Soviet-Ethiopian Ties

Abstract

The national-democratic revolution in Ethiopia may rightly be classed as one of the greatest triumphs in the anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of Africa. Not long ago Ethiopia was a preserve of feudalism, which has outlived its time. The revolutionary events of 1974 in that country demonstrated once again the incompatibility of the striving of the African peoples for a democratic solution to nationwide problems and for social and economic progress with such anachronous phenomena as monarchism and feudalism. The principal reason for the revolution was the crisis of the internal policy conducted by the former imperial regime against the interests of the people, having as its ultimate goal the country's evolution along capitalist lines while retaining the privileges of the feudal lords. Here, as in a mirror, was reflected the basic content of the profound revolutionary changes aimed at social and economic liberation of the peoples: the struggle against imperialism and against feudal and capitalist relations. The collapse of the feudal monarchist system opened the way for the Ethiopian people to take their fate into their own hands, to bring to an end the compulsion exercised by foreign capital, and to conduct a foreign policy corresponding to the country's real national interests. Under the leadership of the highest organ of revolutionary power, the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), the people of Ethiopia undertook to overcome their centuries-old lag and to build a society without the exploitation of man by man.