Following the 1974 revolution, the ESM members in Ethiopia and aboard 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".

Elleni Zeleke wrote:[8][9] The Ethiopian Student Movement was crucial for the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie regime, the 1974 revolution and the seizure of Derg military junta.

[3] Many political parties during the Derg era emerged from ESM, mostly the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) which was formed by students that exiled to the United States, Europe and Algiers while the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (MEISON) came out from the Ethiopian Student Union in Europe (ESUE).

[2][11] Hannah Borenstein, who backed Bahru Zewde opinion, wrote that the 1969 student activism was both good and bad, and bequeathed to the contemporary ethnic conflict in Ethiopia.