September 27, 1975 block; after all it helps to deflect the blows that would fall on us at home." But no for long. The Coptic church still continued to extract 50-05 per cent of the harvest from an increasingly pauperised peasantry. As the sixties wore on the sporadic peasant uprisings took on a markedly political, anti-church and anti-feudal character. To this was joined the Eritrean struggle which continued to bleed national resources. But what proved to be the catalytic factor was the famine of 1972-73