Pol Pot

[SecondLife]

What you think about Pol Pot? Like you Pol Pot or don't? I like!
I heared critics about it like "Pol Pot kills millions of people and therefore he is criminal". But this is not argument. I want to hear honest answer.
Why killing million of people is worse than killing one single person. I am humanist and for me one single person is more important than million. For me killing itself isn't answer, but for me important is reason - why? If this reasen is justified, then killing is right decision. But it is right decision only in revolution situation. In Cabodia, in my opinion was revolution situation.
In Cambodia in my opinion was also war. Why in wars killing is allowed, but
not allowed by Pol Pot? This is not logical. But, maybe, nowadays communist partyes just want to put someone in offender position? To say "we are good, but only Pol Pot was bad". I think the reason is exactly there. This is abject. What communist parties? Who you are? What you do some beneficial after USSR collapse? Nothing! Only blame Pol Pot and nothing more.
Listen he's talk and I am agree with him - he's not violent person:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQMyX80jCF8&feature=related

[Dimentio]

Pol Pot depopulated the cities, closed the schools, stopped all industrialisation left standing after the American bombings. He (or rather his party as it was collective leadership) wanted to create a peasant's utopia. There were also extremely nationalist tendencies, against Vietnamese people, against Thais and against Laotians.

Pol Pot is admired by Pentti Linkola, while he is nearly universally loathed by all serious progressives. The Khmer Rogue was and is an extremist movement, which had more in common with a religious sect than a political party.

[Killfacer]

He's a mass murdering prick, i shat myself laughing when he died.

[Agrippa]

Dimentio, I must respectfully disagree with you for a moment. To my knowledge Pol Pot did not "stop all industrialisation". One of his principal goals (as farfetched as it was) was to turn Cambodia into an industrial, "Communist" superpower like the USSR or the PRC. The anti-urbanism and anti-intellectualism was more of an excuse to massacre and purge intellectuals who were loyal to the previous regime and other political enemies, than any sort of sincere religious fanaticism. And why would it be a bad thing if Pol Pot "shut down schools"? That would just mean that Cambodian children would have more time to focus on things that are actually relevant to their lives, such as figuring out how to overthrow capitalist assholes such as Pol Pot.

SecondLife, that your "humanist" philosophy somehow accomidates the systematic extermination of millions of humans confirms my suspicions regarding humanistic philosophies.

[LeninBalls]

No, not even blood sucking insane Stalinists support him. He did everything Dimentio said and really, really damaged the communist image world wide. There is nothing good about the Khmer Rouge and co.

[Dimentio]

Pol Pot was not a dictator. I'll give him that. The Red Khmer was actually having a collective leadership, although one very secretive, sectarian and mysterious. They sacrificed him in 1998, and probably assassinated him as well. Out of fear that some of the men who today sit in the Cambodian government would be indicted.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

The man behind the Khmer Rouge, an organisation which is said to have killed 1/5 of the population of Cambodia? No I don't like him.

[The Deepest Red]

He was the most successful anarchist to date.

[Dimentio]

Dimentio, I must respectfully disagree with you for a moment. To my knowledge Pol Pot did not "stop all industrialisation". One of his principal goals (as farfetched as it was) was to turn Cambodia into an industrial, "Communist" superpower like the USSR or the PRC. The anti-urbanism and anti-intellectualism was more of an excuse to massacre and purge intellectuals who were loyal to the previous regime and other political enemies, than any sort of sincere religious fanaticism. And why would it be a bad thing if Pol Pot "shut down schools"? That would just mean that Cambodian children would have more time to focus on things that are actually relevant to their lives, such as figuring out how to overthrow capitalist assholes such as Pol Pot.


I did not say that he stopped it on purpose. Only that he stopped it in practice. The modern technology Kampuchea had available in agriculture was scrapped and replaced with iron age tools. Most children in Kampuchea were either forced to work or actually joined in the party.

[Agrippa]

He was the most successful anarchist to date.

How is Pol Pot an anarchist?

[The Deepest Red]

How is Pol Pot an anarchist?

He skipped the transitional period between socialism and communism, and look what happened.

[SecondLife]

Pol Pot depopulated the cities,........
stopped all industrialisation left standing after the American bombings.

Yes, but Cambodia try to become agriculture land and I understand this.


closed the schools,

If schools teach old culture, then I am 100% agree to close them.


He (or rather his party as it was collective leadersgip) wanted to create a peasant's utopia.

why this is more utopia than USA or capitalism? I just don't understand.


There were also extremely nationalist tendencies, against Vietnamese people, against Thais and against Laotians.

This is something new for me. How there can be exist nationalism against Vietnamese if Vietnam attacks and kills Cambodian people? This isn't logical.


The Khmer Rogue was and is an extremist movement, which had more in common with a religious sect than a political party.
I don't understand also this. Why he was more religious than you? Why extremism is bad? What you can do some more progressive, except only talking?

[MakeYourFuture]

I think Pol Pot wanted to applicated the words of the Internationale "Of the past let us wipe the slate clean".
But I don't like this sentence.
I think that look at the past is important to create a better future.
For me, Pol Pot was just a psychopathic-navel gazer dictator.

[Agrippa]

He skipped the transitional period between socialism and communism, and look what happened.

Uhh...no.

[Dimentio]

Yes, but Cambodia try to become agriculture land and I understand this.

If schools teach old culture, then I am 100% agree to close them.

why this is more utopia than USA or capitalism? I just don't understand.

This is something new for me. How there can be exist nationalism against Vietnamese if Vietnam attacks and kills Cambodian people? This isn't logical.

I don't understand also this. Why he was more religious than you? Why extremism is bad? What you can do some more progressive, except only talking?

Extremism is good if it is directed towards a technologically, socially and environmentally more sustainable future, and if it does'nt overshoot its targets. The actions of the Khmer Rogue are deplorable. And their ideology was crap.

I do not agree he was an anarchist. Firstly because he did not even try to achieve what most people would call "communism". He tried to achieve some sort of iron-age commune. I guess he got something in common with some utopian socialists, but very little.

[The Deepest Red]

Uhh...no.

I'm joking comrade.

[SecondLife]

Extremism is good if it is directed towards a technologically,

Why technology? I see this techology every day and anyway don't see future. I don't see also communism or socialism. Nowhere!

[#FF0000]

why this is more utopia than USA or capitalism? I just don't understand.Yes. Capitalism is better than going back to "Year Zero"


This is something new for me. How there can be exist nationalism against Vietnamese if Vietnam attacks and kills Cambodian people? This isn't logical.He's talking about Vietnamese people within Cambodia.

Pol Pot was not a socialist, and certainly not a Marxist (he said this himself, that he couldn't understand Marx). Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge have more in common with Primitivism than Socialism.

There is absolutely nothing progressive about Pol Pot. Keep in mind, you're talking about a person (or one of a few) who executed anybody with any technical education, or any sort of education at all, people who were "defective" (including people who just wore glasses), and a host of other ridiculous bullshit.

It boggles the mind how anyone could even say that he was in any way progressive.

[ZeroNowhere]

And why would it be a bad thing if Pol Pot "shut down schools"? That would just mean that Cambodian children would have more time to focus on things that are actually relevant to their lives, such as figuring out how to overthrow capitalist assholes such as Pol Pot.Well, it's not necessarily a good thing. In Pol Pot's case, it wasn't, because children were still fucked over.


He skipped the transitional period between socialism and communism, and look what happened.What is this I don't even?

[Dimentio]

Its unjustified against anarcho-primitivists to label them together with the Khmer Rogue. The Khmer Rogue hardly even cared for the environment and believed in massive state-violence. They also wanted to return to an agricultural society and begin from zero again. Anarcho-primitivists want to return to the hunter-gatherer society and stay there forever. They also believe their utopia could be ensured by hugs and free love, as well as sabotage of roads. They are too naive to even be considered anything else than a marginal threat.

The Khmer Rogue is looking much more like Pentti Linkola's (a Finnish ecofascist) wet dream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meMtM6nxQfE

[SecondLife]

Yes. Capitalism is better than going back to "Year Zero"

This is question of taste, I like "Year Zero" more.


Pol Pot was not a socialist, and certainly not a Marxist (he said this himself, that he couldn't understand Marx). Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge have more in common with Primitivism than Socialism.

Yes, I know this. But why this is bad? Many people aren't Marxists? I have some friends also who aren't Marxists.


There is absolutely nothing progressive about Pol Pot. Keep in mind, you're talking about a person (or one of a few) who executed anybody with any technical education, or any sort of education at all, people who were "defective" (including people who just wore glasses), and a host of other ridiculous bullshit.

Yes, I know this. I was thinked about this mystery and find out that this can be happen only if example all educated intelligence is counter-revolutionaries. This is really possible. Maybe not in USA, but it's possible.
I was seen even more - most workers like to vote pro fascist parties.

[Agrippa]

Its unjustified against anarcho-primitivists to label them together with the Khmer Rogue. The Khmer Rogue hardly even cared for the environment and believed in massive state-violence. They also wanted to return to an agricultural society and begin from zero again. Anarcho-primitivists want to return to the hunter-gatherer society and stay there forever. They also believe their utopia could be ensured by hugs and free love, as well as sabotage of roads. They are too naive to even be considered anything else than a marginal threat.

The Khmer Rogue is looking much more like Pentti Linkola's (a Finnish ecofascist) wet dream.

meMtM6nxQfE

I think we should be very careful not to mix our enemies up. Linkola, as you said, is a right-wing eco-fascist. He is therefore probably very influenced by thinkers such as Evola, Heidegger, etc. This is totally different than Pol Pot who justified everything he did within a Marxist-Leninist ideological paradigm. Pol Pot didn't start the clock over at 0 because he wanted to turn back progress, but because he wanted to emphasize that his regime was the beginning of a new era of progress. Pol Pot, like Mao, is actually the polor opposite of a radical traditionalist like Linkola, because the whole point of Pol Pot's cultural polices was to "wipe the slate clean" and destroy all vestiges of the old, "fuedal" culture.

Pol Pot was not really a "primitivist" in any sense other than that his regime was too incompent to sufficiently organize an industrial society. Hmmm...unintentional primitivism... Still, to criticize his regime on the grounds that it was "iron age" and so forth is silly. Would you rather a more efficient, technologocially sophisticated regime have existed under the rule of the genocidal murderer Pol Pot?

[Dimentio]

I think we should be very careful not to mix our enemies up. Linkola, as you said, is a right-wing eco-fascist. He is therefore probably very influenced by thinkers such as Evola, Heidegger, etc. This is totally different than Pol Pot who justified everything he did within a Marxist-Leninist ideological paradigm. Pol Pot didn't start the clock over at 0 because he wanted to turn back progress, but because he wanted to emphasize that his regime was the beginning of a new era of progress. Pol Pot, like Mao, is actually the polor opposite of a radical traditionalist like Linkola, because the whole point of Pol Pot's cultural polices was to "wipe the slate clean" and destroy all vestiges of the old, "fuedal" culture.

Pol Pot was not really a "primitivist" in any sense other than that his regime was too incompent to sufficiently organize an industrial society. Hmmm...unintentional primitivism... Still, to criticize his regime on the grounds that it was "iron age" and so forth is silly. Would you rather a more efficient, technologocially sophisticated regime have existed under the rule of the genocidal murderer Pol Pot?

We should not refer so much to Pol Pot and Pol Pot alone. We should talk about the Khmer Rogue. Because the structure of the party in practice relied quite much on collective leadership. The "redeemed" Khmer Rogue operatives now occupying high positions in the Cambodian state has tried to put all the blame on Pol Pot in order to save their own asses.

Yes, I know that the Khmer Rogue wanted to regress in order to progress afterwards. And I also know that Linkola probably worships thinkers like Devi and Evola, while the individuals composing the Khmer Rogue looked up to Mao, Lenin and Sartre.

But in practice, the end-result turned out to be the same as Linkola's dream of a reactionary dystopia.

[Agrippa]

We should not refer so much to Pol Pot and Pol Pot alone. We should talk about the Khmer Rogue. Because the structure of the party in practice relied quite much on collective leadership.

Mea culpa. I was doing exactly what the capitalists want people to do, mistaking the figurehead for the regime.


The "redeemed" Khmer Rogue operatives now occupying high positions in the Cambodian state has tried to put all the blame on Pol Pot in order to save their own asses.

Agreed.


Yes, I know that the Khmer Rogue wanted to regress in order to progress afterwards. And I also know that Linkola probably worships thinkers like Devi and Evola, while the individuals composing the Khmer Rogue looked up to Mao, Lenin and Sartre.

But in practice, the end-result turned out to be the same as Linkola's dream of a reactionary dystopia.

Indeed. That such a "reactionary dystopia" could emerge from what lilkely began as sincere Marxist-Leninist political ambitions should stand as a warning to how dangerous certain mutant interpretations of how to apply Marx's teachings can be.