What happened in Cambodia

[*Hippie*]

It is hard to find accurate information about what really happened in this period.
Why were all those people murdered? Obviously Pol Pot didn't believe in liberating the workers. Why do people associate evil dictators like him with Communism? :(

[Severian]

Hard to find a detailed explanation online. But:

Article on death of Pol Pot - gives a brief overview of his rule. (http://www.themilitant.com/1998/6217/6217_11.html)

Article on a related group, the Shining Path in Peru, (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/misc.activism.progressive/browse_thread/thread/3cf1967e1c0d0b2c/8fe43e8bb0e1ca45?q=khmer+rouge+%22the+militant%22&rnum=9&hl=en#8fe43e8bb0e1ca45) which gives a more detailed explanation of the reasons behind its actions. IMO the reasons - the class roots - are similar for the Khmer Rouge.


Why do people associate evil dictators like him with Communism?

The capitalist class says so...because it can, and will say anything to discredit communism. Its media and other institutions work overtime to promote such myths.

In response, I usally point out that it was the Vietnamese who intervened in 1979 to stop the Khmer Rouge genocide...and then the U.S. was among those who aided the Khmer Rouge in its efforts to get back into power. As reporter John Pilger explains. (http://www.seeingred.com/Copy/1.3_friend_polpot.html)

And, of course, that communism is the expression of the working class' struggle to advance its interests...so clearly a group which openly treats the urban workers as class enemies, has nothing to do with communism.

There's a good booklet on the subject called "Report from Vietnam and Kampuchea". Available on amazon, or from a Pathfinder Bookstore near you. By a couple Militant reporters who visited those countries in '79, shortly after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge.

[*Hippie*]

Thanks for that information.
My heart goes out to those poor civilians who had to live under that regime. :-(

[enigma2517]

Everyone needs compassion, but at this point and time we need a little more than that comrade.

Educate, Agitate, Organize!

[Organic Revolution]

from what i know the khmer rouge destroyed all technology and anyone who made it.

[Sons_of_Eureka]

To understand the Khmer Rouge you first must understand the time and conditions asia was in.

During the mid-20th century the urbanisation in asia lead to imense poverty and reliance on trade which damaged its industy.

The Vietnam war was happining and a Cambodian general did a coup establishing millitary law and aided the American.

America blew the crap out of Cambodias rural secters and infostructure while trying to 'stamp out communist insurgence'.resulting in the deaths of ^600,000 men women and children.

These factors created revolutionary conditions resulting in the peasant masses who were affected by the war and poverty uniting and fighting the Cambodian goverment as well as the Americans with help from the viet-cong.

After the war the Khmer Rouge came to power with help from the peasants.They quickly started to de-urbanise and try to become self sufficient.Cars were burnt in a pile in the middle of Pnon Pehn as the peasants didn't have or need cars,unwanted interlectuals were killed and family were sent into rural areas to restore the agricultural industries.Technology was seen as something the people didn't need as it had to be imported because Cambodia didn't have any technological industry

This quickly pissed off Vienam who had ideological issues with the Khmer Rouge from the start.

Cambodia reacted to this by exercuting people who were 'connected' to vietnam causing tensions between the two nations.This was further more enflamed when the U.S.S.R started supplying vietnam with wepons and the U.S started (covertly) suplying the Khmer Rouge with wepons and land mines.

This resulted with Cambodia being invaded by vietnam and the Khmer Rouge getting ousted.The U.S refused to Recognise the new goverment and cried bloody murder.China put an end to vietnam's Agression/deffence by sending the PLA into vietnam as a 'show of force'.

The Khmer Rouge befor they got kicked out established a society of no goverment ,no currency,free education and healthcare even though they're society was in shambles after the war.They governed by having millitants enforcing the laws.

Some say the Khmer Rouge were 'Ultra Moaist' when this is clearly not the case,the key princible what the share is 'the peasnts should educate the interlectuals'.where Maoism belives in the co-operation of the industrial worker and the peasants while the Khmer Rouge only belive in the peasants.

Some say the Khmer rouge killed 1,000,000,others say only 75,000 were killed and blame the war the embargo's and the destroyed infostucture in the already en-poverish state for the rest.

I read on a website that the Khmer Rouge still have over 2000 guerillas in cambodia.

I do not support the khmer rouge but i belive they have made asia aware of the threat of over urbanisation and thus educated the world.Still, to many inocents died and i feel there was no use for land mines as they are terrible

[Severian]

Originally posted by rise [email protected] 13 2005, 12:12 PM
from what i know the khmer rouge destroyed all technology and anyone who made it.
That's wrong. In fact the Khmer Rouge sought to industrialize Cambodia. The flag of "Democratic Kampuchea" has a factory on it. The first step in their plan was to produce rice for export, so they could buy the stuff they needed to build heavy industry.

So they set the whole population to forced labor growing rice, working them as hard as possible while feeding them as little as possible. Of course this just resulted in a country of starving exhausted people who couldn't produce the rice surplus the Khmer Rouge wanted.

The Khmer Rouge did later reopen some of the factories in Phnom Penh, bringing back some of their forced-labor victims from the countryside for this purpose. They just wanted to make sure the industrial workers, who they hated and feared, were completely beaten down and ruled by terror.

"Free education and health care", Sons of Eureka? Try no education and health care.

The Khmer Rouge did not reflect the desires of the peasants either. They ruled over the peasants brutally too, even though the former city people were on the absolute bottom of the heap.

They were a sect of petty-bourgeois intellectuals - Pol Pot himself went to the Sorbonne IIRC - with petty-bourgoies dogmas they forcibly imposed on working people. The precise nature of those dogmas are almost beside the point.

The particular conditions of the time and place help explain how such a sect could come to power. They don't explain the sect's policies, which make no sense in any time and place.

[danny android]

Originally posted by *Hippie*@Jun 12 2005, 11:10 PM
Why do people associate evil dictators like him with Communism? :(
I agree they told us in my Global studies class that the Khmer Rouge was a communst Government, but they taught us that they had killed many people becuase they were educated and becuase they were artists and what not. This is definitly not a communist ideal, but our school system is teaching us that it is. Fuck the capitolist learning system.

[Holocaustpulp]

The reason why the Khemer Rouge killed so many people is because they advocated an illogical method in order to obtain communism. Despite the fact that the Khemer Rouge had intense backing from sympathetic peasants and a highly revered political leader in Cambodia, once revolution was achieved the communists just replaced the old state. They did this under the order of Pol Pot (the military leader that achieved command of Cambodia, not a good method if one is to avoid dictatorship) by forcing city-dwellers out of the city into forced collectives (one order recounted by a former Khemer Rouge member was that he and others should make a major city into "a ghost town"). This came from their Maoist-like countryside struggle and landed all dissidents and non-peasants into forced labor, a backward economic system, famine, and political oppression. We see a similar attempt with this method today by the Nepalese Maoists.

Pol Pot wished for communism, and declared the Khemer Rouge were indeed established to achieve this end. The capitalists ignore rigid theory and actual facts in order to label Pol Pot's horrifying non-communist (in fact, anti-communist) regime into a bougeois plaything. It's just a propaganda method, or the capitalists are really that stupid.

- HP

[romanm]

Typical imperialist lies about the Communist Party of Peru and Communist Party of Nepal. Once again we see the true face of Trotskyism.

Pol Pot ws not a Maoist. In fact he was allied with the Deng clique that had the Maoists imprisoned and shot. Here is some accurate information: http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/polpot2.html

If you want more information, revleft is not the best forum to ask. marxleninmao.proboards43.com would be a better place.

[Organic Revolution]

all i ever hear the MIM doing is denying shit

[Taiga]

Look what I found:


i.) Pol Pot (1925 - 1998) was not responsible for the "killing fields". There is no evidence that Pol Pot (1925 - 1998) killed anyone, witnessed any of the killings, ordered any of the killings, or even approved of any of the killings. He wasn't even convicted of any killing in absentia. I challenge anyone to produce a scrap of documentation to the contrary.

Furthermore, there were three distinct, competing factions of the Khmer Rouge, each with its own power bases. The Khmer Rouge was not monolithic, and Pol Pot (1925 - 1998) was not the leader of the Khmer Rouge until long after most of the killings took place, before which time there was no single leader.

By the end of Democratic Kampuchea's (1970-1975) short existence the Khmer Rouge was beginning to form into a single entity, after the majority of the political executions occurred. Leader Hu Num of the Khmer Rouge of the south and soutwest in the Elephant and Cardomom Mountains liquidated the group headed by So Phim of the Khmer Rouge which occupied the densely populated eastern provinces between Mekong River and the frontier with Vietnam. The group headed by Hu Num had been won over by the group headed by Pol Pot (1925 - 1998) near the end of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) and a few years before Pol Pot finally retired.

ii.) The Khmer Rouge diverted the city dwellers from what were at the time unproductive activities under the conditions, and got them to participate in production, producing that of which they were in great shortage -- food. They promoted a movement of reconversion of capital from the commercial sector, towards the agricultural sector.

iii.) The killings that did occur were necessary for cleansing Democratic Kumpchea (1970-1975) from the reactionaries, colonialists, and parasites that had plagued Kampuchea for many years. The liquidation of the Vietnamese colonialists and expansionists was justified, because the Kampuchean people, being victims of the acts of aggression and annexation of the Vietnamese and having successively lost an important part of their Kampuchea Krom territory, understandably fostered a deep hatred against the Vietnamese--"annexationists and swallowers of Kampuchea's territory" as leader Samphan of the Khmer Rouge expressed it. The extermination and deportation of the Vietnamese colonialists was supported by the overwhelming majority of the Khmer people. There was a long standing historical animosity between the two peoples. Indeed, the Khmer Republic (1970-1975), headed by Lon Nol, pursued similar policies as did the Khmer Rouge after him, himself. His regime reduced the number of Vietnamese invaders in Cambodia from approximately 450,000 in early 1970 to 160,000. Finally, the killings of the capitalists, feudalists, and other social regressors were justified because the peasantry, not the bourgeoisie, were organised as the ruling class in Democratic Kampuchea (1970-1975).

iv.) Most of the deaths at that time are attributable to the famine, and the famine was not a deliberate act of genocide by the Khmer Rouge, but was induced by US bombings and the deleterious policies of Lon Nol in the days of the Khmer Republic (1970-1975). Most of the fertile areas were marked black from the inundation from the bombings. The deterioration of the economy accelerated as a result of the extensive economic aid before Democratic Kampuchea (1970-1975). Most of the people who died, died in the resulting famine.

The number of killings which are attributed to the Khmer Rouge are inclusive of all deaths resulting from the famine, all executions of criminals, all executions of traitors, capitalists, spies, counterrevolutionaries, and colonialists, and all deaths which occurred between 1975 and 1979 including natural deaths and deaths due to poor health care; all of which occurred, but which are not indicative of a deliberate and systematic act of genocide on the part of the Khmer Rouge, much less Pol Pot (1925 - 1998) personally.

Link (http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44521)

[comradestephen]

Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge were not communists despite what they may have called themselves or may be called by the capitalist class. They were mainly peasants who attempted a social experiment that was based on unscientific, unmarxist ideas and ultimately led to catastrophe. It is interesting that enemies of socialism try to pin Pol Pot on communism when it was communists who ousted him.

[Hiero]

Ixabert had some interesting articles on the Democratic Kampuchea, but i can't find them yet. I'll post them later.

[Warren Peace]

This article (http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/pol/polpotmontclarion0498.html) basically explains everything.

[jvs]

pol pot wasnt communist, wasnt maoist or ultra maoist. he did destory industry and wanted to send cambodia back to the stone age, with everyone working in the fields. so, in an industrial and technological sense he was an anarchist.

he killes 100's of 1000's of people to rule, and to get the power he needed to get his anarchist ideals. he ruled as hitler did. thats why the americans supported him, because they hate marxism.

pol pot is an archetypical example of anarchism being a false ideology, only supported by disgruntled hippies who hate the establishment in all forms.

anarchism is just as big an enemy to communism as faschism is.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2005, 10:54 PM
pol pot wasnt communist, wasnt maoist or ultra maoist. he did destory industry and wanted to send cambodia back to the stone age, with everyone working in the fields. so, in an industrial and technological sense he was an anarchist.

he killes 100's of 1000's of people to rule, and to get the power he needed to get his anarchist ideals. he ruled as hitler did. thats why the americans supported him, because they hate marxism.

pol pot is an archetypical example of anarchism being a false ideology, only supported by disgruntled hippies who hate the establishment in all forms.

anarchism is just as big an enemy to communism as faschism is.
wow, does this even deserve a response. you are a threat to communism if you think thats what anarchism is about. true there is anarcho primitivism, but most anarchists are not primitivists. we dont oppose modern technology. maybe thats why a lot of anarchists in history have been factory workers. oh and anarchism is anti hiearchy, so if he was the dictator, he wasnt an anarchist. and its fascism.

[leftist manson]

ROMANM POSTED Pol Pot ws not a Maoist. In fact he was allied with the Deng clique that had the Maoists imprisoned and shot.
So , the MIM considers khmer rouge as not being maoists.
What about RCP USA and all other parties associated with the RIM?
does anybody know. ?

[romanm]

I don't know of any Maoist parties that uphold the Khmer Rouge. The only ones who make that claim seem to be the NY times and Severian - both mouthpieces for imperialism.

[Severian]

Frankly, I don't care if you consider Pol Pot a Maoist or if he described himself as a Maoist. You'll notice I didn't say anything about Maoism in my earlier post.

The Khmer Rouge's actions were not the result of a "wrong line", and Maoists in criticizing their line, as the RCP for example does in its main article on Cambodia, are just showing their complete cluelessness.

"Comrade, I believe that in forcing the population of Cambodia into slave labor, and ordering mass murder, you are making an ideological error due to ignoring certain points Comrade Mao made in "On Correct Handling of..." Oy. How moronic. How idealist. And what a minor difference from the Khmer Rouge that displays, as if they're merely making an error!

Its actions were the actions of a petty-bourgeois sect cramming its doctrines down the throats of workers and peasants. Whether those doctrines are Maoist, anarchist, or Flat-Earther for all I care, is unimportant by comparison.

I've explained this repeatedly, of course, and none of the Maoists here have shown the slightest ability to grasp the point, probably due to their complete idealism.

There certainly were some similarities between the Khmer Rouge and the peasant war led by Mao; both were peasant wars with little or no worker involvement for example. Both Pol Pot and Mao preached hostility to the urban working class and described the cities as sources of corrupting influence. Etc. Mao was an ideological influence on the Khmer Rouge.

But of course Mao didn't treat the entire urban working class as enemies on entering the cities!

There are deeper similarities between the Khmer Rouge and the Shining Path in Peru and the COmmunist Party of Nepal (Maoist)...based on the kind of war those parties have waged, and their terrorism against the workers and workers organizations in those countries. Those groups also are petty-bourgeois sects seeking to cram their reactionary dogmas down working people's throats. (And, incidentally, comrades of the RCP and each other in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.)

Variations in the nature of those dogmas, or theological debates among rival dogmatists, are of little interest to me, or, I suspect, to the working people they torture or kill.

[Warren Peace]

The Khmer Rouge were definatley not Maoists or even Communists. In their own words: "we are not communists... we are revolutionaries". Wow, you can't get more obvious than that! :P

There's no way I would call them fascists either, fascism is a little more... orderly. What Pol Pot did in Cambodia was more like chaos and random killings. Anarchist primitivists maybe?

Maoism is all about popular revolution against reactionaries. According to Mao, revolutionaries are fish and the people are the stream. The revolutionaries need to draw strength and support from the people to kick ass, or they'll be crushed (as Pol Pot was). When revolution is divorced from the masses, it fails. Pol Pot didn't believe in this, he randomly slaughtered countless innocent people. For example, when Vietnam refused Pol Pot's demands to change their borders and give Cambodia more land, Pol Pot responded my massacring ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia.

Pol Pot was defeated by the Vietnamese, who were true Communists.

This is from the link I gave earlier:


In all the hubbub about the death of Pol Pot, neither the U.S. government nor the American news media have seen fit to mention that

-this mass murderer was supported for fifteen years by the United States.
-the U.S. bombing of Cambodia during 1970-75 killed as many or more Cambodians as Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge ever did;
-Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were not Communists.

These last two facts have been documented by anti-communist researchers (see "Who Is and Was Really Responsible for Genocide in Cambodia? Pol Pot Was Not and Is Not A Communist,"). For example: The Khmer Rouge not communist? Yes, by their own statement:

"We are not communists ... we are revolutionaries" who do not 'belong to the commonly accepted grouping of communist Indochina."(Ieng Sary, 1977, quoted by Vickery, Cambodia: 1978-1983, p. 288).

As for how many were killed by American bombing, Zasloff and Brown, in Problems of Communism, Jan.-Feb. 1979, write of the "heavy toll in lives" which "the enormous U.S. bombing and the intensity of the fighting" caused before 1975, and imply the Khmer Rouge claims of 600,000 to "more than 1 million" dead are credible. (These two authors are dedicated anti-Communists who did much research for the U.S. government during the Vietnam War.)

U.S. support of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is thoroughly documented in an article in CAQ magazine (formerly Covert Action Quarterly) by Australian journalist John Pilger, "The Long Secret Alliance: Uncle Sam and Pol Pot."* Some quotations from that article:

"The US not only helped to create conditions that brought Cambodia's Khmer Rouge to power in 1975, but actively supported the genocidal force, politically and financially. By January 1980, the US was secretly funding Pol Pot's exiled forces on the Thai border. The extent of this support -- $85 million from 1980-86 -- was revealed 6 years later in correspondence between congressional lawyer Jonathan Winer, then counsel to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation."

[Severian]

Originally posted by Revolt Now!@Jul 28 2005, 12:39 PM
Pol Pot was defeated by the Vietnamese, who were true Communists.
I thought they were "revisionist" puppets of the Soviet "social imperialists". What kind of Maoist are you?

[Warren Peace]

I thought they were "revisionist" puppets of the Soviet "social imperialists". What kind of Maoist are you?

An open minded one. :P Che Guevara supported both Mao and Ho Chi Minh, so why can't I?