However, by the late 1970s, the Derg faced increasing armed opposition to their rule, and it became apparent that a civilian party would be required to gain any measure of control over the population.

The organisations were also intended to act as a conduit for political consciousness at a more personal level by representing Ethiopians at congresses, in the workplace, and at educational institutes, and membership in multiple of the mass organizations was encouraged.

Mengistu's earlier calls for ideological purity and "committed communists" soon became a simple façade for the Derg's efforts to eliminate its political opponents regardless of actual beliefs.

The Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE) was finally established on 12 September 1984, to mark the tenth anniversary of the revolution in which the Derg came to power, replacing the COPWE which was dissolved.

[citation needed] At a national level, membership of the WPE was heavily slanted towards soldiers and members of certain ethnic groups that had, historically, endorsed the concept of a unified "Greater Ethiopia", such as the Tigray and Amhara.

By the turn of the 1990s, the WPE's power began to unravel amidst the end of Soviet support in 1990, a concurrent move towards multi-party politics across Africa, and increasing armed insurrection during the Ethiopian Civil War.