National Democratic Revolution Programme (1976)
에티오피아 민족민주혁명 강령(1976)
A state programme promulgated in April 1976 by Ethiopia's ruling military council, the Derg (Provisional Military Administrative Council). It was adopted by the state rather than by a party, and it first gave the Ethiopian revolution a developed ideological foundation. It proclaimed the adoption of 'scientific socialism' and the building of a People's Democratic Republic, and provided for mass nationalisation, rural and urban land reform, peasant and urban neighbourhood (kebele) organisations, a people's militia, the reorganisation of trade unions, and the building of a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party.
In depth
Enactment and promulgation
The programme passed the Derg's Provisional Office for Political Organisation (POPC) and the Derg in late March 1976 and was promulgated on 20 April. On the same day a special decree announced the creation of the Provisional Office of Mass Organizational Affairs (POMOA). Some secondary sources give 21 April as the date of promulgation.
Main provisions
The programme was a socialist-oriented revolutionary national-democratic programme built on an alliance of workers, peasants, the petty bourgeoisie and soldiers. One of its central provisions was the need for a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party, for whose construction POMOA was established. The right of national self-determination was confined to regional autonomy; secession and independence were not permitted.
POMOA
POMOA was conceived not as a party but as a 'people's revolutionary front', with five Marxist-Leninist organisations taking part (MEISON, the Waz League, Malerid, Echat and Seded). MEISON predominated; Haile Fida was its chairman and Sennai Likkai its vice-chairman, and its governing body was a fifteen-member committee, sometimes called a 'politburo'. POMOA built organisations in the provinces, took control of the kebeles, produced some 4,000 political cadres and published the fortnightly newspaper 『Abiotawit Ityopya』. It was dissolved with the creation of COPWE in December 1979.
Relations with the left
The programme absorbed much of what the radical civilian left demanded. MERIP (1982) judged that 'most of the EPRP program was represented in the NDR, with the exception of a commitment to a return to civilian rule'. The programme did not guarantee a full and immediate return to civilian government, and the central point of dispute between the Derg and the EPRP therefore remained unresolved. The difference between the EPRP and MEISON was tactical: the EPRP demanded the immediate establishment of a civilian government, while MEISON cooperated critically, holding that a military regime could be 'progressive'. The programme was meant to accommodate some EPRP demands but did not halt its military and political activity. The EPRP infiltrated the zemecha, the CELU and POMOA in 1975-76, and from 26 September 1976 it began a campaign of assassinating POMOA cadres.
Intensifying conflict
Clashes intensified in mid- to late 1976: in July 1976 the conciliators were removed from the Derg, and from September onward the EPRP's assassination campaign was met with the 'Red Terror'.
Termination and distinctions
The programme itself was not repealed in any particular year; it was superseded by later documents in the course of the 1984/87 founding of the Workers' Party and the 1987 establishment of the People's Democratic Republic (PDRE). There is insufficient evidence to fix an end year for the document itself. It must be distinguished from the general concept of 'national democratic revolution' and from the later Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).