The Derg

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Who were they and where did they originate from?

[Bostana]

A group backed by the Soviets that took power in Ethiopia after they ousted Emperor Haile Selassie (The God in Rastafari)

[CatsAttack]

Interesting subject, but badly set-up by the OP I'm afraid. I'll keep an eye on this thread if there are any replies.

[tachosomoza]

A military junta in Ethiopia that overthrew the monarchy and killed many many people.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Originally, the Derg was a military committee formed by the imperial premier Endelkachew Makonnen to restore order in Ethiopia after a string of famines, mutinies and coup attempts. In fact, several such committees were formed and dissolved during Endelkachew's premiership. The Derg was merely the latest, the one difference being that it included representatives from all branches of the army and the police. But it wasn't a particularly radical body - for example, it was instrumental in suppressing the radical element in the air force. But the continuing corruption and mismanagement by the cabinet pushed most Derg members in a radical direction - in particular, there arose a radical faction around Mengistu.

The radicals won the factional struggle in the early Derg, and over time the Derg was given power surpassing that of the civilian government. First the previous and then the current cabinet were arrested, followed by the formal deposition of the emperor and the proclamation of the Provisional Government of Socialist Ethiopia. I believe that the Derg proclaimed its allegiance to Marxism-Leninism at this point.

Another round of factional struggles followed, this time particularly bloody, and again Mengistu's faction emerged victorious. Two civilian Marxist-Leninist groups became prominent, MEISON and the EPRP. Both supported the Derg initially, but the EPRP eventually decided that the Derg was fascist (talk about bending the stick...) and tried to overthrow it - with predictable results. After the EPRP had been defeated, the Derg turned on MEISON, again with predictable results.

Several years after that, the Derg was formally dissolved, with power passing first to the Mengistu-sponsored Commission to Organise the Party of the Working People of Ethiopia (COPWE) and then to the Workers' Party of Ethiopia. At first, these bodies were dominated by former members of the Derg, but the WPE seems to have been mostly led by civilians in the late eighties.

Hardly the most consistent or the most successful communists, it nonetheless seems to me that the Derg is often unfairly criticised - as a true disciple of comrade Stalin, apparently, Mengistu could cause famines through his black magic, at least that is how the popular account goes. Perhaps his magic could travel back in time and he also caused the analogous famines under the empire.

[waqob]

They were a group of Marxist-Leninists who overthrew the Ethiopian Empire and established military rule in Ethiopia

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Interesting subject, but badly set-up by the OP I'm afraid. I'll keep an eye on this thread if there are any replies.

The subject was me asking a question about the Derg. How could it be 'better set up'? You want flowers around the edges and comic sans font?

Thanks everyone for the answers. And another question - didn't the derg also have a racialist character (many in power were ethnic tigre and gave less rights to other ethnic groups)?.

[tachosomoza]

Racialism is the belief that different populations of human beings can be classified into biological "races". What that sounds like is ethnic nepotism/ chauvinism, which is widespread in Africa.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Really? I'd always thought that racialism was a form of racism in which one put one's ethnic group above others on the social scale?

To think how many times I've used that incorrectly in the worst of places.... Shit.

[tachosomoza]

Really? I'd always thought that racialism was a form of racism in which one put one's ethnic group above others on the social scale?

To think how many times I've used that incorrectly in the worst of places.... Shit.

Nah. Racialism is simply believing in the concept of and significance of biological races, and focusing in them. Racism is believing that one's biological race determines achievement and that one race is "inferior" or "superior" to another.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

And another question - didn't the derg also have a racialist character (many in power were ethnic tigre and gave less rights to other ethnic groups)?.

Well, ethnic chauvinism wasn't part of the ideology of the Derg, and Mengistu spoke against Amhara chauvinism on some occasions. Most members of the Derg were Amhara, Tigre or Tigray, but the same can be said of the officer corps of the Ethiopian Empire, which the Derg was formed from. That said, the Derg suppressed independence movements in Eritrea and Somalia. Assuming these were popular independence movement, and they seem to have been, the Derg at least acted as an agent of Amharic, Ethiopian (central) Tigre and Tigrinya chauvinism.