There is not much in-depth information available about the revolution in Ethiopia, but the book Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia by John Young provides detailed information about the revolution, why it started, how the Derg affected the nation, and the role of the peasant population in Tigray and Eritrea.
Challenges and advances
The Derg recognized and acknowledged that the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) was gaining supporters and strength, which was a direct threat to its regime. In an attempt to undermine TPLF support, the Derg began restricting the sale of agricultural implements and machinery to peasants in an effort to cut food production. However, this plan ended up backfiring which also caused harm to the urban-based military which forced the Derg to abandon the practice entirely. Peasants coming from areas where the TPLF had popular support ran the risk of imprisonment for being suspected supporters and responded largely by avoiding towns altogether.
For those who remained in the Derg manned garrisoned towns, life was difficult, particularly for women who were frequently the victims of sexual assault and rape. Explaining the conditions under the regime, a Maichew resident said:
"People had to be clever or tactical. It was a soldier's government and you had to give soldiers food, tej [mead], whatever they wanted. Parents gave their children to marry Derg soldiers to get security. Rape was common, even of priests' wives. The belongings of the wealthy were taken. If parents were rich enough they would send their children to the area, but if the children were young they had to put up with it. You couldn't even sit outside with two or three people, even with one's family, as they might be employed by Derg security. You could only talk about sex, food and tej".
In the face of such persecution many abandoned their homes and left for Sudan and other neighboring countries, while others, primarily youth, fled to the base areas of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and TPLF. After an individual's disappearance, the Derg would commonly arrest the person's parents and this often led to the other children leaving and joining the opposition. The Derg imposed new taxes to fund its war in Eritrea and other nationwide conflicts and rebellions. The Derg closed most rural schools because they believed that teachers were TPLF sympathizers. The Derg attempted to organize rural administrations, but its methods were harsh and allowed little room for democratic participation. Peasant associations that had started out as bodies representative of local opinion were reduced to the status of organs responsible to the Derg.
Conditions were particularly difficult under the Derg for traders and merchants. The Derg nationalized illegally acquired goods found in the possession of traders, but they would also occasionally take legally acquired merchandise in the name of development or resettlement. In 1983, the TPLF began a concerted program of promoting the development of commercial enterprise, particularly grain, in the areas under its control. However, the limited purchasing power of the peasants and the insecurity of daytime travel discouraged professional traders and encouraged a harder breed of part-time traders who were able to undercut their larger counterparts.
The merchants built capital and began transporting basic consumer items from Derg-controlled towns to the opposition-held territories and TPLF-controlled towns. The TPLF also turned to the merchants for consumer items, such as rubber sandals, sugar, canned milk, and grain. The TPLF also made small raids on Derg supply depots in the towns to acquire badly needed items like bullets and petrol. However, even when the Derg was removed from the Tigray region and the urban and rural areas became integrated, the trading economy could not be fully revived.
As far as political and military struggles are concerned, in 1978 the Relief Society of Tigray (REST)—an organization largely funded by NGOs in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe was established as a humanitarian organization with a mandate to co-ordinate relief programs, rehabilitation, and development both in Tigray and among Tigrayan refugees in neighboring countries). The founding of REST reflected the TPLF's need for a specialized body to handle relief and development efforts, and also to respond to the Derg's efforts to restrict the flow of humanitarian and economic assistance to areas of Tigray that were coming under the control of the Front.