ABSTRACT
Ethiopian Marxist intellectuals abroad returned to join the revolution, but ended up divided into separate camps, the two most important being the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party and MEISON. The former counted the Derg among its enemies and demanded a civilian government immediately, while the latter attempted to direct the revolution from inside through Derg cooperation, and spoke of a yet immature sense of class consciousness. If the political history of Ethiopia is used as a basis for analysis, one could start with the short-sightedness, the lack of continuity of polices and the reactions of the people to this situation. When Mengistu fled the country in May 1991 a Transitional Government took over, and issued a draft for a new Ethiopian economic policy which, after consultations with a variety of economic and political organisations, was approved by the Council of Representatives in November.
