Agrarian change and agrarian crisis: state and peasantry in post-revolution Ethiopia

Abstract

AbstractThis article reviews the agrarian policies of post-revolution Ethiopia and discusses the evolution of relations between the peasantry and the military state in the period 1975-90. In broad terms, state policy changed rapidly from simple, home-flavoured populism in the latter part of the 1970s to hard-line Stalinism in the 1980s. The various rural policies that followed, such as collectivisation, villagisation and resettlement, and their effect on the peasantry are briefly assessed. The central point is that these policies impeded the institutionalisation of the populist land reform, politicised agricultural programmes to the detriment of rural production, and embittered relations between state and peasantry. The article also deals with the structure of power in rural Ethiopia as it was beginning to emerge out of the radical reforms of the period in question. The newly evolving rural elite, peasants active in rural mass organisations, is shown to be closely linked with the state apparatus. The hardening of state policy on the one hand, and peasant resentment on the other, soon led to a sort of unholy alliance between the forces of the state at the local level and the rural elite, giving rise to corruption on a large scale. The rapid escalation of rural insurgency, while not directly addressed, is shown to have been a consequence of the deterioration of relations between peasants and the state. The reform of agrarian Stalinism hurriedly launched in 1990 - discussed at some length in the last section of the article - came much too late to rally the peasantry to the side of the state.