Ethiopia

>where did it all go wrong?
Communism

>>1923277
Nah. it was opening to the world. Haile Selassie tried to modernize his country. That meant he needed to send young men abroad. These guys brought back ne ideas and saw how backwards Ethiopia was compared to the ROTW. The men he furthered were the men who ended his reign. It 's a miracle he came out of the first two coups.

>>1923209
It was the Soviet Union's influence, ruining everything as usual.

>>1923303
Actually most of the students were in the US. The US also had the Kagnew Station there. Their influence came much earlier. The USSR only got involved after the shit was going downhill already.

>>1923277
>>1923320
>>1923303
I suppose I didn't read all too much, what exactly did soviets try to do?

>>1923293
Do you suppose that the monarchy would have been overthrown within time then?

>>1923463
>Do you suppose that the monarchy would have been overthrown within time then?
Sooner or later yes. The monarchy may have had a chance if Haile Selassie had abducted at some point or set up a constitution less tailored around the figure of the emperor; less absolutistic if you want. He ruled too long to keep up with the pace of change.
>what exactly did soviets try to do?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia%E2%80%93Russia_relations#1974_revolution
Commie revolutionaries ask for Moscow's help. Ethiopia turned towards the USSR not the other way around.

File: 1931 Statue.jpg (93KB, 700x479px) Image search: [Google]

93KB, 700x479px

>>1923209
>while still maintaining somewhat "modern" standards of living
That's not true really. Modernisation was basically limited to the capital and a handful of other well-connected towns like Dire Dawa. Most of the country was still basically medieval by the time the Italians took over, and it remained so throughout the 20th century. The 'starving Africans' image mostly comes from the 80s during Communist rule, but in truth there were plenty of famines before that, including a massive one in 1973 leading to the overthrow of the monarchy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famines_in_Ethiopia

As for the Italian influence, they were brutal assholes and they wiped out a generation of educated Ethiopians which certainly must have affected development, but they also built infrastructure like roads and towns, encouraged economic development and made slavery illegal (earlier attempts to get rid of it were pretty half-hearted). Overall they probably did more good than bad.

Ethiopia has never been a nice place to live and it's been pretty 'underdeveloped' by the standards of the rest of civilization at least since the fall of the Aksumites. They lacked cities and infrastructure, they had an oppressive feudal system, there was hardly any kind of manufacturing, literacy was limited to the church, travel and trade was extremely difficult due to geography, technology was fairly primitive, etc. The state itself had also been falling apart since the 16th century and only really came back to power in the late 19th. They didn't have any kind of basis for modernization in the way that somewhere like Japan or even Thailand did.

That all said, I think Ethiopia would still be a lot better off than it is today if not for the Communists, if not for the incompetence of Haile Selassie during the later stages of his rule, and if not for the the holding back of Ethiopia's modernization by the conservative nobility, priesthood and certain rulers throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.