Ali Kelmendi

Ali Kelmendi (3 November 1900 – 11 February 1939) was an Albanian communist, an organizer of the communist movement in Albania and was posthumously a Hero of Albania under the communist government.

Life and career Ali Kelmendi was born on 3 November 1900 in a poor peasant family in the town of İpek in the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (in present-day Kosovo), son of Sulejman Kelmendi. In 1920 he fled to Albania after all communist activities were banned in Kingdom of Yugoslavia. There he joined the left-wing political movement "Bashkimi" (English:Unity) of Avni Rustemi, Llazar Fundo, and Fuat Asllani.

In June 1924, he participated in the resurgence led by Fan Noli in Albania as a fighter. After the fall of Noli's regime (December 1924) he emigrated to Brindisi, Italy, thereafter to Austria. Kelmendi joined the anti-Zogist group KONARE (, ) founded by Noli.

On 8 October 1925 Kelmendi went then to the Soviet Union together with other 13 Albanians based on a study-related invitation from Comintern. He passed one year in the Dzerzhinsky Academy in Leningrad (today's "Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich"), and after that he moved to Odessa to work as customs official. There he joined the Albanian communist group affiliated to the Balkan Confederation of Communist Parties belonging to the Communist International. fighting with the Garibaldi International Brigade.

In 1939, he edited a propagandist newspaper in France together with other Albanian communists. He died in Paris, France, on 11 February 1939 after complications from a stomach surgery, while suffering from tuberculosis.