anti-capitalist protests (Cipi 2020). The repertoire was expanded after January 1991 (e.g., hunger strikes, sit-ins, and petitions).

First, voicing demands through the student organization was an affirmation of the emancipatory role of the party’s youth organization. The repertoire of claim-making performances used by the organization also suggests that student activists resorted to the available actions that were sanctioned by the regime and recognized as legitimate instruments for the expression of grievances. The political role of the youth organization had been asserted during the critical juncture of the Albanian culture revolution in the 1960s (Paja 2018). Its official organ (The Voice of Youth) and the University of Tirana had been involved in the regime’s anti-religion and anti-intellectual campaigns. From a comparative perspective, the role of the University of Tirana at this point resembled the Tsinghua University in Beijing (see Pan 2006), although the campaigns were less chaotic and strictly controlled by the Albanian Party of Labor (Marku 2017a). The request for an audience with the highest authority, an officially sanctioned form of complaint, indicated the importance of patronage links and the close relationship between the youth organization and the head of state. These audiences were a reminiscence of meetings with former leader Hoxha E, where he spoke at length with minimum interaction. As per tradition, Alia also spoke most of the time in the meeting (about 50% of the interventions, and 58% of the total 15,000 tokens) ⁴⁸ .

Second, the big-character poster campaigns were initially organized by the youth organization in coordination with the party during the anti-bureaucracy, anti-intellectual, and anti-Soviet campaigns of the cultural revolution (see Vehbiu 2016). For example, at the university, the posters had targeted members of the old intelligentsia, e.g., the linguist Cabej (2018), and Soviet-trained professors (e.g., Karajani M, or the former university rector Kellici Z) ⁴⁹ who had fallen out of favor during the implementation of the regime’s anti-Soviet agenda.

Third, the reference to the old guard is related to the party’s authorized conflict and acknowledged contradiction between the progressists and the conservatives within the elite during the cultural revolution. The divisive discourse was borrowed from the Chinese cultural revolution, known as the fight against the four olds: ideas, culture, customs, and habits (Jian et al., 2014). The student activist, who drafted the big-character poster, used similar terms to describe his view of PPSH (conservatives) and its leader, Alia R, whom the intelligentsia thought of as belonging to the progressists (Majko P interviewed by Xhevdet, 2014). The big-character poster invoking the old jacket who signified the old guard was fashionably challenged by the reformist elite who paraded in new white Burberry-style trench coats, as Progni (2013) titled her book, though there have been speculations that link the scenario and the wardrobe to the cloakrooms of Western secret services (e.g., Abrahams 2015). ⁵⁰

Finally, it is unclear whether democratization became what Tarrow (1991, p. 15) labels a master frame for the articulation of discontent during the revolts of the 1990s in Eastern Europe. For example, Rroji (2020) suggests that the Albanian student movement was framed and rooted in the nationalist discourse, while protesters chanted pro-European slogans, expressing their discontent for the previous isolation period during and after the Sino-Albanian alliance. In his audience with the activists, President Alia referred to democratization frequently (12 times), but the activists echoed it only once. Although the official framing of the term is again traced back to the cultural revolution, it appears that the slogans of the cultural revolution, e.g., democratization ⁵¹ (associated with the keyword signifying the Chinese cultural revolution, revolutionization) were revived in the regime’s sanctioned discourse of the late 1980s. In the 1970s, democratization had merely implied support for PPSH through the mobilization of the masses and their organizations (popular democracy and proletarian democracy), although members of the intelligentsia had unsuccessfully sought to manipulate the discourse for greater concessions. However, since 1989, the student journal, Gazeta Studenti, first published at the beginning of the cultural revolution in 1967, retook the slogan and issued a series of editorials on democratization, meaning greater participation of students in the governing bodies of the university, while according to Alia (2010, p. 324), the process had started in 1986. Whether the regime resorted to the same discourse because of international pressure, or because there was a limited choice in the local repertoire of claim-making performance, or because the regime wanted to reassure its clients that it was orchestrating the events behind the scenes, is disputable. Nevertheless, lacking a reference model since the break of the Sino-Albanian alliance in 1978, democratization became a floating signifier.

Since the beginning, students ignored the formal student organizations and sought to cooperate with their professors and members of the intelligentsia. At first, they were rebuffed. Either they feared repercussions because the scripted-like actions of the formal student organization did not convey any trust, or they were skeptical of the political awareness of the students. Although some faculty members had silently ⁵² supported the students, intellectuals like Berisha S had demanded reforms and perceived the movement as a decisive device to induce regime change (Berisha 2010). Nevertheless, the alliance between students and faculty members remained single-sectoral in the initial stage; efforts to mobilize workers started after the meeting with Alia ⁵³ . By comparison, in Czechoslovakia, students coalesced with dissidents and due to the legacy of the Prague Spring 1968 riots, the coalition was multi-sectoral (Wheaton and Kavan 2018, p. 29).

This choice of strategy may be interpreted as a tactical move if speculated that the alliance was imposed by progressists to guide or capture the movement in the grand scheme of regime transition from above. Another interpretation is that intelligentsia intended to seize the leadership and take ownership of the movement (Karanxha 2020; Rama 2020a). These consequentialist interpretations are grounded on an implausible historical sequence about the origin of the movement. The sequence of events indicates the presence of faculty members since the beginning. For example, in August 1990, faculty members (Berisha S and Pashko G) had been in an audience with Alia discussing political pluralism, and others had joined the movement since its inception (e.g., Imami A and Rama E on December 7), while the audience with the president (on December 9) was attended by both students and academic representatives, who perceived the movement as led by intellectuals ⁵⁴ . Rumors reported by intelligence services warned that people were expecting a large student protest in September 19, 90 ⁵⁵ once the students returned from the summer break, right after Alia’s audience with the intellectuals. The movement did not materialize until 3 months later. Furthermore, two politically ambitious faculty members were positioned earlier on as interlocutors (Berisha 2010). Hence, an alternative explanation considers contingency and attributes agency to both groups. Students and academics jointly took leadership of the movement and developed a spontaneous political agenda that went beyond the projected scenarios.

Whatever the explanation, the alliance was based on the historical premise that, as members of the intelligentsia, faculty members and students enjoyed the confidence of regime reformists. Professors acted as mediators between the regime and the educated strata of the population. Students, who embodied the socialist engineering project of the new socialist man, took advantage of their reputation, high social status as offspring of the administrative elite, and the guarantees of the political elite to gain the support of the population. Other alliances were not feasible at the beginning, e.g., workers or the army were perceived as belonging to the conservatives, as had been the case during the cultural revolution; this was the reference historical moment of the previous inter-elite conflict. Independently of their position in the interaction with the movement, whether as interlocutor, facilitator, or obstructor, the roles were historically determined.