After Noli's government was overthrown, Malëshova fled to Vienna, where he joined KONARE, a revolutionary organization founded by Albanian leftists.

[5][6] He used to appear as a self-proclaimed rebel poet of the guerrilla war against the Italian and German occupying armies in Albania, and became known by his pen name, Lame Kodra.

In the same year, he was elected president of the newly founded League of Writers and Artists of Albania, which consisted of 74 members initially, with several non-communist intellectuals among them.

Malëshova had emerged as a moderate communist, often inviting publications without regard to their ideological content, which earned him the wrath of Enver Hoxha, particularly after an appeal by the Writers League to Harry Truman and Clement Attlee for Western recognition of Albania.

In 1946, Koçi Xoxe, working under orders from Yugoslavia purged a number of members of the party, including Malëshova, who was denounced as a "right-wing opportunist".