Ethiopia, crisis of a Marxist economy : analysis and text of a Soviet report / Paul B. Henze ; prepared for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Format:

Book

Government document

Author/Creator:

Henze, Paul B., 1924-2011.

Contributor:

United States. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Rand Corporation.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Central planning--Ethiopia.

Central planning.

Ethiopia--Economic policy.

Ethiopia.

Ethiopia--Politics and government--1974-1991.

Physical Description:

xi, 47, 83 pages : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, CA : RAND Corporation, [1989].

Summary:

The great famine of 1984-1985 in Ethiopia was more a symptom than a cause of the deep crisis into which the country's economy fell as a result of a decade of civil war and "socialist transformation" by the dogmatically Marxist, Soviet-backed Derg, or Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC). Drought was only a contributing factor, not the prime cause of the famine. Kenya, which experienced a much more severe drought than Ethiopia over most of its agriculturally productive territory in 1984-1985, was able with timely government action to avert famine entirely. Massive Western emergency relief operations alleviated the Ethiopian famine. Communist countries gave minimal aid. The USSR provided almost no emergency food assistance, confining its efforts to the support of the Derg's counterinsurgency operations and transport for its controversial resettlement campaign. Soviet leaders have subsequently attempted to camouflage their parsimony and pretend that Ethiopia's food problems were exclusively the result of drought. A report prepared by the USSR State Planning Commission (GOSPLAN) Advisory Group in the Ethiopian Central Planning Commission provides an honest and uninhibited Soviet evaluation of the famine crisis.

Contents:

Considerations of the economic policy of Ethiopia for the next few years / prepared by the team of Soviet consulting advisers attached to the NCCP of socialist Ethiopia.

Notes:

"April 1989." "R-3677-USDP." "Prepared for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy."

Contains:

Considerations of the economic policy of Ethiopia for the next few years.