Mengistu did not emerge as the leader of the Derg until after the 3 February 1977 shootout, in which Chairman
Tafari Benti was killed. The vice-chairman of the Derg, Atnafu Abate, clashed with Mengistu over the issue of how to handle the war in Eritrea and lost, leading to his execution with 40 other officers, clearing the way for Mengistu to assume control. He formally assumed power as head of state, and justified his execution of Abate (on 13 November of that year) by claiming that he had "placed the interests of Ethiopia above the interests of socialism" and undertaken other "counter-revolutionary" activities.
Political conflicts Resistance against the Derg ensued, led primarily by the
Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP). Mengistu cracked down on the EPRP and other revolutionary student organizations in what would become called the "
Red Terror". The Derg subsequently turned against the socialist student movement
MEISON, a major supporter against the EPRP, in what would be called the "
White Terror". The EPRP's efforts to discredit and undermine the Derg and its MEISON collaborators escalated in the fall of 1976. It targeted public buildings and other symbols of state authority for bombings and assassinated numerous Abyot Seded and MEISON members, as well as public officials at all levels. Four members of the EPRP were executed after being charged with the 23 September assassination attempt on Mengistu and the assassination of a civilian official. The Derg, which countered with its own counter-terrorism campaign, labeled the EPRP's tactics the White Terror. Mengistu asserted that all "progressives" were given "freedom of action" in helping root out the revolution's enemies, and his wrath was particularly directed toward the EPRP. Peasants, workers, public officials, and even students thought to be loyal to the Mengistu regime were provided with arms to accomplish this task. meets with Mengistu Haile Mariam in
Ethiopia, 1977 In a public speech in April 1977, Mengistu shouted "Death to counterrevolutionaries! Death to the EPRP!" and then produced three bottles filled with a red liquid that symbolized the blood of the imperialists and the counterrevolutionaries and smashed them to the ground to show what the revolution would do to its enemies. Thousands of young men and women turned up dead in the streets of the capital and other cities in the following months. They were systematically murdered mainly by the militia attached to the
kebeles, the neighborhood watch committees which served during Mengistu's reign as the lowest level local government and security surveillance units. Families had to pay the kebeles a tax known as "the wasted bullet" to obtain the bodies of their loved ones. In May 1977, the Swedish general secretary of the
Save the Children Fund stated that "1,000 children have been killed, and their bodies are left in the streets and are being eaten by wild
hyenas. You can see the heaped-up bodies of murdered children, most of them aged eleven to thirteen, lying in the gutter, as you drive out of Addis Ababa."
Amnesty International estimates that up to 500,000 people were killed during the Ethiopian Red Terror.Military gains made by the monarchist
Ethiopian Democratic Union in
Begemder were rolled back when that party split just as it was on the verge of capturing the old capital of
Gondar. The army of the
Somali Democratic Republic invaded Ethiopia, having overrun the
Ogaden region, and was on the verge of capturing Harar and
Dire Dawa, when Somalia's erstwhile allies, the Soviets and the Cubans, launched an unprecedented arms and personnel airlift to support Ethiopia. The Derg government turned back the Somali invasion and made deep strides against the
Eritrean secessionists and the
Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) as well. By the end of the seventies, Mengistu presided over the second-largest army in all of
sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a formidable
air force and navy.
Embracing Marxism–Leninism After coming to power, Mengistu embraced the philosophy of
Marxism–Leninism, which was increasingly popular among many nationalists and revolutionaries throughout Africa and much of the
Third World at the time. In the mid-1970s, under Mengistu's leadership, the Derg regime radicalized and began an aggressive program of changing system of Ethiopia from a mixed feudal-capitalist emergent economy to an
Eastern Bloc-style command economy. All rural land was
nationalized, stripping the Ethiopian Church, the Imperial family, and the nobility of all their sizable estates and the bulk of their wealth. During this same period, all foreign-owned and locally owned companies were nationalized without compensation in an effort to redistribute the country's wealth. All undeveloped urban property and all rental property were also nationalized. Private businesses such as banks and insurance companies, large retail businesses, etc. were also taken over by the government. All this nationalized property was brought under the administration of large bureaucracies set up to administer them. Farmers who had once worked on land owned by absentee landlords were now compelled to join collective farms. All agricultural products were no longer to be offered on the free market but were to be controlled and distributed by the government. Despite progressive agricultural reforms, under the Derg, agricultural output suffered due to
civil war,
drought and misguided
economic policies. There was also a
famine in 1984, which was the 10th anniversary of the Derg. The Soviets hailed Ethiopia for its supposed similar cultural and historical parallels to the USSR. Moscow said it proved that a backward society could become revolutionary by adopting a Leninist system. It was hailed as a model junior ally that Moscow was eager to support. In the 1980s Ethiopia plunged into greater turmoil and the Soviet system itself was collapsing by 1990. Russian commentators had turned scornful of the Ethiopian regime. In early 1984, under Mengistu's direction, the Marxist–Leninist
Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE) was founded as the country's ruling party, with Mengistu as general secretary. On 10 September 1987, a
new Soviet-style constitution was adopted, and the country was renamed the
People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Mengistu became president, with sweeping executive and legislative powers. Due to the doctrine of
democratic centralism, he was effectively a dictator. He and the other surviving members of the Derg all retired from the military. However, even as civilians, they dominated the Politburo of the WPE. In the late 1980s, some Western critics of Mengistu, including Michael Johns of
The Heritage Foundation, charged that Mengistu's economic, military and political policies, along with the Soviet Union's support for Mengistu, were key contributing factors to the
mid-1980s Ethiopian famine, which ultimately took over 500,000 lives. Mengistu made seven visits to the Soviet Union between 1977 and 1984, as well as other visits to his political allies Cuba, East Germany, South Yemen, and Mozambique. From 1983 to 1984 Mengistu served as head of the
Organization of African Unity. However, the government's military position gradually weakened. First came the
Battle of Afabet in March 1988, a defeat at the hands of the
Eritrean People's Liberation Front, with 15,000 casualties and the loss of a great deal of equipment. This was followed up less than a year later by another crushing defeat at
Shire, with over 20,000 men either killed or captured and the loss of even more equipment. On 16 May 1989, while Mengistu was out of the country for a four-day state visit to
East Germany, senior military officials
attempted a coup, and the Minister of Defense,
Haile Giyorgis Habte Mariam, was killed; Mengistu returned within 24 hours and nine generals, including the air force commander and the army chief of staff, died as the coup was crushed. ==Removal from power; asylum in Zimbabwe==