Haile Fida ( 4 April 1939 – 4 April 1979) was oromo politician and a leader of the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (popularly known as "MEISON", after its Amharic abbreviation). His most significant accomplishment was drafting the Program for the National Democratic Revolution on behalf of the Derg. Early life Haile Fida was born in Jimma Arjo, Wollega and grew up in Nekemte,  Wollega. Haile Fida was an Oromo who had been studying in France since the early 1960s, and had acquired a Marxist ideology that was closer to the Soviet version than to the New Left; Haile studied MA in sociology and social anthropology and PhD in philosophy at the Institut Universitaire de France. Rene LaFort states that he was a fellow-traveller of the French Communist Party. He returned to Ethiopia soon after the start of the Ethiopian Revolution, sometime in 1975, having answered the Derg's appeal for all educated Ethiopians to return home to help modernize the country. With Negede Gobeze, who had also been studying abroad in France, he opened the "Progressive Book Store" near the campus of Haile Selassie University (now Addis Ababa University), which made the basic texts of Marxism-Leninism available to Ethiopians. "The store", note the Ottaways, "a dilapidated old house, was swamped by students, and each new shipment of books was immediately sold out."Marina and David Ottaway, Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution (New York: Africana, 1978), p. 116; Rene LaFort, Ethiopia: An Heretical Revolution? translated by A.M. Berrett (London: Zed Press, 1983), p. 169
Haile Fida ( 4 April 1939 – 4 April 1979) was Oromo politician and a leader of the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (popularly known as "MEISON", after its Amharic abbreviation). His most significant accomplishment was drafting the Program for the National Democratic Revolution on behalf of the Derg. Early life Haile Fida was born in Jimma Arjo, East Wollega Zone and grew up in Nekemte, East Wollega. Haile Fida was studying in France since the early 1960s, and had acquired a Marxist ideology that was closer to the Soviet version than to the New Left; Haile studied MA in sociology and social anthropology and PhD in philosophy at the Institut Universitaire de France. Rene LaFort states that he was a fellow-traveller of the French Communist Party. He returned to Ethiopia soon after the start of the Ethiopian Revolution, sometime in 1975, having answered the Derg's appeal for all educated Ethiopians to return home to help modernize the country. With Negede Gobeze, who had also been studying abroad in France, he opened the "Progressive Book Store" near the campus of Haile Selassie University (now Addis Ababa University), which made the basic texts of Marxism-Leninism available to Ethiopians. "The store", note the Ottaways, "a dilapidated old house, was swamped by students, and each new shipment of books was immediately sold out."Marina and David Ottaway, Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution (New York: Africana, 1978), p. 116; Rene LaFort, Ethiopia: An Heretical Revolution? translated by A.M. Berrett (London: Zed Press, 1983), p. 169
R
oromo
Oromo
R
Wollega
East Wollega Zone
A
East
D
an Oromo who had been