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The Revolution Betrayed: Ethiopia, 1974—9

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Michael Chege
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Extract

It is now close to five years since a revolution spearheaded by the Ethiopian working class, students, and an assortment of petty-bourgeois elements, overthrew the monarchy of Emperor Haile Selassie I, Elect of God, King of Kings, and the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah. With the Emperor has gone the archaic feudal land system which dominated nearly all aspects of the entire Ethiopian society. Gone too is the feudal aristocracy and the nascent national bourgeoisie which clung tenaciously to the imperial coat-tails with unusual political myopia to the very end.

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Articles
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The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 359 - 380
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

page 360 note 1 Markakis, John and Ayele, Nega, Class and Revolution in Ethiopia (London, 1978),Google Scholar is in this author's opinion the best account of the revolution available. See also Scholler, Heinrich and Brietzke, Paul, Ethiopia: revolution, law and politics (Munich, 1976),Google Scholar and David, and Ottaway, Marina, Ethiopia: Empire in revolution (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

page 360 note 2 Brietzke, Paul, ‘Land Reform in Revolutionary Ethopia’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), XIV, 4, 12 1976, pp. 637–60.Google Scholar

page 360 note 3 Cohen, John M., Goldsmith, Arthur, and Mellor, John, Revolution and Land Reform in Ethiopia, Centre for International Studies, Cornell University, 1976.Google Scholar

page 361 note 1 Perham, Margery, The Government of Ethiopia (London, 1969 edn).Google Scholar

page 361 note 2 Ellis, Gene, ‘The Feudal Paradigm as a Hindrance to Understanding Ethiopia’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, XVI, 2, 06 1976, pp. 275–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 361 note 3 This is what of course leads Nicos Poulantzas to assert that religion as ideology is the ‘structure in dominance’ in feudal society; Political Power and Social Classes (London, 1975), p. 15.Google Scholar

page 362 note 1 Banaji, Jairus, ‘The Peasantry in the Feudal Model of Production’, in Journal of Peasant Studies (London), III, 3, 1976.Google Scholar

page 362 note 2 See Markakis, John, Ethiopia: anatomy of a traditional polity (London, 1974), pp. 73–140.Google Scholar

page 363 note 1 Moore, J. Barrington Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston, 1966), p. 109.Google Scholar

page 363 note 2 Levine, Donald N., Wax and Gold: tradition and innovation in Ethiopian culture (Chicago, 1965), pp. 183–90.Google Scholar

page 363 note 3 Projects of this kind were not only few, but involved small numbers of peasants. In 1971 the famous Chilalo Agricultural Development Unit had 4,426 tenants, while the World Bank-supported schemes at Setit Humera and Wollam involved only 500 and 700 familes, respectively. See Gilkes, Patrick, The Dying Lion: feudalism and modernization in Ethiopia (London, 1975), pp. 127–30.Google Scholar

page 363 note 4 Ottaway, Marina, ‘Social Classes and Corporate Interests in the Ethiopian Revolution’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, XIV, 3, 09 1976, p. 472.Google Scholar

page 363 note 5 See Gilkes, op. cit. pp. 142 and 160–1.

page 364 note 1 Ottaway, loc. cit. p. 479.

page 364 note 2 Wolf, Eric, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York, 1969).Google Scholar

page 364 note 3 Moore, op. cit. pp. 473–83.

page 364 note 4 Gilkes, op. cit. p. 141.

page 364 note 5 Barrington Moore, op. cit. p. 469, argues that ‘where the links arising out of the relationship between overlord and peasant community are strong the tendency toward peasant rebellion (and later revolution) is feeble’. This relationship is predicated on low levels of material exploitation of the peasantry. For evidence in Ethiopia, see Markakis, op. cit. pp. 100–2, speaking of the North.

page 364 note 6 Wolf, op. cit. p. 294.

page 365 note 1 See Meredith's, Martin account in the Sunday Times (London), 25 11 1973, p. 8.Google Scholar

page 365 note 2 Poulantzas, Nicos, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London, 1975), pp. 208–50.Google Scholar

page 365 note 3 Markakis and Ayele, op. cit. pp. 48–54.

page 365 note 4 Ibid. p. 58.

page 366 note 1 Markakis, op. cit. p. 169.

page 366 note 2 Gilkes, op. cit. p. 169.

page 366 note 3 This was to prove to be the Achilles heel of the revolutionary movement.

page 366 note 4 Ottaway, loc. cit. p. 475.

page 367 note 1 The events of this period are summarised in Legum, Colin (ed), Africa Contemporary Record, 1974–75 (London, 1975), pp. B160–80.Google Scholar

page 367 note 2 The package of policies proposed in Education: challenge to the nation. Report of the Education Sector Review (Addis Ababa, Ministry of Education, 1972), posed a further economic threat to the petite bourgeoisie. They would have restricted secondary and university enrolment, ostensibly because the absorptive capacity of the state bureaucracy had been exhausted, but actually in order to siphon more state revenues into capital investment of the sort needed to prop up the bourgeoisie. Further, the report also called for resources to be channelled into technical and non-formal education in the countryside in order to boost commodity production. That the World Bank should take an interest in this hardly calh for explanation, but the teachers found it patently objectionable.

page 367 note 3 Markakis and Ayele, op. cit. p. 93.

page 368 note 1 Markakis, op. cit. p. 182.

page 368 note 2 Though old in socialist literature, the African variant of this view owes much to Frantz Fanon. It was elaborated in 1967 by Arrighi, Giovanni, ‘International Corporations, Labor Aristocracies, and Economic Development in Tropical Africa’, in Arrighi and Saul, John S. (eds.), Essays on the Political Economy of Africa (New York, 1973), pp. 105–51.Google Scholar

page 368 note 3 Ottaway, loc. cit. expresses the ‘paradox’ that it was white-collar and skilled workers who were most militant. The rate of exploitation of labour is expressed as the ratio between surplus value and variable capital (in short, wages). By this formula skilled labour produces value many more times than its counter value. The ratio is lower for unskilled labour. Hence skilled labour is more exploited. See Kay, Geoffrey, Development and Underdevelopment (London, 1975), p. 54.Google Scholar For observations of similar exploitation and militancy among skilled agricultural workers and bank employees in Kenya, see Cowen, Michael and Kinyanjui, Kabiru, Some Problems of Capital and Class in Kenya, Occasional Paper No. 26, Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi, 1977, pp. 32–55.Google Scholar

page 368 note 4 Lenin, V. I., ‘On the Fundamental Questions of the Revolution’, in Collected Works (Moscow, 1972 edn.), Vol. 25, p. 366.Google Scholar

page 369 note 1 See Africa Contemporary Record, 1974–1975, pp. B188–9.

page 370 note 1 According to the Proclamation to Provide for the Public Ownership of Rural Lands, No. 31 of 1975, p. 94, ‘it is necessary to distribute land, increase rural income, and thereby lay the basis for the expansion of industry and the growth of the economy by providing for the participation of the peasantry in the national market’.

page 370 note 2 Trotsky, Leon, The History of the Russian Revolution (Ann Arbor, 1932), Vol. III, p. 170.Google Scholar

page 371 note 1 On 26 September 1975, the military shot seven Ethiopian Airline workers and wounded 43 others for protesting against the arrest of union leaders detained for distributing anti Dirgue literature. More than 500 Airline employees were detained in this incident. The reactionary use to which ‘labour aristocracy’ theories can be put is illustrated by the official plea that these workers were a ‘privileged caste’ after all.

page 371 note 2 For the Dirgue's admission that the C.E.L.U. had become infiltrated by E.P.R.P. militants and so-called ‘non-conformist’ petty bourgeois leadership, see Ethiopian Herald (Addis Ababa), 27 04 1977, p. 5,Google Scholar and Africa (London), 04 1977, p. 12.Google Scholar

page 371 note 3 Markakis and Ayele, op. cit. p. 168.

page 371 note 4 Legum, Colin (ed.), Africa Contsmporary Record, 1976–7 (London, 1977), p. b180.Google Scholar

page 371 note 5 In a sense, therefore, the Meison would have completed the capitalist class mission undertaken by the Dirgue and ‘rationalised’ government in the Weberian sense, something quite consistent with their class origins. The Meison sought to succeed where their parents had failed, but, like the military, in the name of Marx.

page 372 note 1 The institutions were set up by the Dirgue under the May 1976 ‘Programme for National Democratic Revolution’, another hollow promise to involve the masses in politics.

page 372 note 2 For some useful information, see Markakis and Ayele, op. cit. pp. 154–5 and 162–5; also Africa Contemporary Record, 1976–1977, pp. b185–7. The E.P.R.P.'s political programme is spelt out in their information bulletin, Abyot, Special Issue, February 1978.

page 372 note 3 Daily Nation (Nairobi), 12 12 1977.Google Scholar

page 372 note 4 Eerik, Hans, The Times (London), 22 03 1978, p. 1.Google Scholar

page 373 note 1 Lenin, V. I., ‘What is to be Done?’, in Collected Works (Moscow, 1972 edn.), Vol. v.Google Scholar

page 373 note 2 Africa, 03 1978, p. 26;Google Scholar and Eerik, loc. cit. This tallies with Marx's doubts about the lumpenproletariat as a revolutionary force, a point raised in the African context by Cohen, Robin and Michael, David, ‘The Revolutionary Potential of the African Lumpenproletariat: a sceptical view’, in Sussex: I.D.S. Bulletin (Brighton), V, 2/3, 10 1973, pp. 31–42.Google Scholar

page 373 note 3 Cohen, Goldsmith, and Mellor, op. cit. pp. 47–8.

page 373 note 4 Ibid. pp. 61 and 65. This was mostly in the South. In the North no substantial changes were made to traditional family landholdings. Yet even there overt hostility to anything amounting to collectivisation or break-up of holdings was evident. See Markakis and Ayele, op. cit. pp. 26–7.

page 374 note 1 Ibid. pp. 69–72.

page 374 note 2 A portion of which (like the urban kebeles) they retained.

page 374 note 3 For a graphic account of this debâcle, see Africa Contemporary Record, 1976–1977, pp. b196–7.

page 374 note 4 New African Development (London), 02 1978, p. 24.Google Scholar According to Africa, March 1978, 80,000 members of the militia were deployed in the Ogaden against the Western Somali Liberation Front. As everyone knows, the Ethiopian army, let alone the peasants, were unable to halt the Somali advance – it took the Cubans and the Soviets to do this.

page 374 note 5 Shanin, T., The Awkward Class (Oxford, 1972), p. 124.Google Scholar

page 374 note 6 Dirgue policies in 1975 also included substantial ‘Ethiopianisation’ of small businesses previously run by foreigners. About 30,000 posts in the nationalised industries under Ethiopian management had been created. See Markakis and Ayele, op. cit. pp. 128–9.

page 375 note 1 Under the ancien régime, the Oromo aristocracy (often Amharicised) supported the Emperor. P. T. W. Baxter, a self-confessed advocate of Oromo nationalism, traces its roots to the politically and economically side-lined Oromo petite bourgeoisie: military officers, civil servants, students, and politicians. See his ‘Ethiopia's Unacknowledged Problem: the Oromo’, in African Affairs (London), 77, 103, 1978, p. 290.Google Scholar

page 376 note 1 New African Development, December 1977, p. 1185.

page 376 note 2 Lenin, V. I., ‘The Right of Nations to Self-Determination’, in Collected Works, Vol. XX, pp. 393–454,Google Scholar and ‘The Socialist Revolution and Right of Nations to Self-Determination’, in ibid. Vol. XXII, pp. 143–56.

page 377 note 1 On the declaration of war on all Amharas by the supposedly ‘Marxist’ Tigre People's Liberation Front, see E.P.R.P. News Release, 22 May 1978. Previously the T.P.L.F. and the E.P.R.P. had fought jointly against the Dirgue.

page 377 note 2 Lenin was aware of this danger and hence the need for village soviets and mechanisation of agriculture to prevent the poor peasant becoming a follower of kulak opportunism. Gramsci also saw the danger posed by newly liberated peasantry: ‘It [land] satisfied for the first moment his [peasant's] primitive greed for land; but at the next moment when he realized that his own arms are not enough to break up the soil which only dynamite can break up, when he realizes that seeds are needed and fertilizers and tools, and thinks of the future series of days and nights to be spent on a piece of land without a house, without water, with malaria, the peasant realizes his own impotence… and becomes a brigand and not a revolutionary, becomes an assassin of the gentry, not a fighter for workers' and peasants' communism.’ Quoted in Joll, James, Gramsci (London, 1977), p. 69.Google Scholar [This seems true of Ethiopia where the régime had proved incapable of providing seeds or equipment to the peasants, something rich peasants and even former landlords exploited to the fullest.]

page 377 note 3 African Contemporary Record, 1976–1977, p. b180.

page 378 note 1 On the break-up of feudal estates in Russia, see Lenin, V. I., ‘The Agrarian Question in Russia’, in Collected Works, Vol. XX, p. 376:Google Scholar ‘Marx amply proved that bourgeois economists often demanded nationalization of land, i.e. conversion of all land into public property, and that this measure was a fully bourgeois measure. Capitalism will develop more widely, more freely and more quickly under such a measure.’

page 378 note 1 A lot of official propaganda centred on three ‘clandestine’ but officially sanctioned ‘Marxist parties’: S.E.D.E.D., M.A.L.E.R.I.D., and W.A.S.L.E.A.G.U.E. These were, in fact, little more than acronyms for bureaucratic cliques and cabals; S.E.D.E.D., for example, was known as ‘Mengistu's own party’. Refugees from Addis Ababa in April 1979 reported dozens of W.A.S.L.E.A.G.U.E. members slain in these inter-clique struggles in December 1978. For an official and timid view of these events, see Africa, 04 1979, p. 43.

page 379 note 1 See, for instance, the particulars of the $24 million I.D.A. loan reported in Nairobi Times, 7 May 1978.

page 379 note 2 The Standard, 20 March 1979.

page 379 note 3 According to ibid. 18 April 1979, the U.S.S.R. lent Ethiopia the equivalent of U.S. $85 million to purchase Soviet equipment and expertise for agricultural mechanisation.

page 380 note 1 See Schwab, Peter, ‘Human Rights in Ethiopia’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, XIV, 1, 03 1976, pp. 155–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar