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The Derg promoted "Ethiopian socialism", embodying slogans such as "self-reliance", the dignity of labor, and "the supremacy of the common good". [4] On 4 March 1975, the Derg as a council proclaimed sweeping land reforms and drafted Land Reform Proclamation, aiming to eliminate complex land tenure system.
Shortly after the 1974 revolution, as part of their policy of land reform it became Derg policy to accelerate resettlement. Article 18 of the 1975 Land Reform Proclamation stated that "the government shall have the responsibility to settle peasants or to establish cottage industries to accommodate those who, as a result of distribution of land . . . remain with little or no land."
The Derg declared a policy of state atheism, a tenet of Marxist-Leninist ideology; this was opposed by the vast majority of the Ethiopian population. [25] [26] [27] On 4 March 1975, the Derg announced a program of land reform, according to its main slogan of "Land to the Tiller", which was unequivocally radical, even in Soviet and Chinese terms.
Following the 1975 land reform, the Derg converted a majority of the estimated 75,000 hectares of large, commercial farms owned by individuals and cooperatives into state farms; not long afterwards, the government expanded their size. By 1987/88 there were about 216,000 hectares of state farmland, accounting for 3.3% of the total cultivated area.
It is clear that land held by the nobility was confiscated, and gulti obligations terminated by the peasants on their own, very quickly after they heard of the Derg's 1975 proclamation. However, formal land redistributions were rarely initiated by peasants, and the Derg's weak presence in the province before 1977-8 meant that they were probably ...
4 March – the Derg announced a land reform with main slogan "Land for the Tiller". 21 March – Monarchy of the Ethiopian Empire was abolished. 27 August – Haile Selassie died from mysterious circumstances while his personal physician absented. It was believed that Mengistu killed him by order or in his own.
Following their rise to power, on March 4, 1975, the Derg proclaimed their land reform program. The government nationalized rural land without compensation, abolished tenancy, forbade the hiring of wage labor on private farms, ordered all commercial farms to remain under state control, and granted each peasant family so-called "possessing ...
The Derg, the military junta that had ruled Ethiopia as a provisional government since 1974, planned for transition to civilian rule and proclaimed a socialist republic in 1984 after five years of preparation. The Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE) was founded that same year as a vanguard party led by Derg chairman Mengistu Haile Mariam.