Notes

League of Tigray (MLLT), emerged among one sub-group wishing to have full control of
the Front and follow a new, strict ideological policy. Since a ‘Front’ by definition is an
organization of people with different ideological and political background but coming
together to accomplish a limited common objective, the various trends in the organization
could be checked and put under control only if a one-party system was operational. Here
probably lies the reason why the militant elite of the TPLF was seen to require an ultraleftist
party. The establishment of a communist party did however not reflect the overall
interest and aspirations of the traditional peasant society of Tigrai.
The party was forged gradually in a semi-clandestine fashion to avoid possible
resistance from the rank and file of the Front or the general population of Tigrai. First, by
organizing the educated section known as the ‘leading elements’ or Merih Baeta of the
Front, and through them by reaching out to the larger section of its active members, the
party was declared operational in 1985, ten years after the formation of the TPLF.
According to the Marxist ideology of the party, industrial workers, which were actually
insignificant in numbers, and the peasantry were the social forces which should take the
mantle of the leadership of the ‘proletarian Marxist party’. In practice, however, it was
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the elite of the TPLF which controlled the leadership positions and used both the leftist
ideology and the organization of an MLLT. The party eventually stretched down to
village-level cadres as a means of controlling and centralizing the activities of the Front.
Using the high reputation the TPLF had gained in the 1976-1985 armed struggle
fighting against heavy odds, the leaders of the MLLT began to extend beyond Tigrai by
helping the creation of MLLT-replica parties in other Ethiopian organizations like the
EMLF (Ethiopian Marxist-Leninist Force) as a Marxist party that guided the EPDM. In
this context in 1990 the ‘Ethiopian Proletarian Organizations Unity (EPOU)’ was
nominally formed, bringing together the MLLT and the EMLF. Whether it ever took up
its supposed role of nation-wide Marxist-Leninist organization is unknown.
Before this ambitious project took shape, the TPLF was confronted with the
dilemmas generated by the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union and
its bloc, and also with the impending defeat of the Dergue. Just before TPLF/EPRDF’s
decisive military victory in May 1991, the MLLT and the other ML organizations
retreated into oblivion, without any public pronouncement about their dissolution. This
retreat could be considered as an expedient and pragmatic move. But the ideological
heritage lived on in the ‘revolutionary democratic’ approach of the TPLF/EPRDF.
In this chapter we have clearly seen that an important sub-group of the TPLF
political elite, opportunistically or as a matter of principle, used the MLLT to establish
dominance inside the movement and beyond. This happened after the military successes
scored by the TPLF on the battlefield in the period 1976-1985. That new elite dominance
did not go away with the apparent retreat of the MLLT in 1991 and after. By invigorating
and supporting ‘ethno-nationalist entrepreneurs’ all over Ethiopia to forge their own
ethnic-based organizations after 1991, they continued to play a dominant role and
prevailed over other contenders to political power. As for the MLLT, whether functional
or not, it has already served its purpose; it has been the vehicle of empowering the
political elite of the TPLF.