FROM AFRICAN SOCIALISM TO SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM

With the return from abroad of the radical left and especially of the adherents of EPRP and AESM as of the summer of 1974, Ethiopia started acquiring the first generation of organized progressive revolutionaries. Within a year, they dominated the political scene of the country by entrenching themselves in the already politicized corporate groups and movements and were in a position to challenge the monopoly of power of the Derg. The adoption by the Derg of the ideology of the civilian left not only seemed to offer the hope of closing the gap between it and the leftist political organizations but also came nearest to exonerating the Derg's atrocities against the high civilian and military dignitaries of the old order as well as providing a theoretical basis for its measures of nationalization. The adoption of liberal politics such as was represented by the Ethiopian Democratic Union meant, in part at least, having to account for measures that were not appropriate or legal. It was for considerations like these and its nationalist–populist sentiments (and not because of a pre-existing commitment to radical politics) that the Derg set in motion, as of September 1975, the process of adopting Marxism– Leninism as an appropriate ideology for Ethiopia.

On the occasion of the inauguration of Revolution Square in Addis Ababa on 11 September 1975, the chairman of the Derg (Brigadier General Teferi Bante) gave a strong indication that the process of adopting a new ideology by the government was underway.