Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia (1974–1987)

Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia የኅብረተሰብአዊት ኢትዮጵያ ጊዜያዊ ወታደራዊ መንግሥት
1974–1987
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: ኢትዮጵያ ኢትዮጵያ ኢትዮጵያ ቅደሚ (English: Ethiopia, Ethiopia, Ethiopia be first"
Capital and largest city	Addis Ababa
Official languages	Amharic
Dominant mode of production	Socialism
Government	Marxist–Leninist military junta
• Head of State (1974)	Aman Adom
• Head of State (1974-1974)	Mengistu Haile Mariam
• Head of State (1974-1977)	Tafari Benti
• Head of State (1977-1987)	Mengistu Haile Mariam
History
• Established	1974
• Dissolution	1987
Area
• Total	1,221,900 km²
Population
• 1987 estimate	46,706,229

The Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia, also known as the Derg, was a socialist military junta that ruled Ethiopia between the Ethiopian revolution of 1974 and the establishment of a civilian government in 1987.

History

Revolution

See main article: Ethiopian revolution

It began on the 12 January 1974, when Ethiopian soldiers began a rebellion in Negele Borana, with the protests continuing into February 1974. People from different occupations, starting from junior army officers, students and teachers, and taxi drivers joined a strike to demand human rights, social change, agrarian reforms, price controls, free schooling, and releasing political prisoners, and labor unions demanded a fixation of wages in accordance with price indexes, as well as pensions for workers, etc.

In June 1974, a group of army officers established the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, later branding itself as the Derg, which aimed to topple Haile Selassie cabinet under Prime Minister Endelkachew Makonnen. By September of that year, the Derg began detaining Endalkachew's closest advisors, dissolved the Crown Council and Imperial Court and disbanded the emperor's military staff. The Ethiopian Revolution ended with the 12 September coup d'état of Haile Selassie by the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces.

In September 1974, the absolute monarchy of Ethiopia led by Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown. The revolution was supported by students, teachers, trade unions, and the military.

Nationalisation, land reform and the Zemecha Campaign

The Derg issued its ten-point-programm on the 20th December 1974, which was its first written attempt to formulate policy:

1. Ethiopia shall remain a united country, without ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural differences.
2. Ethiopia wishes to see the setting up of an economic, cultural and social community with Kenya, Sudan and Somalia.
3. The slogan Ityopya Tikdem (Amharic for Ethiopia first, sometimes in its more complete Yeminim dem, Ityopya Tikdem, Amharic for Without Blood, Ethiopia first) of the Ethiopian revolution is to be based on a specifically Ethiopian socialism.
4. Every regional administration and every village shall manage its own resources and be self-sufficient .
5. A great political party based on the revolutionary philosophy of Ityopya Tikdem shall be constituted on a nationalist and socialist basis.
6. The entire economy shall be in the hands of the state. All assets existing in Ethiopia are by right the property of the Ethiopian people. Only a limited number of businesses will remain private if they are deemedto be of public utility.
7. The right to own land shall be restricted to those who work the land.
8. Industry will be managed by the state. Some private enterprises deemed to be of public utility will be left in private hands until the state considers it preferable to nationalize them.
9. The family, which will be the fundamental basis of Ethiopian society, will be protected against all foreign influences, vices and defects.
10. Ethiopia's existing foreign policy will be essentially maintained. The new regime will however endeavour to strengthen good-neighbourly relations with all neighbouring countries.

This was the primary formulation of the political program of the Derg until the Programme of the National Democratic Revolution in 1976.The shortcomings and problems with this early policy formulation are described by Christopher Clapham as follows:

"The first article, in simply denying the existence of ethnic and related differences, obscured the conflict between an assimilationist nationalism (in which differences would be abolished) and the recognition of separate 'nationalities' on an equal basis, which would underlie the whole problem of national integration. The conservative provisions on foreign policy were to prove incompatible with the international implications of revolution, while in the management of the economy, the emphasis on the state was at odds with the references to regional autonomy and the idea of land to the tiller. In the event, neither of these last two principles was implemented , while the party , with which many of these contradictions were bound up, did not come into existence for a further ten years."

In April 1976, the Derg released the National Democratic Revolution Program, which included land reform, nationalization of industries, and reorganization of unions.

Land Reform (1975–1978)

The necessity for rural development is illustrated by the mentioning of some statistics of Ethiopia at the time: 92% of the people generate 60-65% of the GDP and 90% of the exports through agriculture. Subsistence peasant families constitute 86% of the population, and their production accounts for 45-50% of the GDP at the time. Ethiopian agriculture prior to the Revolution was regarded by many to operate under its potential, given the countries large size, relatively low population density, general fertility, sufficient rainfall (at the time), climate and elevation variations allowing for cropping diversitification and 22.5 million peasants working only 7,9% of the total land. The 1973 famine in Wollo evidenced the previous governments indifference in utilising that potential. Additionally, less than 1% of the population owned more than 70% of the arable. The royal family and landed aristocracy owned between 50-60% of arable land, leaving over 50% of the rural population as tenant-farmers. The church is estimated to have possessed 20% of all arable land and 5% of all Ethiopian land, from which it derived most of its income.

The legal framework of the land reform was provided by a series of decrees, or "proclamations" of the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), . These proclamations, issued between 4 March 1975 and 17 September 1977, form a coherent whole.(There were more proclamations regarding Rural Land, at least until 1982, but these had a minor effect on the groundwork being laid ealier). Land reform was not conceived simply as a matter of breaking up large estates, but above all as the problem of creating a new political and social organization in the countryside to defeat the landlords and allow the peasants to control their land and their affairs. These proclamations are, in order:

• Proclamation No.31 of 1975 ("A Proclamation to Provide for the Public Ownership of Rural Lands")
• Proclamation No. 71 of 1975 ("Peasant Associations Organization and Consolidation Proclamation.")
• Rural Land Fee and Agricultural Activities Income Tax Proclamation
• Proclamation No. 130. Sept. 1977 ("A Proclamation on Formation of nation-wide Peasant Associations")
• Peasant Associations Consolidation Proclamation No. 223/1982

Proclamation No.31 reads in its preamble, proclaiming the wide- ranging effects and the reasoning for the proclamation:

"WHEREAS, in countries like Ethiopia where the economy is agricultural a person's right, honour, status and standard of living is determined by his relation to the land;(...) several thousand gashas of land have been grabbed from the masses by an insignificant number of feudal lords and their families as a result of which the Ethiopian masses have been forced to live under conditions of serfdom; (...) it is essential to fundamentally alter the existing agrarian relations so that the Ethiopian peasant masses which have paid so much in sweat as in blood to maintain an extravagant feudal class may be liberated from age-old feudal oppression, injustice, poverty, and disease, and in order to lay the basis upon which all Ethiopians may henceforth live in equality, freedom, and fraternity; (...) the development of Ethiopia of the future can be assured not by permitting the exploitation of the many by the few as is now the case, but only by instituting basic change in agrarian relations which would lay the basis upon which, through work by cooperation, the development of one becomes the development of all; (...) in order to increase agricultural production and to make the tiller the owner of the fruits of his labour, it is necessary to release the productive forces of the rural economy by liquidating the feudal system under which the nobility, aristocracy and a small number of other persons with adequate means of livelihood have prospered by the toil and sweat of the masses; (...) it is necessary to provide work for all rural people; it is necessary to distribute land, increase rural income, and thereby lay the basis for the expansion of industry and the growth of the economy by providing for the participation of the peasantry in the national market; (...) it is essential to abolish the feudal system in order to release for industry the human labour suppressed within such system; (..) it is necessary to narrow the gap in rural wealth and income"

All land was declared the "collective property of the Ethiopian people." Landlords would receive no payment for their land (but there were promises to compensate for movable properties and permanent improvements previously made on the land). Any person willing to cultivate the land would be allotted the use of a plot, up to a maximum of ten hectares for each farming family. Private individuals would not be allowed to hire agricultural workers.

To prevent the peasants from becoming de facto small-holders, each cultivating his fields in isolation from the others, Peasant Associations would be created throughout the country, each covering an area of at least eight hundred hectares. Membership in the associations was open to all farmers, except those who had previously owned more than ten hectares of land.

Peasants in a Peasants Association Assembly

These peasant associations were responsible for implementing the land reform and distributing the land equally among their members, considering both the size of the family and the quality of the soil. They were additionally empowered to supervise land-use regulations, administer public property, establish judicial committees, service co-operatives and an elementary form of producer's cooperatives, and promote socio-economic infrastructure and villigization programs. They would elect their own officials and adjudicate disputes arising from the distribution of land among their members. Within the peasant associations, the peasants elected a chairperson, secretary, a treasurer and two assistants by show of hands. A number of peasant associations permitted farmers to work the land they possessed, but provided land to landless peasants. Some were more radical and completed land distribution within two months. However, 79.7% of the members of judicial committees were illiterate, and the position was sometimes regarded as nominal, whereas few peasant associations held internal regulations in written form. The responsibility for forming peasant associations rested with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Interior.

The proclamation treated the pattern of transfer of land differently depending on three tenure types: the northern rist tenure, private ownership tenure (which was most affected by the Proclamation in the way illustrated above) and tenure in nomadic areas. In the north, the peasant associations were primarily tasked with organizing producers cooperatives, without forseeing the need for land distribution. In the nomadic regions, the peasant associations were tasked to induce the cooperative use of water and grazing rights. Nomadic people were entitled to possess their grazing lands, except those that were used for mining or large-scale national agricultural projects. Payments made by nomadic people to traditional elites (called balabat, not to be confused with the mekwanint of equal status) were nullified.

The first step in the direction of strengthening the autonomy of the peasant associations was Proclamation No. 71 of 1975, called "Peasant Associations Organization and Consolidation Proclamation."

This measure accomplished three tasks:

1. it gave the peasant associations a legal personality;
2. it outlined a path of growth for the peasant associations beyond land distribution, allowing them to create cooperatives and even to set up their own armed defense squads of peasant militias; and
3. it strengthened the higher level peasant associations, integrating them into the regional administration through the creation of "Revolutionary Administration and Development Committees."

This was intended to allow peasant associations to borrow collectively under the governments loan plan in order to purchase seed and fertilizers, or to become members of a cooperative, i.e. fostering the conditions away from individual exploitation of the land and towards agricultural communes. It also expanded the political roles of the peasant associations:

1. to enable peasants to secure and safeguard their political, economic and social rights;
2. to enable the peasantry to administer itself;
3. to enable the peasantry to participate in the struggle against feudalism and imperialism by building its consciousness in line with Hebrettesebawinet (Ethiopian socialism);
4. to establish cooperative societies, women's associations, peasant defense squads and any other associations that may be necessary for the fulfillment of its goals and aims;
5. to enable the peasantry to work collectively and to speed up social development by improving the quality of the instruments of production and the level of productivity;
6. to sue and be sued;
7. to issue and implement its internal regulations in order to achieve its goals and aims.

It is important to note that the decision to arm the peasants needs to be seen in the context of the severe criticism the Derg was subjected to by other radicals for failing to do so. Sometimes, the arming of peasants was done out of the peasants or Zemecha-Campaigners own initiative prior to the proclamation, with the formation of "Red Guards" especially in southern Ethiopia. These then often went about disarming the landlords. By 1977, 98.8% of peasant associations had a defense squad, with memberships between 6-25 peasants.

The now formed peasant associations would be divided into two categories, referred to as "service cooperative societies" (consiting of at least two peasant associations) and "agricultural producers' cooperative societies", with the vision of a gradual transformation from service cooperatives to advanced prducers cooperatives

The goals of the service cooperatives were strictly economic, namely to provide their members with extension services, loans, storage facilities, and marketing services. In addition they were to encourage savings, distribute basic consumer goods, and establish flour mills and small cottage industries. The agricultural producers' cooperatives, on the other hand, had above all political goals. They would assume control over the "instruments of production" of their members, and gradually assume ownership; they would "divide members into working groups to enable them to work collectively," and their officials would be drawn only from among poor and middle peasants. Among their main objectives was "to struggle for the gradual abolition of exploitation from the rural areas." The Elementary produces cooperatives 75% of land was to be owned collectively, thogh farm impliments and livestock could remain private, whereas income was to be devided "from each according to his ability to each according to his contribution", barring special reserves, funds for welfare costs etc. Peasant cooperatives had a executive commitee, an auditing committee to oversee the executive committee and to report the financial status of a cooperative to the general assembly. By 1978, 343 service and 21 producers cooperatives existed in Ethiopia (covering 9% of all Peasants Associations).

The "Rural Land Fee and Agricultural Activities Income Tax Proclamation." of January 1976 etablished agricultural income tax. The law begins with a preamble declaring it the national duty of every peasant given land use rights and the opportunity to earn income to contribute part of his earnings to finance development programs adopted by the government for the benefit of the rural populace. The preamble specifically notes the need for programs in agricultural research and extension, road con­struction, communications facilities, and market improvement.Land use fees and agricultural income taxes are to be collected either by the peasant associations, by a person appointed by the Ministry of Finance, or by the local woreda tax office of that ministry.

Since 1977 (Proclamation No.130), Peasant associations were to be organized into a five-level structure, with the lowest unit being the local peasant association and the highest governing body the All-Ethiopia Peasant Association (AEPA). Members of the AEPA are elected by the general assembles of the respective regional (kifle-hagar) Peasants Associations. In between, the woreda, awrajja and kifle-hagar peasant associations would coordinate local associations and set up judicial commitees. Furthermore, each peasant association would elect representatives to a woreda peasant association, and these in turn would elect their representatives to the awrajja peasant association.

By late 1975, 19,000 peasant associations had been established, with a membership of about 4 million peasant households. In 1976, this reached 24,707 peasant assocations with 6.8 million households, and in 1977-1978 there were 28,583 peasant associations with a membership of 7.3 million households.

Zemecha-Campaign (1974-1976)

Concurrently and in preparation to the Ethiopian Land Reform, starting from the 21 December 1974, the Derg created the Ediget Behibret Zemecha (Development through Cooperation Campaign), which encompassed the closure of the Addis Abeba University in the beginning of 1975, so that 6,000 university students and 50,000 secondary school students could be sent to 437 places in the countryside. This was intended to teach and politicize the peasant, and help develop the rural masses. In the course of the campaign, university students taught peasants about civil rights, land ownership and hygiene, created awareness of land redistribution, and participated in the formation of peasant associations, bringing literacy and building schools, clinics and latrines. The AAU was reopened in the 1976/1977 academic year.

Determining the correct approach to implement the Zemecha was difficult. To this end, Zemecha leaders proposed the following remedies:

1. Campaigners were to go only were they knew the roads, cultural traits, lifestyle and languages of the people
2. Dissemination of information was to take place at market-places, schools, churches, mosques, religious centers and official gathering places
3. Priority was to be given to educating local administrators, spiritual leaders, and influential residents. Speak the language local to the area without a translator

Following advice was given to Zemecha-Campaigners (Amharic: Zemach):

1. Speak in the local language without translator
2. Do not claim the ability to complete a task when there is the slightest possibility that you could not
3. Do not give empty promises
4. Be honest and sincere
5. Avoid opposing traditional culture, but if absolutely necessary to do so, apply the utmost care as not to arouse the people's ire
6. Reject arrogance
7. Be receptive towards peoples ideas, but if opposition is called for, make a thorough explanation
8. Live like the people
9. Do not showcase superiorty in public
10. Speak cautiously and be a good listiner
11. In oder to explain personal opinions, make use of clear and concise examples
12. Show fratenal and filial concern
13. Respect Individuals in Private Conversations
14. Be Patient
15. Think Before you Speak

The Zemecha-Campaign played a major role in the initial phase of the formation of Peasant Associations. Prior to the Land Reform, students were already preparing the peasantry for the expected reform. The timing of the proclamation, at the start of the crop season of the region, and the need to preempt some social classes from organizing themselves to form resistance, necessitated a speady introduction of the Peasant Associations. Zemecha-Campaigners were also those who in the beginning registered those who met state criteria for memebership in the Peasant Associations outlined above. After the students left, these their role was partially taken over by the officials of the political party the Derg had undertaken to create. This embryonic party was known as the Provisional Office for Mass Organizational Affairs (POMOA), and existed between 1975-1979.

Successes

Zemecha-Campaigners in Uniform

The Zemecha Campaign, via its Alphabetization Program, taught over 350,000 peasants how to read, write, and perform arithmetic in their vernacular language. Initially, six languages were selected for pedagogicial use: Amharic, Afaan Ormo, Tigrinya, Wolaitigna, Somali, Afarigna, Sidamigna and Hadiygna. Teaching material for the first five were completed early in the Zemecha campaign. These 350,000 peasants were only thaught by 40% of the campaigners due to political disturbances. Comparing this to the previous governent (under Haile Selassie I), which had a literacy rate of 6%, a benchmark which has not been passed in about 60 years of political control, the results were commendable.

The campaigners taught health education to a million people, built 155 schools and 296 clinics (more than 50% of Ethiopias total at the time), trained 1500 midwives, and increased the number of nurses by 40%. They additionally vaccinated 1,250,000 people against various diseases, planted 2,000,000 trees, and vaccinated over 300,000 cattle. Additionally, by late 1975, 6 million people were organized into 19,000 Peasant Associations and 3,700 woman's associations. Additionally, many wells, roads, wooden bridges, meeting halls, latrines, health centres and market places were built, in addition to water pumps, water wheels, wind mills, and even medium range transistor radios, from locally-sourced materials. Total costs for this were 17 Million ETB (at the time 8.5 Million Dollars), one-third of the initially planned cost.

Criticism and issues

Zemecha-Campaigners in Agricultural Gear

116 Campaigners were killed. Sometimes, campaigners were sent to the wrong regions, and were therefore place before linguistic and cultural barriers. The campaigners backround, differing widely in age, exerience, ability and level of education, were not functionally classified. Some station chiefs were selected only on the basis of educational backround, rather than on organisatioal capacity.

There existed differences in the subjective and objective conditions in different parts of the country. E.g., the proclamation "Land to the tiller" did not carry the same significance for a Tigrean, Gondare or Gojame farmer, as land has been locally controlled for centuries (in contradistinction to the south which only were made part of the Ethiopian Empire through Menelik's conquests, the Agar Maqnat).

This, in addition to the still relatively obscure class distinctions in the north, as strong blood relations tied the farmer to the feudal administrator, and the reforestation programmes, in the heavily eroded landscapes in the north, did not generate the dramatic short term effects that generated enthusiasm for the revolution as elsewhere. This also lead to the campaigners being viewed as outsiders or external threats. Major obstructions also emenated from the former local officials, counterrevolutionary members of the police force, and armed landords. The movement also was subject to sabotage, sometimes emenating from neighbouring countries.

Some Zemecha participants were also unwilling to participate, rejecting to work as medical or agricultural personnel, leading to desertions (especially after the Zemecha was extended from the initial one year programme). In total, 69 stations were abandoned, and 6,502 students relocated due to political disturbances, whereas 14 stations composed of 1984 campaigners were closed down due to resistance from the campaigners themselves. A lack of ideological coherence among the students also led to a dissemination of often contradictory political messaging, and some students refused to learn from the masses.

Political and Legal structure

Early Structure of the PMAC (Derg), the POMOA (1974-1978) and the Yekatit 66 School

The Proclamation to Provide for the Establishment of Provisional Military Government of Ethiopia, No.1 of 1974 was issued in September 12, 1974. It did away with the previously existing structures formally via

1. (...) although the people of Ethiopia look, in good faith, upon the crown, which has persisted for a long period in Ethiopian history, as a symbol of unity, Haile Selassie, (...) has not only left the country in its present crises by abusing at various times the high and dignifed authority conferred on him by the Ethiopian people (...)
2. (...) that the present system of pariamentary election is undemocratic: that the parliament heretofore has been serving not the people and its members but its members and the ruling aristocratic classes(...) that its existence is contrary to the motto "Ityopiya Tikdem" (Ethiopia First)
3. (...) that the constitution of 1955 was prepared to confer the Emperor absolute powers; that it does not safeguard democratic rights but merely serves as a democratic facade for the benefit of world opinion (...); and that above all, it is inconsistent with the popular movement in progress under the motto "Ityopya Tikdem" and with the fostering of economic, political and social development.

They therefore suspended the Constitution of 1955, the two Houses of Parliament, deposed Haile Selassie, and established that the armed forces, the police and territorial army council assume full government power until a constitution and government is constituted. They additionally constituted a military court and preliminarily imposed following restrictions:

"Conspiring against the motto Ityopya Tikdem, engaging in any strike, holding unauthorized demonstrations or assembly, and engaging in any act that may disturb public peace and security are prohibited"

In the subsequent decleration, Proclamation No. 2 of 1974, the Derg further established that the could ratify treaties and international agreements, declare war, enact all types of laws, (further elaborated in Proclamation No.12) established an advisory board composed of Ethiopians elected from different profession to advise the Derg on economic, politcal and social development projects and other national affairs. This was repealed and replaced in 1976 by Proclamation No.108. It establishes the following:

The Provisional Military Administration Council shall be composed as follows

1. Congress consisting of all Council members ;
2. Central Committee consisting of forty (40) Council members elected by the Congress; and
3. Standing Committee consisting of seventeen (17) Council members elected by the Congress.

The congress is the highest power in the PMAC and could do the following:

1. determine the internal and foreign polices of the country ;
2. approve the consolidated budget and development plans of the country upon preparation and submission to it by the Council of Ministers ;
3. determine the strength and policies of the defence and security forces of the country; safeguard the unity of the country ;
4. ratify, on behalf of Ethiopia, basic economic, political, defence and joint defence treaties and international agreements ;
5. approve declarations of war, emergency and natural disaster upon preparation and submission to it by the Council of Ministers ;
6. issue proclamations ;
7. confirm death penalties, grant amnesty and commute penalties ;
8. issue directives on the establishment of political par ties and mass organizations ;
9. decide on the recommendations of the Standing Committee relating to serious measures to be taken against Council members ;
10. appoint the Chairman, the Vice - Chairmen and the Secretary - General of the Council and dismiss the same.

Ministers and other senior officials designated by the PMAC were made to form the Council of Ministers. They were responsible for decisions made in the Council, and also accountable to congress, central committee and standing committee of the Derg. This Proclamation was repealed in 1977 by Proclamation No. 110, with the ultimate assent of Mengistu Haile Mariam after the execution of Taferi Benti in 1977. Differences were minor, reducing the Central Committe to 32 members, the Standing Committee to 16. Additionally, the Standing Committee now were transferred some of the functions of the Central Committee. The Congress was still the supreme body of the PMAC, and now also the chairman, vice-chairman and secretary general were appointed or dismissed by the congress.

The Derg established a political school, Yekatit 66, and the Provisional Office for Mass Organizational Affairs (POMOA) in December 1975. Both the EPRP and MEISON were represented by supporters on the original 14-person steering committee of POMOA. MEISON had five of its supporters in the steering committee to the EPRP’s two. When the EPRP withdrew from POMOA, as they shortly did, they were replaced by additional MEISON supporters. Other groups represented in POMOA were the WAS (Labor) League, ECHAAT (Oppressed Peoples’ Revolutionary Struggle), MALERED (Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Organization) and Abyotawit Seded (Revolutionary Flame). POMOA functioned as a forum to involve different Marxist-Leninist organizations in the revolutionary process and to politicize and organize the masses.

The existence of POMOA was publicly revealed on April 21, 1976 following the announcement of the National Democratic Revolution Programme. Initially the organization was known as the People's Organizing Provisional Office. The Yekatit '66 Political School, an institution under the supervision of POMOA, trained political cadres. POMOA functioned as a government department, and received allocations from the state treasury .POMOA's leading organ was directed to organize themselves into four permanent subcommittees in the areas of philosophy dissemination and information, political education, current affairs, and organizational affairs. Also, POMOA was to have branch offices at the provincial, Awrajja and Woreda levels, for which the commission was to review periodic reports on their activities and to which it had to assign cadres. Further mandates of POMOA included: preparing articles and directives on the philosophy of socialism in the languages of various nationalities and disseminating the same; and preparing directives and plans for training of cadres at home and abroad. The developments which were not specifically envisaged by the legislation but which followed in the wake of POMOA's establishment were the launching of its paper (called Revolutionary Ethiopia, Amharic: Abiyotawit Ityopya) and a weekly discussion meeting lasting two hours in all governmental and non-governmental organizations in the country. POMOA had an annual budget of 7 million Birr (3.5 million Dollars at the time).

Haile Fida, the leader of Meison, was the chairman of POMOA. Sennai Likkai of the Waz League served as the vice chairman of the organization.

COPWE (1979-1984)

The Commission for the Organization of the Party of the Working People of Ethiopia (COPWE), Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ሰራተኞች ፓርቲ አደራጅ ኮሚሽን, was established by Proclamation No.174 of December 1979. Mengistu Haile Mariam served as chairman. Proclamation No. 174 set the goals, structure, role, rights and duties of the controlling organs and of the rank and file, arranged the relations between the COPWE and the state bodies, between the COPWE and social organizations, and between the COPWE and the Derg. Among the chief goals of the COPWE was the dissemination and promotion of Marxism-Leninism and the organization of the party of the working people,

“based on Marxism-Leninism and with the historical mission of liquidation of feudalism, imperialism, and bureaucratic capitalism in Ethiopia, the setting up of a people’s democratic republic, and the leading of the masses towards socialism and later to communism.“

Mengistu Haile Mariam was given the power to appoint members of the Central Committee and Executive Committee , and the secretariat; to issue regulations for the admission of ordinary members. The COPWEs role was to

"establish fraternal relationships with Marxist-Leninist parties, liberation movements, and other democratic organizations"

to

"strengthen existing Marxist - Leninist study circles and discussion forums in government and mass organizations; establish new ones, issue directives to them, coordinate their activities and extend to them material assistance ; in cooperation with the appropriate government and mass organizations establish, politicise, assist and consolidate professional associations and mass organizations to be effective executors of the directives of the Party of the working people ; produce, translate, import and distribute books, periodicals, newspapers, films necessary for the building of a socialist society and other written materials useful for education, political conscious ness, and research"

to

"disseminate among the broad masses the Marxist Leninist ideology free from revisionism, through study circles, discussion forums, government and mass organizations and the mass media ; agitate, politicise and organize the various sections of the population by disseminating Marxism Leninism ; establish political schools, prepare their cur ricula, train and assign qualified teachers and organize other necessary facilities therefore"

and to

'take all measures necessary to avert any situation which threatens the revolution, the territorial integrity of Ethiopia, or the dignity and welfare of the people in the course of the endeavours to establish the Party of the Working People'.

Fifty-nine of the ninety-three founding members of the COPWE Central Committee were present or former members of the armed forces and police, as were twenty of the thirty alternates, and twenty-seven of these were members of the Derg. The first ten members in order of seniority comprised the Standing Committee of the PMAC, and most of the members of the PMAC Central Committee were also included.

The Executive Committee of COPWE consisted of seven senior Derg officers, who also constituted the Derg Standing Committee (Mengistu, Fikre-Selassie Wogderes, Fisseha Desta, Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan, Berhanu Bayih, Addis Tedla and Legesse Asfaw) as well as four civilians. The latters members were Shemelis Mazengia, Alemu Abebe, Fassika Sidell and Shewandagne Abebe. These four civilians were entrusted with running of the daily affairs of the party. Chief among this group were Shemelis Mazengia, the former editor of the party newsletter, Serto Ader, and by 1985 the head of the Workers Party of Ethiopia's ideological commission; Alemu Abebe, head of the Commission on Worker's Committees in Places of Work; Fassika Sidell, head of the WPE Economic Commission; and Shewandagne Abebe, head of the Institute for the Study of Nationalities.

The question of the delay of the formation of a revolutionary Party is adressed by Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1979 in his adress for the formation of the COPWE:

"Many revolutionaries and supporters of the Revolution are bound to wonder why the Party itself should not be set up once and for all. This is a legitimate question. In particular since a Party plays a decisive role in the victory of a revolution, it would have been desirable if it had manifested its existence in the pre-February 1974 period. The heavy sacrifices we have been incurring would have been minimal if ... the Party of the working people of Ethiopia had from the very beginning, been a vanguard force ... but because objective conditions are not governed by mere wish, the Ethiopian Workers' Party did not achieve its existence easily before or in the course of the Revolution"

The first general conference of the COPWE takes place in the summer of 1980. The second takes place in January 1983, and the third and final congress occurred in September 1984. At the conclusion of the Third Congress a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the initiation of the revolution was held, coinciding with the proclamation of the vanguard party, the Workers' Party of Ethiopia. The two Congresses which took place between 1980 and 1983 were attended by 1500 and 1600 delegates representing a wide range of mass organizations (i.e., the All-Ethiopia Peasants' Association; All-Ethiopia Youth Association), the armed forces, and state bureaucracy.

Even before COPWE had given way to WPE, it reached party-to-party agreements with the CPSU - party-to-party agreements are normally reserved for established Leninist parties. COPWE cadres were trained in the Soviet Union and other socialist states.

Of the total COPWE membership prior to the Third Plenary Meeting (beginning Nov. 19, 1981), the class composition was recorded as: working class 2.9 % ; peasant 1.2 % ; teachers, civil servants, members of the Revolutionary Army and other segments of the society 95.9 %. The percentage distribution as of Oct. 10, 1982 , stood at 21.7 % for workers; 3.3 % for peasants; and 75 % for the intelligentsia , civil servants, members of the Revolutionary Army and other sectors of the society. Regionally, the make-up was a follows: By far the largest delegation was that of the armed forces, with over 230 members attending. The next largest groups were of 178 for Addis Ababa and 115 for Shoa, with the other regions accounting for between thirty-six (Illubabor) and eighty-five (Hararghe). Once established, the leadership of COPWE remained extremely stable. Of the ninety-three full Central Committee members appointed in June 1980, eighty-six still belonged to the WPE Central Committee elected in September 1984

At the central level, the second plenary session of the COPWE Central Committee held in February 1981 marked the point at which the formal announcement of government policies started to come through the party organs rather than through the PMAC - though the PMAC continued to issue appointments and legislation until the formal establishment of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The Central Committee issued resolutions on such matters as economic planning and the collectivisation of agriculture, which were then discussed and implemented by subordinate state and COPWE organisations. A party newspaper, Serto Ader, was established, along with an ideological journal, Meskerem, which kept going for three years and produced fourteen issues upto June 1983.

Below the regional level, the COPWE organisation was gradually extended to the larger towns and to provincial, and in some cases even district, government. The first was established in Assab, the port at the southern end of the Red Sea which was administered separately from Eritrea as an autonomous province, in April 1981, represented by a junior Derg member and teacher at the Political School, Eshetu Aleme. COPWE organisations appear shortly afterwards in cities such as Jimma and Dessie, and had been set up in nearly half of the provinces by the time of the second Congress in January 1983. The formation of COPWE primary organisations also accelerated after November 1981, and by June 1982 there were reported to be 436 of them- including organisations in almost all the state-owned factories and all the state farms. There were 162 of these basic organisations, or over a third, established in the armed forces, down to brigade level, where they took over the functions of the previous Military and Political Affairs offices. The training of party cadres was also intensified. In the two-and-a-half years between the first and second Congresses, 2,845 participants graduated from courses at the Yekatit '66 Political School, in addition to those who went to Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 6,500 study circles were set up in various institutions and localities used for the screening of prospective Party members by 1982.