The Khmer Rouge attempt popular frontism

[Ismail]

Every once in a while I see a random entity that strikes my fancy and I therefore create a Wikipedia article for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_and_Democratic_Front_of_the_Great_Nation al_Union_of_Kampuchea

A look at the Front's draft program probably helps explain why the US helped the Khmer Rouge (http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/pol/polpotmontclarion0498.html) in their battles against the pro-Soviet Kampuchean government of 1979-1989.

Funny how seemingly the most "radical" (or "zealous") "Communist" Party promptly abandoned pretenses to Marxism when it suited them. Ieng Sary recorded in his diary how much the Party's leading figures upheld Mao's opportunist Three Worlds Theory, too.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Perhaps ultimately their wasn't that much difference, at least in terms of political orientation, if not degree of lethalness, between the Khmer Rouge in the earlier and later incarnations.

Interesting topic, I hope this thread will get more responses.

[Dimentio]

As if Nazi Germany had continued to wage a guerilla war from the Swiss border and renaming itself into a libertarian socialist paradise...

[Iskalla]

Are there no documents or essays from the 70's detailing Khmer Rouge ideology or what they aspired to achieve as an end result?

[NecroCommie]

What? Is the rogue still around? Or did I misunderstand something?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Are there no documents or essays from the 70's detailing Khmer Rouge ideology or what they aspired to achieve as an end result?

Yes, you can find many materials if you look (programs, communiques, newspapers, constitutions, etc.).


What? Is the rogue still around? Or did I misunderstand something?

According to most reports, they lingered on in some form until 1999.

[Ismail]

Are there no documents or essays from the 70's detailing Khmer Rouge ideology or what they aspired to achieve as an end result?This is by Nuon Chea, who was second to Pol Pot in Party hierarchy, just a year before they formed the Front: http://web.archive.org/web/20050120062950/http://www.dccam.org/Documents+and+Microfilm/nuon_chea_statement.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/20050120062950/http://www.dccam.org/Documents+and+Microfilm/nuon_chea_statement.htm%29http://web.archive.org/web/20050120062950/http://www.dccam.org/Documents+and+Microfilm/nuon_chea_statement.htm)

Basically Pol Pot believed that Kampuchea was too limited to transform its very limited industrial base into a socialist one, so he proposed starting from scratch, forming agricultural communes which would feed the people, and then moving onwards towards the construction of industry. In his diary (http://www.yale.edu/cgp/iengsary.htm), Ieng Sary (#3 in Party hierarchy) talks about the need to build up industry and such. The primitivist label isn't accurate for them. As far as international politics went, Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge was firmly pro-China and supported Mao's Three Worlds Theory.

[Iskalla]

Thanks for the links, I'm actually leaving the house now but will give them a proper read over the weekend!

[Dimentio]

This is by Nuon Chea, who was second to Pol Pot in Party hierarchy, just a year before they formed the Front: http://web.archive.org/web/20050120062950/http://www.dccam.org/Documents+and+Microfilm/nuon_chea_statement.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/20050120062950/http://www.dccam.org/Documents+and+Microfilm/nuon_chea_statement.htm%29http://web.archive.org/web/20050120062950/http://www.dccam.org/Documents+and+Microfilm/nuon_chea_statement.htm)

Basically Pol Pot believed that Kampuchea was too limited to transform its very limited industrial base into a socialist one, so he proposed starting from scratch, forming agricultural communes which would feed the people, and then moving onwards towards the construction of industry. In his diary (http://www.yale.edu/cgp/iengsary.htm), Ieng Sary (#3 in Party hierarchy) talks about the need to build up industry and such. The primitivist label isn't accurate for them. As far as international politics went, Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge was firmly pro-China and supported Mao's Three Worlds Theory.

De-facto, their policies led to semi-primitivist results.

I think Pentti Linkola has hailed Democratic Kampuchea as an ideal country.

[milk]

Related to this, here (http://padevat.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/NCR.pdf) is an old working paper from Justin Corfield, called A History of the Cambodian Non-Communist Resistance, 1975-1983. I'm going to tidy up the PDF (some typing errors and general meh) and repost it at my blog, but I thought for now it might be of some use here too. It's about those remnants of the Khmer Republic's army (FANK) who did not surrender after the government's defeat in 1975 but retreated to remote areas inside the country or to the Thai-Cambodian border and continued their fight against them. Several of these republican groups would join to become the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, and join the ousted Pol Potist DK government, forming the anti-Vietnamese, anti-PRK coalition Ismail has been talking about. And it sheds a little light on the circumstances the Khmer Rouge found themselves in, having to drop their old politics in order to be revived as a political and military force by very powerful backers, along with their uneasy non-Communist allies.

Some interesting information, and colourful names of the groups:


According to reports from people who attended a Khmer Rouge ‘lecture’, most of the 2000 men were from the FANK 13th Brigade (the regiment led by Chantaraingsey) who had recently attacked Khmer Rouge supply lines. They were still fighting the Khmer Rouge as late as 1977 when they are generally attributed with the destruction of the Kompong Som refinery. Naradipo is generally believed to have been killed by the Khmer Rouge in 1976. Sihanouk records in his memoirs that Naradipo was killed ‘after 1975’.


The other groups operated in Kompong Speu; Stung Treng; Svay Rieng; just outside Phnom Penh; western Siemreap (the Khmer Liberation Movement); the Khmer Islam in Kampot; and the Cobra, in Battambang. The latter dressed in black and were indistinguishable from the Khmer Rouge except for snakelike insignia. They appear to have been heavily armed and helped refugees escape to Thailand. The last two groups were Khleang Moeung and Sereikka Odder Tus (Northern Group). Both operated on the Thai-Cambodian border with a couple of hundred men each. The former was established by Touch Chay, an aeronautical technician; whilst the latter was set up by Svi Toeun, a former deputy battalion commander. Although General Sek Samiet, the Khmer Republic’s notoriously corrupt Governor of Battambang, was involved in some disturbances along the border from late 1975, the main focus for resistance along the Thai-Cambodian border appears to have been In Tam.


‘Kok Sar’ is the name for a heron which stands still quietly waiting for its prey to appear. ‘Reaksa Sambok’ and Nenraung’ are both names of mythical dragons. ‘Baksei Chamkrong’ refers to a bird which protects its nest. It was this latter group that brought out the journalist Dith Pran from Cambodia to Thailand.

Enjoy.

[scarletghoul]

What? Is the rogue still around? Or did I misunderstand something?
No, Ismail just does not understand the existence of anything other than history.