Book Announcement!

I am excited to announce that the Foreign Languages Press of Paris, a relatively young publishing house based in the Maoist (MLM) movement, will be releasing my book Like Ho Chi Minh! Like Che Guevara! The Revolutionary Left in Ethiopia, 1969-1979 on September 1, 2020.

FLP is named in tribute to the classic publishing house of revolutionary China which spread revolutionary literature around the globe in the 1960s and 1970s. My book, over 500 pages with almost 1,000 footnotes, is a documentary history of the Ethiopian revolution, with focus on the story of the two main civilian left parties, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and the All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement (Meison), whose differing visions of revolution and socialism were at the core of the unfolding events of the 1970s which ended in bloody tragedy. I present extended excerpts from period documents, classic Marxist writings, eyewitness histories, and declassified spy memos to tell the story of the politics of the period.

The book will be available to order from the FLP's web shop as soon as it is formally released; the cover price and shipping costs will be accessible to most. A virtual online booklaunch event will take place the evening of Sunday, August 30 (USA time). See the FLP website for details.

 I will have more information on the volume and other new writing after release.

Celebrate Red October: "Socialism without democracy is unthinkable"

EPRA fighters in a base area, late 1970s

November 7, 2017 in the Gregorian Calendar marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution of October 1917 (where the Julian calendar was observed). Despite its eventual defeat, the Russian Revolution ushered in an era where the old systems of oppression and exploitation were fundamentally and fiercely challenged as models for the organization of society. It marked the first successful attempt by socialist revolutionaries to overthrow capitalism and replace it with the rule of the common people. It was a watershed moment in human history, and capitalism and imperialism spent the rest of the twentieth century trying to reverse its successes. As a timely series of articles commissioned by the African American Intellectual History Society for its Black Perspectives feature on the Russian Revolution and the African Diaspora explains, the Russian Revolution came even to inspire a generation of revolutionaries around the world: and Ethiopia was no exception. As students of the Ethiopian revolution know, this was a complicated legacy, and during the Derg time, both pro- and anti-regime forces would claim the same socialist legacy as their own. In my opinion, however, any claim to inherit the spirit of the Russian Revolution by the military regime was entirely illegitimate.

To mark this occasion and provide some clarity, I am transcribing and republishing an article on the meaning of socialism from Abyot, information bulletin of the Foreign Committee of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Party, that in turn translates and summarizes an article from the EPRP’s clandestine journal Democracia. This article appears in the Feb.–March 1979 issue (Vol. 4, No. 2) of Abyot. I have re-typed this article and errors of transcription are my own; I’ve made a handful of small spelling and punctuation corrections for legibility. I assume the cited Democracia article is translated to English from the original Amharic by the Abyot editors.

In today’s post-Soviet era, many of these arguments about how the Soviet Union came to betray the original vision and intent of Lenin and the Bolsheviks seem somewhat distant, but in fact they should inform any sober assessment of the continued relevance of socialism to the still-necessary liberation of the world’s peoples. —ISH

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DEMOCRACIA Exposes the ‘Socialism’ of Social-Imperialism

In its Volume 5, No. 4 issue, Democracia, organ of the EPRP, exposes the ‘socialism’ of social-imperialism.

For the broad masses, says Democracia, there is no socialism without democracy and there is no democracy without socialism. Democracy is necessary and useful for the construction of a socialist society. However, social-imperialists and revisionists, presenting themselves as examples are trying to show that ‘socialist construction’ is possible with the absence of any sort of democratic and human rights. That is not all. They have gone to the extent of trying to show how “socialism” can be built under fascism. Exposing their true colours, however, they have shown that democratic and human rights erode socialism, and that socialism and democracy are mutually exclusive.

EPRP’s position, continues Democracia, on the relation between socialism and democracy is diametrically opposed to the position of the social-imperialists and revisionists. At a time when all sorts of anti-socialists are professing about socialism, we have found it necessary to explain in short the principal charateristics which scientific socialism differs from all the ‘socialisms’ of the anti-socialists.

Socialism, says Democracia, is a system which arms the proletariat and broad masses with broad democracy. Socialism is a system which is based on the power and supremacy of the proletariat. Socialism is a system in which the proletariat and broad masses organize themselves in many forms to be able to administer themselves. Socialism is a system in which the proletariat and broad masses acquire more democracy, welfare and development than the capitalist system in the political economic and cultural fields. In the Soviet Union, however, the party which still works in the name of the proletariat is trampling the proletariat and broad masses underfoot and deprives them their democratic rights. It has kept the proletariat aside from political power. It has concentrated all the power in its hands and has become an anti-socialist party of few bureaucrats which defends their bourgeois interests.

Thus continues Democracia, the first socialist country has been turned to be a social-imperialist country. As a bad example and through its practices, policies and influence it has and is still challenging, opposing and fighting against the purity, expansion, development and triumph of socialism. Putting the parties in Eastern Europe, Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam, who are in power, under control; the Soviet Union has also had these parties establish an anti-democratic and anti-people rule.

The dictatorial rulers of the Soviet Union, says Democracia, have and are still attempting to present the rules of their anti-people and anti-socialist puppets in a number of countries as ‘socialist’. In contradistinction to the struggle of the masses for democracy and socialism, the Soviet rulers have presented the anti-people rule of their puppets as ‘socialist’ in an attempt to prolong the life of the reactionary system and destroy the peoples’ resistance. Hasn’t the demagogue Mengistu’s fascist regime calling itself ‘socialist’ also called the proletariat, broad masses and the proletarian party counterrevolutionaries?

For the social-imperialists and fascists, continues Democracia, socialism means a system of which a regime of handful few dictators has the control of the masses and when the people do not have any control of the government. For them, socialism is being against democracy, anti-proletarian, anti-people and which combines the reactionary superstructure and practices which enables them to maintain their fascist and exploitative rule. The difference between the socialism we are fighting for and the ‘socialism’ of the social-imperialists and fascists is as wide as heaven and earth. To us socialism is a system in which the proletariat and broad masses hold state power; in which they take part in all responsible positions, in which the right of the people to call or change the officials of the government elected locally or at a country-wide level is guaranteed, in which there is a proletarian- led regime that stood for the broad masses of the people.

For the social-imperialists and fascists, ‘socialism’ means depriving the proletariat and broad masses of the people their democratic and human rights; depriving them the right to free speech, press and assembly; and depriving them the freedom of movement in their own country. ‘Socialism’ for the social-imperialists and fascists is a system in which the masses are subjected to constant repression, harassment, torture and execution until they bow to silence. For us, socialism is the exact opposite of this. Socialism without democracy is unthinkable. Socialist democracy is different from and superior to bourgeois democracy both in breadth and form. Socialism is not only a system in which the proletariat and broad masses have the right to free speech, press and assembly and organization; but also the right to sound out their opinions or protests against their regime or any organization without restrictions. Under socialism the masses also have the right to take a different position and make it public, the right to protest. Socialism cannot be a system in which a democracy narrower than bourgeois democracy reigns.

A system in which the proletariat and broad masses do not directly take part in the excercise of power, says Democracia, cannot be socialist. There is no socialism if the proletariat and broad masses do not take part in decisions of government affairs and if they do not administer themselves in a democratic system. Socialism is not democracy for the ruling class and government officials and dictatorship over the masses as it is like in the Soviet Union and its allies. Socialism cannot be a system in which those who oppose are imprisoned, kept in concentration camps, tortured, executed and where the freedom of speech of the masses is abolished.

Under socialism political power is in the hands of the proletariat and broad masses. Thus the existence of the special and highest form of organization of the proletariat, its weapon of struggle and leader, the proletarian party, is indispensable. Without its party the proletariat cannot seize political power. For us, however, a proletarian party is not something that the masses would worship and follow blindly because it claims to be one. It should be one which the masses support and have confidence on due to the correctness of its political positions, the struggle it conducts, its method of work and the day-to-day activity it performs. A proletarian party cannot replace the proletariat to make the revolution. It cannot be commanding and know-all against the proletariat and peasantry once it seizes political power. It is the proletariat and broad masses who are the creators and the driving force of the locomotives of history. This is true under socialism too. The guarantee of the existence of a genuine proletarian party, its source of power and legal base are the masses. The right of the proletariat and broad masses to control their party, to criticize the party, to express their views before any important decision is taken, to oppose or support or to take part in decisions is guaranteed. Socialism does not mean where a party isolated from the masses imposes its dictatorship over the masses as it is in the Soviet Union.

For the social-imperialists, socialism means when few self-proclaimed “geniuses” control state power isolating the party members, suppressing inner-party democracy and speak on behalf of the members of the party. It means where few (or one) individuals become autocrats worshiped and feared like gods. For us socialism means where party members discuss and decide on important decisions, where the leadership is everytime elected, where the party works on the basis of collective responsibility and leadership, where a genuine party which do not have mini-gods seize state power.

For the social-imperialists and fascists socialism is where a policy of chauvinism reigns supreme in the name of ’unity and indivisibility,’ the right of oppressed nations is trampled under the rule of the gun and where national oppression is maintained in many forms.

For us, socialism is a system in which the equality of and right of nations to self-determination is guaranteed; in which the languages, culture existence are respected, in which oppression nations use their own language as the medium of instruction; where there are no national privileges; where unity and assimilation is created on the basis of voluntariness and equality; where proletarian internationalism flourishes; and which is free of chauvinism and narrow national mindedness.

For the social-imperialists, socialism means depriving the political and organizational rights of other political organizations and putting them under their tutelage. It means to claim the right of invading other countries, exploiting peoples, controlling other goverments and abolishing their state sovereignity.

Socialism is democracy, equality and respect of people and countries, brotherhood and proletarian internationalism, justice and peace. What social-imperialism practices is the invasion of Czechoslovakia, dispatching mercenaries to put down national liberation movements of other countries. As an imperialist power, it also competes and contend or collude and agree with other imperialist powers for the plunder and division of the world.

+ + + +

The Face of Repression: Political Prisoners

Flyer from the Ethiopian Students Union in Berlin, October 1978

I’m pleased to present another original translation of an Ethiopian Student Movement flyer. This flyer was issued in West Berlin, nominally a part of West Germany, in October of 1978. By this time the worst of the so-called “Red Terror” had more or less run its course: the Derg and its agents had massacred untold thousands of civilian leftists, now including supporters not only of the EPRP but of Meison and WazLeague, and begun to consolidate its rule, its popular support bolstered by its defeat of the Somali invasion of 1977–1978. But the Derg’s repression was not over; the legacy of imposing its will on the Ethiopian people would be jails and prisons filled with dissidents. We can see that the rarified atmosphere of sharp political debate in the Ethiopian student movement has begun to take a back seat to calls for simple and concrete solidarity against repression, as it becomes clear that the Derg’s two years of vicious repression have borne bitter fruit.

Thanks again to the MAO Projekt for excavating and archiving these leaflets, and to comrade LM for the translation from German to English. I’ve made some minor edits to the translation.—ISH

———

THE SITUATION OF 20,000 POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA

Back of the flyer

The struggle of the Ethiopian peoples for independence, democracy and progress against the reactionary forces and the military junta led to many bloody disputes and have cost many people’s lives. The movement of over sixty nationalities of Ethiopia for the right of self-determination has been quelled repeatedly with armed violence by the military junta. In his speech in September 1978, Mengistu Haile Mariam admitted that during the wars between regular government troops and the liberation fighters in Eritrea over 70,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands made homeless. In the Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia around 100,000 people were killed. At the same time several thousands of the oppressed minorities got shot by the chauvinist Amhara (“Neftegnas”).

For over a year the junta has been hunting down the leaders of the peasant, trade union, workers, women and youth organizations, religious leaders and intellectuals, who struggle for national independence and sovereignty, equal rights, wealth, progress and democracy; both openly and secretly with soldiers and death squads. Daily the number increases of those who are murdered during the day or night in their houses, in their workplaces, on the field, on the street, in private and public transport. We know from unofficial sources that almost 20,000 political prisoners are jailed under inhuman conditions in prisons. Because these 20,000 prisoners “cost much money” for the military junta, it cedes them — without any medical care — to illnesses and epidemics and starvation. Thousands have been partly or fully crippled by brutal torture and or have lost their mental abilities by brain injures. Many are disappeared, some are killed.

Since the end of September 1978, especially during one week, in both Ethiopian radio broadcasts “Radio Ethiopia” and “Voice of Revolutionary Ethiopia” and the two Ethiopian newspapers “Ethiopian Herald” and “Addis Zemen” and in public speeches of the members of the military junta the continuing of the “red terror” against political enemies is being propagated; their slogans include, “The prisoners must become canon fodder!” or “Instant execution of all prisoners!”. Not long ago we got information from unofficial sources, that the military junta already murdered some political prisoners; some are missing and the others are waiting for the so called “red terror”.

We Ethiopian students who live in Germany appeal to all who are for peace, freedom, independence and democracy, to unite in solidarity with the Ethiopian people’s masses and to condemn the repressive actions of the military junta and protest against it in public. We invite all democratic forces to withdraw support the military regime and stand against them with the democratic cause in Ethiopia. Challenge the Ethiopian newspapers “Ethiopian Herald” and “Addis Zemen” at the Ethiopian embassy in Bonn, Brentonastr. 1!

For further information on the founding of a committee for the release of political prisoners in Ethiopia contact: A. Selassie, Postfach 104804, 69 HEIDELBERG

(Ethiopian Students Union - Berlin) 

The attached protest letter should be sent directly to the Provisional Military Council on the following address: P.M.A.C. PO Box 5707, ADDIS ABEBA, ETHIOPIA

Senay Likke’s American Connection

Clip from The People’s Tribune with a photo of Dr. Senay Likke

The People’s Tribune was the journal of the Communist Labor Party of USNA, an American left party that was led by veteran communist Nelson Peery. The paper is still published even though the CLP itself no longer exists by that name. The CLP was formed in the early 1970s by the California Communist League, part of the burgeoning New Communist Movement that channeled so many people radicalized by the late 1960s student and anti-war movement into new communist organizations that looked more toward the leadership of Mao and People’s China over the ossified and reformist pro-Soviet Communist Party or the parties of the Trotskyist tradition.

Dr. Senay Likke was a leader of the Ethiopian student movement in the United States, but also a cofounder of the CLP. Upon his return to Ethiopia in the early 1970s, he was one of the chief conduits of Marxist-Leninist ideology to the Derg, and became a staunch supporter of the military regime. He became one of the leaders, with Meison’s Haile Fida, of POMOA, the Provisional Office of Mass Organizational Affairs, the so-called Politburo of civilian leftists who were Mengistu Haile Mariam’s advisors and supporters. Senay had long been a political opponent of the wing of the Ethiopian revolutionary student movement that would coalesce into the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party; the enmity carried forward after 1974 would morph into a lethally antagonistic relationship. The EPRP would accuse Senay Likke of being one of the chief architects of the Derg’s violent repression against the EPRP that began in earnest in late 1976. In a coup d’etat on the morning of February 3, 1977, Derg vice chair Mengistu executed the Derg’s chairman, General Teferi Benti, and several others, seizing full control of the military government for himself. That same day a disgruntled officer named Yohannes Mitike, who may or may not have been influenced by the EPRP, retaliated by assassinating Senay Likke in his offices, along with Derg security chief Daniel Asfaw.

Here is an obituary from Senay’s CLP comrades featured in the People’s Tribune of February 15, 1977. Ironically, Senay Likke’s followers would be purged and largely exterminated by the Derg in 1978 as Mengistu moved to eliminate leftists whom his Soviet advisors accused of being influenced by Maoism. Despite that fact — and the murder of more of its Ethiopian comrades — the CLP continued to politically support the Derg regime.

A short pamphlet by Senay Likke can be downloaded here. I find its politics somewhat horrifying, but for all the details on that, you’ll have to read my book.

Thanks to the editors of the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism Online for this newspaper clip. The original text follows.

____

Long Live the Ethiopian Revolution

Word has been received, confirming the murder of Comrade Senay Likke, Vice-Chairman of the Political Bureau of the governing Dergue, in Addis Ababa, February 3.

The Political Bureau of the Communist Labor Party expressed to the party cadre, and to all progressives, our profound grief and deep sense of loss.

Comrade Senay, a soon of poor peasants, was a revolutionary of exceptional intelligence and capabilities. After winning a scholarship, Comrade Senay came to the U.S. to complete his education. During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Comrade Senay selflessly contributed his considerable talents to the formation of a real Marxist-Leninist party in the US. His theoretical clarity, principled activity, and ideological firmness, was of great value during the struggle to consolidate our Party. A devoted patriot, Comrade Senay returned to Ethiopian and plunged into revolutionary activity. 

Our Party pauses in this moment of sorrow to reaffirm our commitment of comradeship and support to the valiant Ethiopian people and to their history-making revolution.

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

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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)

Translation Assistance Needed!

Hey friends.

I have several documents of different lengths in Amharic, some short documents in German, and some medium documents in French I could use translation help with. They would be a big help for my research/book project. Are any of my readers out there willing to help?

Please leave a confidential comment with your email address. I will not publish your comment but will reply with my own email address and a description of what I need translated.

Any translations would be credited here and and in my book, and I would probably post at least excepts here, with your permission.

Thanks!
ISH

Quote of the Day: Prescience

“The demand for the creation of a provisional government is not an idyllic dream as the RIGHT OPPORTUNIST trend in our movement miserably try to blabber but is dictated politically by the urgent need of a popular organ of power to execute and implement these immediate tasks of the revolutionary movement…. What miserable pedantry and lack of political vision that this impotent clique in our movement cannot provide a concrete political alternative to this transition of power and the proper organ necessary that could be instrumental in its execution, except that frantically shrieking the strategic slogan ‘Down with imperialism and feudalism’. It should be observed that the position of RIGHT OPPORTUNISM in our movement contains a dangerous liquidationist character. By evading the concrete issue of transition of power, it disarms the masses politically and exposes the revolutionary movement to the swindling and usurpation of its legitimate right by a self-styled military junta…. In our eyes, the decisive battle between revolution and counter-revolution both within the Armed Forces and in the political life of the country at large will be decided by the urgent political question whether the popular will triumphs in the constitution of a provisional democratic government or in its defeat to be replaced by a rabid cry of ‘law and order!’” —Editorial, Bulletin of the World Wide Federation of Ethiopian Students, Vol. 2, No. 1, Oct. 1974, (published in Geneva, Switzerland)

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!

Late 1976: A Change in Course?

FORWARD, newsletter of WWFES, January 1977

In late 1976 the Derg was rife with internal conflict. Following the elimination of Major Sisay Habte in the summer, tensions increased between Mengistu and his backers in Meison and WazLeague on the one hand, and others in the upper echelons of the Derg including General Teferi Benti, head of state, vice chairman Atnafu Abate, and others including Alemayahu Haile. A number of the regime's reforms seemed to be faltering, and despite a dramatic uptick in violence between the military and the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Party following a failed assassination attempt on Mengistu Hailemariam and the assassination of a number of Meison figures by the EPRP's urban guerrillas, nobody seemed to be decisively winning the war for public opinion.

At the end of the year, the Derg announced a number of internal changes it hoped would start to cool things down. Although Mengistu, still the Derg’s number two, was not to be completely defanged, his allies in POMOA like Haile Fida and Senay Likke were given notice that POMOA was not necessarily the vehicle for future civilian power its members hoped. These reforms culminated with the late January 1977 speech by Teferi Benti that precipated Mengistu's move against him when he called for national unity and refused to demonize the EPRP. At the beginning of February, Mengistu had Teferi, Alemayahu and several others executed, and Dr. Senay Likke was shot by a disgruntled Derg member in a palace shoot out.

The February events were a watershed moment when Mengistu seized total control of the military government, and when the most disastrous period of repression against the EPRP was begun. This article, from the January 1977 issue of Forward, published by the World Wide Federation of Ethiopian Students and representing the pro-EPRP Ethiopian student diaspora in the United States and Europe, seems to have been written after the internal reorganization was announced, but before the fateful events that would change everything at the beginning of the new year.

The polemical and rhetorical flourishes here are vivid: yet within the dated language and what we know now to be the misplaced certainty of its revolutionary optimism, this article contains some clear insights into the differences between the Derg and the EPRP opposition, including some clear explication of the realities of class rule in the new “Socialist” Ethiopia. The article, and accompanying cartoons, doubles-down on the characterization of the Derg as “fascist.”

I have retyped this article from the original, without editing or correcting mistakes in the original printed piece except for a few minor instances for clarity.

JUNTA “REORGANIZES”: IT IS ANOTHER FRAUD YET!

from FORWARD, Vol. 1, no. 3, January 1977

Cartoon accompanying this article from FORWARD

The last several weeks have seen a lot of fanfare being made regarding the most recent proclamation which "determines" the "powers and responsibilities" of the Ethiopian military junta and that of its Council of Ministers. The junta's mass media has been making wild claims about the "revolutionary" and "Marxist-Leninist" nature of its recent exploits — just like countless other decrees and proclamations that it had issued in the past. And once again the international press, bourgeois and revisionist alike, is echoing this same declarations. The Ethiopian masses, whose heroic struggle and combative initiatives are dealing heavy blows to the fascist junta, have long understood that this and the many others issued in the past are merely expressions of despair and arrogance at worst and sugar-coated bullets of counter-revolution at best. The deceptive nature of this manuscript as well as the disgusting serenade played by the junta's mass media and its"friends" elsewhere merits a few comments.

Any action of a government is determined by the nature of the state and the class it represents. The state in any society is not a body that stands above classes or reconciles class differences, but rather an organ of class rule by which a definite class exercises its dictatorship over other classes. The different kinds of states obtaining in the world today can be categorized broadly into two types of dictatorships — revolutionary dictatorships and counter-revolutionary dictatorships. In the former case, we are referring to the people‘s democratic dictatorship based on the alliance of revolutionary and democratic classes and social strata under the leadership of the working class and its party as well as the state system of the dictatorship of the proletariat (i.e. socialist states). By counter-revolutionary dictatorship, we mean to refer to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and all other reactionary classes over the broad masses. This could assume a multitude of forms.

The present day Ethiopian state, controlled as it is by the fascist military goons and the social-fascist petty-bourgeois propagandists, both serving the bureaucratic and compradore bourgeoisie, falls within the latter category. Despite the fact that it has meticulously attempted to hide its counter-revolutionary nature by persistently masquerading behind high-sounding "socialist" phraseology and pompous pronouncements and slogans, and this thanks to the Haile Fida-Senai Likke clique of social-fascist intellectuals, it remains to be a puppet of imperialism, especially that of U.S. imperialism, and is used as an instrument for oppressing and exploiting more than 90% of the Ethiopian peoples.

Why are we then being bombarded with such proclamations? What is their real nature? The answers are quite clear. When reactionary classes are besieged, they are led into hypocrisy and into utilizing dual tactics of repression and deception. Hence, they steal the slogans of the masses in order to benumb and confuse the masses so as to preserve their class rule, if only in a new form. Even the notorious Hitler has to masquerade himself as a ‘national socialist,’ as a ‘friend of the working people,’ etc. But Hitler, if it is to be remembered, came to no good end. The military clique and its cohorts are of the same stuff. In their own stupid way they try to sound ‘revolutionary while practising counter-revolution. The words of the great proletarian leader and teacher summarize all of this. “The victory of Marxism in theory,” said he, “compels its enemies to disguise themselves as Marxists; this is the dialectics of history.” (Lenin, “The Historical Destiny of the Marxist Theory”).

In light of the above as well as the unequivocally proven fascistic nature of the Ethiopian junta, how should one see this latest decree about the "new" organizational structure? Under this proclamation, the derg consisting of all its members is called the "Congress" which will have a "central committee"  of 40 and a "standing committee" of 17. Such a reorganization, we are told, is in line with "Marxist-Leninist principles"! And whether one likes it or not, what the junta would like us believe is that it has finally emerged as a Marxist-Leninist organization! But one may be inclined to think that a mere regrouping and change of names cannot transform reality; if this hadn't been so, Ethiopia would have been a socialist country two years ago. One "need' not ask such a question though as one would then become "anarchist", "anti-revolutionary" and what not — labels that the Junta so lavishly attaches to revolutionary and democratic forces.

The other parts of the proclamation deal with the “powers” and "responsibilities" of each of the organs of the derg — its chairman, vice-chairmen, committees, the "congress" and their relations to the council of ministers. Let us just take a pick at their duties proclaimed therein. “The PMAC members assigned to various posts will have the responsibility of tracking down economic saboteurs, bringing them justice...," says one. "The duties of the PMAC members concerned include the disarming of reactionaries both in rural areas and urban centers and arming defence squads guarding the revolution...", says another. We all know, of course, that when the Junta says tracking down economic saboteurs", it means massacring revolutionary workers; when it says "disarming reactionaries, it means disarming the peasants and arming the feudalists and its own hitlerite storm troops; and when it says "guarding the revolution",  it means guarding the counter-revolution. All of these is borne out by the 2-1/2 years of ·its fascist rule! What this reorganization does, in sum, therefore is legalizing the already practised rights of each and every member of the Derg.

But why come at such a time? Since it usurped power, the junta has been beset with contradictions and factions even within its own ranks. Attempted coups and counter-coups, rumours of impending coups, are not unusual these days. Recently, for example, the Abune (the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church) had to interfere in order to avoid "bloodshed" of an impending coup, and to "safeguard the revolution' (!). Recent dissatisfactions amongst members of the armed forces which are expressed through mass defections as well as low morale are also shaking the very foundations of its power. Hence this proclamation is an attempt to cover up this state of desperation and to hoodwink the people into believing that there is a "collective" leadership, that the derg is a "democratic" body, etc. But facts are facts and nothing can be further from the truth. Teferi Benti or mengistu, Atnafu or any other demon can not change the nature of the state by decree!

Another cartoon from the January 1977
issue of FORWARD.

One other aspect of the decree which demands close scrutiny is the expressed desire of the junta in coordinating "efforts of progressive forces (read social-fascist renegades and pro-junta elements) to establish a working class party". This, of course, is not a new "effort". Such a talk has been in the air for over two years. We were told at that time that it will be a party of "all classes", "of all people", etc. But for quite a while now the talk about a "working class party has been getting louder and louder. Why this sudden "change of heart"? Since the EPRP, the vanguard of the Ethiopian proletariat and the undisputed leader of the Ethiopian New Democratic Revolution, declared its program over a year-and-a-half ago (after a 3-1/2 years of clandestine existence), the junta and the renegade clique have been thrown into a fit of rage and desperation and their vile scheme of presenting their so-called "party" was heavily frustrated at that time. After that their "Ethiopian socialism" was re-baptized to "scientific socialism", followed by such pompous slogans as "a new democratic revolution", "revolutionary united front", "a working class party", and what not.

What sort of a working class party can they possibly talk about? You have guessed it all: a “working class party” without the working class, no doubt!! The heroic Ethiopian proletariat, which has unequivocally supported, embraced and defended the EPRP, has already passed its verdict on such manoeuvres of the junta when it resolved in its September, 1975 Congress as follows:

"...such being the reality and when the government has suppressed and trampled upon democratic rights, condemned and persecuted the organization of the masses, a party which is formed by the government for its own interest with hand-picked individuals who are neither elected by nor represent in any way the broad masses is unacceptable. Such a party cannot fulfill the interests, needs and objectives of the oppressed masses and as such cannot be supported by the oppressed masses in general and the proletariat in particular. Such a party is a device by which those who are thrown out through the front door worm their way in by the back door. Such a party cannot safeguard and promote the rights and interests of the masses. On the contrary, as its very creation is meant to dupe and lord over the masses, the proletariat vehemently opposes such devious aims and devices." (CELU Resolution)

And it is such a working class which is called "unconscious" of its class interests! And it is its vanguard — the EPRP — which is called "anarchist" and whose liquidation is the principal preoccupation of the junta and its hired intellectual boot-lickers!!

Seen with this in mind their talk about "facilitating the establishment of a working class party" is simply a fraud designed to deny what is already common knowledge. The so-called "All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement", composed of an assortment of social-fascists, agent-provocateurs, declared CIA agents, most of whom have long years of experience in subversion and sabotage within the Ethiopian Student Movement and were ignominiously expelled from it at one time or another, has already been established. It only remains to be declared, "officially" that is . Then why the attempt to cover it up? For a change of name, perhaps!

A few more words about some other aspects of the junta's decree remain to be said. The junta claims that it has a "historic responsibility of preparing the masses and handing over power to whom it belongs — the people." A lofty and welcome move, indeed — if it were not just bubbles, that is! But we all know that this is just wild talk! "Preparing the masses" can only be taken to mean preparing the necessary public opinion for the declaration of their phoney party. Otherwise the masses are already prepared under the leadership of the EPRP to overthrow the dark rule of the fascist junta.

Further, "handing over power to whom it belongs" can only mean handing over power to their "party" — to themselves, that is! "Handing" over power to oneself is called handing over power to the people. What a weird logic! But historic for its weirdness and absurdity nevertheless!!

Such are the features of this perfidious scheme. It is doomed to fail. As these fascists and social-fascists cannot reconcile themselves to their class enemies, i.e. the broad masses of the Ethiopian masses, they have to go on making attempts after attempts, manoeuvres after manoeuvres. How true it is that reactionaries never learn from their mistakes: they make trouble, fail; make trouble, fail again; again and again til their doom! This is the logic of all reactionaries. And these Ethiopian fascists and their intellectual mentors cannot go against this logic!

– end of original text –

Research Materials Still Needed!

I have made some great strides in finding research materials. Special thanks to several internet correspondents. I'm reposting this list of things I need, with a few things added and a special appeal.

The following is a partial list of materials I am looking for. I am interested in originals, photocopies, scans or PDFs. Also interested in leads on libraries which might have these materials. I will consider donations, purchase (I'm on a limited budget) or loans.

CONTACT INFO: If you have leads on any of these materials, please comment on this thread with your contact information. Label your comment "Not for Publication" and I will keep your comment private and respond to you personally. Thank you!

Translation Help Needed!
I have many items on Amharic PDF.  I would really like to read these materials. Anyone interested in some free political education by translating into typed English or who can recommend low-cost translation to English, these are among the materials I would like to read. I have these documents in Amharic:

• “On The Mass Line” by Berhane Meskel
• Meison self-criticism
• Investigation testimonies from Berhane Meskel, Tito Hiruy, Haile Fida
• Certain issues of Democracia, Sefiw Hizbe Demts, LabAder

Original Materials, preferably in English 

• Struggle, from University Students Union of Addis Ababa, as shown in photo above; esp. 1969–1974
• “The National Question in Ethiopia” by Tilahun Takele, 1970
• Abyot, from the EPRP European Office (Especially Vol. 1, No. 1, No. 3, No. 5 and other issues from 1975-1976)
• Forward, from the WWFES (published in Madison, WI, USA or London; I have a half dozen issues)
• Zena, from ESUNA
• Combat, from ESUNA (I have a few issues)
• Any local materials from EPRP, Meison, Emaledh, WazLeague, English especially but interested in Amharic as well. 
• Eritreans for Liberation in North America, Eritrea: Revolution or Capitulation?, 1978
• Any pamphlets or articles from EPLF or TPLF polemicizing against EPRP, 1975-1979
• Any English translations of Democracia
• New Ethiopia, journal of Meison's foreign section in Europe. I have one issue in French, looking for any in English. 
• PDFs of The Ethiopian Herald in English from 1974-1979

Books

• Ethiopia Red Terror Documentation & Research Center, Documenting the Red Terror: Bearing Witness to Ethiopia's Lost Generation (Ottawa 2012)
• Ayelew Yimam, Yankee Go Home, Signature Book Printing

Miscellany

• Photos of EPRP activities in Ethiopia
• EPRP posters or European or American solidarity items
• Materials/articles/pamphlets from US left organizations on Ethiopia ca. 1972-1978, especially Communist Labor Party, People’s Tribune. 

The Derg’s Diary of Repression, 1976

A correspondent has forwarded to me a copy of a fascinating publication. (Thanks JM!) It's a magazine published by the PMAC on the second anniversary of the revolution in September of 1976, which means it dates from the period before Mengistu consolidated his power, and from the period of escalating internal violence and repression on the cusp of all out war between the Derg and the EPRP.

The publication is already a defense of the Ethiopian “Man In Uniform,” the rationalization for the military control of the revolution. As such, it is preoccupied with defending the revolution against “reactionaries” and calling for revolutionary unity. It does not name its enemies. An introduction from the Provisional Military Administrative Council itself says, “If members of the Ethiopian Armed Forces had not taken the necessary measures to safeguard the unity which is as precious as life to them whenever the situation so demanded, it is an incontrovertible truth that our Revolution would not have assumed its present form, shape, and direction.....The Struggle Continues! Reactionaries Will Be Liquidated! The People Will Be Victorious!” 

The photo-filled publication concludes with a several-page “Diary of the Revolution.” However, the diary soon becomes a list of executions. I'm not naive, I understand that revolutions are acts of political violence. The state is an institution of political violence itself. These are part of the basic understandings of Marxism, and recognition of these facts is not glorification of bloodshed. But this diary from the PMAC itself should set aside the notion that the EPRP instigated the violence which was soon directed against it.

To be honest I didn't have the heart to retype this increasingly disturbing list, so I am presenting scans of the last five pages. If you click on the photos, they should enlarge enough to be readable, at least on a computer monitor or tablet.

The deposition of the Emperor on September 12, 1974,  is on the first of these pages. The coup against Aman Mikael Andom is noted on November 23, with the mass executions of members of the previous regimes noted the next day. The execution of Meles Tekle is noted on March 19, 1975.  And of course the execution of Major Sisay Habte who we have been discussing here appears on July 13, 1976. As the months pass, the list of revolutionary achievements — and let it be clear, many of these were quite legitimate and impressive — alternate with an increasing number of repressive acts. It is not clear from most of this Diary, of course, which of these incidents involve actual opponents of the revolution, like the EDU, versus those who advocated civilian control of the revolution, like the EPRP.

From EPRP’s Democracia: “A Revolution Is Not A Straight Line”

Clandestine printshop in revolutionary Ethiopia.

The following is an English translation of a special issue of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party’s underground newspaper, “Democracia.” Archives of much of “Democracia” are available on the web, but very little of its content has been translated into English. This one issue makes me hungry for more. I found this translation at the website Ya Tewlid, The Generation, an excellent repository of information mostly in Amharinya on the EPRP and the years of the “Red Terror.” It was retrieved from the US Library of Congress’s Thomas L. Kane collection, and is probably one of Kane’s own translations. He seems to have been an American diplomat with a keen interest in Ethiopia. This is described as the “Special Issue” from Feb. or Mar. 1976, presumably the Ethiopian month of Megabit. I have retyped the document from PDF.

The subject of this document is largely the national question. It’s safe to say that the 25 years since the Derg’s fall have borne the truth to Democracia’s predictions, as the national question continues to bubble over in today's reorganized Ethiopia. 

THE FASCIST DECLARATION—

TO MASSACRE THE PEOPLE

A revolution is not a straight line — it is zigzag. Although it will be late, the victory will belong to the people. The aim of the fascists and reactionaries to confuse the people by creating temporary problems will not save them from the destiny of history.

When the government of the "elite" is pressured by peoples struggle, it concedes and makes certain proclamations. But, wen the peoples struggle cools, the government tries to sabotage the struggle anew. It has massacred those people who have promoted the revolution. Many people have been massacred in Eritrea, Gojjam, Afar, Gujji, Wollo and Kaffa. In Awash the Government has killed many workers. Whenever the Government finds any threat to its power, it begins killing people. It is not enough for them to take weapons, which should have been used against anti-revolutionaries, and use them against revolutionaries. It is not enough for them to massacre the people. They are now trying to make the people cut their fingers by the fingers, in other words; in other words, they are trying to turn the people against the people.

An issue of Democracia from
about the time of this article.

The government of the “elite military officers” secretly gathered peasants from Begemdir, Tigre, Wollo and Gojjam. For example three people from each woreda, 84 in all, were called and stayed at “Kottebe” from Begemdir. While the peasants of Begemdir and Tigre were sent back, others stayed here. This was in the beginning of Megabit. Later in Megabit an emergency decree was issued in Begemdir and Tigre. This decree was to encourage and empowerof the people of Eritrea and Northern Ethiopia to kill. The fascist action will create a great danger to the Ethiopian revolution and is a sign of revisionism. It did this because its previous fascist actions did not succeed.

One of the main issues of the Ethiopian revolution is the question of nationalities, i.e. the right of nations for self-determination. But, instead of solving the Eritrean problem, it tried to crush the movement by force. It spread a false national feeling through the mass media, but this propaganda was not accepted by the people.

There are no principal contradictions between people of different nations. Therefore, Ethiopian people will not go and fight the Eritrean people. The enemies of the people are feudalism, imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism; and the fascist government that is the puppet of the above three in practice.

The prominent fascist leader, Hitler, during the Second World War, said that the enemies of the Germans are Jews. He then proceeded to have millions of Jews massacred. The American imperialists in Cambodia, Vietnam, etc. tried to make the people of one nation fight each other, but their attempts were in vain.

In our country, too, Menelik did the same thing, when he was expanding his reign southward. The notorious feudal Dejazmatch Gebre Huywot, did the same thing with the Tigre rebellions and caused much damage. The present fascist government is trying to do the same thing.

What will be the effect of the proclamation? It will create civil war. The ongoing revolution will be reversed. Instead of class struggle, the people will be concentrating on a secondary question. This will weaken the peasants associations and strengthen the reactionary elements. It will improve the situation for those reactionaries, like Nega Tegegne and his followers, who are trying to revise the revolution. It will widen the gap between nations. The previous government used national chauvinism in order to stay in power. In all gathering places, it instigated tribal disputes. But the present government has taken an even worse step which will make people of different national groups fight each other and fight those who are residing in cities.

— The manpower and finances that could have been used to promote revolutionary progress is tobe used for revising the revolution.

— It encourages feudalism, which has been outlawed, at least on a proclamation basis.

— It encourages looting which was prevalent during the reign of Nobility.

— When the peasants are busy fighting, the danger of starvation will be intensified.

PEOPLE OF NORTHERN ETHIOPIA! To hinder the revolution, they have tried to weaken your associations. They have forced the Zemacha to desert you. They have opposed your attempts to disarm by sending troops to kill you. They are training an army called “Nebelbal” by Israelis. All these steps are still not enough. They are even instigating you to fight your own Eritrean brothers. Take care and do not be deceived by the fascists. As they had you fight the Eritrean people, they will send others to fight you when you proceed with your revolution. They will make Christians fight Moslems, Northerners fight Southerners, etc. You must realize that “Tomorrow it will be me”.

Proletariats, Students, Zemechas, Teachers, and Progressives — wherever you are. Expose the attempts of the fascists to revise the revolution. The differences between the Eritrean and the Ethiopian people is not primary. The solution to the Eritrean problem is Democracy.

“DOWN WITH FASCISM. THE PEOPLE WILL WIN.”

___

Notes: Zemecha refers to the national development campaign launched at the end of 1974 when thousands of students and teachers were sent to the countryside. The campaign backfired on the Derg, as the mobilized and empowered young people proved to be a fruitful site of recruitment for the EPRP. 

By “fascists” Democracia is referring to the ruling military junta or Derg.—ish

Research Materials Wanted!

EPRP members and flags captured during the “Red Terror”

A number of important materials have so far eluded my research. The following is a partial list of materials I am looking for. I am interested in originals, photocopies, scans or PDFs. I will consider donations, purchase (I'm on a limited budget) or loans. If you have leads on any of these materials, please comment on this thread with your contact information. Label your comment "Not for Publication" and I will keep your comment private and respond to you personally. Thank you!

Original Materials, preferably in English

• “On the Mass Line” by Berhane Meskel  Amharic original OBTAINED! Anybody want to translate it?
• “Self Criticism” by Meison Amharic original OBTAINED! Anybody want to translate it?
• Ethiopian Marxist Review, from the EPRP European Office OBTAINED!
• Abyot, from the EPRP European Office (I have about five issues, looking especially for 1976 & 1977 issues)
• Forward, from the WWFES (published in Madison, WI, USA or London; I have a half dozen issues)
• Zena, from ESUNA
• Combat, from ESUNA (I have a few issues)
• Any local materials from EPRP, Meison, Emaledh, WazLeague, English especially but interested in Amharic as well. 
• Eritreans for Liberation in North America, Eritrea: Revolution or Capitulation?, 1978
• Any pamphlets or articles from EPLF or TPLF polemicizing against EPRP, 1975-1979
• Any English translations of Democracia
• New Ethiopia, journal of Meison's foreign section in Europe. I have one issue in French, looking for any in English.

Books

• Ethiopia Red Terror Documentation & Research Center, Documenting the Red Terror: Bearing Witness to Ethiopia's Lost Generation (Ottawa 2012)
• Ayelew Yimam, Yankee Go Home, Signature Book Printing

Miscellany

• Photos of EPRP activities in Ethiopia
• English translation of interrogation transcripts of Haile Fida, Tito Hiruy, and Berhane Meskel (I have Amharic PDFs)
• Materials/articles/pamphlets from US left organizations on Ethiopia ca. 1972-1978, especially Communist Labor Party, People’s Tribune. 

UPDATED July 20, 2016; August 6, 2016

Propaganda War

“Ethiopia In Revolution,” Ethiopian Revolution Information Center, 1977

More pamphlets from various publishing arms of the Derg: some of these were also scanned during my NYU Tamiment Library visits already reported on, others I’ve collected elsewhere. These all represent Derg attempts for making its case, largely, one may presume, to the international left. By 1978, the focus of these pamphlets becomes increasingly more focused on the military conflicts with Somalia and Eritrean secessionists. Since the world left, including the Soviet bloc, had a tradition of supporting the Eritrean national liberation movements, the Derg was compelled to persuade that left that such struggles were now somehow “pro-imperialist.”

I scanned the insides of many of these, and will occasionally present worthy excerpts in the future.

“The Ethiopian Revolution and the Problem in Eritrea,” Ethiopian Revolution Information Center, 1977

”Revolutionary Ethiopia Fact Sheet,” ERIC, 1978

“Ethiopia: Women In Revolution,” 1984

“Programme of the National Democratic Revolution”

“Victory Day”

“Fourth Anniversary of the Ethiopian Revolution,” Speech by Mengistu, 1978

“The National Revolutionary War in the North,” 1978

“PMAC Chairman And The World Press” Speech by Mengistu, 1978

“Ethiopia’s Development Campaign,” Central Planning Supreme Council, 1980

“Support the Just Cause of the Ethiopian Peoples,” 1978

Ideological Combat

Mao’s works were distributed worldwide in inexpensive, accessible formats.

“[W]ithin EPRP at first there were not what one would term hardliners. For example, there were no Maoists among the nine members of the [original 1972] Central Committee. Amazingly, within the Algerian [exile] group, Gezahegn Endale was a Trotskyite. The others...had a critical outlook and did not espouse either the Moscow, or the Albanian or Peking line. It is possible that this was to be a problem when they later merged with the ‘Abyot’ group.... [In] ESUNA [the Ethiopian Student Union in North America], as time went on...it degenerated into a Maoist sect. As things worsened, ‘Bejing Review’ became the sole approved reading material. On the battlefield, fighting would break out among guerrillas  belonging to one or other school of thought. This proved to be a thorn in the side of the Foreign Relations Committee.’’ —Melaku Tegegn in Bahru Zewde, Documenting the Ethiopian Student Movement, pp. 148-151)

“[Originally] Chinese books on socialism flooded the streets with Mao's red books for everyone in the cities especially for those who could read English....[Eventually] the Soviets advised Mengistu to burn Chinese communist books and condemn Maoism. They also instructed cadres to burn valuable historical books on Ethiopia, published in the West....While playing a role of destroying Ethiopian and Chinese books in the country, the Soviets advised the cadres to observe Soviet holidays, such as Lenin's birthday, Soviet Armed Forces Day, and the Bolshevik Revolution Day.” —Dawit Shifaw, The Diary of Terror, p.110, 117

“Mao Tse Tung has said it is good when the enemy attack us, paints us black and accuses us wildly. The fascist junta [Derg], continues to wildly accuse and smear the name of the EPRP. It has called the EPRP ‘fascist,’ ‘feudal,’ ‘CIA agent,’ ‘anarchist,‘ etc. And now, as if it has found another food label, it has started to label the EPRP ‘anarchist and Trotskyite.’ That these two tendencies are not the same does not worry the junta. The EPRP, which is a Marxist-Leninist Party, had a clear stand on Trotskyism long before even the junta's top dogs heard the word ‘socialism.’ As a Marxist-Leninist Party opposed to all anti-Marxist trends (like Trotskyism, anarchism), the EPRP has emerged as the undisputed vanguard of the proletariat and no amount of vilification and name-calling is going to change this. We say with Enver Hoxha ‘The other truth has been proved right once again. They are enjoying empty phraseology, labeling us as Trotskyites. We tell them openly it is they who have fallen into the bog of Trotskyism.” — Study, Publication and Information Center of the EPRP Foreign Committee, in Abyot, Feb-March 1978