Mahmut Bakalli died last week. Of Kosova’s three major communist leaders, he is the second to have died recently. The first one, Fadil Hoxha, died in 2001 and was given military honors for his partisan background. The last one, Azem Vllasi, was fired in 1988 in the footsteps of the Yugoslav upheaval and currently works as a lawyer.

What strikes me is how different Kosova has been in its relationship with its former communist leadership compared to probably all former communist countries in Europe. From moderate Slovenia, to Croatia, to Albania and northward and eastward, former communists overnight changed their robes into extreme nationalists (and hell-bent on convincing others that they were always so) or remained low key the first few years after the emergence of democracy and then staged a comeback as reformed socialists or even market evangelists.

In Kosova none of this happened. Although President Rugova was a card-carrying communist, that was the absolute minimum for anybody holding a public post at the time. With his ballist father a victim of communists, one would imagine that his sympathies lay elsewhere. He also surrounded himself by the academic elite, a group of people that was distanced somewhat from the day to day communist politics, and where the resistance and inspiration for a republic within Yugoslavia and then independence took shape.

When Bakalli and Vllasi were pushed out of politics by Belgrade (the first was held under house arrest for two years), Albanians were not happy about it and demanded their return because rightfully they knew that a communist Albanian was better than what was being cooked in Belgrade. Yet the two never attempted a comeback. Nor did they have any support to justify such a comeback. This is unique among Eastern European countries.

Because of Kosova’s subordination to Serbia and its communists, to be a communist Albanian in Kosova was very close to being a tool of Serbia, a sellout. Communist leaders like Bakalli had to maneuver a delicate balance between satisfying Serbia and not angering the local population. Nominally the police at this time was still led by a majority Albanian, so the jailings were not taken easily and are still remembered by those that were at the receiving end.

Not that communist ideals did not appeal to Albanians. Kosova managed to have the highest percentage of party members for its share of population. Tito, or Marshall as he was affectionately called, was held in high regard, and the violent policies in Kosova were deemed to be the work behind Tito’s back of Serbs like then-Defense Minister Aleksandar Rankovic. “Ah, if only Tito could come and see the truth down here, because he’s being lied by Serbs around him” would go the rationalization for the terror in the first 20 years after WWII. At this time Albanians like Fadil Hoxha were at the head of whatever nominal autonomy that existed.

The roots of Kosova’s distance with its communist past might go back to this time when its leaders were mere tools of Serb leadership in Belgrade. But after the war something unexpected happened. TMK buried Fadil Hoxha with military honors. Although Bakalli never became a public figure again, shying away from the media or maybe the media staying away from him, Ramush Haradinaj asked him to help build the newly created party, AAK. On another aspect, the old elite that ensued WWII and the new elite that ensued the NATO war intermarried. It is almost as the two seek legitimacy from each other.