One accomplishment that some antisocialists like to cite is Fascist Italy’s purported abolition of chattel slavery in Ethiopia when it occupied the country from the mid‐1930s to the early 1940s. On the contrary, slavery was already on its way out (if only slowly) and the Ethiopian government issued its own decrees against slavery, so the notion that slavery would have persisted in Ethiopia without (Fascist) colonialism is incredible.

Nevertheless, Fascist officials did issue emancipation decrees from late 1935 to mid‐1936, but they not only failed to enforce these, the institution of slavery actually worsened in Ethiopia. Quoting Humanitarian Imperialism: The Politics of Anti‐Slavery Activism, 1880–1940, page 186:

The Bureau International pour la Protection des Indigènes in Geneva, for example, after openly expressing its concern about the [Fascist] attack in autumn 1935, now felt ‘a duty’ to point out that the problem of slavery was ‘much more complicated’ than its portrayal by the [Fascist] government.

The Bureau remarked that, ‘if a simple decree had been sufficient to eliminate this secular institution, the Ethiopian emperor would certainly have promulgated it long ago’, a criticism which prompted the Italian Anti‐Slavery Society to publicly attack the Bureau, claiming [that] it was a ‘Bolshevik organization’.

The lack of [Fascist] surveys and reports measuring the impact of the Bando Badoglio on the slave population, however, speaks for itself. Besides a few misty‐eyed accounts about freed Ethiopian slaves published by supporters of Italy and members of the Italian anti‐slavery society, there was little reliable information about the effects of the new abolitionist decrees.

In all likelihood, Ethiopians who achieved emancipation did so irrespective of Fascism (as some already had been doing long before 1935). The Fascists offered very little to help ex‐slaves integrate into greater society:

For many Ethiopian slaves the transition to freedom had probably little in common with abolitionist ideals, and postwar realities fell short of the hoped for transformative socio‐economic effects of the war. As James McCann has shown, at least during the early months of the military conflict, slaves could claim protection within the limited areas under [Fascist] control in Northern Ethiopia. Because freed slaves lacked any means of survival, however, many were drawn into the Eritrean militia, while others served as paid labourers in [Fascist] military camps and female ex‐slaves became concubines of Italian and Eritrean soldiers.

In terms of cruelty, General Emilio de Bono’s own impression (pg. 169) of Ethiopian slavery suggests that it was more comparable to, say, European serfdom than it was to chattel slavery in the United States of America. This may explain why its abolition wasn’t more rapid than it could have been. It would certainly explain why the transition from traditional slavery to wage slavery was not very exciting for many Ethiopians: it was not much of an improvement, and neither was unemployment, in which many ex‐slaves had no previous experience.

Not only this, but in many cases slavery actually worsened due to Fascism:

The situation was considerably worse in areas outside of [Fascist] control, where poor security conditions during the war and occupation brought about a resurgence, not the decline, of slavery and the slave trade. Earlier during the military conflict, the Anti‐Slavery Society had received alarming reports about an increase in slave‐trading from Christine Sandford, wife of the British colonel Daniel Sandford who had been appointed by Haile Selassie in 1935 to assist the Ethiopian government after De Halpert’s departure.

Christine Sandford described her husband’s concern and the great difficulties which he encountered due to ‘the burden of war’ and the ‘dislocation caused by the Italian invasion’ whilst supervising the implementation of Selassie’s abolitionist decrees. This prompted Harris to send a letter to The Times in which he underlined how ‘unfortunate’ it was that the [Fascist] government had not made any communications with regard to the practical implementation of the Bando Badoglio.

The leader of the Anti‐Slavery Society also remarked that if the [Fascist] decree was to be ‘anything other than a dead letter’, rigorous steps had to be taken by the [Fascist] authorities to implement abolition. ‘Slavery dies hard’, Harris warned Times readers, ‘it has never yet been abolished by proclamation alone’.

Page 188:

Concerns amongst anti‐slavery activists that the war might have aggravated the problem of slavery in Ethiopia were confirmed in November 1936 when the British Anti‐Slavery Society received a delayed and confidential report on Ethiopian slavery from the British Foreign Office. As Harris confided to Noel‐Buxton, the report was a ‘terrible document’ of a ‘most depressing nature’.

The report demonstrated that slavery had been endemic before the [Fascist] invasion, and that the emperor’s social reforms, which intended to undermine its influence, were completely disrupted by the [Fascist] attack. ‘Slave caravans revived everywhere, and the slaves taken to markets reached abnormal figures—sometimes as many as a thousand lives were sent to market at one time’.

This was the final blow for the advocates of military intervention and in a letter to Lady Simon, the anti‐slavery leader openly wondered ‘where all these slaves [had] gone’. ‘Somebody has got them in slavery’, Harris speculated, ‘and they must number many thousands’.

Page 189:

The [Fascist] colonial government took no measures—financial or otherwise—to free slaves. Rather, the metropolitan government’s emphasis on immigration and settlements made land appropriation and land use a central policy of [Fascist] colonialism, thus creating socio‐political problems that far exceeded the problem of slavery.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

If nothing else, let this be a reminder not to trust antisocialist governments whenever they concern troll for ‘human rights’. Listen closely and you’ll only hear the sound of war drums.