On this date the military committee known as the Derg removed Emperor Haile Selassie from power, marking the decisive transfer of state authority from the imperial system to military rule and inaugurating the revolutionary period that became the Derg regime.
The Derg executed 60 imprisoned officials of the former imperial government in Addis Ababa, a turning point that signaled escalating revolutionary violence and helped consolidate the junta’s control through terror and purges.
The Derg announced a sweeping land reform that nationalized rural land without compensation and abolished tenancy, reshaping agrarian relations and expanding state control into the countryside through new local structures such as peasant associations.
Haile Selassie died after being held under house arrest by the military government; subsequent evidence reported by major reference works indicated he was likely killed on the orders of the post-coup authorities, further severing legitimacy ties to the imperial era.
Following a violent internal confrontation that killed Derg chairman Tafari Benti and other rivals, Mengistu Haile Mariam emerged as head of state and chairman, enabling a more centralized and coercive phase of military rule.
After the February 1977 consolidation of power, the regime’s Red Terror campaign was formally declared in Addis Ababa and expanded into widespread repression against suspected opponents, becoming a defining episode of state violence under the Derg.
Somali forces invaded Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, triggering a major interstate war fought amid Ethiopia’s internal conflicts. The war intensified militarization and drew deeper Cold War involvement in the Horn of Africa.
The Derg established the Commission for Organizing the Party of the Working People of Ethiopia (COPWE) by proclamation, institutionalizing a Marxist-Leninist party-building project to support one-party rule and extend ideological control.
A devastating famine affected multiple regions during the Derg era, with mortality estimates ranging widely in the literature and with scholars and human-rights investigators stressing how conflict and state policies worsened the crisis and relief outcomes.
The Workers’ Party of Ethiopia (WPE) was founded to serve as the regime’s vanguard party, formalizing one-party structures that would later be embedded in the state created under the 1987 constitution.
After a February 1987 referendum, a new constitution took effect and inaugurated the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE), re-casting the Derg’s military rule into a formal one-party socialist state under the WPE.
With government forces collapsing under rebel offensives, Mengistu resigned and fled into exile in Zimbabwe, effectively ending his personal rule even before the capital formally fell to the EPRDF.
EPRDF forces entered Addis Ababa and took control of key state sites, formally ending the Derg/PDRE system and closing the 1974–1991 chapter of military Marxist-Leninist rule that included the Red Terror and protracted civil war.
Ethiopia: The Derg Regime and the Red Terror (1974–1991)
