Introduction

The contrasting faces of the Ethiopian Revolution are all too apparent. As in other classical revolutions, notably the French and the Russian, the euphoria that attended the initial outbreak was followed by anguish and remorse. Indeed, seen retrospectively, the latter sentiment clearly overshadows the former. Nothing illustrates this more graphically than the fact that the protagonists of the Ethiopian Revolution were imprisoned, facing charges of genocide and mass murder. The best and the brightest perished in that process, particularly in the two fateful years between 1976 and 1978. The gap left behind by this calamity is akin to the generation gap that attended the Graziani Massacre of February 1937 during fascist Italy's occupation of Ethiopia, when some of the most agile and promising minds were targeted for liquidation. But neither moral indignation nor legal prosecution can adequately resolve this national disaster. There is a need to put what looked like a monstrous aberration in perspective, to contextualize it both globally and nationally. This chapter attempts to do that. Needless to say, explanation should in no way be construed as justification.