Revolution, War, and “Socialism”

Abstract

Haile Selassie celebrated his eightieth birthday in August 1972. There were ceremonies and parades, diplomats brought congratulations, and delegations from the provinces brought gifts. At night the streets of the capital were bright with colored lights. Even on the university campus student radicals who had criticized the Emperor as an outdated reactionary and called for Marxist revolution remained subdued. A majority of Ethiopians, had they been polled at this time, would probably have admitted some concern about the future, for the birthday festivities underscored the Emperor’s mortality. But there was little expectation of violence or abrupt change. The constitution provided for orderly succession. When he succeeded to the throne, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen was expected to introduce a more open society and a more liberal political system. People wanted faster economic progress and broadened educational opportunity. They expected that processes already under way would bring all these things. Only a few intellectuals and radical student organizations abroad advocated total replacement of the existing political and economic system but showed little understanding of what that would mean. Most Ethiopians thought in terms of personalities, not ideology, and out of long habit still looked to Haile Selassie as the initiator of change, the source of status and privilege, and the arbiter of demands for resources and attention among competing groups.