I don't think this is the right forum for this...
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Pol Pot
Is anyone on revleft a supporter of Pol Pot's 'year zero' agrarian communism policy? Or Pol Pot in general?
'So we must fly a rebel flag, As others did before us, And we must sing a rebel song, And join in rebel chorus.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting, O' those that they would throttle;, They needn't say the fault is ours, If blood should stain the wattle!"
- Henry Lawson
I don't think this is the right forum for this...
"That's why you don't listen to ghosts, they are hateful souls too evil to be accepted into heaven but too cowardly to take their place in hell. Instead they spend eternity wandering the earth slandering progressive politicians" - Comrade Alastair,'Juan Marón'
"Why should we be giving them OUR taxpayer money so that these dirty people can burn their house down and get AIDS?" - Commissarusa, 'Maximiliano Muñoz'
I hope not.
[FONT=Arial]Be reasonable, demand the impossible -Che Guevara[/FONT]
Neither is it a good idea to mention that name in the first place. I sense a bad feeling of long pointless arguments regarding Pol Pot and his regime.
By all means, I am no supporter of a madman. But I'm still curious as to what were his plans, his reasons, and just plain "why" he let such atrocities happened.
I'm not a supporter.
'So we must fly a rebel flag, As others did before us, And we must sing a rebel song, And join in rebel chorus.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting, O' those that they would throttle;, They needn't say the fault is ours, If blood should stain the wattle!"
- Henry Lawson
Then lets drop this topic, only will bring us to arguments and possibly tendency wars.
[FONT=Arial]Be reasonable, demand the impossible -Che Guevara[/FONT]
There are no Pol-Potists on RevLeft, though there's a big schism that appears in every Pol Pot thread between those of us who are willing to explore the context and objective facts, and those who dismiss Pol Pot as a pure evil bloodthirsty madman who killed a trillion people for fun. There have been 2 or 3 hardcore Pol Pot supporters on revleft in the past but they have all ended up banned (they were from poor countries, and many third world comrades end up banned).
The Year Zero policy didn't appear out of the blue; we have to understand both the context and ideological influences. In 1975 Cambodia was pretty much at a 'year 0' anyway, with its infrastructure totally destroyed by war and intense US carpet-bombing (which killed half a million people). So when the Khmer Rouge came to power they had an enormous task of economic development from scratch. They evacuated the cities because they were overcrowded and on the edge of famine, with loads of people but no means of subsistence, and decided to develop the economy starting with the countryside. In fact, some of their agricultural methods were pretty successful and achieved what previous Cambodian governments could only dream of. But the Khmer Rouge were ultraleftist, going so far as to abolish money etc. This unexperienced ultraleftism, combined with impending Vietnamese invasion, a highly decentralised state, and a country that was already in ruins, caused disaster and suffering.
But anyway the main point is that developing the country from scratch was their only choice, and transferring most of the population to the countryside was no so crazy considering the problematic state of the cities (also they were a peasant movement and distrusted the cities as centers of capitalist decadence and so on). Evacuating the cities was a bit ultra-left but developing the countryside first is a good Maoist development model.The idea of calling it Year 0 might have come from the influence of the French Revolution (Pol Pot and the rest had studied in France and he was influenced by the french revolution)
So those are the general reasons behind the Year 0 and agricultural development policy of the Khmer Rouge. There are many other issues that haven't been mentioned so ask if you want. I left out details and stuff because I really need a wee and cant be arsed to type much.. theres trillions of old pol pot threads with more in depth answers to these and other questions, so please look for them too
Formerly zenga zenga !
I wouldn't consider the Khmer Rouge "ultraleft" so much as a backwards peasant movement, to the point of being arguably primitivist. There were also strong nationalistic tendencies within this movement. Nothing about Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge are "Marxist" are proletarian.
BUY THE TICKET, TAKE THE RIDE
why third world comrades banned?
Please explain exactly why they were primitivist ? They must be the only primitivists that have tank parades
+ YouTube Video
And yes they were ultra-left, apparently influenced a bit by Anarchism. It may be uncomfortable for ultraleftists and Anarchists to admit it, but this is what happens when such ideas are put into practice.. highly decentralised government, abolition of money.. it's crazy that there are still some people who call for that !
Formerly zenga zenga !
I wouldn't say they were primitivist. Pol Pot as far as I know did wish to bring about progress. But his extreme paranoia led to the destruction of his own dream. That's when corruption took over.Originally Posted by southernmissfan
Interesting; as revolutionary the lyrics are, the style of music is very traditional. Like as if it were an ordinary folk song I've heard before.
Yes, the Khmer Rouge were always nationalist and somewhat 'earthy'. Do you speak Khmer or have you just read the lyrics elsewhere ?
Formerly zenga zenga !
Yes, but not fluently. Just enough to get by I suppose.
I've never heard of this 'anarchist influence' before. Can you explain to me how - in what ways, were they influenced by anarchism?
I said arguably. A war on intellectuals and urbanization is one of the most remembered aspects of the regime, along with rejection of Western medicine. It was a backwards and reactionary peasant/nationalistic movement. A primitive, backwards peasantry has very different class interests than the proletariat. The devastation of war and foreign influence certainly had a negative influence on the situation. I'm not exactly who think the "ultraleft" is. The idea that the peasantry is the revolutionary working class is not "ultraleft" and not even Marxist. If anything this position puts the Khmer Rouge more in line with Maoism than other tenants of revolutionary socialism/communism. But it would be unfair to blame Maoism for this regime. Cambodia was a powderkeg of negative factors--a devastated economy, war and foreign influence, and a backwards population. As a result, an extreme, reactionary peasant ideology took hold. But I don't think "ultraleftists" or the majority of anarchists should be uncomfortable in regards to Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge. Those of us who actually believe the proletariat is the revolutionary class have nothing to worry about.
The goal of the revolutionary left is progress, not regression. I don't see how this Cambodian experiment can be seen as anything but reactionary.
EDIT: I believe there was a huge, shitstorm of a thread in regards to Anarchism and Pol Pot.
BUY THE TICKET, TAKE THE RIDE
Sort of - the party of Pol Pot was influenced heavily by Maoism and Maoism was itself heavily influenced by anarchism. There was virtually no Marxism in China until the Russian revolution inspired anarchists and nationalists to establish the CPC. All these anarchist aspects of Khmer Communism can be traced through Chinese Communism to the voluntarism and peasant orientation of Li Dazhao and Mao Zedong.
In stooping to make this cheap shot at anarchists, you actually rebuke Maoism at its most radical. Do you support the PLA crackdown against leftists which ended the GPCR, and the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia which put a stop to Khmer "ultraleftism?"
The paranoia was a direct result of the tenuous position of the DK regime, rivalry between Khmer and Vietnamese chauvinism as it was manifested in the national CP's, and internal contradictions within the Khmer Rouge between its mass poor peasant base and bureaucratic ruling clique.
It almost certainly was an ordinary folk song, with lyrics rewritten and possibly a slight adjustment in melody.
Those are the most popular myths about the regime. The Pol Pot clique did conduct brutal Stalinist repressions, and its Maoist-inspired economic policies led to disaster, but they never rejected industry and medicine. There were still factories and doctors in Democratic Kampuchea.
This blog (written by a revleft poster) is a good place for interesting info and historical analysis about the period, that isn't pro-imperialist or pro-KR: The Eyes of the Pineapple
In what way?Originally Posted by scarletghoul
"to become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly"
Not so much this as that peasant "socialism" tends towards anarchism (Maoism's seeming anarchism doesn't come from this, but from its volunteerism). Peasant rebellions tend to be against all centralized authority, against towns and cities, etc.
COMMUNISM !