The socialist realism principles, similar to other Eastern European countries, guided the construction and architecture in Albania from 1945 to 1990. the research done on various case studies of socialist architecture constructed in this period in Tirana tries to shed light on the topic of great interest nowadays regarding this style as part of Albanian heritage. The paper describes the history of socialist realism and the influence of the Albanian Communist Party on the development of the architecture during the socialist period. It demonstrates how the Albanian architecture development was radically changed by the socialist ideology and how this style was supported by the post-war architects. It is argued that the socialist realism style was predominant in the Albanian architecture of that period and this heritage needs to be preserved for next generations