Abkhazia Institute for Social and Economic Research

A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of the Department of Political Science

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Masters of Arts

Download  Ethiopia and Soviet Power (341.86 kB 2007-11-22 15:47:17)

Abstract

     Ethiopia has been a scene of conflicts in which, on numerous occasions, the world’s great powers have participated.

The involvement of superpowers, which at times even switched sides during the height of the struggle, exacerbated Ethiopia’s attempts to counter many ethnic separatist movements and somehow assure its survival.  However, the Soviet Union’s massive and unanticipated intrusion on the side of Ethiopia drew the entire area into the new violent vortex. 

It begins to set a stage for addressing this matter by presenting a brief background concerning history of Ethiopia and pre-revolutionary Ethiopian-Soviet relations.

It traces the progress of Ethiopian revolution, which overthrew imperial government and resumed a conflict in the region.  The paper then explores Ethiopian-Soviet rapprochement and its setting. 

Having identified the main factors that have determined the Ethiopia-Soviet relations, the paper investigates subsequent developments in Ethiopia’s politics, namely the government’s patterns of activities dictated by geopolitical considerations and a strategic alliance with the Soviet Union, from which consequences would arise and persist for many decades to come for all nations located on the Horn of Africa.  In the end, a conclusion is made that Ethiopia’s adoption of Marxism-Leninism as official ideology; its association with world socialism and entrance into a heavily imbalanced relationship with self-interested superpower was induced by erroneous expectations of safeguarding the revolution and state.  The ensuing quest for security and the futile attempt to leap from semi-feudal backwardness into socialism in a space of a few years resulted in catastrophe.