Communist Party Albania

It was nearly midnight, and rain fell as an Albanian stood under an umbrella and talked to a stranger, an American, about forbidden things. All at once, he stopped. "Policia!" he whispered. Then he turned and walked off. Two policemen strode past and caught up with him, escorting him into the shadows of an alley. A few days later, by chance, he saw the American again. The police had held him for more than an hour, he said.

East Europe's last Communist domino, rigidly Stalinist Albania, may be tottering. The fall of the Nicolae Ceausescu regime in nearby Romania, coupled with severe economic problems in Albania itself, last month triggered the first serious anti-government demonstration since the Communist revolution in 1944, U.S. analysts say.

The News: Albanians vote next Sunday, March 31, in the tiny Balkan nation's first-ever multi-party election after half a century of totalitarian rule that was the most repressive and inflexible in Eastern Europe. What's at Stake: Long isolated by the authoritarian rule of late Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, Albanians have suddenly found themselves in the unfamiliar position of having a say in the policies and personalities of their government.