The appointment of all government officials as well as the managers of the state economic enterprises rested formally with the agencies involved, but no official has been appointed without the prior approval of the appropriate Party organization. In reality, all key positions are held by Party cadres who have been selected and appointed by the Party district or city committees. The Party statute empowers the basic Party organizations in all governmental organs and economic enterprises to check and guide the activities of all officials and to see that they are properly oriented in the political and ideological fields. The prime requisite in filling these positions is Party loyalty.
Party Schools
In 1970 the Party operated a number of schools and courses for its cadres as well as three research and study institutes, attached to the Central Committee. The highest school was the V.I. Lenin Institute, headed by Fiqrete Shehu, wife of the prime minister. It was attended by the higher and more promising Party members.
The three Party institutes were the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies, headed by Nexhmije Hoxha, wife of Enver Hoxha; the Institute of Party History, headed by Ndreci Plasari, who was also editor in chief of the Party's theoretical monthly, Rruga e Partise (Party Path); and the Institute for Economic Studies, under the direction of Myqerem Fuga. In addition, there were a number of secondary Party schools for training low-level Party functionaries and one-year schools for refresher ideological courses, attended both by Party officials and leaders of mass organizations.
The Party also operated intermittently, as the need arose, political courses and study groups for its activists and propagandists. In 1969, for example, more than 20,000 study centers were organized throughout the country for the study of the official, newly published History of the Workers' Party of Albania. The teaching program of all the Party schools and study centers included such topics as the importance of Communist education; the origins and development of Communist morality; socialist attitudes toward work and property; the importance of patriotic education; the history, theories, and tactics of the international Communist movement; and the history and statutes of the Party.
Mass Organizations
In its exercise of power and control over every phase of the people's lives, the Party also utilizes several mass, or social, organizations, the most important of which are the Democratic Front, the Union of Albanian Working Youth, the Union of Albanian Women, and the United Trade Unions of Albania. In a speech at the Fourth Congress of the Democratic Front held in September 1967, Enver Hoxha said that the mass organizations, as components of the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat were "levers of the Party for its ties with the masses" and that they carried out their political, executive, and organizational work in such a way as to enable the Party directives to be correctly understood and implemented by all segments of the population.
Party Secretary Hysni Kapo, in a speech delivered at a Party seminar in January 1970, declared that the Party carried out its mission through its own organizations and through the activities of its "levers, the mass organizations, such as the trade unions, youth, Democratic Front, women's, and the people's councils," thus revealing that even the people's councils were mere Party levers. By relying on these powerful levers, Kapo added, the Party guaranteed its links with the masses and obtained their support for its policies. He remarked further that, although there were not Communists in every family in the country, everyone in the family belonged to some kind of organization.
The Party has set the implementation of its line as a general primary goal for all mass organizations. Considered as powerful Party levers, they are required to convey the Party line to the people and to bring to the Party the people's attitudes and grievances. As Party instruments they must mobilize, organize, and orient the people during the process of the building of socialism. The mass organizations also assist the Party in its control over the administration and management of state enterprises and initiate new actions and new movements in all work centers.
The Party places particular importance on the Union of Albanian Working Youth, described officially in such terms as the "greatest revolutionary force of inexhaustible strength," a "strong fighting reserve of the Party," and a "vital force of our revolution." According to the Party statute, the union operates directly under the guidance of the Party, and the union's local organizations are guided and checked by the appropriate district or city Party committees. Organized in the same way as the Party, the union has parallel basic organizations, district and city committees, a Central Committee, a Politburo, and a Central Control and Auditing Commission. In 1967 official reports credited the youth organization with 210,000 members, ranging in age from fifteen to twenty-five and, in a few cases, even older.