[Militant No. 396, 10th March 1978, p. 8-9]
There is turmoil in Ethiopia, with the regime of the Dergue fighting a bitter war on two fronts. Last week’s article explained the momentous events in Ethiopia since the fall of Haile Selassie in 1974. Analysing the social character of the new regime, it explained that, on the one hand, the land reform and nationalisation of industry carried out under the pressure of the masses – abolishing landlordism and capitalism – represent an enormous step forward: while, on the other hand, the dictatorial direction of the changes from above by the military leaders of the Dergue has given the Ethiopian revolution a distorted, Bonapartist character from the very beginning. This week, Lynn Walsh deals with the national question: the struggle in Eritrea and the war with Somalia over Ogaden.
* * *
The attempt of the Dergue’s regime to retain control over Eritrea and Ogaden have nothing in common with genuine Marxism.
When the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia in 1917 they immediately conceded the right of self-determination to the oppressed nationalities which had been shackled up in the old Russian empire’s “prison-house of nations.” By proclaiming the right to independence, the Soviet government was able to gain the confidence of the exploited classes within the subject nations, and convince them of the enormous advantages of opting for a voluntary socialist federation with full autonomy.
Under Stalin, however, the bureaucracy which usurped the political control of the soviets returned to a narrow, nationalist policy. The greater-Russian chauvinism of Stalinism fanned all the smouldering embers of nationalism, giving new life to national aspirations which would have soon been satisfied and outgrown in a democratic federation of soviet republics. Today, throughout Russia and Eastern Europe, national sentiments amplify all the grievances of workers in the subject states and nationalities and, in turn, provide a means of expressing opposition to the totalitarian dictatorship which rules over the planned economy.
On this vital issue, as on others, the Dergue has followed the example, not of the Bolsheviks, but of the Stalinist bureaucracy. This is not simply a question of mistaken choice of policy: it reflects the narrow social interests of the petit-bourgeois military caste on which the Dergue is based. Its lack of internationalism and hostility to national aspirations are the counterpart of its determination to direct all social change from above and at all costs to retain power in its hands.
Far from defusing the explosive national antagonisms which built up under Haile Selassie’s empire, the Dergue, by attempting to crush the hopes aroused by the Emperor’s fall, actually triggered a critical reaction which has come near to blowing Ethiopia apart.
Struggle in Eritrea
The armed struggle of the Eritrean liberation movement against the regime in Addis Adaba is now 17 years old. During the war to free Ethiopia from Italian rule in 1941, when the British army backed Haile Selassie’s forces, Eritrea, formerly an Italian colony, was promised independence. After the war, however, the United Nations recommended its federation with Ethiopia under the Emperor’s throne.
In 1962, the party which dominated the Eritrean Assembly and reflected propertied interests, decided to take Eritrea into union with Ethiopia. Moves in this direction had already given rise to the Eritrean Liberation Front, founded in Cairo in 1958, which had initiated the armed struggle in 1961.
By 1971, the ELF had established a strong position for itself, and its operations forced Haile Selassie to declare martial law in Eritrea. But in 1972 the ELF split, provoking bloody conflict between the two wings of the movement. The ELF, backed by Sudan and a number of Arab states, claims to be “socialist” but characterises the present struggle as “the stage of national democratic revolution”, postponing socialist aims to a later “stage”.
The split-away EPLF (Eritrean Popular Liberation Front), however, claims to be “Marxist-Leninist” and appears to have much wider support among the exploited masses and petit-bourgeois in Eritrea. Ironically the EPLF counts among its heroes the same Fidel Castro who is now supplying its mortal enemies with military advisers. Such are the tragic contradictions.
Both the ELF and EPLF seized on the collapse of the old regime in 1974 to launch a new offensive struggle for independence. After two years of intense fighting, the liberation force took most of the province out of the Dergue’s control, occupying most of Eritrea’s towns, and cutting off Ethiopia’s route to the vital Red Sea ports of Massawa and Assab.
Only the divisions within the Eritrean liberation movement and its lack of a viable political strategy saved the Dergue from complete defeat in Eritrea. The extent of mass support for the independence struggle is indicated by the fact that, in May 1976, the combined guerrilla forces of the ELF and EPLF were estimated at 30,000 to 40,000. When the Dergue offered limited autonomy to Eritrea, it was rejected outright by both wings of the liberation movement.
Faced with this, the Dergue began in May 1976 to recruit a peasant force to march in Eritrea against the liberation movement. Drawing on the peasant associations formed when land reforms were carried through, the Dergue assembled a peasant army of 30,000 to 40,000.
Thousands of peasants would undoubtedly have been prepared to mobilise to defend – as the Dergue claimed – the gains that had accrued to them under the new regime. But the Dergue also attempted to whip up support on the most reactionary basis, concentrating recruitment in the predominantly Christian provinces, and waging an hysterical propaganda campaign against the Eritreans, accusing them of “selling Ethiopian territory to the Arabs.” In such an approach, there is not an iota of Marxism.
The Dergue’s ill-prepared and poorly-equipped peasant army disintegrated when it came up against the Eritrean forces. Most of Eritrea still remains outside the Dergue’s control. Although the fighting continues, the Dergue appears to be concentrating its military efforts in the south, against the Somali-backed forces in Ogaden.
With the military and economic aid it is now receiving from Russia, and the training of its army by over 6,000 Cuban advisers, it is possible that the Dergue will be able to retake Eritrea. But the reconquest of Eritrea could be achieved by the Dergue only with an enormous toll of death and destruction, which would confirm with blood of tens of thousands the nationalistic, repressive character of the new regime, in spite of the progressive social changes from which it draws its strength.
Had the new regime offered full independence to Eritrea, while offering autonomous participation in a socialist federation, who can doubt that the land reform measures and nationalisation would have an enormous attraction for the workers and peasants of Eritrea? As it is, the Dergue appears to be as despotic as Haile Selassie’s regime, if not more so.
To national oppression, is added repulsion at the savage, dictatorial methods of the Dergue. The intensified struggle of the Eritrean liberation movement, moreover, has also had the effect of stimulating renewed separatist demands within Ethiopia, notably among peoples of Tigre and Afar, who are kicking back at the tyranny imposed on them by the Dergue.
The War in Ogaden and the Character of the Somali Regime
In the last few weeks, Ethiopia has launch a massive counter-offensive against the Somali-backed forces in Ogaden – backed by Russia (with Cuba as its military agent), Moscow having abandoned its former support for Somalia. In all probability, Ethiopia will retake Ogaden. Whatever the outcome, however, this war in one of the world’s poorest regions unmistakably demonstrates the complete lack of internationalism of the Russian bureaucracy, and the narrow nationalist outlook of its replicas in the underdeveloped world.
Ethiopia and Somalia are at war: but the regime in Somalia has the same essential social characteristics as the regime in Ethiopia (analysed in last week’s article). While Ethiopia was being convulsed by dramatic and bloody events which attracted the attention of the whole world, Somalia was experiencing similar changes, carried through with little upheaval and almost unnoticed internationally.
In 1975, the military government of Siyad Barre, which had seized power in 1969, completed a radical land reform which eradicated landlordism and satisfied the peasants’ demand for land. What little industry there is in Somalia was completely nationalised, and an economic development plan inaugurated.
Proclaiming itself to be a state based on “scientific socialism”, Somalia was rapidly adopted as a client by the Russian bureaucracy, which had already given aid and was now eager to assure its access to the naval facilities at Berbera on the Gulf of Aden. The Somalian forces began to receive enormous military aid from Russia.
Somalia has long laid claim to Ogaden, a former British “protectorate” handed to Ethiopia by Britain in 1955, but which has a population of about two million (mainly nomadic) Somalis. Ever since its formation as an independent republic in 1960 (unifying British and Italian Somaliland), Somalia has demanded the inclusion of other areas with a predominantly Somali population; north-eastern Kenya (with about half a million) and Djibouti (formerly French Somaliland).
While Haile Selassi ruled Ethiopia, Moscow was quite prepared to approve Somalia’s claims to Ogaden – though, ironically, it was Stalin who had vetoed a British proposal at the United Nations after 1945 to hand Ogaden to Somalia!
Russia Changes Sides
But the events of 1974 changed the situation. Somalia saw the turmoil in Ethiopia as a golden opportunity to step up its struggle for Ogaden by increasing its supply of regular troops and equipment to the West Somalia Liberation Front. As the Dergue began to move towards more radical measures, however, Moscow began to shift its policy.
The Russian leadership calculated that the social measures would give the new regime a basis, despite the terrible convulsions the country was going through. With its much greater land-area and bigger population, Ethiopia has a far greater political and strategic importance in Africa and Arabian Gulf. First, the Russian bureaucracy tried to negotiate a compromise between Somalia and Ethiopia. But when this failed – demonstrating the cynical basis of their foreign policy – they switched their support to the big battalions, to Ethiopia.
America Cautious
As a result, in November last year, Barre kicked out the 6,000 Russian advisers and ended Somalia’s ties with Moscow. He then appealed to the western powers for help. Barre has received some aid from France and West Germany (partly in return for co-operation against the Palestinian hijackers of the Lufthansa jet which ended up at Mogadishu last year). But the US has vetoed any major assistance for Somalia. Apart from the coolness towards the nationalised, centrally-planned economy, and fear of a new Vietnam-type involvement, they are afraid of the Pandora’s box that would be opened by supporting Somalia’s claim to Ogaden, which implies a general claim for all “ethic frontiers” embracing all Somalis.
“The United States cannot send arms to Somalia,” explains ‘The Financial Times’ (19. 1. 78) “because, whatever one thinks of Somalia’s moral case and the authenticity of the WSLF, virtually every other African state takes the view that Somalia is the aggressor and that its action threatens the principle that borders inherited from colonial times are inviolable. Somalia’s contention that the people of Ogaden are liberating themselves from Ethiopian colonialism are not widely accepted.”
Right to Self-Determination
Given this situation, Ethiopia will probably retake Ogaden, though it is unlikely to cross the border into Somalia. But could there be a greater condemnation of the grotesque, nationalistic foreign policy of the Russian bureaucracy? Only, perhaps, the war between the regimes of the deformed workers’ states in Vietnam and Cambodia after the long, heroic struggle of their peoples against landlordism and imperialism.
The Marxism of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky stands unequivocally for the right of nations to self-determination. Sensitivity to the aspirations of oppressed nationalities goes hand in hand with genuine internationalism.
Marxists must support the right of the Eritrean people to independence.
Although the Somali regime has undoubtedly supported the ‘West Somali’ liberation movement for reasons of its own power and prestige. Marxists cannot but support the demand of the Somalis in Ogaden to decide their own future.
Similarly, the other national minorities within Ethiopia should be granted autonomy, and the right to independence if they decide to separate.
But while the satisfaction of national aspirations is a pre-condition for the resolution of the conflicts now raging throughout the Horn of Africa, the formation of a number of small new independent states, even with the abolition of landlordism and capitalism, would in itself by no means provide a solution to the terrible problems facing the impoverished and exploited masses of the region.
Full recognition of national rights must be linked by Marxists to the call for a socialist federation of Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and if they decide on independence, other small states in the region.
Even this, however, must be viewed as a step in the direction of a socialist federation of Africa, the only means by which the continent will escape from the stifling legacy of colonialism and the continued domination of imperialism.
These demands must be taken in conjunction with the demands for workers’ democracy, explained in last week’s article in relation to Ethiopia and which also apply to Somalia.
International Perspectives are the Key
In the case of Ethiopia and Somalia, both the dictatorial character of the regimes and their complete lack of internationalism arise from the confinement within narrow national boundaries of the fundamental social changes over which they have presided. On the basis of the extreme backwardness that still prevails, with the survival of feudal conditions and only a very limited development of modern industry, it is impossible to establish genuine socialist relations. Socialism, as Marx explained, requires a level of technique and culture high enough to abolish scarcity and want.
The attempt, under exceptional conditions, of petit-bourgeois military leaders to tackle social tasks which are objectively those of the socialist revolution – thus giving rise to deformed workers’ states – can be explained only from the point of view of the international balance of class forces.
The revolutionary developments in Ethiopia and Somalia, as in other countries like Cuba (Militant nos. 390-392) are as much the product of the world situation as of the class struggle within these countries. The regimes which have emerged are the result of international dead-lock in the class struggle which has prevailed in the post-war period.
While capitalism experienced a long, unprecedented boom in the advanced countries of the west and Japan, it proved incapable of developing the ex-colonial, underdeveloped areas of the world. The postponement of the socialist revolution in the west, where the industrial working class is concentrated, produced intolerable conditions in the backward countries.
When crisis erupted, triggering the complete collapse of the old ruling class and, especially in Ethiopia, provoking the sweeping movement of the workers and peasants, the military leaders at the head of the movement were not only forced to clear away the remnants of the old ruling class, but were impelled to break with private property relations in order to find a way out.
Under Mengistu in Ethiopia and Barre in Somalia, Bonapartist leaderships, which in a past era would probably have taken certain limited measures against landlordism and foreign big business in order to foster the growth of their native capitalism, have been pushed by events to carry through the abolition of landlordism and capitalism. They could establish a firm basis for their power in no other way. They have been able to take measures which, historically, belong to the proletariat, because of the extreme weakness of the working class in these countries and because of the powerful working class of the advanced countries, the key to the socialist revolution internationally, has not yet moved decisively to carry out the socialist transformation of society.
Given the world balance of forces, these Bonapartist regimes which begun proletarian tasks in their own distorted manner, have inevitably turned for support towards the much more powerful deformed workers’ states in Russia and Eastern Europe (and in some cases China) which constitute a heavy counterweight to imperialism. The bureaucracy of the Stalinist states not only provide economic and military aid – as they did formerly to Somalia and now to Ethiopia – to allow them to survive in a hostile capitalist world, but provide these new regimes with a ready-made prototype on which to model their own state apparatus. Inevitably, there is a tendency for these relatively weak regimes to become clients of the Russian bureaucracy.
New World Situation
In the case of Somalia, which received enormous military aid, the national interests of the ruling caste have come into conflict with the Russian bureaucracy’s wider foreign policy interests in the Horn of Africa. Rooted in the isolation of the Russian revolution, the Stalinist bureaucracy is incapable of surmounting the national antagonisms created by capitalism and imperialism.
But the class dead-lock of the post-war period which has produced the distorted transitional regimes of Ethiopia and Somalia is breaking down. The world economic crisis has already provoked enormous movements of the workers in Portugal, Spain and Italy. Tomorrow, there will be similar movements in France, Britain and other advanced countries, including the United States. The socialist revolution has been placed on the agenda in the metropolitan heart lands of capital. Events in Russia and Eastern Europe have also brought much nearer the political revolution in the Stalinist states.
The establishment of workers’ democracy and planned production in the advanced countries would transform the world situation. Then the progressive changes now being carried out under such distorted conditions would become the basis for the rapid transformation of these desperately poor countries on the basis of international working class collaboration. The material and cultural standards of the toiling masses would be immeasurably raised and in a manner that fully satisfied national aspirations and the desire to democratically decide for themselves.
Schreibe einen Kommentar