We will deal with the Ethiopian question in a later article, for now let us consider one of its fundamental aspects: the national question. The conclusions we indicate here constitute, among other things, a first element of the demonstration that we will draw in the following article regarding the nature of the Ethiopian military regime.

In order to better address this issue, let us draw a parallel with Russia in 1917, itself on the threshold of the bourgeois revolution. Russia was formed not as a nation state, but as a multinational state. Let us take up Trotsky’s exposition in the ‘History of the Russian Revolution’: «To the seventy million “Great Russians” constituting the main mass of the country, there were gradually added about ninety million “outlanders” sharply divided into two groups: the Westerners, superior to the Great Russians in terms of culture, and the Orientals at a lower level (…) The large number of nationalities without rights and the gravity of their situation meant that in tsarist Russia the national problem acquired an enormous explosive force. ‘Whereas in nationally homogeneous states’, Trotsky continues, ‘the bourgeois revolutions developed powerful centripetal tendencies, rallying to the idea of overcoming particularism, as in France, or overcoming national disunion, as in Italy and Germany – in nationally heterogeneous states on the contrary, such as Turkey, Russia, Austria-Hungary, the belated bourgeois revolution released centrifugal forces. In spite of the apparent contrariness of these processes when expressed in mechanical terms, their historic function was the same. In both cases it was a question of using the national unity as a fundamental industrial reservoir. Germany had for this purpose to be united, Austria-Hungary to be divided».

Let us look at how the situation presents itself in Ethiopia. This state, like Russia, presents itself as multi-national and, as in Russia the Great Russian nationality, in Ethiopia the Amhara represents the dominant group. Traditionally dedicated to the use of arms, only to it were reserved positions in the military hierarchy, ranging from the emperor to the foot soldiers. Amhara were also the notables, the chiefs of the local police, and landowners. They have imposed their Christian-Coptic religion on the subjugated populations, deprived of the same rights, while their language has become and still remains the state language.

The other main populations that make up the former empire are: the Tigrayans, who reside in the North and of whom the Eritrean nationality is part, the populations of Danakil origin located in the area surrounding Djibouti, the Somalis of the Ogaden, and finally the Galla (i.e. Oromo ed.). Under this last denomination are gathered various black populations of different origins and traditions from the Amhara, still partly tied to the tribal structure, who occupy territories largely subjected to the imperial sceptre only in the last century (before its conquest, the territory subjected to the empire was reduced to a fifth of today’s). In these regions the Galla represent the mass of poor and landless peasants and of the serfs subjected to the domination of the Amhara landlords: it is therefore natural that here the peasant revolts against the feudal regime intertwine with the problem of national oppression.

The Danakil populations, among whom mainly the Afar, reside in the semi-desert plains facing the plateau. Traditionally nomadic, they are the object of a sedentarisation campaign that only began in earnest after the advent of the Derg.

They enjoyed a relative political and cultural autonomy under the empire, and the Derg seems to have granted them a certain regional autonomy after which the activities of the Liberation Front would have ceased, remaining however the majority of the armed men, which is after all a necessity for nomadic populations forced to defend themselves frequently against bandit raids.

The regions most involved in the liberation struggles are, however, the Ogaden and Eritrea. The Ogaden is a vast region south-east of Ethiopia, almost as large as Italy, bordering Somalia. Here, too, the territories are semi-desert and the populations living there are mostly nomadic and dedicated to herding. Of Somali origin and of Muslim religion, their activities gravitate more towards Mogadishu than Addis Ababa. By definition enemies of borders, nomadic groups continue to sell livestock and buy goods more on Somali markets than on Ethiopian ones. Thus, most of the young sons of the richer classes go to study in Mogadishu, while during the recent famines the nomads mostly took refuge in Somali harvest camps. Moreover, thousands and thousands of the inhabitants of the Somali Republic, a high percentage of the cadres of its army and state apparatus, come from Ogaden.

The annexation of the Ogaden to Ethiopia dates back to 1887 when Menelik, having conquered Harar, penetrated and subjugated it. Subsequently, this region was reintegrated by Italian colonialism within Somali borders, and after the last world war, having passed under British administration, it was soon ceded to the Negus, restored to the throne, who annexed it back to Ethiopia. Somalia, which became independent in 1960, has always denounced this Anglo-Ethiopian pact, defining it ‘an agreement between two colonial powers’, and since politically and militarily supports the Western Somali Liberation Front, which claims freedom of separation of the Ogaden.

Since coming to power, the Derg has always refused to even question the territorial issue of the Ogaden, and this has led to an escalation of the conflict up to the current situation where the majority of the territory, except for a few towns, is in the hands of the Front. It matters little here to establish the extent of ‘foreign interference’ – in this case Somalia – an issue that is at the heart of the disputes among the antagonistic states, concerned to defend their ‘honesty’ before the organisations that are supposed to protect ‘international rights’, rights that, for as long as the world has existed, are only the result of relations of force and not abstract principles, which therefore sanction solely that which is the law imposed by the strongest, most armed and most powerful states.

Let us now turn to Eritrea. This territory, which stretches along the shores of the Red Sea north of Ethiopia, has been the object of numerous invasions beginning from the 1500s: it is since then that its history and tradition divide themselves from that of Ethiopia. While in fact the Ethiopian empire, preserving itself from all colonisation, has maintained its archaic and feudal structure, handing it down to our days, in Eritrea, which has always lived under the yoke of occupation, the mercantile economy and capitalism have implanted themselves with greater rapidity, replacing the old pre-capitalist structures, especially in the coastal strip. Today, the Eritrean nation is, from a capitalist point of view, more developed than Ethiopia, and the population, Muslim and Tigrinya-speaking, considers itself, not unjustly, at cultural level superior to the Ethiopians.

Eritrea has seen succeed one another, the Turkish occupation, the Egyptian one, the Italian one from 1869, and finally the British one from 1941: in 1950, the United Nations united Eritrea and Ethiopia into a federation. Under the federation, Eritrean national autonomy was gradually suppressed, together with its semi-democratic Constitution. Against these violations of autonomy, to which was added at that time the suppression of the national flag, a mighty strike was made in 1958 that spread throughout the country and which, after the fourth day, was violently repressed.

At this point, the hopes of the Eritrean nationalists to resolve the problem of independence by peaceful means having been shattered, the activity of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) began, which after a few years turned to armed struggle. In 1962, the Negus forcibly abrogated the federal resolution and annexed Eritrea, declaring it the 14th province.

We are not going to deal here with the causes that led to the formation of the other front, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), the fact is that, following the Derg’s refusal to grant the right to separation of Eritrea and the expressed will to resolve the issue by force, the two organisations, linked militarily, intensified their action, inflicting heavy defeats on the Ethiopian army and extending the occupied territories to almost the entirety of Eritrean soil. It should be noted that in the territories occupied by the EPLF, the organisation that draws on and bases itself more directly on the peasant masses, was actually implemented, unlike in Ethiopia, the agrarian reform.

As can be seen, Ethiopia presents itself on the threshold of the bourgeois revolution. It is a multi-national state in which the predominance of one nationality over all others is established and in which vast territories, which in the case of Eritrea are the seat of a real nation, are forcibly kept under the imperial sceptre. It is also clear that in this situation the bourgeois revolution was represented as an explosion of centrifugal forces tending towards the dismemberment of the former empire. To take Trotsky’s example, we are rather in the case of Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Russia than in that of France or Italy.

The attitude in Russia of the bourgeois government that came out of the February revolution and the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties on the question of nationalities constituted one of the elements in favour of the October Revolution. In fact, this showed itself from the very beginnings inclined to continue the old policy of national strangulation and oppression: it repressed national uprisings, disbanded local organisations, justifying itself with the ‘necessities of wartime’.

On this level the bourgeoisie played first violin and the petty-bourgeois parties the accompaniment. «The compromisist democracy merely translated traditions of the tsarist national policy into the language of libertarian rhetoric: it was now a question of “defending the unity of the revolution”» (Trotsky). In his ‘History of the Russian Revolution’, the facts that characterised the imperialist policy of the bourgeoisie and the Great Russian chauvinism of the compromisist parties are reported in more detail, e.g. in the face of the Finnish question, of the Ukrainian question, and in general towards all oppressed nationalities in the tsarist empire.

What, conversely, was the position of the Bolsheviks? Let us take up this time Lenin’s ‘April Theses’: «As regards the national question, the proletarian party first of all must advocate the proclamation and immediate realisation of complete freedom of secession from Russia for all the nations and peoples who were oppressed by tsarism, or who were forcibly joined to, or forcibly kept within the boundaries of, the state, i.e., annexed. All statements, declarations and manifestos concerning renunciation of annexations that are not accompanied by the realisation of the right of secession in practice, are nothing but bourgeois deception of the people, or else pious petty-bourgeois wishes. The proletarian party strives to create as large a state as possible, for this is to the advantage of the working people; it strives to draw nations closer together, and bring about their further fusion; but it desires to achieve this aim not by violence, but exclusively through a free fraternal union of the workers and the working people of all nations (…) the more successfully [the Russian Republic] organises itself into a Republic of Soviets of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the more powerful will be the force of voluntary attraction to such a Republic on the part of the working people of all nations».

In a speech delivered in April 1917, Lenin took up this last point: «If there is a Ukrainian Republic and a Russian Republic, there will be closer contact and greater trust between the two. If the Ukrainians see that we have a Soviet republic, they will not secede, but if we have a Milyukov republic, they will».

As can be seen, the pivot of the issue is revolutionary politics. The Bolsheviks tended towards as large a state as possible, but it was through revolutionary politics that they succeeded in bringing the various nationalities spontaneously and freely into the orbit of the Soviet state. The bourgeoisie could not follow this path, as it was incapable and hostile to carrying out the revolution and realising the aspirations of the working and peasant masses; such a policy could only push these masses towards national separatism. For this there remained only the imperialist path, the solution of force, the traditional one of the Tsars.

The same thing is happening in Ethiopia. The Derg, to the same extent that it refuses to carry out agrarian reform, attempts to block the revolutionary process in the countryside and unleashes the harshest repression against the proletariat and the national-democratic petty bourgeoisie (as we shall see in the following article), to the same extent that it sidesteps the growth of revolution from below, to the same extent it applies the military and imperialist solution to the national question. These are two sides of the same coin.

The proletarian Party is therefore not for separation (‘as large a state as possible, for this is to the advantage of the working people’), but for freedom of separation. Trotsky explains how, with the position taken, the Party was not committed to separatist propaganda at all, on the contrary the Bolsheviks in all their national organisations were committed to propagandising the necessity of union with revolutionary Russia.

This question is addressed by Lenin when he finds himself replying to the Polish communists, who, engaged in the battle against the nationalist and chauvinist parties of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, had rejected the idea of separation and reproached the Bolsheviks, on the contrary, for favouring it in Russia. Lenin replied: «We are asked to become chauvinists, because by doing so we would make the position of Social-Democrats in Poland less difficult (…) But people don’t want to understand that to strengthen internationalism (…) [w]hat you have to do is to stress, in Russia, the freedom of secession for oppressed nations and, in Poland, their freedom to unite (…) We Russians must emphasise freedom to secede, while the Poles must emphasise freedom to unite».

One can see here that we are not concerned with defending an abstract principle, but with preparing all those instruments and fostering those situations that prepare the strengthening of our class front, in this case the international solidarity of the workers. In this connection Lenin cites the example of Norway and Sweden in which the trust and union of the respective working classes was strengthened after the separation.

In this sense our attitude to the national question is completed by a second aspect, only apparently contradictory to the first. Let Trotsky speak again: «Within the framework of the Party, and of the workers’ organisations in general, Bolshevism insisted upon a rigid centralism, implacably warring against every taint of nationalism which might set the workers one against the other or disunite them. While flatly refusing to the bourgeois states the right to impose compulsory citizenship, or even a state language, upon a national minority, Bolshevism at the same time made it a verily sacred task to unite as closely as possible, by means of voluntary class discipline, the workers of different nationalities. Thus it flatly rejected the national-federation principle in building the party. A revolutionary organisation is not the prototype of the future state, but merely the instrument for its creation. An instrument ought to be adapted to fashioning the product; it ought not to include the product. Thus a centralised organisation can guarantee the success of revolutionary struggle – even where the task is to destroy the centralised oppression of nationalities».

For areas of mature capitalism, characterised by the unique perspective of univocal revolution, the question certainly arises from a different angle, although one cannot dismiss the problem by stating that ‘the national question does not exist’. We will try to develop the problem in later articles, for now, since this does not directly concern the subject, let us content ourselves with these simple conclusions from our ‘Economic and Social Structure of Russia Today’.

«We are:
«a) under a regime in the feudal period or worse under one that is still Asiatic-despotic? We give a completely free hand to the movements for national liberty (…);
«b) on the morrow of the fall of feudalism and in a republic led by the bourgeoisie which has decided not to deal with the war and land questions? It is necessary to force it to free the nations trapped within the ex-feudal State, and which want to separate (…);
«c) [are we] for moving forward, not to a socialist society, but to a socialist republic which bases its power on the Workers’ and Peasants’ Councils? Well, we would be consistent, in the expectation of higher social forms and above all the international revolution, if we proclaimed that the Soviets of the nationalities were free to decide whether or not to separate from the one State».

In this sense, the policy of the Derg stands alongside that of the bourgeois government of Russia in 1917, which was branded by the Bolsheviks as counter-revolutionary towards the Russian proletariat and peasantry, and imperialist towards the nationalities.

Why, if it were truly intent on resolving the aspirations of the working and peasant masses in a democratic-radical and consequent revolution, does it not appeal to the solidarity of these masses with the revolution, against the separatism of the other national classes? In Eritrea, for example, there is a profound contrast between the working and peasant masses and the bourgeoisie that was expressed in its time in the bloody internecine war between the ELF and the EPLF and is still manifested today, albeit in a latent form, subdued by the collaboration in the independence war. Could the Derg not have leaned on the EPLF, the most direct expression of the Eritrean proletarian and peasant masses? It could only have done so by demonstrating a genuinely revolutionary will and granting Eritrea full freedom of self-determination.

Lenin also envisaged the possibility of a multi-national, multi-lingual administration in a state that allowed coexistence among peoples and languages without the predominance of any one. The Swiss-type state, or the federation of republics, as was realised in Soviet Russia. Such solutions in Ethiopia could only be possible if there had been a consequently revolutionary power in Addis Ababa, which found support in the masses of the various nationalities chained in the former empire. The will to resolve the issue by force instead denounces the opposite solution.

Another aspect we are interested in highlighting: the foreign policy of every state originates in the domestic political situation, and in turn reproduces far-reaching effects upon it.

Thus the entry of the Western states into the first world conflict led to the disarmament of the proletarian class and the capitulation of the Socialist Parties of the Second International, which passed arms and baggage to the side of their respective national bourgeoisies, while the surviving revolutionaries remained isolated and subjected to the harshest repression by the various states. The same thing happened in Russia at the beginning of the conflict, while after February the continuation of the war policy by the bourgeois government, if on the one hand it was the expression of the imperialist interests of the bourgeoisie, on the other hand tended to the aim of blocking the revolutionary action of the masses, dragging them under the banner of the ‘defence of the revolutionary fatherland’ waved by the petty-bourgeois parties and fiercely rejected by Lenin in the ‘April Theses’. Under this watchword, the February regime adjourned the social question to ‘better times’ pretending to hibernate the revolution.

In the same way Mènghistu, by waving the flag of the ‘unity of Ethiopia’, by mobilising the peasant masses for this priority objective, by intensifying military action on the various fronts tends to block the revolutionary process within the country. The definitive failure of this policy on the military level could not but provoke, as it provoked in Russia, the long series of defeats suffered by the army and the failure of the June 1917 offensive, the strengthening of the more radical positions among the masses and the growing of the movement from below.

The national question in Ethiopia should undoubtedly be studied in greater depth, for example, the considerable differences should be highlighted when one moves from Eritrea, a nation claiming independence, to the Somali populations of the Ogaden, a nationality claiming freedom to decide on belonging to the Somali state, and finally to the Galla populations who suffer the supremacy of the Amhara nationality. For now, however, this first approach is enough for us to denounce the reactionary character of the policy of the Derg.

Our positions on the war in Eritrea and Ogaden derive from all this.

The consequent policy of a radical revolution in Ethiopia would have been to grant full freedom of separation to the regions. In this case the situation we would have wished for would have been not separation, but the federation of republics, a solution the Party preferred for the nations of Central Africa in revolt against colonialism. But the situation does not present itself in these terms. The Ethiopian regime’s desire to keep the borders of the former empire intact has pushed the two nationalities towards a war of national liberation. In this situation, we can only wish for the military defeat of the Derg and the dismemberment of the former Ethiopia. This is for several reasons:

1) The centrifugal forces that manifest themselves in a multi-national state, held together by force by an absolutist regime, are the natural expression of the bourgeois revolution and, in the face of the national bourgeoisie wishing to exercise the same imperialist policy, it is a progressive fact that the diverse national entities are separated.

2) The formation of independent nation states, the liberation of Eritrea from external oppression, creates a favourable condition for the wider and freer development of capitalism, and thus of the class struggle.

3) Also in a political sense, the formation of independent states will favour the development of the class struggle. In fact, the persistence of the conditions that produce the war of liberation drive the masses to collaboration with the bourgeoisie against imperialism, and tend, under the conditions of the subjection of proletarian consciousness to the petty-bourgeois direction, to dampen the social clash. Independence will instead place the classes, in particular the proletariat and the poor peasants, before their respective interests, opposed to those of the bourgeoisie. The grounds for convergence between the various fronts will finally expire, and the one will once again only stand against the other. The process of splitting among them will receive new impetus, delineating the parties that are the most natural expression of the class struggle. For us, this social clash should never have subsided in the name of the national front for independence, and the proletariat and peasants should not have subordinated their struggle against the national bourgeoisie to any military, let alone political, agreement.

We will return in a later article to the Eritrean question seen ‘from the inside’, retracing the phases of a real civil war that broke out in Eritrea between the ELF and EPLF before the Derg came to power in Ethiopia. We must, however, anticipate that the radicality of the agrarian reform was subordinated to the agreement between the fronts, realised in a moderate manner in the areas occupied by the EPLF, not realised, indeed opposed in those occupied by the ELF. Moreover, the EPLF, in order to reach an agreement with the ELF, violently repressed its extreme fringes, whose tendency was probably to place independence not as an end in itself, as with the bourgeoisie, but as an aspect of the social question. In the name of the independence stage, the social question must not be postponed.

This leads us to predict, among other things, that from the bourgeois point of view, independence will be achieved not only when the Ethiopians have been driven out, but when the conditions for the suppression of any movement from below have been secured. Why else hesitate to proclaim independence at a time when 90% of the country is reconquered? And why not move to the decisive attack at a time when the Ethiopian army is engaged on the Ogaden front? All these considerations, which will be developed in the following article, already do not prevent us from wishing for the final defeat of the Ethiopian empire in Eritrea and the formation of the independent state.

4) The imperialist subjugation of the various nationalities creates a major hindrance for the Ethiopian proletarian and peasant masses in their struggle against the national bourgeoisie, to whose imperialist policy they feel bound. The definitive military defeat and dismemberment of the former empire will sweep away this conservative mentality and will favour the development of a revolution ‘from below’. In addition, national separation will dispel the deep-seated hatred that the subjugated populations traditionally harbour toward the Ethiopians. All this will foster strengthening and solidarity between the Eritrean, Somali, and Ethiopian peoples. In particular, the international union of the working class.

If, faced with the events that took place in the regions of Central Africa, we advocated the creation of a strong federal state against the ‘balkanising’ solution of imperialism, in this case, faced with the Ethiopian bourgeoisie that tends to forcibly maintain the borders carved out by imperialism, we are for their questioning, for the separation and independence of the nationalities, while the two solutions tend towards the development of the situation most favourable to the progress of the international revolution.

It is probable, however, that a radical solution to the question will not be possible because, even if it can be affirmed on a military level, the tendency of the bourgeoisie of the various contending states, Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea, and of imperialism in primis, will be to muffle the conflict by referring the dispute to international bodies at the crucial moment, such as the Organisation of African Unity, and hoping for resolution at the negotiating table where, beyond the interests of the individual disputants, the categorical imperative of the general preservation of the system of imperialist exploitation and oppression of the peoples of colour prevails. The interests of the nationalities and of the working and peasant masses will thus be sacrificed at the negotiating table as new artificial borders are carved out between the various national and imperialist states and the most favourable conditions for the social stability of the region and of the entire African continent are signed.

The solution of the negotiated peace is one that, in the name of ‘stability’ and ‘security’, our false communists are advocating, while leaning towards the solution most favourable to Ethiopia, and therefore to Russia. It is no coincidence that ‘pacification’ is advocated for precisely when the Ethiopian army is suffering one defeat after another.

In the article in L’Unità of 18 August, three points are enunciated: 1) the search for a negotiated peace; 2) the right of self-determination, subordinated, it is said, to the capacity of the protagonists to ‘play politics’ (which translated into understandable terms perhaps means ‘capacity of the national bourgeoisies to curb social tensions’); 3) the need, repeatedly expressed by the OAU, to take into account the state borders already established on the continent.

What does self-determination mean if the already established borders are to be respected? If this word has any meaning, it can only mean the right to separation and disruption of already established borders.

In the 31 July article, the same rag rightly states that the national borders in Africa are those established by colonialism and imperialism, Ethiopia included. Further on, it clarifies the principle enunciated by the OAU: «The OAU (a kind of UN of the Dark Continent)’, Lenin called the then ‘League of Nations’ a ‘den of imperialist brigands’, ‘has established a principle: that the borders existing at the time of each country’s accession to independence must not be touched at all, and not because they are not artificial, but precisely because they are». What is the reason? It is immediately made clear: if the established borders were to start being touched, the whole of Africa would be ablaze with conflict. These words are self-explanatory. It would be little to say that L’Unità is defending Ethiopian and Russian imperialism, it defends in general the principle of imperialist world stability! We say world because the issue also concerns the industrialised countries. It is L’Unità that says so: «[Peace between the sides is necessary] all the more so since the clash between Ethiopia and Somalia takes place in a continent troubled by other rivalries and open and latent conflicts that could dangerously ignite and spread threatening everyone’s peace, even ours». This is more than clear.

We communists, on the other hand, are against ‘peace’ for everyone, ‘ours’ above all, we are for class war. Let’s welcome wars of national settlement, let’s question African borders if it will upset the peace of the continent and ‘ours’. We have never been for peace, which in this regime means stability of the system of capitalist and imperialist exploitation. Even to imperialist war we have never opposed the stinking flower of peace between states, but class war.

L’Unità attempts another justification, which does nothing but reiterate these dirty positions. The argument is this: all African states have borders carved out by imperialism, most of them lack a minimum of national homogeneity; moreover, the same nationalities live in different states. More than true. But it does not at all follow from this observation that where the national question arises, arms in hand, one should enunciate the abstract principle that several nationalities can also live in the same state or that one and the same nationality should be divided into several different states. If the question arises, in those regions where national-democratic revolutions are still the order of the day, arms in hand, it means that in that state those nationalities cannot coexist or that nationality cannot live in two distinct states. This statement by L’Unità has the sense of replacing that ‘can’ with ‘must’.

Let us see it in the case of the Ogaden: «The Ogaden, the Somalis say, is inhabited by Somalis. This is true. But, as we have seen, the same people, the same ethnicity, speaking the same language, can live in two or more African States». Further on: «During the Second World War, the Italian colonial empire having collapsed, the Ogaden returned to Ethiopia. Somalis say: the members of the Ogaden Liberation Front are for Somalia brothers in blood, language, customs, and religion, we have seen that this is true. But (…) the Organisation for African Unity has established a principle» (the quote above follows). The circle thus closes again, returning to the starting positions: if the borders of Africa were to be touched, goodbye peace.

We communists are not for sitting at a table and searching, under a microscope, in every state for a ‘national question’, of which we do not make a fetish. We simply start from the opposite consideration to that of L’Unità. What is the solution most favourable for breaking the imperialist peace? What is the situation most favourable for the strengthening of the union among the working classes and for the maturing of class confrontation? These are the solutions and situations we hope for. For this reason, among others, we are not prepared to support just any national movement, just any acronym with the F (front) and the L (liberation) at its head.

‘Ethiopia tikdem’: ‘Ethiopia first’. This is the slogan agitated since the beginning of the Ethiopian ‘revolution’ by the ‘hard’ faction of the Derg, that of Major Mènghistu, which most characterises the upheavals and power structure recently established in Ethiopia.

The fact that these have no socialist character is something we will not spend long proving. We have always denied the blatant lie that one could ‘build socialism’ directly on the ruins of an archaic and feudal regime, even in the case of Russia under proletarian dictatorship. We have indeed admitted the possibility of skipping the capitalist ‘stage’ in some countries that had reached the threshold of bourgeois revolution, but only insofar as the proletariat of the nations of mature capitalism had conquered power and established its class dictatorship. This is why in Ethiopia today there is no possibility of a socialist economy.

Even the agrarian reform, with relative nationalisation of the land, which should represent the most radical measure (if it were implemented, but as we shall see it was not), is a measure that lies entirely in the realm of the bourgeois revolution and of the capitalist transformation of the agrarian economy. It is Lenin who says this: «Nationalisation of the land, though being a bourgeois measure, implies freedom for the class struggle and freedom of land tenure from all non-bourgeois adjuncts to the greatest possible degree conceivable in a capitalist society».

As for political power, we attributed socialist character to the Bolshevik October but not because it opened the epoch of the ‘construction of socialism’ in Russia (according to Stalin’s bourgeois expression). We have defined as proletarian and socialist not the Russian society that had emerged from the autocratic tsarist regime, but the dictatorship of the Soviets exercised there, as it was based on the armed proletariat and firmly and solely directed by the Communist Party.

The dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia thus went well beyond the political forms characteristic of bourgeois revolutions, even the most radical, entering the sphere of socialist revolutions, indeed coming to constitute a fundamental link in it. Thus, only in a political sense did the October revolution place ‘one foot’ in socialism; in an economic sense it would only do so if the international revolution had come to the rescue.

So, on the one hand, the proletariat does not hold power anywhere in the world, nor does it present itself on the attack in this historical phase, but rather passively suffers capitalist domination on an international scale; on the other hand, the dictatorship of the proletarian class does not visibly exist in Ethiopia. Indeed, it is not even organised in an autonomous and independent form, in a political party.

Instead, political power is, as we know, in the hands of a military oligarchy, representative of the national bourgeoisie, which not only does not rest upon, and indeed opposes the growth of genuine class organisations of the proletarians and peasants, but, waving the most blatant nationalist chauvinism, has so far exercised a ferocious dictatorship, on the one hand, it is true, against the dispossessed classes of the old regime, on the other against the peasant and semi-proletarian masses in the countryside, against the radical strata of the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the cities, against the oppressed nationalities, against whom it continues to apply the same imperial policy of the Negus.

Today we are faced with the assumption of power by the ‘hard’ fraction of the Derg, that of Mènghistu, which, eliminated the more moderate fractions, proclaims the ‘socialist dictatorship’.

The information we have about the latest events inside Ethiopia is very scarce and mostly comes from the official sources of the regime. Moreover, few newspapers have been able to maintain their correspondents in Addis Ababa. One of these is L’Unità, which is visibly taking the side of the Ethiopians in the Ogaden war and is bent toward demonstrating the radical revolutionary character of the current regime.

In its correspondence, on the one hand it informs us of the rapidity with which the old economic structures have been dismantled in recent times (e.g. agrarian reform is spoken of as a given), on the other hand it speaks of the arming of the masses (which masses in reality?), an operation that would be conducted from above by the military regime with solemn ceremonies and widespread publicity. In addition to this, there is talk of the peasant militias, which until now we had learned from various sources had been enlisted with the promise of land and plunder, to be thrown, armed and trained in the poorest manner, as cannon fodder against the liberation guerrillas, while, according to L’Unità, they would be disciplined elements determined to spread ‘their’ revolution against all enemies.

Not being able to directly refute this character of radicality that Mènghistu would have imposed on the revolution and its transformation ‘from above to below’, we have gone back over the events from 1974 to the present day, extracting facts, sometimes drawn from news reports more or less biased and from fragmentary information traced between the lines of the newspapers, but converging in confirming the character of the Ethiopian revolution, and in particular of the military regime that is currently said to be its representative.

The conclusion follows that the Ethiopian revolution is not a radical bourgeois revolution ‘from below’, but a revolution from above. The Derg is the legitimate bearer of the interests of the Ethiopian national bourgeoisie, which, favourable to the dismantling the old feudal system, intended, however, to conduct the operation as slowly, as gradually, as little resolutely as possible, avoiding developing the revolutionary action, the initiative and the energy of the oppressed masses, indeed opposing it head-on.

Radical measures, it is true, have been enunciated (although certainly for the most part they remained on paper, despite L’Unità already today calls agrarian reform a reality), but this is solely due to the need to keep the simmering social environment under control, especially at a time when the former empire was crumbling, the liberation movements were intensifying their action, and the will of the national bourgeoisie remained that of keeping the borders intact, by force when the struggle turned into a real war on two fronts.

In any case, the enunciation and adoption of these measures was always accompanied with the harshest repression of the ferments and movements that were developing, from below, in the proletariat, in the national-democratic petty bourgeoisie and in the peasantry. The fact that freedom of association and strike for the proletariat is impeded is the clearest demonstration of the character of a revolution ‘from above’. Every radical-bourgeois revolution has always been characterised by its reliance on the mass organisations of the revolutionary classes; the Ethiopian one, on the other hand, has so far marched relying solely on the army. Moreover, every bourgeois radical revolution, relying on mass organisations, destroys by revolutionary means the state apparatus of the old regime, building on the ruins of the old the new; in Ethiopia the military regime has instead kept the old administrative and police apparatus standing, even if slowly, driven by events, it attempts to restructure it.

The current power of the military junta is thus configured as a movement of a class that only to a limited extent pursues revolutionary aims, while towards all subaltern classes it openly shows its reactionary face.

The proletariat, insofar as it is interested in the widest, most rapid and most free development of capitalism, because this will represent its growth as a class and the nearing of the head-on clash with its direct adversary, the bourgeoisie, meanwhile is interested in the revolution creating the most favourable conditions for the strengthening and extension of its organisations and struggles. All this can only occur through a radical and consistent revolution, a thing that is only possible by siding also against the bourgeoisie, with a revolution from below, or to say it with Lenin, ‘truly popular’.

This is in fact the way of the quickest surgical operation, the way to quickly rid the field of the institutes of the gangrened classes, of the immobilising prejudices of the old feudal society.

It is on this path that the peasant masses awaken from the millenary torpor, while modern opposing interests delineate themselves, dragging the new classes into the political arena. It is on this terrain that for the proletariat, having strengthened and extended its reach, the clash for the future socialist society is most clearly delineated.

On the contrary, a revolution from above, slows the process of demolition of the old structures and the old political regime, puts a brake on the free development of class organisations and struggles, and thus makes the path of the proletarian class slower, more difficult and strenuous.

For an in-depth study of the historical, social, and economic characteristics of Ethiopia up to the deposition of the Negus and the advent of the Derg, we refer to the two articles that appeared in our newspaper in May and June 1975. We shall limit ourselves here to mentioning the fundamental elements, especially in relation to the demonstration we wish to draw of the need for the Ethiopian bourgeoisie itself to dismantle the cancerous structure that the feudal autocracy has maintained and defended to this day.

Ethiopia is an essentially agricultural empire: 89.9% of the population lives in the countryside. The agrarian economy is extremely backward, productivity is very low, and the arable land, although very fertile, is in considerable part unused or under-utilised. This situation means that the countryside, also due to the enormous difficulty of transport, is in large part isolated from the mercantile circuit, while the country is barely self-sufficient for its food.

The agrarian structure is feudal as described in our article of June 1975; the majority of the land is in the hands of the Church, the nobility, and the imperial family, to whom the peasants must remit 75% of the product.

A weak manufacturing fabric developed in the cities following Italian colonisation, the product of which constitutes only 5% of the gross national product. Industrial development is confronted by the wall of rural backwardness which prevents the emergence of a national market, and it is this which induces the Ethiopian bourgeoisie to pose the problem of breaking the bonds that chain agriculture to backwardness. It is necessary for farms to finally become productive, for peasants to be able to sell and buy, and for this there is an urgent need to dismantle the cancerous structure of feudalism, pitted against the aristocracy, the Crown and the Church. It is also necessary for commodities to begin circulating, hence the need to abolish customs barriers, the regime of exclusivity in the markets and all constraints that impede investment and the circulation of capital; it is necessary to construct roads, bridges, railways. Moreover, 95% of Ethiopians are illiterate. How can modern industry develop under these conditions?

These needs are universally recognised, and any study of the Ethiopian economy regularly concludes with a call for a thorough reform of agriculture and trade. The same financial aid that Sweden granted at the time was subordinated to an act of goodwill on the part of the government in this direction.

The imperial regime instead, was completely incapable, indeed hostile, to take any measures: the political administrative apparatus, especially in its regional representations, was and still is closely involved in the interests of the aristocratic landlords and strenuously opposes any slightest change to the status quo.

Every development plan thus came up against a series of obstacles, laws, and restrictions. A timid attempt to reduce the peasant’s taxable income from 75 to 50% was rejected by the Senate, while the imposition of a tax on landed property in 1967 has not been implemented in practice. Thus, against the gangrenous structures of the imperial state, attempts by the bourgeoisie to orient absolutism towards its needs failed time and again.

In 1973-74, a terrible famine further exacerbated the situation. Around 100,000 deaths are reported, cereal production halved, as did the number of livestock (livestock-raising is the main sector of the agrarian economy). All this without the government taking any action. In the cities there is an economic crisis and inflation, Addis Ababa becomes the most expensive city on the continent.

This terrible scourge is hushed up and kept hidden by the imperial regime in an attempt to again revive the heavenly image of the divine Sovereign before the complacent world. But the situation has passed all limits and at this point the bourgeoisie cannot give up imposing itself with an act of force.

Another problem strongly pushes forward the Ethiopian bourgeoisie: the army seethes with hotbeds of revolt, especially among the lower ranks and the troops, and under these conditions it may not be able to keep in check the autonomist movements of the various nationalities that almost everywhere, but especially in Eritrea and the Ogaden, have turned to guerrilla warfare (and it is precisely in these two regions that the ferment in the Ethiopian army is most noticeable).

Moreover, in the cities the climate begins to become tense and there are signs of discontent among the students and workers. It is true that these movements remain at a spontaneous level and there is no political organisation oriented in a revolutionary sense capable of organising them, let alone seriously mortgaging power. But the bourgeoisie cannot let this go, nor let itself be taken by surprise. A possible revolution from below must be anticipated well in advance.

It is this climate of instability that prompts the bourgeoisie to take a step it would perhaps never otherwise have taken. It has no party and its only organised strength is in the army where, alongside the old guard loyal to the regime, a majority of junior officers in favour of institutional change has developed.

In early 1974, following revolts in the army in Eritrea and in the Ogaden, a Coordination Committee was formed, consisting of representatives of the main units, which imposed its control on the emperor, who was forced to change the government, reshuffling it with representatives of the liberal aristocracy and promising constitutional reforms. Probably, as far as the bourgeoisie is concerned, the ‘Revolution’ could have stopped at this point. But social forces are not commanded with a flick of the wand, and a reaction was triggered.

Unrest spreads and riots break out in the cities. On 7 March, the Confederation of Ethiopian Workers calls a general strike. The demands are:
1) institution of a minimum wage;
2) provisions for workplace safety;
3) agrarian reform;
4) nationalisation of industry and trade;
5) right to strike and of association.

This is the workers’ programme in the bourgeois revolution, where, alongside the radical reforms within this framework, the class question against the bourgeoisie and the necessity of the autonomous and independent organisation of the proletariat are already evident.

The government, which is now under the control of the army, reacts with violent repressions on the striking workers.

On 12 September, the Derg seizes power directly, deposes Haile Selassie, naming his son, who is spending his holidays in Europe, ‘constitutional monarch’. The presidency of the government is entrusted to Aman Andom, old general of the imperial army.

The next act is immediately to suppress the right to strike. The workers try to fight back, but repression is unleashed on them, the general strike in response fails and is called off. It is on the defeat of this generous impulse of the proletariat that the so-called Ethiopian ‘revolution’ begins.

On 16 September, 2,000 students took to the streets of Addis Ababa demanding the constitution of a civil government. It is true that they have represented and represent in Ethiopia the most vocal element of the petty-bourgeois movement, but it is certain that the proletariat should, should it be able to express itself independently, maintain the greatest mistrust towards them, while establishing with them and with the petty-bourgeois national-democratic movement in general the link in the action against absolutism, the aristocracy, and against the bourgeoisie itself that aligns itself against the revolution from below.

As far back as 1848 (see Engels’s ‘Revolution and Counterrevolution in Germany’) the communists denounced the indolence of the radical petty bourgeoisie, which, if at first it is ready, filling its mouth with high-sounding revolutionary phrases to accompany or even place itself at the head of the proletarian masses in the insurrection against the bourgeoisie and feudalism, at the crucial moment of the struggle hesitates, recoils, renounces, and betrays the movement, abandoning the proletariat, which finds itself alone to fight against the bourgeois and absolutist reaction.

At this point the Derg takes another small step. The fact is that the bourgeoisie had assumed, and hoped for, a slow, gradual, painless process and instead finds itself, and will increasingly find itself, coming to terms with those forces which, still slumbering under the mantle of the millenary empire, once the atavistic institution is broken, burst powerfully to the surface, albeit in a spontaneous, disorganised and unconscious state. This is why the Derg finds itself embarking on the path of ‘escalation’ in which an increasingly decisive line of conduct prevails, which, under the proclamation of an unbridled nationalism, accompanies the repression of the proletariat, the peasantry, the national-democratic petty bourgeoisie, and the nationalities, with measures which, mainly on paper, but partly also in practice, act against the economic arrogance and political power of the dispossessed classes, and on the bourgeoisie itself, which is unwilling to discipline itself to this path. In this sense, military power will tend to rise above the contingent and particular interests of the very classes it represents.

On 20 September, it was announced that the dignitaries of the old regime would be put on trial.

On 1 November, a still very general statement was issued on the Derg’s intentions. On this occasion, and for the first time, the slogan ‘Ethiopia tikdem’ is uttered, which will be the banner of the ‘hard’ faction of the Derg.

On 23 November, Aman Andom, accused of moderatism, is dismissed and executed along with other Derg representatives. The Mènghistu faction comes out more openly, and imposes the successor in the person of Tafari Benti. It is in favour of a strong military regime, opposed to democratisation, while on the question of nationalities, especially the Eritrean question, it advocates a military solution.

On 21 December, the ‘Declaration of Socialism’ is published, in which the vagueness of the measures remains, while there is no specific mention of agrarian reform: it is no coincidence that this document is approved by the representatives of the Coptic Church. It is said, among other things, that «Ethiopian socialism means equality, the right of each to direct his own destiny, the right to work and to earn». It is the enunciation of the bourgeois programme.

But in concrete terms, what are the measures and how decisively and how quickly does the Derg intend to go follow this path, apart from the emblematic trial of the former dignitaries? At the moment, nothing has been done. The document also contains the intention that Ethiopia should remain united. This is the answer to the Eritrean liberation movements. In the aftermath violent clashes erupt in Asmara; on 27 September, the fronts announce that they will move from the guerrilla path to open warfare. This is an issue we dealt with in the last article dedicated to the national question, remember that the Derg has pursued to this day the same imperial policy of the Negus towards the nationalities and in particular towards Eritrea.

This policy has two aspects: on the one hand, the bourgeoisie is unwilling to renounce the unity of the former empire and intends to maintain military control over the regions more or less recently occupied by the imperial armies; on the other hand, the war on the Eritrean and Ogaden fronts contributes to postponing the social question internally and to blocking the revolutionary process, especially in the countryside.

The war being ignited on the Eritrean front cannot be sustained without decisive measures being taken to prevent sabotage by the old possessing classes and to ensure the full availability of productive resources; also, without the internal front being reinforced through the adherence to the regime by the subaltern classes, to whom the mirage of radical reforms must be presented.

The sequence of events is striking: the serious news on the Eritrean front alternates with the measures that the Derg is urged to take. After the declaration of war on the Eritrean front on 27 December, the nationalisation of banks, insurance companies, and financial institutions is announced on 1 January 1975. On 28 January, a military offensive of the liberation movements in Eritrea takes place. On 2 February, the Derg nationalises most major industries (note that most of these were foreign-owned or owned by the royal family). On 5 February guerrilla warfare breaks out in Asmara, thousands of people took refuge in the countryside. Other hotbeds of rebellion flare up in other provinces. On 7 February, the ‘Declaration of the Economic Policy of Socialist Ethiopia’ is published, defining the programme of nationalisation of the large enterprises and of infrastructure. On 3 March, the agrarian reform is proclaimed, which in its statements certainly presents itself as a radical reform.

We wrote in our newspaper then: ‘The Ethiopian bourgeoisie certainly has no intention of keeping its promises. It merely wants to raise the peasants just enough to save the unity of the former empire, only to deceive them as every bourgeoisie of the world has done in turn’ (P.C. June 1975).

It is worth pausing here to consider the situation in the countryside in greater depth, immediately anticipating what the practical effects of the reform would be.

It was said some time ago that the Derg, pushing back the petty-bourgeois and proletarian movement in the cities, wanted instead to turn to the ‘hard’ heart of the nation, to the peasantry. We will see instead that the Derg has leaned on and attempts to pivot on the backwardness and on the conservative spirit of the countryside, stifling the first stirrings of the agrarian revolution.

Until the rise of the Derg, there were no revolutionary oriented ferments in the rural world, just as there was no peasant movement with a land partition programme, nor were there any urban class parties referring to it or claiming to represent it. There is talk of periodic revolts in certain districts, where social, national, and tribal issues intertwine; moreover, we must remember that local rebellions against central authority have often in Ethiopian history been expressions of the interests of the various feudal petty-lords.

Moreover, the countryside is totally disconnected from the cities. This is due to the lack of economic development that restricts the flow of proletarians to the urban centres, and also to the limited trade inherent in the semi-subsistence economy. All this prevents news and ideas from circulating, the echo of social upheaval from reverberating in the distant provinces. It is possible that the news of the emperor’s deposition reached the most distant districts months and months late.

In Russia, this is why the Bolsheviks attached great importance to the war that led to the enlistment of the peasants, wrenched them from their limited horizon and placed them alongside the more advanced workers, because in this way revolutionary ideas began to circulate and spread, while the closest connection with the urban proletariat was established.

From this situation, the events of 1974 have had no immediate reflection in the countryside and the agrarian reform itself rained down from above.

In Russia, the peasant movement lagged behind the proletarian uprising that led to the February revolution, but by the end of August the agrarian revolution was rising powerfully, a fundamental premise of the October Revolution. By the time the agrarian reform was proclaimed, the peasantry was organised and armed and in most regions had already driven out the nobles, burnt their castles, confiscated their lands and means of production. The Bolshevik proclamation, in this situation, was nothing other than the consequent expression of the reality that already existed in much of the Russian countryside.

In Ethiopia, the reform is instead a declaration of good intentions.

But let us take a closer look at some aspects of the law, referring also to the article cited above, where the law is examined more generally.

We know that in Ethiopia there is a large amount of unused fertile land, it is clear therefore that the problem for the peasant is not only the free usufruct of the land, but the means to cultivate it. The law stipulates in this regard that the peasant retains the owner’s tools and a pair of oxen, provided he pays reasonable compensation within three years. It also established that the principle by which, until all the land is distributed, the tenant becomes the owner of the land he cultivates, does not apply in the case of resident owners who have leased the land ‘dividing it equally’ (an expression that by its vagueness means nothing), that ‘the government will protect his rights by all necessary means’. It is clear that although the law has some radical aspects, in these two points it tends to protect the agrarian bourgeoisie and the rich peasant.

Let us now see, to the best of our knowledge, to what extent it was implemented. First of all, what power did the Derg allegedly put at the disposal of the peasants to implement it? Local, administrative, and police power is firmly in the hands of the proprietors and the Derg has done nothing to dismantle it; moreover, the proprietors have organised armed bands to defend their land. Has the Derg perhaps sent the army to disperse the nobles, their bands, and their police? Never: the army is busy defending the sacred borders of the empire.

We said in the article: ‘What guarantees do the peasants have that the reform will really be implemented? Only one, to arm themselves and unite in autonomous organisations’. Let us see how it is that the Derg would have facilitated this process.

We have nothing but fragmentary, and only partly ‘official’, information reported in the various newspapers; one of these consists of the account of a young student participating in the ‘Zemecha’ (a literacy campaign for the rural masses launched in early 1975 in which more than 40,000 students and teachers were sent to the countryside). Sent to Enango, a village in Wollega, he and his comrades immediately tried to bring the peasants together to voice their problems. In March 1975 the agrarian reform comes out, on paper the measures are radical, but who will apply them, the students wondered? In the meantime, the Balabats (landowners) unabashedly show off their rifles and assure that, revolution or not, no one will touch their land.

The peasants’ assemblies multiply, at the beginning of the summer the peasants manage to disarm the Balabats, they requisition by authority machines, mills, and some houses (one sees here that one of the peasants’ main concerns is that of appropriating the means of production). When the police intervene on behalf of the Balabats, the peasants, together with the students, arrest the six policemen stationed in the village, summon the population, decree a curfew, close the telephone office, and organise armed patrols to ensure order. The police headquarters, informed of the fact, then threatens terrible reprisals. The peasants must lay down their arms. In the following days, the Derg, disturbed by this ‘leftist agitation’ that manifests itself at the same time in numerous other villages in the South, sends one of its representatives. They bluntly condemn the action of the ‘extremists’ and warns the peasants against these ‘false revolutionaries who play into the hands of reaction’. The students take the floor and accuse the Derg of ‘betraying the revolution’. At this point they are forced to flee, taking shelter across the borders or they return clandestinely to Addis Ababa.

Le Monde assures that out of 40,000 students, three quarters have had such experiences. Reports from other newspapers and from L’Unità itself seem to confirm this. In the second half of 1975 a student was shot in Addis Ababa for leading an assault of peasants in Gamu Gofa, there are reports of looting and killings. It is said that in Kaffa the police, siding with the owners, has fired on the peasants. Finally, it is said that 5 students were burned alive by supporters of the owners.

In early May 1976, the end of the Zemecha was decreed, after all, most of the students and teachers had fled the countryside and more than half, it is said, are already clandestinely in Addis Ababa. Le Monde points to the causes of the failure: the hostility of the traditional chiefs, the inaction and lack of support of the regime, the complete absence of a course of action to follow.

The episodes just reported are but the first germs of an agrarian revolution, which however seem to get lost in a morass of movements, agitations and rebellions, often with a national background, but in many cases taking on an openly counter-revolutionary character. There is often talk of ethnic minorities in revolt under the leadership of former imperial officials, of agitations and guerrilla activities fomented and organised by the landowners, while the right-wing opposition, the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), a party linked to the high bourgeoisie and aristocracy, strengthens its positions, especially in the rural areas of the country. This was the situation before the advent of Mènghistu.

Today, L’Unità would have us believe that the agrarian reform is an acquired fact, but how would it have been achieved? Perhaps through the peasant militias?

Already in the spring of 1976, the Derg set out to organise peasant militias. As far as we are aware, the operation is carried out through local associations linked to the Derg, which round up the peasants by force and with the promise of plunder and land in order to hurl them against the liberation armies, above all in Eritrea and in the Ogaden. This operation is accompanied by the agitation of unbridled nationalism and is loudly publicised. There is talk of several thousand peasants, but we have many doubts about the efficiency of these troops because they are poorly armed (photos are published of peasants armed only with sticks) and poorly equipped, with a military structure that reportedly leaves much to be desired. It is no coincidence that the famous ‘red march’ of the peasants in Eritrea dissolved like a soap bubble and appeared more like a propaganda stunt than an actual attempt to break through the front by the liberation armies. Even today in the Ogaden, it is the regular army that acts while the peasant militias, of which so much is spoken, are scarcely deployed and, if they are, are thrown into the fray as cannon fodder.

However the militias are employed and however their recruitment and arming is carried out, the fact remains that this operation is not directed against the landowners, to definitively overthrow their power and confiscate their land, but to save the unity of the nation, or rather of the former empire. This is not denied even by L’Unità.

Now let us take for granted the claim that the peasant militias are made up of disciplined elements, conscious and determined to carry the revolution through to the end. Explain to us then how agrarian reform could have been achieved if on the one hand the landowners are protected by their armed bands and by the local police and administrative apparatus, while the best and most revolutionary elements of the peasantry are conscripted and sent to the front, and the army, which is supposed to be the main strength of the revolution, is fully engaged on the war fronts.

Casting doubt on the claim that the agrarian reform is now a fact are the very declarations by Derg representatives dating back to last July, where ‘delays’ are denounced or where it is said that ‘the reform where it was done has actually worked’, but where it was done, this is not said.

It is the same Rinascita that, in an article of May 1977, denouncing the difficult situation of Ethiopian agriculture with a harvest 20% lower than the previous year, speaks of a «Chaotic state of the countryside where the agrarian reform, dropped from above, has met with much opposition, or at least unpreparedness».

In the article of 26 August, where it is claimed that the peasants now have the land and the reform has been carried out, it is said: «The fact is that Ethiopia in revolution is today facing all the sequels of the revolutionary upheaval which, with a sweeping gesture all too egalitarian (this call for moderation is nice) (…) has taken the land away from the agrarians and the feudal lords and from the Coptic Church and has given it to the landless peasants». It is clear that when one speaks of a ‘sweeping gesture’ one is confusing the declaration of the reform with its practical application, but it is one thing to proclaim that the land will be taken away from the agrarians, quite another that this will actually be done.

All of these considerations lead one to disbelieve the correspondence of L’Unità and instead to assume that only minimal reform has been achieved to date and that, in the chaotic situation in the countryside, the agrarians still retain their strong positions. Furthermore, the nationalism agitated by the Derg and the enlistment of peasant militias on the basis of the imperial policy of subjugation of nationalities and nations, tends not to favour, but to delay the development of the peasant movement.

It seems to us, therefore, that we can conclude that in the countryside we are only at the first minimal stirrings of an agrarian revolution, while the peasant still not only does not recognise the proletarian ally in the cities, but continues to passively submit to the authority of the old regime, and of the new military power. The Derg, for its part, which has relied on the passivity of the peasantry against the movement in the cities and to develop its imperial policy, intends to tackle the agrarian question, but with a slow and painless process of transformation, trying at all times to prevent any movement from below from breaking the established framework.

In September 1975, there are new proletarian agitations in Addis Ababa. The Congress of the Confederation of Ethiopian Labour Unions (CELU) meets from 21 to 24, where a request to the Derg is approved: democratic freedoms (freedom of political organisation and of the strike) by the end of October, otherwise a general strike is threatened. The meaning that the proletariat can give to the democratic demand, in the revolutionary phase of transition from the feudal absolutist regime to the bourgeois regime, is precisely this: freedom of political organisation and of the strike, which means free development of autonomous class initiative. Marxism understands democracy, in the regime that emerged from absolutism, as a terrain favourable to the development of class opposition and struggle, never as a realisation of the abstract principles of freedom and equality, because, in this sense, democracy only represents the sublimation of the bourgeois freedom to exploit the working class and thus configures the society dominated by capital and the oppression exercised on the proletariat.

In the aftermath of the formulation of this demand, a trade unionist, campaigning among airport workers, is stopped, a shootout takes place with 7 dead and 19 wounded. The unrest spreads and many trade unionists, accused of a reactionary corporatist and petty-bourgeois spirit, are arrested. On 30 September, a state of emergency is proclaimed and all strikes and unauthorised demonstrations are banned. These measures are no longer abolished.

Subsequently, the CELU is outlawed and will continue its activities clandestinely, while the Derg sets up its own trade union organisation.

In the meantime, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) arose and grew stronger in the cities. Little is known to us about this party, except that it declares itself ‘Marxist Leninist’, accuses the Derg of being counter-revolutionary and fascist, demands a popular government, and acts through the use of terrorism and political assassination. It originates from the moderate ESU student organisation, which, with the advent of the Derg, split into a pro- and anti-military faction. This party has broad influence in the University and strong ties in the workers’ unions, while it has no influence in the countryside, apart from connections with some armed groups operating in the North. Ultimately, it seems to represent the party of the radical petty bourgeoisie.

Against the EPRP and the CELU the repressive action of the Derg was unleashed, which was to gain momentum after Mènghistu’s coup d’état in February 1977.

Before getting to these more recent facts, let us briefly sketch the situation as it developed in 1976.

There is an extension of the activity of the liberation fronts; two movements stand out in particular: the Eritrean movement and that of western Somalia (Ogaden).

Particularly in Eritrea, the situation becomes disastrous for the Ethiopian army: setbacks follow one after the other, despite the open terrorism exercised against the civilian population through a series of massacres, raids and devastations. There are reports of numerous desertions in the army, often of entire divisions surrendering without engaging in battle; there are also reports of some soldiers and officers moving on to swell the ranks of the liberation armies. The territory is now 90% in the hands of the guerrillas, the garrisons of the main cities remain, which, having evacuated the population, have turned into besieged fortresses.

The activities of the EPRP and EDU also expand throughout the year. In Addis Ababa, clashes and attacks take place. The Derg, which gradually purges itself of the more moderate and indecisive elements, strikes indiscriminately on the right and left.

At the beginning of February 1977, the last and most radical purge takes place. Nine members of the Derg are killed, among them President Tafari Benti, accused of moderatism and of inclinations towards the EPRP. It is the ‘hard’ faction of the Derg, that of Mènghistu, that finally comes out into the open. It proclaims that the main problem of the revolution at the moment is to crush the enemies who undermine it and who are indicated in the EPRP, the EDU, and the Eritrean Liberation Front.

Against the EPRP and CELU, organised in the cities, a furious armed struggle begins; hundreds of regime loyalists are reportedly assassinated, while thousands of individuals close to those two organisations are massacred, imprisoned and executed.

It is quite natural, indeed necessary and indispensable, for a revolution to express itself through dictatorship and terror. The problem is, for us, whether the Derg actually exercises it in the name of the revolution and against whom and to what ends it intends to achieve. We repeat our initial thesis: the Derg, the legitimate representative of the national bourgeoisie, is aligned against feudal reaction on the one hand, but against revolution from below on the other.

With the rise of Mènghistu, a revolutionary phraseology is raised in the most bombastic tones, speaking of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, of ‘red terror against the white terror’, mass rallies are staged with the waving of red flags, accompanying all this with the agitation of unbridled nationalism, the pressing call to patriotism, to the sacred national traditions.

At the same time, Mènghistu attacks American imperialism, placing himself fully under the protection of Russia. He will soon be received in Moscow and hailed as a ‘comrade’ by Soviet leaders.

We will not go over the events of the war in Eritrea and the Ogaden, which began in July, here, nor will we consider the political line of the Derg towards the nationalities, which we dealt with in the first part of the report, we will try to outline, rather than describe based on established information we do not possess, the possible consequences of the war on the internal situation of Ethiopia.

We already mentioned in that part of the work that a war situation abroad can, under certain circumstances, be a decisive element in the attempt to silence the internal front. Undoubtedly, the call to defend the sacred borders in danger has resonated with the Ethiopian masses, who still, in all likelihood, feel their fates tied to the imperial policy of the regime. The EPRP’s own wavering attitude on the nationalities issue bears witness to this. It is precisely in order to sweep away this conservative spirit, which divides the Ethiopian working classes from those of other nationalities, that we hope for a military defeat of the Derg on the fronts of Eritrea and the Ogaden.

In this situation, in which the martial law atmosphere is all the more justified by the war situation, the activity of the EPRP seems considerably diminished, if not reduced to zero. Certainly, the bloody repressions reported up to July may have been instrumental in the physical suppression of this movement.

In the most recent correspondences we have, there is more and more talk of the organisation of the Kebelé, neighbourhood committees in the cities, as the backbone of the new state structure being formed. It is certain that in this war situation, the military government increasingly needs to ensure full control over the state apparatus. The fact is that even today, the organisation of the police, the judiciary, and the state administration are still those of the old regime; the hotbeds of the right-wing opposition often lurk there, openly sabotaging the decisions of the Derg and, in most cases, are unwilling to accept its leadership. What is certain, however, is that faced with the strengthening and expansion of right-wing and left-wing opposition, the military junta must acquire the ability to control all social forms and organisations. For this, the army is not enough, the bourgeoisie needs its state. But this cannot arise from nothing. It is on the basis of social organisation and mobilisation alongside the Derg that it can reconstitute its apparatus, substituting new forms for those handed down from the old regime.

In this sense we see the constitution of neighbourhood committees, as well as of pro-government peasant committees, bodies created from above on the basis of the mobilisation of certain social strata on the side of the government (layers of the petty bourgeoisie and proletariat in the cities, rich peasants and smallholders in the countryside), with tasks of public administration and policing. It is no coincidence that it is precisely the leaders of the Kebelé, the main proponents of the repression, who have been the target of numerous attacks by the EPRP. It should also be pointed out that, while neighbourhood committees were being set up and institutionalised, workers’ organisations, outside of those official ones of the regime, have been outlawed and are denied the right to strike and demonstrate. This is with regard to L’Unità’s much-vaunted ‘distribution of arms to the people’, when it came to the arming of the Kebelé.

Another issue we need to consider is that of the sordid economic measures that would further be bandied about as exemplary. Various correspondences speak of an urban land reform that would have abolished private ownership of real estate, except for one house per head, and would have halved rents, to be paid, as the case may be, to the state or to the neighbourhood committees.

There is also talk of further steps in the nationalisation process and the institution of a minimum wage. Although these reports would have to be substantiated, it is possible that in the war situation there was an acceleration of the process of economic transformation. Indeed, the military regime cannot at this time give up control of the country’s resources and assets, nor allow economic sabotage, nor allow social ferments of opposition from below to be fuelled by the blindness of the possessing classes.

In this report, which does not pretend to be complete nor to have exhausted the subject, we wanted to examine the current situation in Ethiopia. We have highlighted these points in particular:

1) The bourgeoisie moved, driven by the disastrous economic situation and a climate of social instability. But there was no revolutionary movement from below.

2) However, once the mechanism of the autocratic system was jammed, all the contradictions of the old regime exploded. The Derg, unable to provide a gradual and peaceful solution the various issues, was forced to embark on a path of escalation in which its internal purges were accompanied by a seemingly contradictory attitude. On the one hand, drastic and radical measures were proclaimed, on the other, the harshest repression of the revolution from below was unleashed, which, albeit in a primitive, unconscious and contradictory form, tended to break out. In the cities, the Derg unleashed violent repression against the proletariat, whose freedom of action and organisation was denied, and against the national-democratic petty bourgeoisie. In the countryside, where we have seen the backwardness of the peasant movement and only the first germs of the agrarian revolution, the Derg has proclaimed the reform, but has not provided the peasants with the strength to carry it out; it has therefore largely remained on paper. Instead, it enlisted the peasants, unleashing a nationalist campaign, to throw them as cannon fodder against the liberation armies of Eritrea and the Ogaden.

3) Finally, with regard to the nationalities claiming the right to secession, the Derg applied the same imperial policy as the Negus. This policy is, moreover, the flip side of its foreign policy.

From all this follows our conclusion that the Ethiopian military junta is an expression of the bourgeoisie. If it succeeds in asserting its power, this will not work in favour of the proletarian and peasant masses. We are, as we have always argued, for the solution of the revolution from below, radical and consistent, even if the proletariat, which ought to constitute its most advanced and resolute tip, is weak and above all lacks its head, the political party.

The turmoil that agitates some African countries today could in a perhaps near future also favour this eventuality in the whole of Africa. Certainly the role that the proletariat of the industrialised countries of Europe and America will assume is and will be decisive. Will it continue, influenced by the nationalist and pro-bourgeois policy of the various current parties, to support imperialism, or will it, having found its party, rise again in its univocal revolution, lending its mighty arm to the peoples of colour in struggle against imperialism and against the possessing classes of their countries?

We, alone, are working for this solution.