Research Update; Faces of History

Dr. Nigist Adane, date unknown

The central premise of the book I'm working on is that the Ethiopian revolution may have ultimately been hijacked by the military and become the story of a military regime, but it didn't start out that way. It was actually a much more complicated story than most histories acknowledge. I'm trying in part to humanize the generation of leftists who, while they were ultimately defeated, shared a dream of a liberated, socialist, and democratic Ethiopia.

I've been fascinated by many of the individuals who lost their lives during the revolution and during the period of military consolidation. It's one thing to read about the loss of nameless thousands, it's another to learn the details of the individual lives lost. Somehow finding photographs of the people one reads about adds a whole other dimension to understanding that history is not just dry words in books but the story of multi-dimensional real human beings meeting real-world challenges and suffering real-world loss. Photos humanize even the people who made terrible mistakes.

The photo above is a picture of one such tragic figure. Dr. Nigist Adane was a pediatrician educated in the Soviet Union, not uncommon for radical Ethiopian students under Haile Selassie. Initially in the orbit of the EPRP, she and her husband shifted and became leaders of the All Ethiopian Socialist Movement or Meison, a group which wound up supporting the military and shares responsibility for the military's bloody vendetta against the EPRP wing of the civilian left. She was active in building the women's movement during the revolutionary period ca. 1975-1976. In mid-1977 her group broke with the military regime and went underground, becoming targets of the same repression they had helped instigate. She was captured with most of the other leadership of the group. The story goes that these high-level leftist prisoners were strangled during a graduation ceremony of security forces cadets. She was killed in 1978. She is just one of the figures who as characters in my book, even small players, have drawn me into the human story of the Ethiopian revolution.

My book project is proceeding nicely. I'm following leads on additional research details and still attempting to acquire original materials. I'm still in need of various translation help. But my writing is really coming together; I'm approximately 2/3 done with a first draft. Finishing a first draft will only be a kind of new beginning: there will be an editing process I expect to be painstaking and frustrating; there are details and sources to add and probably some to delete. I will want to make sure the narrative is understandable, compelling, comprehensive and enjoyable. And I will need to make sure the overall political and historical content is accurate and what I want to communicate. I will soon be approaching a carefully chosen list of book publishers.  

Thank you for visiting my research blog and taking an interest in my project.

Deadly Namecalling in the Student Diaspora, 1976

Original flyer front

Original flyer back

The Ethiopian left was deeply divided by the ascent to power of the Derg in 1974. Divisions that had begun in the student movement in the diaspora were exacerbated when abstract political lines became questions of life and death in the unfolding of real world events in real time. Readers of this blog will probably recognize my general sympathies for the EPRP against the military government; but my research teaches me it’s important to present contrasting views to give a clear picture of the time.

And so I am pleased to present this leaflet, published here for the first time in English, issued in West Berlin in late 1976, by the Ethiopian Student Union in Berlin, a member of the Ethiopian Student Union in Europe. Unlike ESUNA, the similar organization of radical Ethiopian students in the United States, ESUE was dominated by supporters of the All Ethiopian Socialist Movement, or Meison.

Until the summer of 1977 Meison were not only supporters of the Derg, they were important members of its ministries and government. When the Derg declared the EPRP its enemy number one in the summer of 1976, supporters of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party blamed Meison for backing, indeed for instigating, the Derg's repression against the EPRP. After the EPRP responded to the Derg assault by attempting to assassinate Major Mengistu Haile Mariam, they proceeded to target for assassination members of Meison who were providing information about EPRP activists to government death squads. The first successful assassination by EPRP urban guerrillas was a Meison leader, Fikre Merid, a veteran of the student movement in Europe.

This leaflet was issued in response to that action. I republish it here without endorsing its extreme, and as near as I can tell, largely fantastic, claims against the EPRP. I post it without endorsing the assassination of Fikre Merid either. But this flyer stands as vivid testimony to the heated passions and often violent sectarianism of the moment. Equating the leftist EPRP with the rightist Ethiopian Democratic Union and the imperialist CIA was pretty standard Derg slander for the time. It’s worth noting that at this time the Ethiopian government itself was actually still being armed by the United States. This blog has previously discussed the circumstances around the elimination of Sisay Habte, cited herein as background.

This leaflet and many other fascinating documents from the Ethiopian Student Movement in exile in Germany in the 1970s can be found at the Mao-Projekt Archive (http://www.mao-projekt.de/INT/AF/Aethiopien.shtml) I'm exceedingly grateful to Eric Burton at the University of Vienna for the translation from the original German. Some slight editing done by me. Following is the translated original text.—ISH

___

The EPRP, EDU Gang of Terrorists:
With the CIA Against the Ethiopian Revolution

Roughly two weeks ago a leading personality of the Ethiopian revolution and a spearhead of the Ethiopian proletariat, Comrade Fikre Merid, was murdered in cold blood and infamy in broad daylight by the fascist groups of thugs of the so-called EPRP. Thereafter a wave of assassinations targeting revolutionary fighters and workers’ leaders set in.

These infamous actions represent the desperate attempt of the social-fascist EPRP to break off the spearhead of the revolutionary movement of the Ethiopian masses and thus put an end to it.

The background to these fascist assaults against workers’ leaders and other leading revolutionary personalities was the successful abatement of the right-wing military’s and EPRP’s fascist coup attempt in collaboration with the CIA. The attempted coup had the objective to undo the land reform, smash the peasant associations and bring about the disarming of the peasantry, the liquidation of the Marxist-Leninist movement; the smashing of progressive institutions established in the course of the revolution like the political bureau for the Organisation of the People [POMOA—ish], the Marxist-Leninist cadre school, etc.

Tellingly, ultra-right and chauvinist officers like Major Sisay Habte and General Getachew were involved in the EPRP conspiracy. The leaders of this coup attempt had been shot on the spot by their own soldiers; while the roaming EPRP army of bandits, which had been supposed to initiate an uprising in the capital, was denounced on its way there by peasant associations. The weapons, documents and amounts of dollars which were secured in this context are perfect evidence that the CIA was behind this conspiracy.

This fact has exposed EPRP which likes to pose as progressive. This is visible in the fact that during the demonstration of September 12, where at the same time the death of Chairman Mao Zedong and the second anniversary of Emperor Haile Selassie’s downfall was celebrated, 250.000 people demonstrated under the flag of Marxist-Leninist organization, the All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement. They unanimously condemned EPRP’s fascist and counter-revolutionary schemes.

In light of this fact, EPRP reaches for the most obscene means against Ethiopia’s progressive forces. But it will be in vain. Maybe EPRP will succeed in murdering individual fighters, but it cannot stop the revolution, as the broad masses are the motor of history. May the EPRP meddle with the CIA, instigate coup attempts, burn Marxist books — it marches toward a miserable end.

We will convert our grief about the murdered comrades into revolutionary hate, even more so are we determined to fight energetically and alertly against the enemies of the Ethiopian peoples until the final victory.

DOWN WITH THE FASCIST COUNTERREVOLUTIONARIES!

THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF THE MURDERED LEADERS WILL LIVE ON!

THE ETHIOPIAN REVOLUTION WILL PREVAIL!

FORWARD WITH M’E-I-SUN!

Ä.S.U. Berlin

(end of original text; flyer is undated but the assassination of Fikre Merid took place in late September 1976)

1977: Sectarianism in the Student Movement

I posted a review of Makonen Getu’s memoir a few months ago. I ran across a short article in the March, 1977 issue of Forward, published by the pro-EPRP World Wide Federation of Ethiopian Students, that is a short, mocking diatribe against Makonen. There’s an anecdote in Makonen’s memoir that recalls his run ins with political opponents in Europe, so it’s quite interesting to read about it from the other point of view. The hostility between the pro-EPRP and pro-Meison wings of the student movement (WWFES with its largest member ESUNA were pro-EPRP, ESUE was pro Meison), was certainly understandable given the mutual violence taking place back home, but it’s still something to see the hostility expressed so viscerally. Here is the short article, in full. I’m going to leave the spelling as is, including the unusual “Fidda” for Meison leader Haile Fida:

ABOUT THOSE LITTLE FACTS:
From Forward, Newsletter of WWFES, Vol. 1, No. 5, March 1977

The handful of social-fascist clique which, after having been ignominously expelled from ESUE in August, 1975, managed to put its members in the payrolls of the junta’s embassies in certain European countries has recently been located in Sweden carrying out its usual dirty agent provocateur work. Led by a certain maggot called Makonnen Getu, whose skills in feudal intrigues and ability to compose lies and fascist propaganda (as a good disciple of his ill-famous teacher, Haile Fidda) has earned him a handful of followers, this clique tried to stage a pro-junta demonstration in Sweden on March 26 in open cooperation with the junta’s embassy there.

The long-planned and organized showdown ended in fiasco: not only that not a single organization or group showed up but its own paid members and sympathizers boycotted it! All counted 13 people turned out! Well, the junta and the Haile Fidda clique better have this many paid agents!

A Pivotal Moment: The Executions of 1976

The PMAC in the mid-1970s: at center are Mengistu, Teferi, Atnafu.

Continuing a series of reprints from the EPRP’s press of the 1970s, I'm happy to present two related unsigned articles from an issue of Abyot, originally published in August of 1976. These articles deal with the increasing repression by Ethiopia's military regime, foreshadowing the most violent period when the EPRP’s armed urban wing began a series of targeted counter-assassinations only to be met by the massive organized extermination campaign that came to be called the “Red Terror.” 

I have retyped this from the published manuscript, and with a couple minor exceptions, not attempted to add any of my own editing or corrections; some of the writing in these articles is a little awkward.

Following the original text, reproduced here in full, I will add some reference notes on unfamiliar terms and names, and offer a few thoughts of my own analysis, and some correlating details. —ish
 
From Abyot, Vol. 1 No. 6, August 1976:

THE TOTTERING REGIME OF THE DERG

THE ETHIOPIAN PEOPLES REVOLUTIONARY PARTY has consistently affirmed that the regime of the Derg is terribly isolated, fascistic and inherently anti-democratic. For all those who had the common sense and the conviction to see through the regime's demogogy and the apologist press, it was/is clear that the Derg is wobbling on its feet and is clinging to power only due to the backing of US imperialism and the use of brute force against the popular masses. Events since May Day have proven the EPRP's affirmation and pointed out that the popular demand for the establishment of a popular provisional government is the only solution to get the country out of chaos by giving power to the masses.

The Derg's problem, which started the day it took over power and even first when it constituted itself and moved objectively to perpetuate the exploitative system, are insoluble and immense. Its demagogy, its radical rhetorics, its blind repression have not succeeded to arrest the mass struggle. In the cities and the rural areas, the class struggle rages on. It has put out fascistic laws curtailing all democratic liberties, it has outlawed strikes (punishable by death “in serious cases”), made contact with the EPRP a fatal “crime,” arrested and executed countless militants. But the defiant struggle of the proletariat and poor peasantry, as well as that of the democratic petty-bourgeoisie, continued unabated. The EPRP is getting stronger more and more. The forms of combat of the masses are diversifying and deepening. The contradictions within the Derg itself are exploding violently and manifesting themselves in bloody purges. The democratic movement of soldiers is gaining strength.

The Derg has led Ethiopia into a political and economic chaos that has never been seen before. It had crowned terror as its demagogy, which was supposed to have been improved by the Haile Fida group of pro-fascist intellectuals, fails miserably to confuse the masses. Within the present context of developing, rich, complex and difficult revolutionary process in which the EPRP is assuming the vanguard role, the neo-colonial regime of the Derg is doomed.

THE REASONS FOR THE EXECUTIONS OF “19” PERSONS

On July 13, the military regime announced that it has executed “19” persons. Among the executed figured Major Sisaye Derg member and chief of the Political and Foreign Affairs commission, General Getachew Nadew, military governor of Eritrea, seven individuals accused of “economic sabotage”, seven others accused of “leading the country into a bloodbath” (actually a junta monopoly!), two of taking “bribes” and one for “selling state secrets.”

To begin with all evidence points out that the number of executed goes up to 75–81 of whom many were arrested workers, students, etc. Secondly one is obliged to go deep into the reasons for these executions as the junta is a known liar and as it has a habit of mixing leftists and rightists and executing them together under the label of “counter revolutionaries.”

Meison leader Haile Fida, left;
with Negede Gobeze,
in Europe in the early 1970s.

The execution of Sisaye manifests the instability that grips the Derg at such a high level of its power-holders. Though Sisaye, a well-known rightist, was rumored many times to be in the process of preparing a coup d'etat, it seems unlikely that he actually attempted one as the Derg wants to make us believe. Sisay's fate was sealed when he came out in open (in a latest Derg meeting) and uncompromising opposition to the alliance between Major Mengistu (chief of the Derg) and the Haile Fida led intellectuals grouped around the “All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement”, a reformist outfit. Thanks to the backing of Major Mengistu, the Haile Fida clique not only started a purge within the military and the bureaucracy but was filling these vacant posts with its own loyal people. As ministers, political commissars, directors, executives of the powerful “Peoples' Organizing Office”, the Haile Fidas were becoming a threat to Sisay and his group. Their Peoples' Organizing Office was making his political commission powerless. They were sending his elements within the Derg to foreign countries on the flimsy pretext of “political education courses” (Sisaye's assistant, lieutenant Bewketu Kassa, refused to go to Moscow for such an education and is now in hiding). Major Kiros member of the Derg and reactionary head of the “zemetcha” (Campaign of students to teach in the rural areas), was also opposed to the Haile Fida group.

There is no doubt that Major Sisaye was a trusted man of the Americans. When Kissinger visited Kenya, Sisaye talked to him for three hours in the Nairobi Continental Hotel. No doubt they must have discussed the chronic instability of the Derg. America, which plays a double game of fully supporting the Derg and also trying to stabilise it via a coup from within it was no doubt symphatetic to the Major. All in all then, Sisaye's elimination is a victory for the Haile Fida group who have utilised the occasion to continue the purge of all the elements opposed to them. Within the Derg itself, the contradictions sharpen and become concretised between the colonel Atnafu and Major Mengistu groups.

In fact, it is reported that the seven civil servants executed under the charge of leading the country into a bloodbath are pro-Atnafu elements. All are Gojjame Amharas, and Atnafu (who is from Gojjam himself) have been known to use regionalist sentiments to find backing for himself. Reports of other pro-Atnafu elements are also coming in.

The death of General Getachew Nadew seems to have been precipitated by his support to the demand of soldiers in Eritrea who refused to fight and called on the Derg to find a peaceful solution. In fact, the general had brought such a message to Addis Abeba prior to his execution. Though politically a rightist, he was claiming to support the soldiers' demands. As to the other seven who were executed on charges of economic sabotage (for having kilos of red pepper) were added to the list of execution for colour. Some of them were mere guards of stores, one was an old man who rented a store to a merchant, one other was the son of a merchant who had escaped. These people, whom the Derg presented as rich traders were so rich that a collection of funds has been initiated at the Mosque in the market area for their bereaved and destitute families! The person executed for “selling state secrets” was an unemployed who had earlier been demoted (from Major) and expelled from the Army by the Haile Sellasie regime for no other reason than for having sold secrets if the state to a foreign country!

Considering the frequent executions that the Derg carries out from time to time (openly and in secrets), it may seem justified to think that it consults a witchdoctor who advices it to engage in such a practice to exorcise all problems! However, these executions are dramatic affirmations of the intense problems that the Derg faces. It is gripped with a developing mass struggle that in turn fuels and accentuates the internal contradictions of the Derg itself. Sisaye's execution may give space to Major Mengistu but is a poisoned atmosphere. The latitude of manoeuver is restricted by the masses who have entered the political scene with conviction and unity since February 1974 and are NOT at all disposed to assume secondary roles. The mounting repression against the masses show that the Derg's so-called programme has failed, it means that its alliance with the traitorous intellectuals led by Haile Fida has not brought it any solace. It means that we shall witness more executions in the near future as a result of the internal power struggle of the Derg.

Unlike the reformists, we do not have worries or nightmares speculating as to whether it will be the body of Major Mengistu or that of colonel Atnafu that will be riddled with bullets. We shall continue the struggle against the whole fascist batch and imperialism. If we have anything to add to this it is to caution the progressive world about the practice of the junta of killing known reactionaries together with revolutionaries and labelling the whole of them as “counter revolutionaries.” In november 1974 (when it executed feudalists along with more than six democratic soldiers and officers) when it executed Tadesse Birru and student leader Melese Tekle, recently in Agare when it killed militant Zematch student along with feudalists, the junta has shown its sly manoeuvre to cover up its anti-revolutionary actions and dupe the international progressive forces. Such forces, who should expose and attack the repressive junta, need to remain vigilant.

— End of original articles —

NOTES:

Sisaye or Sisay is Major Sisaye Habte, who was referred to in a previous post.

Haile Fida was the leader of the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement, or Meison, which we have discussed here at great length. Long active in the Ethiopian Student Movement in Europe, he returned to Ethiopia after the 1974 revolution, opened a left book shop, and began to act as a political adviser to left-leaning members of the Derg; he was a renowned Oromo linguist. Meison joined the Derg's POMOA, and became instrumental in guiding the repression of EPRP. When Meison fell out of official favor in 1977, Haile Fida went underground. He was captured and executed by the Derg in 1978.

Colonel Atnafu Abate was Vice Chairman of the ruling junta, the PMAC, with Mengistu Hailemariam. He has been briefly discussed in previous posts. At this juncture, 1976, the PMAC was led by non Derg-member General Teferi Bente. Teferi was to be killed in early 1977 when Mengistu seized control of the government. As predicted here, Atnafu and Mengistu eventually came to blows: Atnafu was killed by Mengistu later in 1977.

Tadesse Birru was an Oromo nationalist, a General in the Ethiopian Army under Haile Selassie. He was imprisoned by both the Emperor and the Derg for his activities, and executed in 1975.

SOME THOUGHTS FROM ISH:

One of the major revisionist narratives of post-revolutionary Ethiopian history is that the EPRP initiated the violence that ultimately consumed its urban strength and leadership, and therefore bears the brunt of responsibility for the massive bloodletting that was shortly to follow. It's been pretty clear to me from the course of my research that while EPRP may be accused of escalating the violence, or of unwisely pursuing an unwinnable urban guerrilla strategy, the EPRP was absolutely responding to the Derg's consistent use of brute force to inflict its will. These articles, published in advance of the EPRP's decisions to commence military action against the Derg and to violently retaliate against the pro-Derg civilian leftists like Haile Fida's Meison — who seemed, by the way, to have been more than instrumental in picking out targets for government repression — clearly document an already extant pattern of lethal force...by the Derg, not the EPRP.

The political assassinations had actually commenced in November of 1974 when the Derg executed dozens of officials from the previous governments and the ranks of the nobility, adding in a few of its own members for good measure. Setting aside the ongoing military conflicts in Eritrea and the various localized peasant and national minority uprisings that continued to background the first few years of the revolution, the military regime showed an understanding of the utility of violence. The EPRP members executed along with the others in July 1976 were not the first EPRP members to be killed by the Derg, and they certainly wouldn't be the last.

What these articles also document, is that the military government was itself riven with internal conflict, and violence was a way of resolving those internal contradictions with a certain finality. Ironically it was to be a war with external enemies, the Ogaden war of 1977–78, that would ultimately swing the balance of popular support in the Derg's favor, and suppress for at least a while internal dissent within the regime.

Ethiopian red peppers..the motive
force of revolution?

Here's a fascinating sidebar to the story that Abyot reports. (Well, fascinating to me anyway because I am the world's biggest fan of hot pepper!) In researching the events described in these articles, I came across an article from the New York Times which reported on the execution of General Getachew and went on to describe the role of red pepper, alluded to by Abyot, in the Derg's summer 1976 repression. The article was written by Michael T. Kaufman, and entitled “Ethiopian Regime Puts 18 to Death, Charges Plotting.” It was published on July 14, 1976. Here's an excerpt:

“The refugees, mostly university students who fled what they described as harassment and repression by the military, rulers, say that the execution of some persons charged with the hoarding of red pepper underscores the council's inability to arrange effective food distribution to the urban centers despite one of the most bountiful crops in Ethiopian history.

Peasants in such fiercely independent regions as Gojam are reportedly refusing to harvest fields except for their own needs as a way of protest against what they view as Government interference with traditional cultural and religious practices.

The refugees say that in the last three months an underground group, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party has managed through unions and commercial organizations to get control over the sale and distribution of red pepper, a key ingredient in the preparation of the Ethiopian national dish, watandnjeri, a spicy, curry‐like stew.

The refugees say that the clandestine party had organized the distribution of pepper to villages but had withheld it from the army. They believe that the announced executions of the hoarders was a council attempt to quash the protest.”

The Abyot articles mention the Derg's relationship with the United States. I also checked in with Wikileaks for how these events were seen from the viewpoint of the US Embassy. An Embassy cable from July 23, 1976 reads in part:

“CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING EXECUTIONS ARE STILL UNCLEAR (AND MAY WELL REMAIN SO) INCLUDING REASONS WHY DIRG CHOSE EXECUTION ROUTE RATHER THAN LESS DRASTIC MEASURES. MOVE OCCURRED AGAINST BACKDROP OF FRUSTRATION OVER INTERNAL POLICY FAILURES INCLUDING DISASTROUS OUTCOME OF "OPERATION RAZA" (PEASANT MARCH), PROBLEMS WITHIN AIR FORCE AND AIRBORNE, REPORTED DEMANDS BY SECOND AND THIRD DIVISIONS FOR A RETURN TO CIVILIAN RULE AND PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF ERITREA PROBLEM, LACK OF PROGRESS ON ERITREAN NEGOTIATIONS, SEVERE INFLATION AND SHORTAGE OF SOME IMPORTANT FOOD COMMODITIES IN URBAN MARKETS, AND INCREASED DOMESTIC OPPOSITION FROM THE CLANDESTINE MARXIST GROUP, THE ETHIOPIAN PEOPLE'S REVOLUTIONARY PARTY (EPRP)….SEVERAL SOURCES HAVE TOLD US THAT THE SEVEN WHO WERE EXEUCTED FOR "PLOTTING AGAINST THE REVOLUTION" (REF B) WERE MEMBERS OF THE CLANDESTINE, ANTI-DIRG ETHIOPIAN'S PEOPLE'S REVOLUTIONARY PARTY. ALL OF THEM APPEARED TO BE NORTHERNERS, WHICH IS CONSISTENT WITH WHAT WE ARE TOLD IS THE ETHNIC SOMPOSITION OF THAT MARXIST GROUP. TWO OF THE SEVEN, THE ASNAKE BROTHERS, WERE EDUCATED IN VETERINARY MEDICINE, ONE IN THE US, THE OTHER IN EASTERN EUROPE.”
 
The embassy cables go on to speculate at great length about ethnic conflict within the Derg.

There was clearly some massive mutual ambivalence between US imperialism and the Derg. Nominally, relations were good: some time around this period the US and the Derg agreed to a massive arms deal, which in the event conveniently failed to be consummated before the Derg's 1977 turn to the USSR. Oddly I think the US embassy's general observations bely the EPRP's suggestion that the Derg was a “neo-colonial” regime. While the US embassy was obviously always looking for evidence of communist meddling, their attitude to the military regime is pretty clearly advanced apprehension: they don't talk about the Derg like it was some American creature, a suggestion that historical evidence certainly doesn't validate. Anyway the cables continue to be fascinating reading.

The Ethiopian revolution was about to take a drastic turn. Popular support for EPRP was certainly at a high watermark. Unfortunately, Abyot's predictions about future violence was to be more accurately prescient than its revolutionary optimism about the instability of the Derg and its faltering popular support.

Quick Review: Makonen Getu

The Undreamt: An Ethiopian Transformation
by Makonen Getu
Christian Transformation Resource Center (Philippines), 2004
188pp., paperback

This short but engaging memoir is another by a survivor of the Red Terror period, a member of that generation which went from studying at university to making revolution. What makes this memoir particularly interesting is that the author, Makonen Getu, today a development engineer with worldwide Christian NGOs, was in his youth a president of the Union of Ethiopian Students in Europe, and if I'm reading correctly, for a time a member of Meison's Central Committee during the period it went underground at the height of the “Red Terror.” Makonen's memoir is thus the first English-language account I've discovered from a Meison, rather than an EPRP, point of view.

Makonen tells the story of growing up in hardscrabble rural Wollo province. He becomes adept at herding his family's cattle as a small child. Eventually he is lucky enough to be sent to a school to which he must walk two hours each morning. Schooling awakens ambition in young Makonen, and dedicating himself to his studies he eventually finds himself attending university in Sweden at the height of the Ethiopian student movement in the early 1970s. Sweden seems to be the base of the Meison (the All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement) wing of the student movement, and Makonen is radicalized along with his peers, soon studying Marxism-Leninism along with his professional studies. His youthful poverty means he has a clear picture of the injustice and inequality of pre-revolution Ethiopia and he is highly motivated. He joins ESUE, and eventually becomes its president.

But Makonen does not return to live in Ethiopia until late 1977, after Meison breaks with the Derg and returns to the underground. The Derg's death squads are quickly effective in unearthing much of Meison's leadership, and so Meison asks Makonen to return home to help rebuild the underground apparatus and formulate new strategies for guerrilla resistance and the longterm survival of his organization. The central portion of his memoir, entitled “My Communist Years,” is therefore the most relevant to our studies here.

Makonen arrives home with a bag of books on guerrilla warfare, and makes contact with the underground. He doesn't describe the underground Meison in very much detail, nor does he get into many of the political and ideological details which framed the position in which Meison found itself in late 1977, but his account is still a fascinating read. He spends time dodging former acquaintances, watching friends get arrested or disappear, and using his PhD studies as a cover for his covert organizing. Eventually he seems to realize that Meison is losing its battle against its former allies in the Derg, and he manages to escape the country, flying out of Addis Ababa in 1978 on the same day Fidel Castro was arriving for revolution anniversary celebrations.

Makonen returns to Europe, makes contact with Meison in Paris and Stockholm, but in the process of returning to his studies, converts to pentacostal Christianity and leaves the revolution behind for the world of Christian relief and development agencies.

Makonen comes across as a genuinely decent person. While he abandons his Marxism-Leninism, he continues a dedication to social justice and quality of human life. While the more evangelical portions of the book may distract the historical reader, they're brief, and Makonen doesn't waste time with vitriolic anti-communist denunciations. For a member of Meison, he also doesn't spend much time attacking EPRP. He describes being roughed up in Europe once by members of the opposing student faction, but he doesn't get into the bloodletting between EPRP and Meison after the latter ingratiated itself into the lower levels of the Derg's state apparatus. This might be somewhat self-serving, but it is of course ironic that Meison succumbed to the same state violence it had once fostered.

It's really a shame that there is so little English-language literature from the Meison side of the intra-revolutionary conflict. Andargetchew Assegid has written a history of Meison but it is untranslated from Amharinya. Negede Gobeze's memoir is similarly untranslated. I know there is a document called “Meison's Self-Criticism,” but I have yet to discover whether this is available in translation. And Meison founder Haile Fida's prison testimony before his execution is also available, but again only in the original Amharinya manuscript.

One of the more interesting things I got out of this memoir were some hints that the ideological positioning of the Ethiopian left is more complicated than many observers would have it. EPRP is often called Maoist, and while its diaspora supporters inhabited the Maoist milieu, the label seems inaccurate and superficial. Makonen calls himself and Meison Maoist more than once, reminding us that after Mao's death (1976), the halting of the cultural revolution in China, the coup by Deng Xiaoping's faction, and worsening relations between China and the Soviet Union, that ideological silos were in a moment of flux. Perhaps English-translations of Meison materials will surface shedding more light on its political subleties.

The Undreamt is a worthwhile and quick read. Its descriptions of the author's rural childhood and in the dangerous terrain of the revolutionary underground are vivid and engaging.



.

The Derg “Organizes” Workers

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading through the amazing cache of diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia in the 1970s at Wikileaks. I found this in a cable from January, 1978. As a reminder, the Confederation of Ethiopian Labour Unions was founded in the 1960s, the Derg forced it to disband in 1976, replacing it with the “All Ethiopia Trade Union.” CELU had come under EPRP control; AETU initially was controlled by Meison. It's pretty clear that AETU was not actually an attempt to empower the working class, but to control it. This quick analysis from the US Embassy staff says it all:

3. COMMENT: ALMOST SINCE ITS INCEPTION AETU HAS LIMITED ITS ACTIVITIES, EITHER FORCIBLY OR BY CHOICE, TO POLITICIZATION OF WORKERS AND NON-WAGE DEMANDS. BECAUSE OF THE FLUID POLITICAL SITUATION AMONG THE CIVILIANS, AETU HAS BEEN INDOCTRINATING, AETU HAS MOVED FROM ONE PMAC-SANCTIONED MARXIST-LENINIST FACTION TO ANOTHER WITHOUT MAINTAINING ANY REAL INDEPENDENCE. RATHER THAN BE AN ADVOCATE OF WORKER DEMANDS, AETU HAS BECOME A POLITICAL AND SOMETIMES SECURITY TOOL OF THE PMAC. IT APPEARS THAT PMAC WILL USE AETU TO FILL GAPES IN CADRE FORMATION PROGRAM LEFT SINCE JULY '77 BY DECLINE OF ALL ETHIOPIAN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT (AESM OR ME'I SONE). HOEVER, AETU'S LACK OF TRAINED IDEOLOGUES AND HIGHLY EDUCATED MANAGERS WILL ONLY CONTRIBUTE TO ITS DEPENDNCE ON PMAC FOR ITS CONTINUED SURVIVAL. AS A CIVILIAN ARM OF THE PMAC, ALL AETU LEADERS ARE PROSPECTIVE ASSASSINATION TARGETS. MATHERON (January 13, 1978, source)

Also fascinating is a later cable. A few months later, AETU is reorganized, and another cable details how Meison has been forced out, with a tragically hilarious description of democratic rights.

SUMMARY: ETHIOPIAN TRADE UNION (AETU) "ELECTED" NEW 9-MEMBER EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MAY 25 AFTER EMERGENCY MEETING DURING WHICH FORMER AETU LEADERS CONDEMNED AND DISMISSED. CHAGEOVER REPRESENTS FURTHER DECLINE OF CIVILIAN MARXIST-LENINIST GROUP, ALL ETHIOPIAN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT (AESM OR ME'I SONE), OF WHICH RECENTLY DEPARTED NEGEDE GOBEZIE WAS MAJOR FIGURE. SOVIET AND EAST GERMAN (GDR) INVOLVEMENT IS UNCLEAR AT THIS TIME. END SUMMARY. 1. IN CONTINUING EFFORT TO ELIMINATE ALL ETHIOPIAN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT (AESM OR ME'I SONE) FROM CIVILIAN POLITICAL COMPETITION, ON MAY 25 ALL ETHIOPIAN TRADE UNION (AETU) DISMISSED ALL FORMER OFFICE HOLDERS FROM AETU EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AFTER 37-HOUR EMERGENCY MEETING AND REPLACED THEM WITH NEW NINE-MEMBER COMMITTEE. AMONG REASONS GIVEN FOR CHANGE WERE CORRUPTION, POLITICAL SABOTAGE, ABUSES OF AUTHORITY, ADVANCEMENT OF SELF-INTEREST, EXERCISE OF DICTATORIAL POWERS AND MISAPPROPRIATION OF FUNDS BY ME'I SONE-AFFILIATED LEADERS OF AETU. NEW EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE WAS ELECTED TO MEET CHALLENGE FACING AETU IN ITS ROLE FOR EVENTUAL ESTABLISHMENT OF PROLETARIAN PARTY. 2. AETU STATEMENT ANNOUNCING DISSOLUTION OF FORMER EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE WAS INTERESTING IN ITS FORTHRIGHT DENOUNCEMENT OF ME'I SONE AS A WHOLE, DROPPING PRETENSE OF ME'I SONE "RIGHT-ROADERS" AS ONLY ANTIREVOLUTIONARIES WITHIN ME'I SONE. SLOGAN PREVIOUSLY PROMULGATED BY ME'I SONE, "DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS FOR THE MASSES, NOW", WAS LABELLED SUBVERSIVE BECAUSE DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS CAN ONLY BE OBTAINED THROUGH STRUGGLE, NOT "DELIVERED ON SILVER PLATTER." AETU WAS ALLEGEDLY UNDER "IRON GRIP OF FEW AMBITIOUS PSEUDO-PROGRESSIVE INDIVIDUALS OPPOSED TO CONCEPT OF UNION OF ETHIOPIAN MARXIST-LENINIST ORGANIZATIONS (UEMLO)." THESE INDIVIDUALS FURTHER IDENTIFIED AS ME'I SONE AND CONDEMNED FOR CHANNELING FUNDS OBTAINED THROUGH AETU TO ME'I SONE GROUP, "WHICH HAD BETRAYED THE REVOLUTION."
(May 26, 1978, source)

How the Derg Slandered the Left

Mengistu Hailemariam announcing the “Red Terror” with a bottle of blood, 1977

The Derg, and the forces behind it, waged an open campaign against its civilian left opponents. Initially, the pro-Derg POMOA (Provisional Office of Mass Organization Affairs) seems to have handled not only the propaganda war against the EPRP, but also some of the initial repression. This meant that Meison and Waz League, for instance, were not only arguing in public with the EPRP during the period of relative press freedom in 1975-1976, and were shaping the arguments on behalf of the initially much-less-ideologically-astute Derg, but through their role in the Derg's mass organizations were active participants, indeed leaders, of armed action against EPRP.

Indeed it was this muddying of the difference between certain groups and the state that set off the violent, if defensive, urban guerrilla campaign of the EPRP. Sadly for the Derg's initial allies, the military regime eventually treated groups like Meison and Waz League just like the EPRP, rounding up and imprisoning or shooting their membership. In any case, given the fact that the Derg officers largely lacked leftwing bonafides before seizing power, it’s pretty clear that the Derg’s ideological assault originated with its leftist advisors.

Let me repeat a crucially insightful quote from Kiflu Tadesse: “Because of POMOA/MEISON's involvement [in the Derg government—ish], the main differences that separated radicals themselves became the concern of the state power and apparatus.” (The Generation, vol. 1) The founders of EPRP, Meison, and Waz League had a long history together in the Ethiopian student movement; differences that seemed abstract in the diaspora or on university campuses exploded into matters of life-or-death importance after the 1974 revolution.

The Derg’s running propaganda war had several patterns. The first was to paint its opposition as “anarchist,” “Maoist” or “Trotskyite.” It was an unoriginal line of argument commonly used by pro-Soviet socialists against opponents deemed to be to their left. The second line of argument was to blur the distinction between the regime’s left and right oppositions, thus suggesting that the EPRP was aligned, objectively if not actually, to the monarchist Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU). The final line of argument was that its opponents were engaged in subversion of the nation of Ethiopia to the benefit, if not at the agency of, reactionary separatists, western imperialism, or imperialism’s local allies like the suddenly US-backed regime of Mohammad Siad Barre in neighboring Somalia. This included the occasional accusation that the civilian left groups were creatures of the CIA. The war with Somalia that exploded in 1977–78 was in fact quite successfully exploited to consolidate political authority around the Derg. The military seems to have done so without the aid of left surrogates as the civilian left became tenuous and the presence of Soviet (and Cuban) advisors more ubiquitous.

So with that as context, here are some extended passages from English-language Derg propaganda about its efforts to extinguish domestic opposition to its rule. (By way of contrast, I have previously posted an example of an EPRP polemic against Meison.) Although I’m going to refrain from editorializing, or a point-by-point refutation of the Derg’s attacks, let me just say up front that I find the arguments here self-serving, remarkably hypocritical and cynical, generally unconvincing based on my research, and full of outright lies and distortions. When you consider that these arguments were being used to physically eliminate thousands of leftwing activists—many many of them teenagers—it becomes hard not to see the rhetorical flourishes as obscene rationalizations for murder.

(A note on the first entry below, Dr. Senay Likke was a significant figure in the student diaspora who returned to Ethiopia to become an advisor to the Derg. He founded the Waz League, and died the same day as Mengistu’s February 1977 coup against Teferi Bente. I'm preparing a much more detailed article on Dr. Senay's fascinating and troubling role to be published at a later date. The final two entries below, while not from official Derg publication, are from an official Soviet publication and a Cuban publication respectively, and can safely be presumed to be something approaching the official “party line.”)

From THE ETHIOPIAN REVOLUTION (Tasks, Achievements, Problems and Prospects)
by Comrade Senay Likke
no date or publisher noted, probably 1976 Addis Ababa

“When there is revolution, there is counter-revolution. Where there is success, there is failure and where there are achievements, there are problems. This is the inexorable law of Dialectics. The Ethiopian revolution is no exception ad it has its problems....

Imperialism and reactionary feudo-bourgeois states have not only limited themselves to help organize this union of Aristocrats —the E.D.U. They also serve as the mainstay of other reactionary feudo-bourgeois forces like the so-called Eritrean Liberation Front, so-called Tigrain Liberation Front, the so-called Oromo liberation front and the so-called Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party (E.P.R.P.). The main difference between the E.P.R.P. and the other forces of counter-revolution is that the E.P.R.P. has tried to wear a Marxist garb. It is notoriously known for its revolutionary phrase flaunting — a basic characteristic of Trotskyites. The E.P.R.P. engaged in individual assassinations and lumpen-type gangster terrorism — a characteristic of Anarchists.”

From ETHIOPIA IN REVOLUTION
by the Ethiopian Revolution Information Center, Addis Ababa, 1977

“As the history of all revolutions, particularly that of the Russian, Chinese, Albanian, Korean, Vietnamese and Cuban peoples revolutions amply show that whenever oppressed classes attempt to overthrow an oppressive and exploitative socio-economic order, and begin to build a new, dynamic and revolutionary social system, representatives of the overthrown oppressive and exploitative system, attempt to place political, economic and military barriers on the path of the new social system. The Ethiopian peoples revolution has not been an exception to this dialectical law of revolutionary history....

Ever since the beginning phase of the Ethiopian peoples’ revolution, elements of the overthrown feudo-bourgeois order, agents of imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, such as the comprador and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, the reactionary ruling classes of neighbouring countries, (like that of the Sudan, reactionary Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, North Yemen, etc) seccessionists in the northern region of Ethiopia and the so-called Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Party, EPRP the right wing section of the Ethiopian pettybourgeoisie, have been engaged in numerous counterrevolutionary political, economic and military sabotages in order to foil the oppressed masses revolution. All these counter-revolutionary forces, controlled and guided by their patron, U.S. imperialism, ever since, February, 1974 have been making frantic attempts in every corner of the country with the aim of destroying the revolutionary gains of the oppressed masses of Ethiopia and restoring the defunct feudo-bourgeois order in the country.”


From FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ETHIOPIAN REVOLUTION
Speech delivered by Lt. Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam, Chairman of the PMAC (Derg)
September 12, 1978, Addis Ababa [with Fidel Castro in attendance]
Published by the Ministry of Information and National Guidance

“It can be recalled that imperialism for its anti-revolutionary activities recruited and organized feudalists, the petty-bourgeoisie and the lumpen elements. It deployed the so-called Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party (EPRP), a Trotskyite group, carrying an apparently radical slogan. In unity with the feudalists, this organization established a network of country-revolutionary bases throughout the country. Using the youth and the lumpen, as murderers and assassins, it destroyed the lives of radical intellectuals, many workers, peasants and leaders of urban dwellers associations.... The activities of EPRP such as the burning of crops, the sabotaging of factories, the campaign among workers to decrease production and among peasants not to bring their crops to the urvab areas and the preventing of students from going to school can never be forgotten. On several occasions, it has tried to deprive the mass movement of revolutionary leadership by trying to hatch a right-wing coup d’etat. It has openly supported the Somali invaders and the secessionists in Eritrea.....

This was a time when the country was in a great difficulty and when counter-revolution seemed certain. It also was during this time that the right-roader, the All Ethiopia Socialist Movement (MEISON) betrayed the revolution and fled away from the revolutionary camp. This was also a time when imperialism and other reactionary forces made a major propaganda campaign to distort the image of the Ethiopian revolution....

In this connection we have been observing patiently and calmly...the Chinese situation, whose reactionary stance has become more and more evident. The Communist Party of China which has been degenerating from time to time.... has been a matter of concern among the progressives of the world. Revolutionary Ethiopia has been expressing her concern on this daily worsening reactionary tendency to members of China's Communist Party and to Chinese diplomats who have been to our country on different occasions.... If we consider China's stand regarding the Ethiopian Revolution, when she posed as a supporter at the initial stage and wanted to give some petty assistance, we expressed our goodwill and friendly feelings believe that it was done in a revolutionary spirit. True to the adage, with a handful of grain, approach the full sack, China continued to undermine us internally and divide Ethiopian revolutionaries. Nor did she stop there. By arming the so-called EPRP and separatists in collusion with the CIA, China had also become instrumental for the massacre of any oppressed Ethiopians.”

From THE MEN IN UNIFORM OF THE ETHIOPIAN REVOLUTION
by the Propaganda and Information Committee, Addis Ababa, 1978

“Ethiopia’s men in uniform....have waged a sustained political, ideological and military struggle against the so-called Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party (EPRP), which conducted an all-out campaign to subvert the Ethiopian Revolution. During the white terror launched by the reactionary EPRP, the men-in-uniform have sacrificed a great many lives. By smashing the white terror of EPRP, they have been able to free Ethiopia's youth who were victimized by the EPRP and have enabled it to join the camp of the revolution.... In collaboration with Ethiopia's progressive forces, the men-in-uniform have played an important role in disseminating the ideas of scientific socialism among the laboring masses of Ethiopia, within their own ranks, and with the peoples militia. They are still continuing to do this. They have foiled EPRP's plan of capturing state power via a short cut before the masses were politically conscious, organized and armed....

Since a class shift occurs in all revolutions, the Ethiopian revolution has also witnessed the emergence of rightist tendencies. There is for example the case of the right opportunist All Ethiopia Socialist Movement, (MEISONE), which deserted the revolution at a very critical moment. Ethiopia's men-in-uniform are currently waging a struggle against this rightists MEISONE, just as they struggled against the EPRP....

While the broad masses of Ethiopia were this preparing for the defense of their country, the feudal remnants and the right wing petty-bourgeois groups such as EPRP, EDU the Eritrean secessionists and the right-roader MEISONE infiltrated the Tatek Military Camp and carried out a systematic sabotage to obstruct the training of the militia. They left no stone unturned in their attempt to hinder the recruitment and raising of the militia and to render its rank and rile nonchalant to the call of the motherland....

The struggle against the counterrevolutionaries and all enemies of the revolution started right at the training centre. By exposing each and every one who was engaged in anti-revolutionary activities, the militia soon cleared its own training center of reactionary elements.”

From ETHIOPIA: Years of Revolution
by Valentin Korovikov [Pravda correspondent]
Novosti Press Agency, Moscow, 1979

“Facts have come to light showing that certain diplomatic and some other representatives of the imperialist powers financed terrorist bands and supported the enemies of the Ethiopian revolution. Nor was the CIA idle.

But the forces of reaction pinned their greatest hopes on the petty-bourgeois anarchist leftist group that called itself The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP). It had been formed before the revolution from various student groups and led by Ethiopians who had returned from abroad, also for the most part students. The Eritrean separatists who had a wide network of agents in Addis Ababa also played an important part of this subversive organisation. They believed that their plans for separation could be furthered if the central authorities were weakened and disorganised, and if there was chaos, constant conflict and strife in the country. It was no accident that the EPRP practically always supported the demand for Eritrea's separation from Ethiopia.

The absence of  political revolutionary party in the country, ideological and practical inexperience of the Ethiopian youth, the dizzy successes of the first stages of the revolution, the leftist slogans of rebellion and anarchy, youthful impatience, under the impact of Maoist literature, to achieve socialism at one fell swoop and certain other factors were responsible for the EPRP acquiring some influence in the capital and other towns. This was also promoted by the fact that the EPRP used Marxist terminology which it applied very arbitrarily to Ethiopian realities.

For instance, the EPRP insisted that, since the army was the product of the Ethiopian monarchy, it could not lead the revolution and, consequently, power should be handed over to some sort of people’s government. This demand was put forward practically on the very next day after the overthrow of Haile Selassie. Ultra-revolutionary popular slogans were also used as a smokescreen for attacks on the Dergue and the army, which in the Ethiopian conditions was the sole force capable of completely wiping out feudalism, breaking the old state machinery, defending the country’s territorial integrity and crushing the armed resistance of the reactionaries.”

From ETHIOPIA’S REVOLUTION
by Raúl Valdés Vivó, International Publishers (CPUSA), 1978
translated from the Cuban original, Etiopia, la revolución desconocida, 1977

“It should also be noted that a great many students have adopted an entrenched antimilitarist stance, one that could only be justified if the armed forces had taken the side of the oppressors: in effect, because of this, many students have themselves ended up on the side of the oppressors, whether or not they want to admit it. The so-called Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP), that engages in counterrevolutionary terrorism in the cities, originally drew its ranks from the students. As was only to be expected, they had a source of inspiration in Maoism. For fear of joining the military, who only yesterday were at the service of reaction, and failing to understand that the army today serves the Revolution, these former students have fallen into the hands of the ousted landowners and into the network of plots engineered against the Ethiopian Revolution by international imperialism and Arab reaction. Of course, also present is the petty bourgeoisie's loathing of discipline, organization and giving way to the masses—even though it invokes their name at all times as the principal driving force in history.”

___

FURTHER READING: For an excellent account of how Meison and the Derg fell out with each other, see Dawit Shifaw's memoir, The Diary of Terror. For accounts of how the Derg's words translated into the terror against EPRP, Babile Tola’s To Kill a Generation is recommended, as is the second volume of Kiflu Tadesse's The Generation.

Regarding the Derg’s occasional accusations that the EPRP was backed by the CIA, there is an interesting account in the Wikileaks cables from the US embassy in Addis Ababa in the aftermath of the EPRP’s 1976 assassination attempt on Mengistu. (Herein, “EPMG” means Ethiopian Provisional Military Government, the PMAC or Derg.) The Embassy is upset that the false charges that the US/CIA is complicit with EPRP will reflect badly on the US, which was still aiding the Ethiopian government.

SUMMARY: EPMG STAGED LARGE RALLY MORNING SEPT 26 OF WORKERS FROM PEASANT AND URBAN DWELLERS ASSOCIATIONS TO DEMONSTRATE SUPPORT FOR PMAC AND CONDEMNATION OF SEPT 23 ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON PMAC FIRST VICE CHAIRMAN MENGISTU HAILE MARIAM. DESPITE LARGE CROWDS, RALLY WAS ORDERLY AND PASSED OFF WITHOUT INCIDENT. NUMEROUS PLACARDS LINKING ANTI-REGIME EPRP WITH CIA WERE EVIDENT. THIS CABLE RECOMMENDS THAT NEW REPRESENTATIONS BE MADE TO EPMG IN THIS LATTER REGARD.... 1. AS MEANS OF COUNTERACTING POSSIBLE HARMFUL EFFECTS ON PUBLIC OPINION OF SEPT 23 AMBUSH AND WOUNDING OF MENGISTU, EPMG MARSHALLED ITS FAITHFUL LEGIONS OF PEASANT ASSOCIATIONS AND URBAN DWELLERS ASSOCIATION WORKERS FROM CITY AND NEIGHBORING AREAS TO CONVERGE ON REVOLUTION SQUARE FOR LARGE SUNDAY MORNING SOLIDARITY RALLY. ALTHOUGH STREETS WERE HEAVILY GUARDED BY ARMED TROOPS, FOUR-HOUR DEMONSTRATION WAS ORDERLY THROUGHOUT, AS MASSES PASSIVELY LISTENED TO HARANGUES OF ORGANIZATION LEADERS TO EFFECT THAT REVOLUTION WOULD GO ON, DESPITE DESPERATION EFFORTS OF ANARCHISTS AND IMPERIALISTS, SUCH AS ATTEMPT ON MENGISTU'S LIFE. 2. LARGE NUMBER OF PLACARDS WERE IN EVIDENCE. MOST OF THESE QUOTED MENGISTU TO EFFECT THAT "REVOLUTIONARIES MAY DIE OR BE KILLED, BUT THE REVOLUTION GOES ON." MORE DISTURBING, HOWEVER, WERE FREQUENT REFERENCES TO ALLEGED CIA INVOLVEMENT IN ETHIOPIAN ANTI-REGIME ACTIVITY. AMONG SUCH PLACARDS, WHICH WERE THEN GIVEN PROMINENT PLAY ON NEWS BROADCASTS THROUGHOUT DAY, WERE THE FOLLOWING: "EPRP IS CIA", "AWAY WITH CIA AGENTS, DESGUISED AS TOURISTS", YANKEES GO HOME", NO MORE CHILES AND CIA", PAID CIA AGENTS", "ANARCHISTS DRUNK WITH CIA MONEY". MENGISTU HIMSELF, TO BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE, IN HIS SPEECH ON OCCASION, (OR ANOTHER SEPARATE ADDRESS TO TEACHERS SAME DAY), DID NOT MENTION CIA, MAKING INSTEAD ONLY USUAL REFERENCES TO REACTIONARIES, ANARCHISTS, AND IMPERIALISTS. 
3. THIS LATEST OUTBURST OF ANTI-CIA PUBLICITY AFTER WEEK OF QUIET COULD ONLY HAVE TAKEN PLACE WITH EPMG APPROVAL (OR AT LEAST ACQUIESENCE) AND WOULD APPEAR TO NECESSITATE FOLLOW-UP....OUR ARGUMENT SHOULD BE THAT PLACARDS ARE GRAPHIC EVIDENCE OF CHARGE'S CONTENTION TO KIFLE THAT PMAC OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF SEPT 15, WHICH INCORRECTLY LINKED CIA TO ACTIVITIES OF ETHIOPIAN ANTI-REGIME ORGANIZATIONS, CAN ONLY SERVE TO HAVE HARMFUL EFFECT UPON PUBLIC OPINION AND ATTITUDES TOWARD USG AND ITS REPRESENTATIVES IN ETHIOPIA. HENCE, IT ALL THE MORE IMPORTANT THAT SOME MEANS BE FOUND, SUCH AS DISAVOWAL, TO COUNTERACT HARMFUL IMPRESSIONS CREATED BY PMAC STATEMENTS....

EPRP vs. Meison, 1978

Meison contingent in a pro-Derg rally; possibly May Day 1977

Below I am pleased to reprint an editorial from Abyot, the English-language publication of the Study, Publication and Information Center of the Foreign Committee of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Party, from the February–March 1978 issue. The editorial is a bitter, angry polemic against the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement, known as Meison or Meisone, the EPRP’s primary competitor on the civilian left. This editorial is really evocative of the political discourse of the time.

Meison sided with the ruling military Derg against the EPRP, and its members were among those leftists who trained the military cadre of the Derg in Marxist-Leninist concepts. Meison seems to have integrated itself into the security apparatus of the state, and at least according to the EPRP and its survivors, the initial phase of the “red terror” was directed by Meison instigators working inside that apparatus, and correspondingly, EPRP urban military operations were often directed against specific Meison members who assisted the forces of repression. This polemic dates from the period after Meison and the Derg fell out, when Meison was added to the list of targets of government “red terror.” The conflict between EPRP and Meison, rooted in political differences first nurtured in the student movement abroad that evolved into lethal sectarianism after 1974, was the central tragedy at the heart of the early years of the revolution. Yet, it must be said that the true nature of the Derg is best revealed by its evolving relationship with the civilian left. Shortly after this period, the Derg turned against all remaining civilian left groups, leaving Colonel Mengistu’s party Seded to transform itself into a state socialist party. Meison leader Haile Fida, mentioned in this text, was eventually executed by the Derg. Despite the optimistic tone at the end of this article, by this time the majority of the EPRP leadership in urban Ethiopia had already been brutally eliminated.

I will follow this posting up soon with some polemics from the Derg itself against Meison justifying its expanded campaign of repression. I have not yet sourced English-language materials of this time period from Meison itself. Indeed, unfortunately the memoirs published by surviving Meison veterans seem to have appeared only in Amharic.

(Note: I have not corrected typos or spelling inconsistencies from the original typed and mimeographed text. In a few cases where the original was cut off or hard to read, I have made an educated guess. By “social imperialism” and “social imperialists,” this text refers to the Soviet Union and its advocates.—ISH)

MEISONE’S “NEW” TUNES FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

True enough Meisone never pretended to be a party at first. As its name implied, the “All Ethiopian Socialist Movement”, it posed as a movement and if it ended up being a movement confined to the imperial palace and some government institutions, it is no one’s fault but that of its reactionary line and its anti-people leaders like Haile Fida, Negede Gobeze and some others like Kebede Mengesha and Daniel Tadesse.

In the early days of the February Revolution there was a small group in Addis Abeba which used to put out leaflets, later to be called “Voice of the People”, supporting the demand of the EPRP and the broad masses for the formation of a popular provisional government. However, when Haile Fida returned to Ethiopia after a prolonged sejour in Europe, along with his tetinue, this group underwent a transformation. The local elements who supported the popular demand and stood against the junta were purged. The reformist and reactionary group of Haile Fida took over and later emerged as Meison (or the AESM). Starting with full support to the regime while being outside of the regime and moveing fast to giving full support (in practical sense) to the regime by being the actual functionaries of the regime, the Haile Fida group emerged as the most ferocious enemy of the struggle of the oppressed Ethiopian peoples.

Meisone argued that “the Derg is progressive” and should be given support by revolutionary forces. Hiding behind the slogan of “critical support” the Haile Fida group allied itself with an anti-democratic regime that would have been critically and firmly exposed and combatted. Leaving aside the reformist claptrap about “critical support” let us look briefly if the Meisone grouping did employ this. Primarily, a party or group that allies itself with a regime under the watchword of “'critical support” must have its own independent existence, must have a strong base and must be critical of the regime’s anti-democratic actions while extolling and supporting its progressive ones. We do not subscribe to this opportunist fantasy but that's what its exponents say. Meisone talked a lot about critical support but in practice it not only supported each and every anti-people actions of the Derg but it initiated these repressive acts itself.

Meisone was the organiser, the ideologue, the propagandist and the executioner for the Derg. Meisone filled the bureaucracy, run the so-called Provisional Office for Mass Organizational Affairs (POMOA), etc. At a critical time when the junta was besieged by the mass revolutionary movement and cornered, Meisone mercenaries came to its rescue and beautifying the fascist regime through “Marxist” phrases carried out a wide and extensive campaign of confusion and repression. Together with the full and unconditional backing to the DERG (so much so that there was absolutely no difference practically between Meisone positions and that of the Derg) they undertook the physical liquidation of militants and progressives from all sectors.

Specifically:

1. Meisone undertook a wide campaign against the formation of a provisional peoples government and struggled for the maintenance of the military regime. It labelled this popular demand for the formation of the provisional peoples government as a “reactionary petty-bourgeois demand.”
2. Meisone not only pushed for the banning of the Confederation of Ethiopian Labour Unions, the Ethiopian Teachers' Association, the Ethiopian Women Coordinating Committee, etc but it zealously worked to form a pro-Derg, Derg-controlled trade union, women’s union, etc.
3. Meisone spearheaded the ferocious villification campaign against the EPRP and labelled the EPRP as an “enemy organisation that must be destroyed by force imeediately".
4. Kebede Mengesha, Chairman of the .Addis Abeba POMOA and central Committee chairman of Meisone was the first to propose the carrying out of house to house searches in Addis Ababa. His proposal presented to the Derg in a written form were later applied causing the loss of so many lives amidst the people.
5. Long before the Derg declared total war against the EPRP (September 1976), the central committee of Meisone gathered to vote death sentence on a list of EPRP members and sympathisers. The list was forwarded to the Derg and served as the first base for the massive man-hunt carried in Addis Ababa and other places.
6. The members of Meisone organised within the POMOA and within the Kebeles carried out direct repression on the masses. The examples are many but suffice it to mention that the central committee member of Meisone, Negede Gobezie, led the assault on assembled university students and personally killed scores of students. Abdullahi Yususf, a leading Meisone member, brutally tortured and killed scores of workers and students in Harar, Dire Dawa, etc.
7. On the eve of May Day 1977, using an anti-Derg demonstration as a pretext, Meisone armed groups roamed according to a predetermined plan killing more than 1000 people, majority of whom were young anti-Derg militants.
8. The Meisone leaders evolved the Peasant March project on Eritrea and the EPRA areas in Tigrai in 1976. This project, code named Raza Project was defended by Meisone leader Negede Gobezie (in a talk to Ethiopian Ambassadors in Bonn) as a revolutionary action against “reactionary separatists”.
9. When the Derg members restructured the Derg and reduced the dictatorial powers of Mengistu and tried to curb the killing spree undertaken by Meisone, Haile Fida and his clique schemed and plotted with Mengistu and stage a coup d’état in the palace and executed Major Moges, Teferi Benti and others.

Meisone worked hand in glove with the dictator Mengistu. Their policy was not critical support but uncritical and unconditional backing. And this is hardly surprising as the dictator was implementing the actions drafted and worked out by Meisone. Meisone wanted to be declared the legal and only party ruling the country. On this, Mengistu had other ideas. His group, Sede [sic], was being inflated by forced and whole sale “recruitment.” The contradiction between the dictator and the Haile Fida Group grew and it was not long before Meisone fell like a house of cards. The social imperialists who used Meisone as a bridge to establish good relations with the Mengistu regime knew quite well in which plate they could find their goulash and so remained allied to Mengistu and are helping him establish his “party.”

Meisone was not a group within the camp of the revolution. It had slipped from reformism into outright crime against the people. Meisone members were killers, informers, anti-people vermins. As such, they have been subjected to the wrath of the people and have paid for some of their crimes.

Nowadays, a central committee member of Meisone who has escaped to Europe, the killer and torturer Negede Gobezie, has been giving press interviews in which he has tried to sing “new” tunes and to make it appear as if Meisone had been championing the demards of the masses! Let us briefly look at this “new” position of Meisone (or what has remained of this group).

1. Meisone now claims that it fights for the democratic rights of the masses and the immediate promulagation of these. The truth is that when the EPRP raised the slogan of “democratic rights to the masses without any restriction”, Meisone led the attack against this revolutionary demand and labelled it as a reactionary demand of “anarchists.” One can refer to the various newspaper articles written by Meisone members and the various issues of the Meisone paper, “Voice of the People,”, to see that this group stood against the demand for democracy and favoured the continuation of the military rule without any democracy till the “masses become conscious”'. In fact Meisone argued time and again that democracy did exist under the Derg’s rule.

2. Meisone now claims that it was opposed to the peasant march (Zemetcha) against Eritreans, etc. However, the truth is that the conflict between the regime and Meisone was only as to who (Meisone or Seded) will lead the peasant militia. Making this amply clear, Meisone commented in its organ, “Voice of the People” (No. 59, june 1977), in the following terms:

“Meisone is not a.petty bourgeois pacifist or peace worshipping organization. Thus it supports all the actions in Northern Ethiopia or other areas taken to liquidate reactionaries and to safeguard Ethiopia’s revolution and unity.” (This was written explicitly to counter the “rumors” which, according to Meisone asserted that Meisone was against the peasant march on Eritrea, etc)

3. Meisone now claims that it supports the Eritrean people's right to self-determination and independence. This is another lie. Meisone has been attacking the EPRP as “reactionary” because the EPRP supported the right to independence of the Eritrean masses. Meisone had been crying “death to Eritrean separatists!” in Abyot Square and in its publications. In fact the aforementioned issue of “'Voice of the People” explicitly states on page 3 that “Meisone does not support the separation of Eritrea...and Meisone believes that the solution to the Eritrean question is not independence but the strong unity of the nationalities of Ethiopia.”

Meisone’s new tune is, in short, as false as its previous affirmation of critical support and other related hodge podge. It is another attempt at deception by a group which has taken deception as principle. Meisone tried to play with another devil in the form of Mengistu and found out that the dictator and his followers are as cunning and as devoid of morality as them. Meisone is a victim of its own crimes and if the regime it has tried to strengthen turns against it, we can only say that they got what was coming to them. The Meisone rif raff brought social imperialism into the country and has now found out that the Kremlin criminals have abandoned them and glued themselves to the military thugs. Thus, Meisone may try to wear anti social imperialist masks just as it is trying to e[illegible] the mass demands which it had been fighting against so ferociously just a few months before.

Meisone did a lot of damage to the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed masses. Meisone caused the death of countless invaluable militants of the EPRP and the broad masses. Meisone no longer exists as a viable [word cut off] let alone a movement. However, the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed masses continues to rage unabated. The EPRP continues to grow stronger to deal heavy blows to the enemies of our people. The fate of Meisone shows all opportunists to what end they will come and that all their machinations are futile and will not succeed to destroy the EPRP and the mass revolutionary struggle.

“Against the social-traitors, against reformism and opportunism, this political line can and must be followed in all spheres of the struggle without exception. And then we shall win the working masses. And with the working masses the Marxist centralised political party, the vanguard of the proletariat, will take the people along the right road to the triumph of proletarian dictatorship, to proletarian instead of bourgeois democracy, to the Soviet Republic, to the socialist system.”—LENIN

A Grain of Salt

Ethiopian students in West Berlin, Germany, demonstrate in solidarity with the EPRP, 1977.

This is a widely held view about the generation of young Ethiopian student revolutionaries of the 1970s-era:

“Because of their singular preoccupation with immediate seizure of state power, both [factions of the student movement] mistook the trees for the forest. One side [EPRP] thought violent opposition to the Dergue would secure them state power, while the other [MEISON], which did not have much of a following inside Ethiopia, thought that tactical alliance with the Dergue would bring them to power, after using and then disposing of the soldiers. Both failed in their respective adventures.

“What needs to be underlined is that between 1970 and 1974, the vast majority of rank and file students at home or abroad were not aware, at least for a good while, that they were being used as puppets of two underground communist parties that were struggling for hegemony of the student movement, and through it, of the revolutionary process in Ethiopia. After coming out of the closet in 1974–75, both parties continued to use the student movement as their social base. No revolution has ever succeeded with students as its social base. As such, it was inevitable that the student-based communist parties would fail in their quixotic efforts to seize state power. The tragedy is that they used students as cannon fodder for their blind ambitions. As I used to say at the time, the leaderships of these parties have criminal responsibility for the thousands of students who died needlessly.” —Professor Alem Habtu, 2015. (Alem was a leader in the expatriate Ethiopian Student Movement in the very early 1970s in the United States, and the brother of Mesfin Habtu)

Symbolic Confusion 2 - Hammers and Sickles

From Abyot, 1978. EPRP, EPRA, EPRYL, ELAMA logos.

The hammer and sickle icon was developed in Russia during its 1917 revolution. The hammer symbolizes the proletariat, and the sickle the peasantry. Like Ethiopia, Russia was a country with vast social forces outside the urban working class, and the Bolsheviks wisely sought ways to symbolically reflect this necessary alliance of power and unity against oppression and exploitation. The hammer and sickle became the symbol of communism, wielded proudly by socialist revolutionaries of every imaginable ideological stripe around the world, and wielded menacingly by anti-communist reaction as proof of communism's authoritarian violence.

While the hammer and sickle was replaced by various socialist movements, especially in developing countries seeking to suggest independence from the Soviet Union, it seems to have become the absolute symbol of the Ethiopian revolution's socialist ambitions.

It was adopted by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party, despite the EPRP's general animosity to the modern revisionist Soviet leadership, and used by their mass organizations like the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Army (EPRA), the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Youth League, and the EPRP's revolutionary trade union ELAMA.

But in altered form, the hammer and sickle was also used by the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (Meison), EPRP's main leftist competitor, and by EMALEDH, the Union of Ethiopian Marxist-Leninist Organizations that was an abortive attempt to unite Ethiopia's civilian left behind the Derg. And of course the hammer and sickle was adopted by the Derg itself, as a symbol of its eventual governing face the Workers Party of Ethiopia, and of Ethiopia's general allegiance to the socialist camp.

Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Army logo (EPRA)

EPRP logo per Wikipedia

Meison journal cover, from Red Terror museum

Meison logo per Wikipedia France

Meison logo per Wikipedia

EMALEDH's Yehibret Demts, Feb 1979

EMALEDH float? Pro-Derg rally.

Derg banners and billboards, Addis Ababa