The Marxist–Leninist League of Tigray (MLLT) was a semi-clandestine Hoxhaist Communist Party that held a leading role in the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF) in the 1980s.
The majority of the TPLF leadership held dual membership in the MLLT, including Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1995 until his death in 2012.
After the creation of the Marxist-Lenninst League of Tigray, the TPLF developed a cohesive discipline strategy because of the leadership of the MLLT.
In the process of reorganization, the MLLT attempted to clear out other parties and ideology that made up the front and center the views strictly on Marxism-Lenninism.
[5] The power of the TPLF was transitioned and concentrated into The MLLT following the Leninist ideology of an intellectual intelligentsia leading the revolution.
The Derg attempted land distribution before, but due to constant corruption and weak influence in the region of Tigray, they failed.
The Derg pulled out of Tigray allowing for the TPLF and MLLT to decide how land reform should take place.
[5] The emergence of the MLLT created some rifts with the Eritrean People's Liberation Front with which the TPLF was allied against the ruling Soviet-backed Ethiopian Derg.
[3] The opposition to the Soviet Union continues the trend of the MLLT aligning with the Albanian Party of Labour and leader Enver Hoxha.
[3] In 1989 The TPLF and MLLT joined a united front against the Derg due to widespread state violence being committed.
This popular front was the catalyst to the fall of The MLLT because Marxism-Leninism was no longer the central goal of the TPLF, but instead became the overthrow of the Derg.
[6] In 1990 the shift from Marxism-Leninism began when Meles Zenawi announced the changing party platform to Revolutionary Democracy in a speech given in the United States.