The Commission for Organizing the Party of the Working People of Ethiopia (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ሰራተኞች ፓርቲ አደራጅ ኮሚሽን, romanized: ye’ītiyop’iya seratenyochi paritī āderaji komīshini), generally known by its English acronym COPWE, was a political organization in Ethiopia during the rule of the Derg.
[1] COPWE was a preparty organization; it had the task of preparing the Ethiopian people for creation of a communist party.
[5] The foundation of COPWE was declared through the proclamation 174 of the Derg military junta issued on December 17, 1979.
In his speech Mengistu stated that the Derg had always been aware of the need for a vanguard party, but that conditions had been lacking so far.
[7] COPWE would popularize Marxism-Leninism throughout the country, combat feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism and lead the people towards socialism.
[9][5] The formation of COPWE was the culmination of the struggle between the Derg military junta and its political allies, a struggle that had taken place within Provisional Office for Mass Organizational Affairs (POMOA) and the Union of Ethiopian Marxist-Leninist Organizations (Imadelih).
[8] The Executive Committee of COPWE consisted of seven senior Derg officers, who also constituted the Derg Standing Committee (Mengistu, Fikre-Selassie Wogderes, Fisseha Desta, Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan, Berhanu Bayih, Addis Tedla and Legesse Asfaw) as well as four civilians.
Officially Fisseha Desta was the First Secretary of COPWE, but in practice Legesse Asfaw (Head of Organizational Affairs) led the Secretariat.
[14] According to Peter Schwab, citing a 1980 article in the Ethiopian Herald, two thirds of the Central Committee members were Amharas.
These two posts were separated in late 1981, thus establishing parallel party and state hierarchies in the regions.
The Soviets sent a large cache of Marxist literature to COPWE, hoping to improve its ideological level.
In his speech to the congress, Mengistu claimed that COPWE had been able to establish around 6,500 party cells throughout the country.