Ethiopia's Revolution

[comradestephen]

Been reading up on the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974. It's not a revolution that you hear much about these days...

Who can suggest some good reading material on it other than the book I already am reading which is "Ethiopia's Revolution" by a Cuban author by the name of Raul Valdes Vivo. It's an excellent book, by the way. Mengistu, the leader of that revolution now resides in Zimbabwe where he was granted asylum after a counter-revolution in Ethiopia around the same time as the counter-revolutions in europe and the USSR.

Hard to find many historical documents about it. Nor any writings not bourgeois in their world outlook and/or origin.

Did find this though, which was interesting. http://www.banadir.com/77/11.shtml

Perhaps a discussion of the Ethipian revolution and its implications and lessons would be interesting to people here.

[Vallegrande]

I found some more info on this. The Derg overthrew Haile Selassie after things started getting worse in Ethiopia. It seems that Mengistu, along with Ethiopian troops and Derg members, had been trained and funded by the U.S.

You have to scroll down to about the middle of the page. The list is enormous. You might get interested just by seeing what else was going on around this time.
List of US involvement in the world (http://www.flagrancy.net/timeline.html). (I clicked on the 1977 timeline and it went straight to Ethiopia.)

Heres a link (http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=library.document&id=167) to show the political climate. Was he for communism? It's so complex to even know who was fighting who. It goes even deeper between cultural divides between the Ethiopians and Somalians.

It's hard to find info that's unbiased though. If these seem to be, please mention it, because I am as un-informed as millions of us are.

[comradestephen]

I haven't heard that the U.S. funded Mengistu, they definately did fund the opposition to the revolution later on however. It seems a bit odd since Haille Sellassie was supported by the U.S.

Strikes and demonstrations had been brought on by soaring fuel prices, famine, low wages, high prices and so forth. The emperor lost the power to rule and the people ceased to be willing to be ruled by him. But there was a lack of direction at first as no particular section of society was organized enough to take on power and there was no vanguard party. As a result the military ended up taking on this role and lead the revolution. Mengistu was the leader of this.

They set to work building socialism and developed friendly relations with the USSR, Cuba and Eastern European socialist countries. But all was not well. Although the majority of the population supported Mengistu there was still a lot of opposition from various segments of the population including of course the deposed ruling class and its lackies. The largest opposition group was an armed insurgent group that was considered "Maoist" and interestingly supported by the CIA and by China aparently. Of course, this is all after the Sino-Soviet split.

Eventually around the time of the counter-revolutions in Europe and the USSR there was also one in Ethiopia and Mengistu had to flee for his life. He went to Zimbabwe where he was given asylum because his government had helped train the liberation forces in Zimbabwe back in the day. Capitalism was then restored in Ethiopia and...well, we all know what their standard of living is like there now days. Ethiopia routinely calls for Mengistu to be extradited for his "crimes" but ZANU-PF continues to turn them down.

Of course, despite the fact that the revolution itself was bloodless, there was a lot of death and suffering during the civil war caused by CIA funded "revolutionaries", nationalists and so on and through the class war between the class forces supporting the revolution and those opposing it. As usual, the forces supporting socialism and their leaders, in the case Mengistu, have been blamed by the U.S., the imperialist world and most "independant" human rights organizations for all of it.

Personally, I would prefer to look at it this way; revolutions are going to happen, that is just the progression of history. If the ruling classes choose to try to violently resist these natural developments and thereby force the people to defend themselves and their revolution by force then the blood is on the hands of the imperialists, deposed rulers and traitors who followed them against the people. But I suppose that depends whose side your on.

Here is another way to put it. Two people are boxing. Boxer A wins the match and leaves the ring. Boxer B, furious that he has lost, follows boxer A and attacks him in the parking lot. Boxer A, again, kicks boxer B's ass in self defence. Is the second altercation Boxer A's fault for winning the match and angering Boxer B? Or Boxer B's fault for attacking Boxer A?

Anyhow, that's the basic idea of what went on in very short form from what I have read.