Ethiopian Student Movement

Ethiopian Student Movement
Ethiopian Student Movement
Part of Opposition to Haile Selassie
	Public demonstration amid the Ethiopian Revolution in 1974
Date	1960–1974
Location	Ethiopia
Caused by	Discontent with Haile Selassie's administration; 1972–1975 Wollo famine; Land reform;
Goals	Overthrowing the Ethiopian imperial government; Radical land reform; Communist revolution;
Methods	Protest; Student activism;
Resulted in	Beginning of the Ethiopian Revolution and the Derg era 1974 Ethiopian coup d'état; ; Monarchy abolished in 1975;
Parties
Ethiopian students	Government of Ethiopia
Lead figures
	Tilahun Gizaw Haile Selassie
Casualties
Death(s)	30,000–750,000 (estimates vary widely)

The Ethiopian Student Movement (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ተማሪዎች ንቅንቄ, ESM) was a period of radical Marxist–Leninist student activism and movement in Ethiopia from the mid-1960s to the 1974 revolution. The first demonstration occurred in 1965 by university student, led by Marxist–Leninist motivation chanting "Land to the Tiller" and "Is poverty a crime?". The student uprisings continued in 1966 until 1969. The movement also called for the abolition of monarchy under Emperor Haile Selassie and feudalism in Ethiopia.

Following the 1974 revolution, the ESM members in Ethiopia and abroad superintended many political organizations like the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (MEISON), that involved in insurgency against the Derg regime. Scholars agreed that the ESM has laid foundation of many opposition forces behind the Derg government during the Ethiopian Civil War, especially the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the inspired the EPRDF's notion of "multi-nation, multi-ethnic, and multilingual nature of Ethiopia". As such, ESM is critical for the 21st-century Ethiopian ethnic conflict.