Your opinions on Pol Pot

[RHIZOMES]

We have been watching the Killing Fields in History class recently. A lot of people have told me Pol Pot was not a communist (Although he wanted an egalitarian society) and I can sorta see why.

but I'm wondering, what's all your different opinions (Stalinists, Trotskyists, Anarchists, Maoists, etc) on why Pol Pot was no communist (Or maybe why he was?) and why his theory was flawed and not very thought through.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

For one thing, Cambodia didn't have a large enough working class. And in no way, shape, or form were the people in control.

[Random Precision]

That's correct. IMHO, he was more like a utopian socialist who idealized the old peasant way of life of the Khmer people. If I recall correctly from a biography I read, he admitted once that he had never been able to understand Marx or Lenin, and this was not able to get any more than a superficial knowledge of their philosophy. Some of the influences he replaced them with were Buddhism, whose philosophy he adopted while being militantly atheist and even targeting monks for some of the heaviest oppression. He was also deeply influenced by Mao; in a lot of ways Democratic Kampuchea can be seen as taking Mao's theories to their logical conclusion. (However, Maoists will disown him because he supported the arrest of the Gang of Four, thus making him a "revisionist".) This was especially evident in the KR's emphasis on the peasant lifestyle and their strict austerity and self-criticism. He also took Mao's nationalism to the extreme in Cambodia, waging propaganda wars against the Vietnamese "subhumans" in particular, who would be crushed by the superior Khmer people. For example, he welcomed back the deposed Prince Norodom Sihanouk to help bolster national unity.

If you want more, look for him under "frequent topics of discussion" (a stickied thread) in the History Forum. He has been discussed numerous times.

[Redmau5]

He was just a major, major twat. Another scar on the face of socialism.

[Red Scare]

crazy utopian stalinist fuckhead

[Pirate Utopian]

Originally posted by The Red [email protected] 31, 2007 11:40 am
We have been watching the Killing Fields in History class recently. A lot of people have told me Pol Pot was not a communist (Although he wanted an egalitarian society) and I can sorta see why.

but I'm wondering, what's all your different opinions (Stalinists, Trotskyists, Anarchists, Maoists, etc) on why Pol Pot was no communist (Or maybe why he was?) and why his theory was flawed and not very thought through.
Genocidal utopian socialist tyrant.

If they see him as a Commie it's because he might have had some connections with "Communist"-countries.

[More Fire for the People]

Pol Pot was an authoritarian fucktard. He was only superficially familiar with the class struggle between workers and the bourgeoisie. His knowledge of Marxism came from the highpoint of the anti-intellectual attitude amongst the Stalinist parties of the West. Pol Pot's crimes come from his lack of what Cabral calls the weapon of theory. The weapon of theory is what broke the legacy of utopian socialism and brought us scientific socialism. The weapon of theory is the tool that has countlessly broken up impasses on the left. Instead of articulating a theory of the Cambodian anti-colonial struggle, something only a member of an oppressed class can do, he instead articulated a theory of brutish Stalinism and layman's Maoism that in turn became nationalist, anti-intellectual agrarianism as opposed to Marxist internationalist communism.

[Janus]

Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=61807&hl=+khmer++rouge)

Pol Pot (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=67402&hl=+khmer++rouge)

I don't think you'll find any members on here who support Pol Pot or his approach for that matter.


on why Pol Pot was no communist
Communism is about progress not a regression into some sort of agrarian, primitivist "utopia".

[comradematt]

Hi All,

I remember watching "The Killing Fields" in 1985, and I read John Pilger's writings on the subject in his biography.

From Pilger I learned Pol Pot was a bandit with a murderous background prior to the suspicious "Khmer Rogue" party formation, which was almost certainly bankrolled by CIA money.

Pol Pot was an Asian Nationalist without doubt. The CIA, France and China saw in him a counter-weight to the Vietnamese revolution, and it was eventually Hun Sen who drove Pol Pot to the country-side.

Before this, Pilger can recall that all western inventions were banned - cars, typewriters, even medicine. A huge line of sick people, carrying incubators for babies and hospital drips, were frog-marched down Phnom Penh the capital, almost certainly to die.

The secret to Pol Pot's power lay in the very rugged nature of the densely forested area of Cambodia outside of the capital. He also struck an alliance with the former monarch Prince Shiahnouk (check spelling). When formal independence came to Cambodia, this man's house was surrounded by an angry mob that wanted to lynch him.

The Children's TV program Blue Peter in the late 70's raised a record amount of money for war victims in Cambodia. But the official line was always to "refuse to confirm or deny" collusion with the Khmer Rogue forces. This was so ardently adhered to that when the major UK relief organisation Oxfam published a pamphlet critical of this collusion, they were threatened with loss of taxation rights, and were forced to withdraw this pamphlet in 1985.

UN relief convoys were plundered by Pol Pot's forces. And UN supply depots were revealed as secret arms depots by John Pilger in "Return To Year Zero".

Interestingly, some new left writers took a punt on Pol Pot and there was a Le Monde correspondent who described them as a Maoist in the early 70's. But not too many were fooled by the late seventies. Cambodia - Kampuchea as it called itself back then, was the poorest place on earth. John Pilger and a Medicines Sans Frontiers doctor went about their work under extreme danger, such was Pol Pot's nationalist disdain for a working class press and people's right to western medicine.

I hope this sharing of knowledge has been useful to you.

[Janus]

From Pilger I learned Pol Pot was a bandit with a murderous background prior to the suspicious "Khmer Rogue" party formation, which was almost certainly bankrolled by CIA money.
I believe that the US did fund the Khmer Rouge after the Vietnamese invasion though there's been little evidence connecting the two prior to the 1975 takeover.

[Lenin II]

I find it hard to believe that even the most Stalinist comrade on this site could view him as anything but a reactionary, statist, racist, homophobic tyrant. That primitivist, utopian fucker was too busy with metaphysics to understand his own ideology. If he had, he would’ve actually put the people in control.

I have been to Tuol Sleng Prison. I’ve seen the signs hanging, saying that if you speak without being spoken to, you’ll be given five electric shocks. I’ve seen the woven webs of barbed wire draped over the buildings to keep prisoners from jumping out and committing suicide. The Khmer Rouge was no peoples’ government, and ended up wiping out its own strong elements. Cambodia is still recovering from it.

[ComradeR]

Pol Pot was nothing more then a primitivist mass murdering nutjob and as much a Marxist as Adolf Hitler. His goal was to wipe out the urban working class and anyone they deemed an intellectual or had any education (this included anyone with glasses, which according to the Khmer Rouge meant that they were literate) in order to create a agrarian primitivist "utopia".

[RedStarOverChina]

I think he really believed that he was somehow benefiting his country.

But he was way off, and that's why getting the right ideas is important. And Primitivism is NOT a good idea!


Maybe this video helps to explain what went on in Pol Pot's mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQMyX80jCF8...related&search= (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQMyX80jCF8&mode=related&search=)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qhgmfnRJio...related&search= (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qhgmfnRJio&mode=related&search=)

[Hiero]

Alot of people like to criticise Pol Pot, but not back up why Pol Pot made errors. I am beging to view the errors as a result of isolation. Cambodia's experience with socialism I think happens due to the breakdown of the socialist international community. USSR had the peaceful coexistance policy, they supported a reformist party rather then a revolutionary party willing to overthrow US imperialism.* So after Cambodian national liberation they looked to China for leadership. This would turn out to be a poor idea, China in the his late period of Mao was having it's own internal political struggle.

I would blame the international socialist bloc before i look to what the person Pol Pot thought about theory. Cambodia was pushed due to isolation to take up backward and extreme positions considering the huge challenge they faced. I think with more cooperation amongst the socialist nations things would have been very different with the Cambodian experince. I have to research the positions that each socialist country had towards the revolution in Cambodia.

*Statement of the Communist Party of Kampuchea [CPK] to the Communist Workers' Party of Denmark, July 1978 by Nuon Chea (http://www.khmer.org/us/doc/doc60.htm)

[The Advent of Anarchy]

He was a fuckheaded TWATBUCKET!

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 01:57 pm
He was a fuckheaded TWATBUCKET!
Compelling though this analysis is I'm more inclined to agree with Hiero on this point but I don't think Pol Pot's primitivism is entirely free of blame for this. I also think he made the mistake that has been seen many, many times in failed communist regimes of trying to start a revolution in a country with incorrect material conditions.

[Random Precision]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 12:57 pm
Alot of people like to criticise Pol Pot, but not back up why Pol Pot made errors. I am beging to view the errors as a result of isolation. Cambodia's experience with socialism I think happens due to the breakdown of the socialist international community. USSR had the peaceful coexistance policy, they supported a reformist party rather then a revolutionary party willing to overthrow US imperialism.* So after Cambodian national liberation they looked to China for leadership. This would turn out to be a poor idea, China in the his late period of Mao was having it's own internal political struggle.

I would blame the international socialist bloc before i look to what the person Pol Pot thought about theory. Cambodia was pushed due to isolation to take up backward and extreme positions considering the huge challenge they faced. I think with more cooperation amongst the socialist nations things would have been very different with the Cambodian experince. I have to research the positions that each socialist country had towards the revolution in Cambodia.

*Statement of the Communist Party of Kampuchea [CPK] to the Communist Workers' Party of Denmark, July 1978 by Nuon Chea (http://www.khmer.org/us/doc/doc60.htm)
I believe that had its own role as well, because the Cambodian Revolution was seen as a useful tool by Mao and the United States to balance out the pro-USSR Vietnam. But this would not really occur until the revolution was already made, and its disastrous policies already in place. Here's what Saloth Sar himself had to say:


After 1963, when I withdrew into the countryside, my opinions and my thinking and views changed a lot, because I was in a very isolated, remote, rural area, far from the city... I lived among the masses and realized I could trust them.


We [the Khmer Rouge] applied ourselves to define a direction, and then to put it into practice without knowing whether it was right or wrong. [There were] a mixture of influences, a little of this, a little of that... I copied no one. It was what I saw in the country that made an impression on me...


Marxism-Leninism resides within the movements forged by the people, and the people's movement in each country puts together its own Marxism-Leninism. Cambodia is also able to contribute to the building of Marxism-Leninism.

The last one deserves special attention because it implies that there was no actual need to study Marxist-Leninist theory or translate any such works into Khmer. Instead, the revolution in Cambodia was based on an intuitive, illogical approach to communism founded in peasant traditions and Therevada mysticism. Connected to this is the greatest reason why the Khmer Rouge failed, namely their sole base in the peasant class. No Khmer communist leader was of a proletarian background, or had any experience in organizing the proletariat, they were all peasants or students of peasant origin. In fact, it was decided that workers were enemy agents in 1965, and from then on they were refused admission to the party! Khieu Samphan said of this:


It is true that the Cambodian communist party was based on the poor peasantry rather than the working class... But you can't use that as an argument for saying it wasn't a Marxist party, or that there was no economic basis for a communist party in Cambodia. In fact, we applied the criterion of 'material conditions' quite correctly, because the poor peasants were the most impoverished, the most oppressed class in Cambodian society, and it was this class that was the foundation of the Cambodian party.

I think that speaks for itself...

[Hiero]

I should note that I think it is a let down on the lives of the people who died and suffered under Pol Pot when you say things like "he was a fuckwit!". You're basically saying "you're death was the result of an idiot who sliped on a banana".

It in no way helps, it in fact retards any progressive analysis of these societies when people take such a careless attitude to violent degenerate regimes.

[KC]

Pol Pot was an anti-working class primitivist and had nothing to do with communism at all.


crazy utopian stalinist fuckhead

He was certainly utopian but he wasn't stalinist at all.


Genocidal utopian socialist tyrant.

He wasn't a socialist.


If they see him as a Commie it's because he might have had some connections with "Communist"-countries.

Or because that's the banner they fought under.

[Red Rebel]

Pol Pot was a utopian socialist as opposed to Marx who was a scientific socialist.

[¡Viva la Libertad!]

Pol Pot was a disgusting and horrific excuse for a human being. What he brought to the people of Cambodia is unspeakable. No, on the contrary, we should speak of it, so the poor of any nation does not again have to suffer the wrath of an anti-intellectual, primitivst monster such as he.

[Great Helmsman]

I'm not convinced of the kind of atrocities that the Vietnamese occupiers and westerners allege that the CPK committed. There seems to be a somewhat ambivalent attitude on the part of many Cambodians to that period of their history, and most of what we know from that period comes from the social-imperialist Vietnamese.

There's something fishy about the so-called evidence for Khmer atrocities.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Even though i sincerely disagree with Pol Pot's policies and he made great ideological errors. It should be noted that most of the 'victims' that Pol Pot is held accountable for we're in fact victims of American Imperialism, who bombed the hell out of Kampuchean villages and cities.

[Killer Enigma]

Originally posted by Red [email protected] 01, 2007 08:11 pm
crazy utopian stalinist fuckhead
Is that the technical name of it?

[Killer Enigma]

Originally posted by Hopscotch [email protected] 01, 2007 09:42 pm
Pol Pot was an authoritarian fucktard. He was only superficially familiar with the class struggle between workers and the bourgeoisie. His knowledge of Marxism came from the highpoint of the anti-intellectual attitude amongst the Stalinist parties of the West. Pol Pot's crimes come from his lack of what Cabral calls the weapon of theory. The weapon of theory is what broke the legacy of utopian socialism and brought us scientific socialism. The weapon of theory is the tool that has countlessly broken up impasses on the left. Instead of articulating a theory of the Cambodian anti-colonial struggle, something only a member of an oppressed class can do, he instead articulated a theory of brutish Stalinism and layman's Maoism that in turn became nationalist, anti-intellectual agrarianism as opposed to Marxist internationalist communism.
I love when people ramble on about topics they know nothing about and boldface words that they think are important as if somehow that will bolster their post, like I am doing right now.

Save for a few exceptions, revleft is home to the very anti-intellectuals which you attack.

[Killer Enigma]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 11:48 am
I should note that I think it is a let down on the lives of the people who died and suffered under Pol Pot when you say things like "he was a fuckwit!". You're basically saying "you're death was the result of an idiot who sliped on a banana".

It in no way helps, it in fact retards any progressive analysis of these societies when people take such a careless attitude to violent degenerate regimes.
This is genuinely encouraging to see; someone who actually understands analysis, how it should be done, and why. The hasty generalizations, inductive reasoning, and fallacious logic present throughout most of this thread, on the other hand, are just absurd.

[leftist manson]

Even though i sincerely disagree with Pol Pot's policies and he made great ideological errors. It should be noted that most of the 'victims' that Pol Pot is held accountable for we're in fact victims of American Imperialism, who bombed the hell out of Kampuchean villages and cities.
This:)

[Vendetta]

Pol Pot was a dick, 'nuff said, you don't need to bump a topic over it.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Pol Pot was a utopian socialist as opposed to Marx who was a scientific socialist.

Technically that's not correct. Utopian socialists weren't interested in much legal action; they thought you could change the system from within the mold.

[Sendo]

check out anything by John Pilger on Cambodia if you need evidence of the insanity of Pol Pot. I can just look at what he did, what he ordered, and what happened and continues to hurt Cambodia to this day. Whatever theoretical ramblings he had are irrelevant.

[Yehuda Stern]

While imperialism is certainly responsible first and foremost for the suffering of third world peoples, Pol Pot's actions led to such horrific physical destruction that few countries have been through. The actions of the Khmer Rouge led to the deaths of over a quarter of all Cambodians, which included the annihilation of workers as a class and attacks on national minorities. That imperialism is terrible does not whitewash Pol Pot or any other Stalinist criminal.

[ajs2007]

While imperialism is certainly responsible first and foremost for the suffering of third world peoples, Pol Pot's actions led to such horrific physical destruction that few countries have been through. The actions of the Khmer Rouge led to the deaths of over a quarter of all Cambodians, which included the annihilation of workers as a class and attacks on national minorities. That imperialism is terrible does not whitewash Pol Pot or any other Stalinist criminal.

I agree with YS.

PP was an murderous loony with nothing in common with Communism, Marxism, or socialism. He had about as much an idea of Marxism-Leninism as I do about biochemistry. He wasn't even a utopian socialist.

[chegitz guevara]

The claim that the Communist Party of Cambodia annihilated the working class is both true and misleading. The working class, before the revolution, amounted to an extremely small sector of the population. According to Michael Vickery in his, Cambodia, 1975-82, (READ THIS BOOK!) as many as 100,000 Cambodians could be considered proletarian, and most of them were in the service sector. He made a special note of a bicycle factory, which in fact remained open throughout the Democratic Kampuchea years.

It is also both misleading and true that American imperialism was the cause of most of the deaths in Democratic Kampuchea. It's true, because the United States was largely responsible for the success of the Communist Party, by driving about 1.4 million peasants from the countryside into the city by bombing the bejeezus out of the country, as well as backing the Lon Nol coup d'etat (which was the proximate cause of the war in Cambodia). Furthermore, at the point of Communist victory, the U.S. immediately cut off all food aid to the country, whose food production had been devastated. This necessitated emptying the cities and turning nearly everyone in the country into peasants.

Most of the deaths, however, occurred in the final year of Democratic Kampuchea. What happened is that Pol Pot wing of the Cambodian Communist Party, having driven all other factions from power (murderously), began seizing all the rice in preparations for an invasion of Vietnam. This occurred in a year when the monsoons didn't come, and so the country starved. There was starvation in the year following the fall of Phnom Penh, but very little, especially compared to the final year.

Incidentally, intellectuals were no more likely to be singled out for harsh treatment by the CPC than anyone else, although, due to the hatred by the peasantry for all things city, in many villages, the city folks didn't have it so good. Nonetheless, the single most dangerous category of person to be was a member of the CPC. The pictures of all those people from the prison of Tuol Sleng are nearly all Communists. The number one crime that got someone executed was extra-marital sex. :( After that, the worst category was to be a Communist who had ties to Vietnam, as most of the comrades from the Eastern Front had. In fact, it was the Eastern Zone comrades who escaped who lead the Vietnamese armies to overthrow Pol Pot's faction and have ruled Cambodia every since.

[Yehuda Stern]

That the working class was very small is immaterial. Cambodia's population at the time was less than 7 million, so proportionally 100,000 isn't so little considering how backwards the country was (contrast that number with Russia's 150 million with only a million and a half workers). Either way, you can agree with me that probably the biggest crime a party claiming to lead the working class can perpetrate is to physically annihilate that class, large or small.

[chegitz guevara]

Physically annihilate is misleading. It makes it sound like the class was murdered off, which is not what happened. Rather, than most of them were sent to work in the countryside. Read Vickery. The situation in Cambodia was a lot more complex and nuanced than you appear to understand.

Furthermore, your assertion that Russia only had a million and a half workers in a population of 150 million doesn't give a time, so it's meaningless. Assuming you mean at the time of the 1917 revolution, then you're also wrong. The worker class was approximately 15% of the population by that point, with 80% being peasants and the rest bureaucrats, police, capitalists, and aristocrats. By the end of the civil war, that working class had virtually disappeared, so perhaps you should attack the Bolsheviks for annihilating the worker class.

Given the fact that mass starvation in the cities was imminent following the Communist victory, due to the immediate cession of aid by the United States, I'm not willing to call the destruction of the Cambodian working class a great crime. It was necessitated by the need to transform workers into food producers.

[BIG BROTHER]

To me the fact that pol pot sent ppl in forced marches to the country side so they could be happy by being farmers shows me that he was no marxist.

[Yehuda Stern]

Physically annihilate is misleading. It makes it sound like the class was murdered off, which is not what happened.

It wasn't 'intentional' in the sense of lining up workers and shooting them - but that was the effect of the regime's policies.


Furthermore, your assertion that Russia only had a million and a half workers in a population of 150 million doesn't give a time, so it's meaningless.

Since we were talking about the Bolshevik revolution, a smart person would probably guess I meant at the time of the revolution.


Assuming you mean at the time of the 1917 revolution

Ah, good, so you are a smart person.


The worker class was approximately 15% of the population by that point, with 80% being peasants and the rest bureaucrats, police, capitalists, and aristocrats.

That contradicts most of what I've read on Russia at the time, but let's just assume you're right for the sake of argument.


By the end of the civil war, that working class had virtually disappeared, so perhaps you should attack the Bolsheviks for annihilating the worker class.

That seems smart only if you forget that Pol Pot did the killing himself, while the people who killed Russian workers were the white counterrevolutionaries.


I'm not willing to call the destruction of the Cambodian working class a great crime. It was necessitated by the need to transform workers into food producers.

Well, given that you're a Maoist, I'd hardly be surprised that crimes against the workers don't register for you. But hunger at the time of the Bolsheviks was also pretty harsh - and they did not transform workers into anything. In fact, they saw the annihilation of the class as a disaster for them.

[chegitz guevara]

It wasn't 'intentional' in the sense of lining up workers and shooting them - but that was the effect of the regime's policies.

It wasn't the intent of the Bolsheviks to loose the Russian working class, and yet their policies made it happen. As someone who has yet to lead an actual revolution, I'm going to grant a lot more leeway to those that have, rather than castigate them for not being perfect.


Since we were talking about the Bolshevik revolution, a smart person would probably guess I meant at the time of the revolution.There were more than one revolution, further, you could have been talking about the point at which Russian Marxism came into existence or the end of the Civil War . . . as you never mentioned the Russian Revolution at all.


Ah, good, so you are a smart person.Don't talk to your elders that way.


That seems smart only if you forget that Pol Pot did the killing himself, while the people who killed Russian workers were the white counterrevolutionaries.But as I keep pointing out, the CPC DID NOT KILL THE WORKERS. They sent them back to the countryside, as almost all of them had previously been peasants. In Russia, the workers left the cities on their own, because the cities had no food and the countryside was where the food was. In one case it was deliberate on the part of the leadership, in the other it was the result anyway.

In any event, the Communist Part of Cambodia was not a Marxist party (it's also a bit of a misnomer, since they didn't adopt that name until after the revolution, but it's more accurate than Khmer Rouge, which they never called themselves). I don't mean that in the snarky, "OMG, if you don't follow my leader, you're not a Marxist!!!!!11!1" way demonstrated by several on RevLeft. Rather, although much of the leadership did have exposure to Marxism and Leninism (including Pol Pot when he was in France), and the comrades who fought along side the Vietminh in the 50s had Marxist training, the generation of Communists from the 60s and 70s were peasant anarchists.

Pol Pot's Communist Party were not Maoists, but an inchoate, primordeal socialism, a socialism not of wanting to build up a new society, but tear down the current one and return to an idealized past. Ideologically, they had more in common with that wing of anarchism that idealized violence and destruction, like Georges Sorel and Benedetto Croce (who were the ideological forefathers of fascism). Despite the Communist name, Democratic Kampuchea was an anarchist experiement. (Oh, the flames I'm going to get from this.:laugh:)

There was a Marxist wing of the party, though. After Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Peace Accords, a section of the Cambodian revolutionaries went to North Vietnam. When the war in Cambodia started, they returned and led the struggle in the Eastern Zone (there were three main zones of activity, North, East, and SouthWest, the latter being Pol Pot's region). Not surprisingly, it was in the Eastern Zone that had the least repression and starvation . . . until Pol Pot turned on them and wiped them out (many escaped).


Well, given that you're a Maoist, I'd hardly be surprised that crimes against the workers don't register for you. But hunger at the time of the Bolsheviks was also pretty harsh - and they did not transform workers into anything. In fact, they saw the annihilation of the class as a disaster for them.

I'm not a Maoist. I've never been a Maoist, and it's unlikely I'll ever be a Maoist. I've never claimed to be a Maoist. Only a dogmatic Trotskyite would call someone a Maoist simply because he's willing to learn from Maoists and doesn't entirely reject Maoism as a betrayal of the human race, God, and the universe. I don't call myself a Trotskyist because I reject the ideas of Trotsky. I reject Trotskyism because I reject the sectarian and dogmatic behavior of Trotskyists. Remember, Trotsky himself said he was no Trotskyist. Now you'll have to reject him also. :tt2:

And I don't call keeping workers from starving to death by sending them to work in the countryside a crime. Not letting them leave the cities and letting them starve to death, that would have been the crime. Apparently that what you advocate, since you oppose what the CPC did. Did the Bolsheviks go round up the workers who fled the cities and drag them back to starve? What were they supposed to do, given that they were facing mass starvation?

BTW, Pilger's description of the Cambodian peasantry is quite idealized and is the view the the Cambodian ruling class had of the peasants. The actual Cambodian peasanty was rather violent, thuggish, and hated everything about the city. Even children from the village, who went off to study at school in the city were often rejected by the community when they came home. They considered the cities as parasites on their backs. So a revolutionary movement composed almost entirely of such people is bound to do what the CPC did.