Cambodia

Communist Dictatorship in Cambodia 

Introduction to Cambodia’s communist legacy until January 1979

Cambodia is a country located on the Indochinese peninsula. It lies between Vietnam to the east, Thailand to the west and Laos to the north. The north and northeast are mountainous and wild areas.  A key feature of Cambodia is the low-lying alluvial plain that surrounds the Tonle Sap, the central lake of Cambodia. Meanwhile the Mekong River flows from the Laotian border in the northeast towards the south of the country. During the rainy season, the flow of water reverses such that if flows upstream instead, from the Mekong through the Sab River to the Tonle Sap. Inundating Cambodia, it allows for rice crops by fertilising what is otherwise rather infertile soil through the alluvial sediments of the flood. During the dry season, the flows of the rivers again take their usual course, and the inundated plain becomes dry again. As a result, the landscape is constantly changing, and water and water management are crucial for Cambodia (see economy).

In the mid-nineteenth century, Krong Kampucheatheupatai (the name for Cambodia at the time) was a kingdom, its capital shifting between Udong and Phnom Penh. It was tributary to two centres: Dai Nam in the east, with its capital in Hue, and Siam in the west, with its capital in Bangkok. Starting in 1861, the gradual and complex incorporation of France within Cambodian regional dynamics led to the signing of a protectorate treaty on 11 August, 1863, between Krong Kampuchea and France, the latter being the Protector. The Kingdom of Cambodia became progressively ruled under a dual authority. 

Cambodia was occupied by Imperial Japan during World War 2, which ended tragically when the Japanese gave the Kingdom its nominal independence. The absence of appropriate preparations for this move added to the hurdles the Japanese had created against the new independent political authorities, which greatly weakened the system. After the war, this fragile situation compounded with France's attempts to reassert its political authority, while doing it in a way compatible with post 1945 ideals. In practice, this meant the imposition of an unprepared democracy on a weak state. To this was added the nearby war of the French against the Viet-Minh, precipitating Cambodia into a chaotic situation that included guerilla warfare. 

Finally, Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November, 1953, under the leadership of King Norodom Sihanouk. Nonetheless, insecurity remained strong in 1954. Sihanouk's rule was marked by efforts to reassert state authority, while maintaining neutrality during the Cold War. Yet, internal political tensions and economic challenges on the one hand, and attacks on its territory by the various belligerents of the Cold War on the other, undermined these efforts. Renewed unrest strengthened and insurgency followed, eventually leading to the catastrophic rule of the Khmer Rouge regime."

On 17 April 1975, The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), commonly known as the Khmer Rouge, took over Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. It did so with its own armed forces, the Forces Armées Populaires de Libération Nationale du Kampuchea (FAPLNK). Their victory ushered in the birth of the state of Democratic Kampuchea (DK). The CPK rule lasted until 7 January 1979, when the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) captured Phnom Penh following a conflict with DK that had begun around April 1977.[2]

Recorded communist presence in Cambodia started after World War II. 

Because there was no fundamental ideological disagreement between the content of Cambodian national consciousness and communism or socialism, the communist successes and prestige that followed World War II could favourably impress Cambodians without much belief-based hinderance.[3]

Communism in Cambodia developed in two main phases. 

During the first phase from 1945 to 1970, the communists, who among others included the infamous Pol Pot (Saloth Sar), also known as Brother Number 1, and Nuon Chea, also known as Brother Number 2, ascended towards power. This ascent is discussed in the article on Politics. This phase itself can be divided into sub-stages. In the first stage, from 1945 to Cambodian independence in 1953 and the Geneva Conference on ending the wars in Korea and Indochina in 1954, the political authority ruling Cambodia attempted to bring back the situation in the country towards peace.

Meanwhile, it almost suceeded in having the communist movement transition from insurgency to political opposition. The imperfection of this semi-success led to a second stage, from July 1954 to 1959, with an ambivalent communist movement developing both overtly as opposition and covertly, while a renewed nationalist rebellion took place. As a result, the situation in the country was unstable. Then, from 1959 to 1968 the communists intensified their underground activity and moved towards a full insurgency. Throughout this period, the communists progressively changed their names and organisations. The end of this first period from 1968 to 1970, being an insurgency, will be presented in the chapter on military affairs. 

Finally, in the second phase in the development of communism in Cambodia, a full-blown civil war took place between 1970 and 1975, ending in the victory of the communist movement in April 1975 and the establishment of a Communist state in 1976. During the civil war, the foundations for the communist rule were created, not only in terms of structure for its political (see politics) and military-security systems (see military and repression), but also in terms of mental framework and objectives of the rulers of the victorious communist party (see society and culture, economy and repression).

The CPK rulers, including Pol Pot and Nuon Chea, as well as others like Ieng Sary (explored in the organisational charts), built on their wartime experience to establish a top-down state structure that reached right to the village wherein the real holders of power were the CPK Standing Committee (see politics). This was tightly entwined with the military structures (see military) that resulted from the long acquaintance of the CPK with war. The military also oversaw the internal security apparatus (see repression). 

Armed with extensive state institutions, the CPK could realise their objective of nation-building, the jiet (“prosperous”), while protecting this nation from aggressors.[4] Building the new state of Democratic Kampuchea had to be done with uttermost caution. Interaction with the outside world brought with it new dangers, both real and perceived. These dangers were amplified by the long-term impacts of the devastating war in Cambodia, from which the CPK had emerged victorious in April 1979 (see Warfare, Politics). They launched their economic program (see economy), initially heavily focused on agriculture and with unattainable goals, while also fully re-engineering society (see society and culture) via the creation of a new class system to the ends of a collectivisation so deep that it also abolished the family, promoted alienation and turned children into instruments of power. 

The results were dismal. Indeed, the most salient legacy of the CPK-led Kampuchea is certainly the horrendous death toll it exacted on its population, and the traumas related to this still haunt Cambodians today (see repression). 

The most recent demographic study conducted by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) estimates that the population of Cambodia declined from an estimated 7.844-8.102 million in April 1975 to 6-6.418 million in January 1979.[5] This means that between 1.426 and 2.102 million people lost their lives (excess death) during DK rule, or between 17.6 and 26.8 percent of Cambodia’s 1975 population. This must be added to the excess death caused by the civil war, which ranges from an estimated 122,000 and 310,000, with the ECCC demography report estimating the most likely number to be around 250,000.[6]

How could such a tragic death toll occur? The communist rulers were prey to a “genocidal understanding” of the world that determined all their actions and may only be understood if we also consider the path to power of the CPK and the incredible pressures to which this small country and its population were subjected since 1945 (see politics and military). This historical experience and its aftermath led to the definition of a set of objectives, to the belief in the social re-engineering of society according to specific categories fitting the “genocidal understanding” of themselves and of others, and finally to related actions that translated to mass killings through individual and collective duress and executions (see repression). 

Internationally, it led the CPK again towards war, this time against their neighbour and former ambivalent supporter, Vietnam.

The tragic rule of the CPK ended on 7 January 1979, when the Vietnamese and the newly constituted United Front for the National Salvation of Kampuchea, created on 3rd December 1978 in Hanoi, took Phnom-Penh.[7]

From then on, a completely new period started for Cambodia, one under communist and Vietnamese rule that bore many difficulties as well as war, but no longer the terror of CPK rule. The country became the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), later renamed the State of Cambodia (SOC) in 1989, with the instatement of a Vietnamese-backed party the ”Kampuchean (or Khmer) People's Revolutionary Party" (KPRP) and its government. 

War would continue on Cambodian territory among various factions, including the one led by the CPK, until the Paris Peace Agreement of 1991, and then in localised areas until 1998.

In 1993, under the aegis of the international community notably represented by the United Nations, Cambodia became again the Kingdom of Cambodia, a constitutional monarchy with Norodom Sihanouk as King until 2004 and since then his son, Norodom Sihamoni, and with a parliamentary representative democracy. Seven democratic elections took place between 1993 and 2021, seeing the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), the new name given to the KPRP in 1991, remaining in power.[8] Meanwhile Hun Sen, who had first become Prime Minister in 1985, has succeeded in keeping his position from election to election, alone or as co-premier, while consolidating his rule.

In 2001, the Cambodian National Assembly passed a law creating the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed during the Period of Democratic Kampuchea (Extraordinary Chambers or ECCC), with international participation as decided though an agreement reached with the United Nations in June 2003. The ECCC is still operating in 2022.


[1] For this paragraph, Chandler, David P. and Overton, Leonard C.. "Cambodia". Encyclopedia Britannica, 10 Mar. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/place/Cambodia. Accessed 31 January 2022.

[2] David P. Chandler, A History of Cambodia, (Boulder: Westview Press, [2d ed.], 1992), p. 225; David Chandler, Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) and Brother Number One (Revised Edition 1999) (Boulder: Westview); Steve Heder, “The Kampuchean-Vietnamese Conflict,” Southeast Asian Affairs, 1979, pp.157-186; Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot regime: race, power, and genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer rouge, 1975-1979, (New Haven and London: Yale university Press: 1996).

[3] Hélène Lavoix,‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’: the construction of nation-ness, authority and opposition – The case of Cambodia (1861-1979) (PhD Thesis, SOAS – University of London: 2005) using CAOM – GGI 65498 – Etude sur les Mouvements rebelles au Cambodge - 1942 -1952 – Service de sécurité du Haut Commissariat au Cambodge, 1ère Section, Secret, fait a PP le 10/8/1952 ; pp.14-15; CAOM – HCI – Conspol 86 - “Political report by the Counsellor Region Sud Mekong” annexed to Political Monthly reports by the Commissaire de la République Française au Cambodge 01/1949.

[4]  For an explanation of the importance, in terms of deeply held beliefs, of the “jiet”, its prosperity and security, see Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’

[5]  ECCC, D140/1/1, A Demographic Expertise Report, Dr. Ewa Tabeau and They Kheam, September 2009; https://www.eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/documents/courtdoc/D140_1_1_Public_Redacted_EN.PDF accessed 11 January 2022. Previous estimates were that between 1975 and 1979 between 1.671 and 1.871 million people, 21 to 24 percent of Cambodia’s 1975 population had died in Kiernan, “The demography of genocide in Southeast Asia: The death tolls in Cambodia, 1975-79, and East Timor, 1975-80” Critical Asian Studies, 35:4, December 2003, pp.585-597: 587.

[6] Ibid; D140/1/1 p. 19.

[7] Ibid.

[8]  The last election at the time of writing took place in 2018. The next election is meant to take place in 2023.

 

Politics

1945 - 1970 The Communist Ascent to Power

From 1945 to March 1970, the Cambodian central political authorities tried to stabilise the situation of the country, but ultimately failed. This also meant that they did not succeed in bringing back the communists within the bounds of a peaceful opposition. Indeed, the Cambodia political authorities faced multiple pressures both domestic and external, notably with the heightening tensions and subsequent aggressions related to the Cold War. For their part, the communists emerged from these complex geopolitical interactions, and were shaped by them, as evidenced by the successive creation of various organisations until full insurgency in 1968.

In 1951, under communist Vietnamese guidance, the Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP or KRPP) was formed.[1]

From July 1954 after the Geneva Conference until 1959, the communist movement transformed into a political opposition, but also struggled to continue its underground activity in the face of many setbacks.[2] It created the party Krom Pracheachun (People’s Group) in mid-1955.[3] It faced the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, an all-encompassing political and ideological system, “the good side of Communism”, which Prince Sihanouk created in April 1955 after abdicated his kingship a month earlier.[4] As shown in the corresponding organisational charts (Figure 1), Saloth Sar, who would come to be known as Pol Pot, was already part of a secret cell interacting from 1955 to 1956/57 with the Vietnam Workers Party (VWP).[5] He also led the East Zone within the KPRP, probably starting in 1956, and played a key role in the Committee that would organise the coming party congress and make important decisions about the KPRP and its overarching strategy.[6] Similarly, Nuon Chea was already in 1956 the third most important man in the KRPP.[7] The series of organisational charts provided demonstrate Pol Pot’s leading role through this period. The chart also highlights the no less important role of communists such as Noun Chea and others who would be key in the future Khmer Rouge system (Figure 2; Figure 3; Figure 4).

From 1959 to 1970, as the economic and financial situation failed to improve significantly in the country, and as Cold War related foreign encroachments and pressure on Cambodia heightened, the communist movement progressively moved towards insurgency in the face of strong repression by the state.[8] Mobilisation of Cambodians to the communist cause remained difficult.[9]

With the 1959 and 1960 Party Congresses and the creation of the Khmer Workers Party (KWP), the communists intensified their underground activities.[10] In early 1965, the Standing Committee of the KWP stressed that “the time to make the shift [to armed struggle] was drawing closer”.[11] That time came in September 1966, when the name of the party was changed to the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK).[12] The CPK decided to start a “combined armed and political struggle” in late 1967.[13]

Facing difficulties in obtaining weapons from other communist governments, on 17 January 1968, the CPK made the decision to switch to a People’s War, a Maoist style of guerrilla warfare that focuses on drawing on the support of the local population to stretch the resources of the enemy across the countryside. In this, the CPK sought to seize weapons wherever they could find them  (see military affairs).[14]

1970 - 1975 Winning the Civil War

Cambodia was, by now, trapped in a twin deadlock. On one side, it faced external aggression and threats. On the other, it suffered from internal economic and financial challenges, in addition to the guerilla threat (see military affairs).

As a result, some elite members sought a new solution to move the country forward. Lon Nol, with the backing of the army and supported by other high status Cambodians such as his brother Lon Non and Prince Sirik Matak, staged a successful coup.[15] On 18 March 1970, the National Assembly, following them, deposed Sihanouk as the head of state. On 9 October 1970, the Khmer Republic was proclaimed, with as main allies the U.S. and South Vietnam.[16]

On 23 March 1970, Sihanouk, bolstered by massive peasant demonstrations and by support from the People’s Republic of China, called for the creation of a National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK) encompassing Sihanouk and his supporters, various rebellions and the CPK.[17] 

That was the start of the civil war (see military affairs).

In April 1970, a FUNK liberated zone was created.[18] On 4-5 May 1970, the Royal Government of National Union of Kampuchea (GRUNK) was proclaimed, along with its army (see military affairs) alongside the FUNK politburo.[19] Pol Pot and Nuon Chea were vice-presidents of the Committee of Supreme Command of the army (see military affairs), the former serving as Army Political General Director and the latter as Army Military General Director (Figure 7).

From 1971 onwards, while training the FAPLNK and fighting the war, the CPK and its Vietnamese allies set up a political administrative structure in the liberated zones, relying on a mix of “violence, terror, and persuasion”.[20] The Cambodian Communists were trained and progressively came to replace their Vietnamese counterparts, with the full transfer being completed by August 1972.[21] 

This structure (Figure 5; Figure 6), propaganda where “communist ideology was concealed and … people knew only the angkar (organisation) and its violence”, and mobilisation efforts, allowed for recruitments on the ground.”[22] However, defection to the FUNK was not all that widespread.[23]

Due to various plaguing deficiencies in the Khmer Republic, including military inadequacy, strategic mistakes, and corruption, the FUNK won the war (see maps in military affairs) on 17 April 1975. [24] 

1975 - 1979 Failing the Peace: Construction and Fall of Democratic Kampuchea

The face of victory

Until the end of 1975, the GRUNK remained the legitimate government Cambodia. The main political lines were established through the April 1975 Special National Congress.[25] Sihanouk and the non-Communist members of the FUNK were allowed to come back to Cambodia by mid-August 1975.[26]

The GRUNK and its successor would exercise “the prerogative of representation at the United Nations”, although UN agencies were expelled from Phnom-Penh.[27]

The CPK secretly asserts power

From December 1975 onwards, the CPK, surreptitiously but surely, asserted its power. 

In December 1975, a National Congress approved a new constitution. Sihanouk and the GRUNK were forced to legitimate it.[28] On 5 January 1976, this constitution of the new Democratic Kampuchea was promulgated.[29]

The Cambodian People Representative Assembly elected on 20 March 1976 held the legislative power.[30] It met only once, in April 1976, and ousted Sihanouk and the GRUNK and installed members who were secretly part of the CPK (see chart).[31] The charts provide details of the names and roles within the structure of all the “Khmer Rouge” leaders, from Pol Pot to Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Ta Mok, among others.[32]

Members of the standing committee of the CPK, including of course Pol Pot and Nuon Chea, now truly held central power, as detailed in the charts “State structure and Power in DK” and “Real Executive Power Organisation in Democratic Kampuchea”.

Building upon the 1971 military geographical organisation, in 1976 DK was divided into 6 zones - East Zone (Zone 203); Southwest Zone (Zone 405); North Zone (Zone 303); Northwest Zone (Zone 560); West Zone (Zone 401); Northeast Zone (Zone 108) - - plus two autonomous regions - Siem Reap-Oddar Meanchey Region (Region 106) and Preah Vihear Region (Region 103) - while Kompong Som was outside this system. This geographical organisations was slightly revised later.

Beyond the central level, the state and especially the institutions of the CPK held power. They were organised into a hierarchy (Figure 8) from the zone level to the sector or region level, and then right down to the district level and the commune or village(khum), cooperative, and branch levels.[33]

Internationally, “the diplomatic missions functioning in Phnom Penh remained restricted to China, North Korea, Vietnam (until December 1977), Laos, Cuba, Albania, Roumania, Yugoslavia, and Egypt”,[34] with diplomats confined to the embassies.[35] “Cambodia maintained embassies in Peking, Pyongyang, Hanoi [until December 1977], and Vientiane”, as well as a bureau in Paris and only a representation in Moscow.[36] Nonetheless contacts also existed with other countries, notably in Asia.[37] 

Overt Communism and Fall

In September 1977, tensions escalated with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). 

Locating themselves firmly on the Chinese side in the communist rivalry between China and the Soviet Union, when the latter supported Vietnam, Kampuchean leaders “fully acknowledged for the first time the existence of the CPK, its leadership and thus DK communist credentials”.[38]

The CPK’s escalating perceptions of Vietnamese aggression, both imagined and real, blinded the party to its own economic failures, political instability, and rebellions by former cadres, most notably in the East Zone. These were prompted by repression and discontent with the disasters provoked by CPK rule, and ultimately led to a full-blown war with Vietnam.[39] The Cambodian representative in Moscow was recalled at the end of 1977.[40]

Those factors that had led to war, in addition to a weary population traumatised (see repression, military affairs and economy) by CPK rule, had severely weakened the country.[41] The victory of the SRV over DK was lighting fast.[42]

On 7 January 1979, the Vietnamese and the newly constituted United Front for the National Salvation of Kampuchea, the latter having been created on 3 December 1978 in Hanoi, took Phnom Penh.[43]

A provisional government, the Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Council was set up until the new Vietnamese-backed People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) was created, ushering in a new period for Cambodia that lasted until the October 1991 Paris Peace Agreement.[44]

The CPK evacuated towards the Northwest. From there, they would continue the war, alongside other factions.[45]


[1]  The members of its secret Central Committee were Son Ngoc Minh at the top, Sieu Heng in charge of military affairs, Tou Samouth responsible for ideological training and Chan Samay in charge of economic matters - A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), Documentation Center of Cambodia 2020, p. 6.

[2]  David P. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History: politics, war, and revolution since 1945 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press: 1992), pp.81-84, Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot came to power: a History of Communism in Kampuchea, 1930-1975, (London: Verso: 1985), pp.153-171; Steve Heder, Cambodian communism and the Vietnamese model, (Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus Press: 2004), pp.39-48; Hélène Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945, Mass Violence & Résistance”, [en ligne], 9 March, 2008, http://bo-k2s.sciences-po.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/cambodia-1945, ISSN 1961-9898, accessed on 12 January 2022.

[3] Ibid.

[4]  Chandler, Tragedy, pp.78-79; Milton Osborne, Politics and Power in Cambodia: the Sihanouk Years, (Camberwell: Longman, 1973), pp.55-59; Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945” and Hélène Lavoix,‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’: the construction of nation-ness, authority and opposition – The case of Cambodia (1861-1979) (PhD Thesis, SOAS – University of London: 2005) using MAE – Cambodge Laos Vietnam – Cambodge file 7 – Sihanouk’s speech 3rd Sangkum National Congress – 30/12/1955, MAE – Cambodge Laos Vietnam – Cambodge file 8 – Sihanouk’s speech 3rd Sangkum National Congress published by the AKP (Agence Khmere de Presse) – 21/04/1956; MAE – Cambodge Laos Vietnam – Cambodge file 7 – Brochure « Ligne de conduite politique des membres du 3e cabinet Sangkum » transmitted by note from French Ambassador to MAE – 09/03/1956.

[5]  Steve Heder, Cambodian communism and the Vietnamese model, (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2004)

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945” and Lavoix,‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’ using MAE – Cambodge Laos Vietnam – Cambodge file 13 –546 - note French embassy to MAE “Le Cambodge en 1960”- 03/03/1960; MAE – Cambodge Laos Vietnam – Cambodge file 14 – 433 - Note French embassy to MAE regarding Prince Sihanouk’s message to the National Assembly - 27/10/1961; MAE – Cambodge Laos Vietnam – Cambodge file 13 – 41 - note French embassy to MAE regarding the internal political situation – 29/01/1960; SHAT - 10T 855 - d1 – D 22061/IV –SDECE Notice d’Information– Subversion Communiste au Cambodge -  situation en mars 1963 - 30/3/1963, MAE – Cambodge Laos Vietnam – Cambodge file 16 – 1204 –Sihanouk’s speech to the 15th Sangkum National Congress - note French embassy to MAE regarding the domestic crisis – 03/07/1963; MAE – Cambodge Laos Vietnam – Cambodge file 16 – 1440 –note French embassy to MAE regarding the resignation of the trade minister Nin Niron – 22/08/1963; MAE – Cambodge Laos Vietnam – Cambodge file 16 – 1939 –note French embassy to MAE regarding Cambodia under a Buddhist National Socialism– 18/11/1963.; Chandler, Tragedy, pp.89, 122-123.; Heder, Cambodian Communism, pp.70-71 quoting Laura Summers, "Translator's Introduction", in Khieu Samphan, Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development (Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Data Paper Number 11, March 1979).

[9]  Heder, Cambodian Communism, p.74; Chandler, Tragedy, pp.122-123; Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945” and Lavoix,‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’ using SHAT - 10T 855 - d1 – D 22061/IV –SDECE Notice d’Information– Subversion Communiste au Cambodge -  situation en mars 1963 - 30/3/1963.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Heder, Cambodian Communism, pp. 88, 93-95, Thomas Engelbert and Christopher E. Goscha, Falling out of Touch: A Study on Vietnamese Communist Policy Towards an Emerging Cambodian Communist Movement, 1930-1975, (Clayton: Canter of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash Asia Institute: 1995), pp.65-77; Kiernan, HPP, p.211.

[12] Heder, Cambodian Communism, pp.99-104; Kiernan, HPP, p.232; Engelbert and Goscha, Falling pp.77-79.

[13] Heder, Cambodian Communism, pp.107-110, 116.

[14]For an explanation of People’s War, a Maoist military strategy see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_war,  Heder, Cambodian Communism, pp.118-119; 131-143; 144-147; Kiernan, HPP, pp.268-288.

[15] For detailed accounts, Chandler, Tragedy, pp.192-235; Ros Chantrabot, La République Khmère, (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993); Justin Corfield, Khmers Stand Up! (Monash: Monash Papers on Southeast Asia, 1994).

[16] Corfield, Khmers Stand Up!, p.70; Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”  using MAE/Asie/C134//noteMAE/13/05/1970.

[17] Chandler, Tragedy, pp.192-235; Chantrabot, La République Khmère; Corfield, Khmers Stand Up!; Lavoix,’Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, pp.259-304 using notably CWIHP/VietnamIndochineseWars/43/ZhouenlaiPhamVanDong/21/03/1970.

[18] Corfield, Khmers Stand Up!, p. 99

[19] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945” using MAE, Asie, C133, 153; SHAT, 14S371, 14S372

[20] Lavoix,’Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, p. 279 and Appendix 29 using, SHAT/14S371/75A3/FUNKforcesactivityfrom1970to1973/19/02/1973; SHAT/10H855/d23832/IR/--/02/1971; SHAT/10H851/189A2/Mreport “Lifeinoccupiedzone”-/22/04/1972.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Lavoix,’Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, p. 279, using Heder, Cambodian Communism, pp.158-160 and MAE/Asie/C157/737/FUNKafter1year/23/04/1971,  SHAT/14S371/-75A3/FUNKforcesactivityfrom1970to1973/19/02/1973.

[23] Lavoix,’Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, pp. 283-284.

[24] For detailed accounts, Chandler, Tragedy, pp.192-235; Chantrabot, La République Khmère; Corfield, Khmers Stand Up!; Lavoix,’Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, pp.259-304.

[25] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945” using SWB/FE/4890/A3/1/PPradio/SpecialNationalCongressCommunique/27/04/1975.

[26] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945” using SWB/FE/5004/A3/1-2/Shkreturn/09/09/1975.

[27] The matter of the international legitimacy of Cambodia throughout these years is a complex matter, see a detailed explanation, in Michael Leifer, “THE INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATION OF KAMPUCHEA.” Southeast Asian Affairs, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), 1982, pp. 47–59, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27908446.

[28] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”.

[29] A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), p.29.

[30]  Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”; A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), p.30

[31] Ibid.

[32] Watch a large meeting held at the Olympic Stadium in Phnom-Penh in 1976 (no precise date available), with (middle of the video, 5:39) the arrival of Pol Pot, Son Sen, Noun Chea, Ieng Sary and Ta Mok (see who they were in the chart below): https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/vdd06001861/meeting-khmer-rouge-au-stade.
[33] Craig Etcheson, “Written Record for the ECCC”, 2018, ECCC 00142826-00142891_E3_494_EN

[34] Karl D. Jackson; “Cambodia 1977: Gone to Pot”. Far Eastern Survey; 18 (1): 76–90. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2643186

[35] A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), p. 67

[36]  Jackson; “Cambodia 1977”; A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), pp. 67-68; Lavoix,’Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’.

[37]  A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), p. 67

[38] David Chandler, Brother Number One (Revised Edition) (Boulder: Westview: 1999), pp.133-136.

[39] Among others, Chandler, Tragedy; Steve Heder, “Reassessing the Role of Senior Leaders and Local Officials in Democratic Kampuchea Crimes: Cambodian Accountability in Comparative Perspective,” in Bringing the Khmer Rouge to justice: prosecuting mass violence before the Cambodian courts, ed. by Jaya Ramji and Beth van Schaack, (Lewiston, N.Y. : E. Mellen Press: 2005); Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime; Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”.

[40] Jackson, “Cambodia 1977”.

[41] Chandler, Tragedy; Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime; Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”.

[42] Watch a 1978 DK war propaganda film showing a visit to a hevea plantation by Pol Pot, as the country prepares for war against Vietnam: https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/vdd06000075/pol-pot-visite-une-plantation-d-heveas-et-preparation-des-soldats-khmers
[43] Ibid.

[44] Chandler, Tragedy.

[45] Ibid.

Repressions

The most recent demographic study conducted by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) estimates that the population of Cambodia declined from between 7.844 and 8.102 million in April 1975 to between 6 and 6.418 million people in January 1979.[1] This means that between 1.426 and 2.102 million people died of unnatural causes during the DK period. That is, between 17.6 and 26.8 percent of Cambodia’s 1975 population. This must be added to the number of unnatural deaths resulting from the civil war, which ranges from  122,000 and 310,000, with the ECCC demography report estimating the most likely number to be around 250,000.[2]

How could such a tragic death toll occur?

As highlighted elsewhere (see politics and society), Cambodian rulers were prey to a genocidal understanding.[3] When this understanding of the world was put into practice, the result was the systematic killing of a large part of the Cambodian population.

Thus, it was the dramatic re-engineering of Cambodian society (see society), as well as the enmeshment of the politico-administrative structure and the military-security apparatuses (see politics and military), that caused the abhorrent death toll suffered in the DK period. In this article we shall look more particularly at the security system within DK.

Organisation of the formal “security” apparatus[4]

As with other matters, the CPK Standing Committee (see politics) had power over the entire security apparatus, most notably through the military chain of command, but also through the political-administrative structure.[5]

The CPK Standing Committee (SC) ordered both extrajudicial executions and population relocations. Party policy demanded that Central Committee (CC) members be informed of what happened at a district level and made sure that “cadres were thorough in their elimination of “counter-revolutionaries””. In 1977, Party policy stipulated that cadres who “performed badly” had to be purged. “Performing badly” also meant not being “vigilant enough” about enemies and “bad people”, which could only be measured in quantities of prisoners, confessions and executions. As a result, performing well meant being able to show more prisoners, more confessions and more executions.

From 1978 onwards, with the acceleration of the genocidal spiral (see below), members of the SC itself were also increasingly purged.[6]

As for the other sectors of DK government, after the central level, “security” was organised at a zone, district and sub-district level. Each level had to comply with the policies ordered by higher levels, or risk being purged themselves.

This is the very dark face of state administration, indeed “the banality of evil” as so aptly described by Arendt.[7]

The selection of suspected bad elements, as well as their executions, were decided directly by each zone secretary. They, however, kept their superiors informed. Nevertheless, each zone secretary, controlling armed units and being at the top of their own chain of command, could exercise considerable autonomy in enacting security policies.

Sector leaders had the authority to torture prisoners and execute suspected dissidents.

Down one level, district secretaries could use force. They were selected for their strength in fighting against enemies, which in reality meant their ability to kill dissidents and “bad people”. They were notably responsible for making sure cooperatives were thorough in looking for and identifying such “bad people”. Executions were either carried out at district level or ordered to be done by the militia, the chhlop or chhlorb (see military).

At the village, commune, and cooperative levels, the chhlorb made sure that labour was intensive and spied on people to identify possible traitors. Officials at this level were also responsible for deciding who should be “refashioned”, which meant being sent to a ‘reeducation’ camp. Furthermore, they could make decisions on who could be executed based on “accusations of making mistakes”. They would call the chhlorb to carry out the executions.

Detainees were kept in security centers (see military) according to the level at which they were arrested and at which they appeared to belong.

At the regional, district, and sub-district levels, most of the prisoners were people identified as former soldiers or civil servants of the Lon Nol government and people accused of “stealing, desertion, or speaking ill of Angkar”.[8]

At the zone level, prisoners were usually “Khmer Rouge soldiers and their families, and those accused of committing offenses in the zone”.[9] All could be transferred to S-21 the central security center (see also military), which held all people accused of betrayal.[10][11]

Executions and Mass killings under Democratic Kampuchea

Cleaning away the rotten Republican Regime”

As victory was achieved in April 1975, two types of killing started. They consisted of, firstly, a forced transfer of population that actually started before April 1975 in “liberated zones”.[12] This later extended to evacuations from cities, as well as from Phnom-Penh’s surrounding villages. The second type related to killings of people associated with the Lon Nol regime, which we labelled the “unnamed category” (see society).[13] Here we consider these two types of actions as two faces of one dynamic that aimed at “cleaning away the rotten Republican Regime”, to use the DK’s language. Indeed, when people were evacuated from cities, they were handled in this exactly this way, and primarily because they belonged to the category of “new people” destined to be transformed into “good khmers” (see society). It is thus the same genocidal process that underlay both the transfers of population and the killings of those belonging to the “unnamed category”.

“New people” remained reprieved victims until the abolition of the categorisation in August 1978,[14] always at risk of joining those victims who had to be “cleaned away”.

Sacrificing the heroic, all-mighty Kampuchean people[15]

The second genocidal dynamic at work in Cambodia concerned “base people”, those “good people” who were so heroic and all-mighty they could accomplish impossible tasks. Such people were overworked, starved, became ill and died.

Meanwhile both “good people” and “new people” could always be accused of treason and sabotage, and thus tortured and killed, if ever the impossible aims fantasised by the SC, promoted and relayed by a reengineered society and a servile politico-administrative-military-security apparatus, were not attained. The less these aims were reached, the more people died as inadequate results were interpreted as the work of traitors, “buried deep within” that  had to be found and “smashed.”[16]

Moreover, from the end of 1975 until some time in 1977, a second displacement and evacuation of people took place.[17]

Cambodia was thus locked into an accelerating spiral of extermination.

Purifying the Army, the Party and the Masses”[18]

The final phase would come soon.

It began with increasing perceptions of external aggressions. Starting in February 1976, they focused first on the U.S. and the CIA.[19] Then, with the escalating tensions with Vietnam from April 1977 onwards, these initial perceptions merged with the new ones. From the end of 1977, references to traitors relating to CIA, KGB, or Vietnamese connections and networks can be found.[20]

As a result, the previous genocidal dynamics merged with new fears of ever heightening aggressions, real and imagined. In May 1978, the CPK made a general appeal aimed at “purifying the Army, the Party and the Masses”.[21]

In the meantime, one last displacement and transfer of people took place from late 1977 throughout 1978, mainly related to the Eastern zone.[22]

The genocidal process now accelerated, and was expanded to the entire population..[23]

At the end of 1978, finally, some improvements seemed to have started taking place.[24] For example, the number of detainees in security centers seemed to have lessened.[25] The genocidal understanding may then have receded, a development possibly born of wartime necessity.[26] However, this is only a hypothesis.

Whatever the changes that took place then, it was too late for the citizenry of DK. Millions of Cambodians had already perished. Many generations to come would have to face the individual and collective trauma created by this genocidal process.

Furthermore, the country that remained after this genocidal process was fundamentally hollow. Vietnam rapidly won a war against Cambodia that the CPK leaders thought they could win, entering Phnom-Penh on 7 January 1979. This plunged Cambodia into a new phase of its tragic history, with twelve years and more of lasting civil war following.


[1] ECCC, D140/1/1, A Demographic Expertise Report, Dr. Ewa Tabeau and They Kheam, September 2009; https://www.eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/documents/courtdoc/D140_1_1_Public_Redacted_EN.PDF accessed 11 January 2022. Previous estimates were that between 1975 and 1979 between 1.671 and 1.871 million people, 21 to 24 percent of Cambodia’s 1975 population had died in Kiernan, “The demography of genocide in Southeast Asia: The death tolls in Cambodia, 1975-79, and East Timor, 1975-80” Critical Asian Studies, 35:4, December 2003, pp.585-597: 587.

[2] Ibid; D140/1/1 p. 19.

[3] For a discussion on the legal notion of genocide versus a scientific approach seeking understanding, see Hélène Lavoix,‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’: the construction of nation-ness, authority and opposition – The case of Cambodia (1861-1979) (PhD Thesis, SOAS – University of London: 2005), pp. 17-19 et 21-22. Here we use “genocidal understanding”, genocidal process, and genocidal dynamics as reference to a specific political process as seen from political science, and not from a legal perspective.

[4] Except when stated otherwise, this part draws mainly on Craig Etcheson, “Written Record for the ECCC”, 2018, ECCC 00142826-00142891_E3_494_EN.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid. not mentioning a genocidal process; Hélène Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945, Mass Violence & Résistance”, [en ligne], 9 March, 2008, http://bo-k2s.sciences-po.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/cambodia-1945, ISSN 1961-9898, accessed on 12 January 2022 using various bibliographic sources and references.

[7] Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil; (London: Faber&Faber, 1963).

[8] A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), Documentation Center of Cambodia 2020, p. 52.

[9] Ibid. p.53.

[10] For more on S-21 see David P. Chandler, Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison, (Berkeley: University of California Press: 1999).

[11]  Access the most recent map to date (2010) showing security centers, killing sites/mass graves and memorials: DC-Cam map, “The killing fields”, http://dccam.org/posters/killing-field-map ; Access the Cambodian Genocide Program Geographic Database (CGEO) to visualise prisons (security centers), memorials and burial sites under DK - https://yalemaps.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=695677d4ce434c27a78d7f4685ab02ea.
[12]ECCC, Evacuation of Phnom Penh in the Case 002 Closing Order - https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/articles/evacuation-phnom-penh-case-002-closing-order - accessed 12 January 2022.

[13] For more on this phase, see Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot regime: race, power, and genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer rouge, 1975-1979 (New Haven and London: Yale university Press: 1996), p.164; Steve Heder, “Kampuchea 1975: lethal labelling,” 2002, unpublished, pp.6-13; Lavoix, “Cambodia from1945”; Lavoix, Nationalism and Genocide.

[14] Lavoix, Nationalism and Genocide, using SWB/FE/5909/B/4/PPradio/Cooperatives/30/08/1978.

[15] For further details and references, see Lavoix, “Cambodia from1945”; Lavoix, Nationalism and Genocide.

[16] DavidChandler, Brother Number One (Revised Edition) (Boulder: Westview: 1999), pp.129-130.

[17] ECCC Evacuation of Phnom Penh in the Case 002 Closing Order, Ibid.

[18] For further details and references on this phase, see “Cambodia from1945”.

[19] Chandler, Voices from S-21, p. 93, 102; Steve Heder, “Reassessing the Role of Senior Leaders and Local Officials in Democratic Kampuchea Crimes: Cambodian Accountability in Comparative Perspective,” in Bringing the Khmer Rouge to justice: prosecuting mass violence before the Cambodian courts, ed. by Jaya Ramji and Beth van Schaack, (Lewiston, N.Y. : E. Mellen Press: 2005), pp. 389-390.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945” using SWB/FE/5813/A3/4/PPradio/DefenceStrategyagainstVietnam/10/05/1978.

[22] ECCC, Evacuation of Phnom Penh in the Case 002 Closing Order - https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/articles/evacuation-phnom-penh-case-002-closing-order - accessed 12 January 2022.

[23] Heder, “Reassessing”, pp. 389-390; Kiernan, Pol Pot regime, pp. 386-439; Lavoix, Nationalism and Genocide.

[24] Lavoix, Cambodia from 1945, using Chandler,Voices from S-21, pp.74-75; Serge Thion, “Genocide as Political Commodity,” in Kiernan, Ben, ed. Genocide and democracy in Cambodia: the Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the international community (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies,). Monograph series, Yale University Southeast Asia Studies: 1993, p.171; Hoeung, Ong Thong, J’ai cru aux Khmers Rouges, (Paris, Buchet/Chastel, 2003).

[25] Ibid.

[26] Lavoix, Nationalism and Genocide.

 

Economy

The objective of the rulers of Democratic Kampuchea was to build the nation (the jiet or “prosperous”), while ensuring its security by protecting it from aggressors.[1] Building the new, modern Democratic Kampuchea would have to be done with utmost cautiousness regarding interactions with the outside world because of security threats, both real and imagined. The constant threat of war, which had plagued Cambodia for so long and forged the CPK and its April 1975 victory (see military affairs, politics), was another persistent factor.

Thus, “… defending our nation and people and building up our country and fatherland” were “the two mammoth revolutionary tasks” that would animate the rulers of DK until 1979.[2]

The task was indeed enormous, as Cambodia had faced significant and ever-deepening economic challenges since at least 1959 (see politics). The destruction wrought by the civil war, which included the brutal carpet bombing of Cambodian territory by the United States, posed another, terrible challenge. Defoliants and bombing had damaged the land and rubber plantations.[3] As the 1982 Finnish Inquiry Commission, quoted by Margaret Slocomb, highlighted:

“Of the 1400 rice mills that had been in operation only 300 were still working in 1974 and only 65 of the previous sawmills were in use. The country’s only phosphate plant and only paper mill were completely destroyed. Similarly, cement and textile production facilities suffered serious damage. Of the roads, 40 per cent were entirely unfit for use and one-third of the country’s bridges had been blown up.”[4]

Yet, victory had strengthened the CPK in their belief that its leaders, as well as the Cambodian population, were almighty. Indeed, the Cambodian people under the CPK leadership had achieved victory, including that over the all-powerful US, thanks to their “spirit of sacrifice and heroism.”[5] As a result, no goal was unattainable, and achieving “the two mammoth revolutionary tasks” was indisputably possible.[6]

General Policies and Objectives

Consequently, as early as April 1975, the CPK leaders fixed a target of “three tons per hectare” for rice cultivation, rice being the main staple of Cambodia. This would be made possible through a mastery of the water problem by digging canals and building dikes.[7] In May 1975, they decided to “double or even treble the harvest of the rainy season rice crop.”[8] Then, in October 1975, they sought to multiply by three to four times the “rice production by 1976-1977.”[9]

Indeed, revolutionising and not only reforming what had been a “backward” agricultural system into a modern one was the key to building a modern DK in the eyes of the CPK. As Pol Pot explained in September 1975, the economic policy for DK over the next 10 to 15 years would have to revolve around agriculture and its revolution.[10] Mechanisation, mastering the water problem, the use of fertilisers and pesticides, electrification and promotion and use of scientific research were the means to revolutionising agriculture.[11] Industry and commerce should likewise be developed to serve agriculture, but also for the sake of the people, for present needs and improvement of living conditions.[12] “Existing industries, manufacturing mosquito nets and blankets, thread, soap, bicycle tyres, milk, dried fish, buttons and clothes had to be consolidated and diversified.”[13][14]

In 1976, the government of DK launched a four year plan for the years 1977-1980: the “Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields,” where similar goals were reasserted.[15]

Democratic Kampuchea was so heroic and so mighty that “even nature would be vanquished; the Kampuchean countryside would be “transformed into a …site” with “a brand new look,” as symbolised on the DK coat of arms.”[16] (Figure 9)

Organisation[17]

“The standing committee exercised centralised control over the entire Cambodian economy, primarily but not exclusively through Office 870” (see chart in politics). This meant that the Committee ruled over “planning, pricing, production, import, export, consumption.” They also controlled and ruled the water and waterworks policy, as well as the corresponding reporting system, organised through telegrams. Last but not least, they ruled over the military part of the economy, either through the army’s involvement in rice production or manufacturing and production for the military.

Zone committees (see politics) implemented and adjusted economic policies, and then reported to the center.[18] Sectors then carried out the work. They could convene “design study groups,” send requests for supplementary material up the hierarchy and move people, among other things. Districts appointed leadership at their level, and designated people for work. They also oversaw cooperatives. Finally, branches (in communes and villages (Khum), cooperatives, factories, military units, worksites, ministry offices) were in contact with the people. They directly designated the work to carry out and how such work would be performed, as well as monitored their workers and reported up the hierarchy. They made decisions on forced labour, over day and night if necessary.

Collectivisation

Collectivisation and the abolishment of private ownership were a major feature of economic organisation and production (see society). All the property, tools, and equipment necessary for production, including livestock, were collected for common use by the collective.[19][20]

Money, currency and capital

Initially, the CPK leaders planned to introduce their own money, and they ordered the printing of these new Riels in China, which were delivered.[21] However, ideologically, they thought that money and markets “had to be abolished to further the elimination of private property”[22] and thus enhance the odds of success in attaining their utopic objectives.[23]

Without money, the extraction of surplus (taxes necessary for any state to function) was done in kind, through rice and labour.[24]

International exchanges and trade most probably used barter.

International Aid, cooperation and assistance

Considering the extreme distrust of the outside world that pervaded the DK leadership, aid and assistance only came and was accepted from China and North Korea.

China seems to have sent technical advisers operating mainly on infrastructure and industrial projects. These included rubber plantations, the Pochentong airport and Kompong Chhnang military airstrip, a tractor assembly plant and improvements on the Kompong Som harbour.[25]

Production and economic results

Rice production and irrigation work

Adverse factors were almost never taken into account, from insufficient soil fertility to the inexperience of the “new people” (see society) through the damages caused by war. Notably, the casualties of war led to a decrease in  available manpower. Furthermore, DK also had to face inefficient management, generated and heightened by the fear in-built within the system of DK which, in turn, favoured lies and servility.[26]

Consequently, not only were agriculture targets never met, but production actually fell significantly from the figures of previous years.[27] In their efforts to reach their increasingly unattainable goals, communist leaders at all levels transformed Cambodia into a gigantic forced labour camp.[28]

Many Cambodians were worked to death, died from illness, or starved (see repression).[29] In turn, as the death toll rose, meeting objectives became even less possible.

However, in a communist utopia where nothing could defeat the heroic and almighty Cambodian people, these failures could only be accounted for by the work of economic saboteurs.[30] Thus, a search for traitors (see repression), rather than a candid policy reevaluation, ensued. This only exacerbated the already dire economic situation.[31]

Other agricultural products

The jute factory went on operating normally until 1979. Rubber plantations and factories also remained in service, even though the rubber being produced was of very poor quality.[32]

Industry

If we follow Slocomb, it would seem that DK’s industrial achievements were less dismal than in other fields, even though a proper assessment remains hard to make. [33]

Throughout its short rule, DK lacked raw materials and manpower, but its leadership could continue manufacturing and even reconstructing some production facilities, as supported by Michael Vickery’s interviews. Some possible examples included “the tyre factories, textiles mills, mechanical workshops, and factories for tiles and soap… drinks factories, one per month, to supply the state…the petrol refinery to serve local consumption and export, distilleries to produce alcohol … and chemical laboratories…”.[34][35]

Hence, a 1979 United Nations Development Programme evaluation estimated that by 1979 there were “a large number of former private and state-owned industrial enterprises in various states of repair ranging from fully operational to completely devastated.”[36]

Foreign Trade[37]

Traditional smuggling and semi-official trade at the three usual border points - “on the northwest border near the Thai town of Aranyaprathet, in the southwest between Trat and Koh Kong, and perhaps also in the southeast with Vietnam” went on.[38]

International trade continued, albeit in very small volumes. Major exports were rubber, rice, pepper and wood. Kapok was exported to Japan. Imports were mainly food, fuel and machinery.

DK’s main clients were China, Madagascar and West Africa. Transactions with Singapore were recorded, and efforts were made to trade with Albania, Yugoslavia and North Korea. DK would also have been ready to trade with non-communist parties through a trading company created in Hong Kong.


[1] For an explanation of the importance, in terms of deeply held beliefs, of the “jiet”, its prosperity and security, see Hélène Lavoix,‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’: the construction of nation-ness, authority and opposition – The case of Cambodia (1861-1979) (PhD Thesis, SOAS – University of London: 2005).

[2] Hélène Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945, Mass Violence & Résistance”, [en ligne], 9 March, 2008, http://bo-k2s.sciences-po.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/cambodia-1945, ISSN 1961-9898, accessed on 12 January 2022, using SWB/FE/4890/A3/2/PPradio/Revolutionarytasks/26/04/1975.

[3] Margaret Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia in the Twentieth Century, (NUS Press, Singapore: 2010), p.207.

[4] Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, p. 213

[5] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Steve Heder,“Government’s policy in Kampuchea 1975-1978,” unpublished, 2002, p.3; Lavoix, Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’ using SWB/FE/4890/A3/2/PPradio/Revolutionarytasks/26/04/1975.

[8] Lavoix, Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, p.292 using SWB/FE/4896/A3/12/PPradio/Consolidation&selfreliance/02/05/1975.

[9] Lavoix, Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, p.292 using SWB/FE/5026/B/4-5/PPradio/planforincreasedriceproduction/03/10/1975.

[10] Heder, “Government”.

[11] Ibid.; Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, pp. 179-180.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, p. 179.

[14] Watch a 1976 propaganda video showing work in the fields and irrigation work: https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/vdd06000079/travailler-sous-les-khmers-rouges
[15] Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, p. 180.

[16] Lavoix, Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, p. 292 using SWB/FE/5007/B/3/PPradio/KhieuSamphanspeechforShk/12/09/1975; SWB/FE/5200/B/3-4/-Excellentsituation/02/05/1976.

[17] This part is a very succinct summary of Craig Etcheson, “Written Record for the ECCC”, 2018, ECCC 00142826-00142891_E3_494_EN

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Watch a 1976 DK propaganda film on collective work: https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/vdd06000023/travaux-manuels-pendant-le-regime-des-khmers-rouges
[21]Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, p.220.

[22] Heder, “Government”.

[23] Ibid.: Nuon Chea and Sao Pheum insisted on this point in July 1975.

[24] Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, p.221.

[25] Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, p. 217

[26] Jean Delvert, Le Cambodge, (Paris, PUF: 1983), pp. 21-25; Charles Twining, “the Economy,” in Jackson, Karl D, ed. Cambodia 1975-1978: rendezvous with death (Princeton, N.J.; Guildford: Princeton University Press: 1989), pp. 126-127, 129-130, 143-146; Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot regime: race, power, and genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer rouge, 1975-1979, (New Haven and London: Yale university Press: 1996), pp. 216-218, Heder, “Government”, pp. 7-9, Tim Carney, “The organization of power,” in Jackson, Karl D, ed. Cambodia 1975-1978: rendezvous with death (Princeton, N.J.; Guildford: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 81, Steve Heder, “Kampuchea 1975: lethal labelling,” unpublished, 2002, pp. 31-36; David Chandler and Ben Kiernan, 1988, “Preface,” in Pol Pot Plans the Future, ed. Kiernan, Chandler and Boua, (New Haven.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies), Monograph series, no.33David Chandler and Ben Kiernan, 1988, “Preface,” in Pol Pot Plans the Future, ed. Kiernan, Chandler and Boua, (New Haven.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies), Monograph series, no.33, 1988, pp. xiii-xv; Boua, Chandler and Kiernan, Ibid, p. 52; Ben Kiernan, “The demography of genocide in Southeast Asia: The death tolls in Cambodia, 1975-79, and East Timor, 1975-80” Critical Asian Studies, 35:4, 2003, p. 586; Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”.

[27] Among others David P. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History: politics, war, and revolution since 1945 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press: 1992); Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia pp. 205-206.

[28] Henri Locard, “Le Goulag Khmer Rouge, 17 avril 1975-7 janvier 1979,” Communisme (No 47/48), 1996.

[29] Chandler, Tragedy; Kiernan, The Pol Pot regime; Heder, “Reassessing the Role of Senior Leaders”, pp. 391-398

[30] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, p. 207,.

[33] Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, pp. 213-214.

[34] Ibid. The list of industries is from Khieu Samphan’s biography. The latter being one of the leaders of DK, its recollection may have to be taken with caution.

[35] Watch an archive film (INA) from 1977 showing a tyre factory and then a sawmill: https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/vdd06001903/industrie-khmer-rouge
[36] Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, p. 214.

[37] For this part, see Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia, pp. 216-217.

[38] Ibid, p. 216.

Society and culture

The CPK leaders were taken in a genocidal understanding of the situation and a genocidal process that determined perceptions and actions (see also repression).[1] As a result, the way they perceived society was extreme, and their actions to reform it, likewise, were extreme.

One stated objective of the CPK Standing Committee members was to create “a ‘formidable communist foundation for the country,’ which would make Kampuchea invulnerable to external threats, not only from the US, but also from Vietnam”.[2] As early as 1971, it was stated that “an entirely new popular power is born with the mission to build a new life for the people of the new Kampuchea.”[3]

From then onwards, and as was constantly reiterated throughout the civil war years (see military and politics), the CPK promoted and relied upon “good Khmers”, while simultaneously “cleaning away” those who could not be redeemed and ‘reforming’ those who could.

Means of actions

The rising integration of ever younger Cambodians in the power apparatus,[4] as well as the increasing alienation of individuals, would be the two key means of “revolutionising” Cambodia.

Firstly, through mobilisation and integration within the FAPLNK during the war, young people were progressively incorporated into the system. Their involvement deepened throughout the Democratic Kampuchea period (and its prequel from April 1975 to January 1976; see politics). Through these processes, they not only learned to fight but were also trained in the “patriotic spirit, hatred of the enemy…to dare hit and vanquish any enemy.”[5] Hence, the specific psychological characteristics of adolescence were exploited, a phenomenon akin to what is seen in child soldiers.[6] Later, the indoctrination of increasingly younger children (see below) embedded the process wider and deeper within DK society.[7]

Secondly, throughout the war and then later the DK period, “The non-fighters learnt to be suspicious and spy on their neighbours to prevent potential insidious action by the ‘demonic enemy.’[8] Thus, the communication and trust that were the threads of the social fabric were broken. As Hoeung poignantly evokes in his 1976-1979 life experience in DK, society became a collection of alienated individuals, thus forbidding any true feedback or powerful enough opposition that would have allowed breaking the terrible mechanism at work.[9] On the contrary, the continuation of the warped understanding of reality continued and settled on all the individuals within society. This is a phenomenon akin to Arendt’s concept of the “inner migrant” for Nazi Germany.[10][11]

Making the "Good, Heroic Khmers:" Base people, New people

From the aims of the CPK-rulers, a new type of class vision for Cambodia was derived. This vision was actualised through the means explored above, through the state’s socio-politico-administrative structures and their enmeshment with the military and security apparatus (see politics, military affairs, repression). These categories were beginning to be defined as early as 1971, and were reinforced throughout the war.[12]

“Base people” or “Good Khmers” were those who had joined the revolution earlier. They were the “poor people,” notably the “workers, poor” and “middle-lower farmers and other labourers,” who had allowed for the victory with their “heroic” work in the cooperatives.[13]

“New people” or “depositee”[14] were initially those who had not joined the armed revolutionary struggle but should do so, as well as those who did “not have enough courage to enter and live in the maquis” and thus “should give their arm to the Army of National Liberation … then live as peaceful citizens.”[15] Once victory was achieved, it was all those who had not joined the FUNK side before victory, apart from those belonging to the “unnamed category” of the “traitors” (see below).[16] As the “corruption” of this group was less pervasive, the CPK thought they could be ‘reformed’ through re-education. This meant being sent to the countryside where they could learn to become ‘better Khmer’ by learning from the example of those “good Khmer” who had joined the revolution earlier.[17] This category included lower-ranking officials and the ‘normal’ people, urban dwellers and refugees.[18]

There were other sub-categories as well, such as the Chams. Indeed, people belonging to the Cham community were largely associated with the Republic through its parliamentary representation, even though some Cham were cadres within the CPK.[19] Another key sub-category was “veteran workers”, an important one in maintaining industrial production capacity.[20]

Finally were the “traitors”, those who were not even part of a class and who were too corrupt to be redeemable. This group was to be “cleaned up”, that is, killed (see repression).

Collectivisation and the abolition of the family

Collectivisation was also key to achieving the Standing Committee’s aims. This process had started as early as 1973 in the liberated zone (see politics). Initially, cooperatives were composed of an entire village or several hundred people.[21] The objective was, however, to strengthen “cooperativization.”[22] As a result, by 1977, “high level cooperatives” of 1000 families were organised.[23]

People had to “live together, work together, eat together, and share each other’s leisure activities.”[24]

Hence, not only was private ownership abolished, but so was the institution of the family. This, in turn, led to the alienation and, eventually, the empowerment of a revolutionised youth.

Spouses were chosen by Angkar, and then mass weddings were organised.[25] Some people sometimes discovered their future partner at the wedding ceremony.[26] All related traditional ceremonies and customs were forbidden. Newly wedded couples could spend a few days together.[27] Then, all married couples faced the same conditions: spouses lived with their working units and could only see each other every seven to ten days.[28]

Children were cut off from their parents. Furthermore, displays of affection were reproved.[29] Angkar was to be “father and mother” to each Cambodian child .[30] In this way, one of the most fundamental and constitutive bonds of human existence was destroyed.

Children were organised according to their age, either in children groups (Korng Kumar) or teenager groups (Korng Tchalart or “Mobile units”).[31] They could be promoted to militia group (Korng Chhlorb) level.[32] Children could then be used as “soldiers, bodyguards, or messengers” (see military and repression)[33]. They carried out small tasks, from collecting manure to taking care of small plants or bringing guns to the battlefield, even sometimes serving and being killed on the front line. This most notably occurred during the war against Vietnam (1977-1978).[34]

Most fundamentally for the social re-engineering of Cambodia, children were asked to spy on their families and denounce their parents if necessary. Some even ended up “kill[ing] their own parents if they were told to do so by Angkar.”[35]

The deleterious means for the revolutionising of Cambodia were thus spread and reinforced with time, as more and more children were incorporated into the power and security apparatus.

Religion[36]

There was no spiritual solace outside of Angkar as religion was generally forbidden. This included Theravada Buddhism, the primary religion of Khmers. 

Monks were defrocked and sent to the countryside to cultivate rice as “new people”, while the higher members of the Sangha (the order ruling Buddhism and monks) and sometimes the head monks of pagodas in the countryside were killed.

Forging a “pure revolutionary consciousness”: Literacy and Education, Songs and Poems[37]

Neither literacy nor education were forbidden in CPK-ruled Kampuchea. On the contrary they were encouraged, but in a way that supported the CPK Standing Committee’s aims.

Formal education, from general primary and secondary school to scientific technical and poly-technical schools, was planned in the Fourth Year Plan.

Watch a 1978 DK propaganda film on technical education in DK: https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/vdd06002081/systeme-scolaire-scientifique-sous-les-khmers-rouges

Children thus still learned to read and write, but only in the “correct” way. This meant only as “base people” or peasants. In other words, traditionally, the Cambodian population had been largely literate through pagoda education, where peasants were taught through rote learning. The approach to education adopted by DK further enforced and spread this uncritical way to learn and read.

Literacy was truly important for DK

Firstly, notebooks kept by cadres using detailed questionnaires were part of the array of tools extensively used by the regime for indoctrination and propaganda to “build socialism and revolutionary consciousness”.[38] Notably, “songs and poems that reflect good models in the period of political/armed struggle…”, as well as periodicals such as the monthly magazine Tung Padewat (“Revolutionary Flag”), were used to cultivate a new generation with “a pure revolutionary consciousness”.[39]

Most terribly, literacy was also a tool of choice for the security apparatus. Notebooks could also become a way to identify traitors, while confessions were key to the ever expanding suspicion and execution system (see repression) using torture.[40][41]


[1] I do not intend here to discuss any legal notion but refers to political dynamics. For a discussion on the legal notion of genocide versus a scientific approach seeking understanding, see Hélène Lavoix,‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’: the construction of nation-ness, authority and opposition – The case of Cambodia (1861-1979) (PhD Thesis, SOAS – University of London: 2005), pp. 17-19 et 21-22. Here we use “genocidal understanding”, genocidal process, and genocidal dynamics as reference to a specific political process as seen from political science, and not from a legal perspective.

[2] Steve Heder, Interview of Ieng Sary, Chanthaburi, Thailand, 17 December 1996 in Steve Heder,“Government’s policy in Kampuchea 1975-1978,” unpublished, 2002.

[3] Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’ using MAE/Asie/C158//IengSaryspeech/25/08/1971.

[4] The paragraph below comes from Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’: p. 285.

[5] Hélène Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945, Mass Violence & Résistance”, [en ligne], 9 March, 2008, http://bo-k2s.sciences-po.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/cambodia-1945, ISSN 1961-9898, accessed on 12 January 2022 using ,MAE/Asie/C158/725/explanationFUNKprogram/—/05/1971.

[6] Meng-Try Ea & Sorya Sim, Victims or Perpetrators, (Phnom Penh: DC-Cam, 2001) quoting footnote18 UN expert report Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, 1996.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’ using SHAT/10H851/30A8/lifeinCardamomes/20/01/1972.

[9] Ong Thong Hoeung, J’ai cru aux Khmers Rouges, (Paris, Buchet/Chastel, 2003).

[10] Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil; (London: Faber&Faber, 1963), p.112.

[11] Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, p. 285.

[12] Ibid. pp. 272-304.

[13] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”.

[14] Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot regime: race, power, and genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer rouge, 1975-1979, (New Haven and London: Yale university Press: 1996), p.164; Steve Heder, “Kampuchea 1975: lethal labelling,” 2002, unpublished, pp.12-13.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, p.281.

[17] Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, p. 289.

[18] Kiernan, The Pol Pot regime, p.164; Heder, “Kampuchea”, pp.12-13.

[19] Corfield, Khmers Stand Up! (Monash: Monash Papers on Southeast Asia, 1994), p.173; Steve Heder “Government’s policy in Kampuchea 1975-1978,” unpublished, 2002, pp.18-28.

[20] Heder “Government”, pp. 9-11.

[21] A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), Documentation Center of Cambodia 2020, p. 39

[22] Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, pp.55-59.

[23] A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), p. 39

[24] Ibid., p. 40. Forced mariages should however not be blown out of perspective. Indeed, in Cambodian society they were not unusual. Nonetheless doing so without the structuring frame of rites and ceremonies was certainly profoundly disturbing.

[25] Ibid. p. 42.

[26] Ibid. p.42.

[27] Ibid. p. 44.

[28] Ibid. p.44.

[29] Ibid. p. 2.

[30] Ibid. p. 2.

[31] Nhem Boraden, The Khmer Rouge: Ideology, Militarism, and the Revolution that Consumed a Generation: Ideology, Militarism, and the Revolution That Consumed a Generation, ABC-Clio, 2013, pp. 60-62.

[32] Ibid.

[33] A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), p.45

[34] Ibid. pp. 46-47

[35] Ibid.

[36] For details on religions under DK, see more particularly, for Buddhism Chhang Song, "Buddhism Under Pol Pot" (Phnom Penh: Documentation Center of Cambodia, 30 November 1996); François Ponchaud, Cambodge année zero (Paris: Julliard, 1977), pp. 147-151; Heder, “Government” pp.11-15; for the Chams and Islam, see Heder, “Government”, pp. 18-28; Ysa Osman, “Final Draft: The Cham Nationality in Krauch Chhmar District under the Khmer Rouge,” (November 2001), np; Ysa Osman, THE CHAM REBELLION: Survivors’ Stories from the Villages, Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2006, Ysa Osman, Oukoubah, Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2002 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.139.5861&rep=rep1&type=pdf, accessed 10January 2022; Ysa Osman, Testimony, 2016 https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/witness-expert-civil-party/mr-ysa-osman; Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, pp. 268-274; Sorya Sim, "Kampong Cham Province: The Chams under the Pol Pot Regime," nd, np.

[37] The following paragraphs come from George Chigas and Dmitri Mosyakov, “Literacy and Education under the Khmer Rouge”, Genocide Studies Program, Yale University, nd. https://gsp.yale.edu/literacy-and-education-under-khmer-rouge accessed 10 January 2022.

[38] Ibid,, using the Fourth Year Plan.

[39] Ibid.; on Khmer Rouge Songs, see also, John Marston, “Khmer Rouge Songs” Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies Vol. 16, No. 1 (2002), pp. 100-127 https://www.jstor.org/stable/40860794 accessed 10 January 2022.
[40] Listen to Khmer Rouge Songs: http://d.dccam.org/Archives/Musics/Music.htm Collection gathered and provided online by DC Cam.
[41]Read a Khmer Rouge Novel: The Red Heart of Dam Pheng http://d.dccam.org/Archives/Musics/pdf/Red_Heart_of_DAM_PHENG_English.pdf (Provided by DC Cam and access through their website).

Militarism

Democratic Kampuchea was, essentially and fundamentally, born out of war. The same was true of the ruling CPK. This ruling elite could never completely re-stabilise the state towards a constructive state of peace. Instead, the short life of the state of Democratic Kampuchea was characterised by constant tension and a state of internal war which skewed the perceptions and behaviour of its rulers and ultimately led to a self-destructive war against Vietnam.

1968-1970 - Escalating guerilla warfare in a devastated country

On 17 January 1968, the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) decided to wage a People's War (see politics), seizing weapons wherever they could find them. This decision stemmed from the absence of other viable choices, considering that other communist countries in the region favoured appeasing the interests of the Cold War belligerents on the Indochinese Peninsula.[1]

As shown on the maps, the CPK thus carried out more than 133 small guerrilla actions in 1968.[2] This guerrilla warfare continued until at least January 1970 throughout most of the provinces.[3] Furthermore, in a few localised areas, the CPK carried out terrorist attacks against village elitex, contributing to its propaganda efforts to the ends of developing its own state structures.[4]

Meanwhile, Vietcong actions, increasingly encroached on Cambodian territory. (Figure 10)

The weakened Cambodian state and army could not quell these actions and instead perpetrated brutal repressions against the discontented and rebellious peasants, thus pushing them further toward the CPK.[5] (Figure 11)

In the meantime, incidents on the borders originating from the American, Thai and South Vietnamese allies multiplied.[6]

The U.S. B52 bombing campaign aimed at pacifying the Vietcong, officially limited to Vietnamese territory but in practice extended beyond the Vietnamese-Cambodian border, increased in intensity. For example, from 18 March 1969 to 26 May 1970, during the U.S. “secrete” operation against Cambodia, cynically named “Operation Menu”, 103, 921 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Cambodian territory through 3825 sorties of B-52 bombers.[7] The number of casualties is unknown.

1970-17 April 1975: Creating and Organising the Victorious FAPLNK

As soon as the army of FUNK (see politics), the Forces Armées Populaires de Libération Nationale du Kampuchea (FAPLNK), was created in May 1970 to fight the American-backed Lon Nol Khmer Republic, full-scale war began.

The establishment of FAPLNK was itself a decision reached during the second Indochinese People Conference on 24 April 1970.[8] The objective was to form an army of 50,000 people including regular forces. To this end, on 13 August 1970, “an agreement of free military aid was signed between the People’s Republic of China and the GRUNK planning to equip four divisions”.[9]

While fighting (see maps below), the CPK set up, with Vietnamese help, the FAPLNK and its accompanying military structures. This process was deeply intertwined with communist political structures (see the  organisation of the FAPLNK in politics).

The communist side, under Vietnamese leadership initially, gradually trained men, first creating units of militia which, in time, became operational fighting battalions.[10]

Each unit, as shown in the politico-military organisation chart at regional level (see politics), starting at the level of company, would have a three-person committee command structure, composed of a military commander, a political commissar with authority over the former and a third person, either “member of the command committee” or “deputy military commander”.[11] This command structure would remain unchanged for the duration of CPK rule in Cambodia.

The military organisationational structure prompted by the Vietnamese would also leave a mark on the politico administrative organisation of the future Democratic Kampuchea. Indeed, as French military observers highlighted in 1971, “The Vietnamese Command implemented a territorial organization that divided Kampuchea in 5 military regions. By the end of 1971, the regions 203 (save for the zones crossed by the FANK, and the roads RN1, RN7 and RP15) and 304 were organized. The planned organization of regions 405, 506, 607 had hardly begun.”[12]

These districts were the forerunners of the geographical structure of Democratic Cambodia (Introduction).

The communist forces fighting in Cambodia were organised as shown on the chart (Figure 12).

French military observers estimated that “by the end of 1970 the [FAPLNK] organized forces reached 12,000 to 15,000 people”.[13] By February 1973, they assessed the FAPLNK was composed of 30 battalions grouped into brigades and concluded “The total strength by February 1973 was inferior to the 1970 objectives, yet results were obtained and indisputable progress realised.”[14] In 1975, the FAPLNK was estimated to include 230 battalions.[15]

Despite U.S. bombing that lasted until August 1973,[16] the FAPLNK progressively conquered the whole of Cambodia. [17] (Figure 13) (Figure 14)

April 1975 to January 1979 - The Kampuchea Revolutionary Army (KRA) 

Once victory was fully ensured and the territory “cleaned” (see repression), the CPK moved to transform the FAPLNK into the Kampuchean Revolutionary Army, which was created on 22 July 1975.[18] Under the leadership of Son Sen, minister for defense and security, new divisions were organised and stationed initially around Phnom-Penh.[19] They were then used for “rice growing duties” throughout the country.[20] As tension grew with Vietnam, they were recalled and sent on the border to fight.[21] Kampuchean border attacks on the SRV escalated notably from April 1977 onwards.[22] 

The KRA had many different types forces. We find elements of a navy, considering the  incidents that took place in Cambodia’s territorial waters in May 1975, as well as the capture of the U.S. ship Mayaguez.[23] Heder mentions for example the “troops of the Phnom Penh-based marine Regiment 152 and the Kampung Saom-based navy Division 164” and Slocomb bilateral aid for coastal patrol vessels, but further focused research would be needed.[24] An embryonic air force also existed, with, for example a large airfield in Kompong Chhang adequate for large bombers, probably constructed with Chinese support.[25] 

The army was organised first at a central level (see chart), and was directly under the command of either the Central Committee of the CPK (according to Nhem Boraden) or the national general staff (Yale Genocide Studies Program and Craig Etcheson).[26][27] In January 1976, the army at this central level consisted of 72,248 troops, in nine divisions and four regiments.[27] In March 1977, the Central Committee of the CPK commanded, according to documents, 61,189 soldiers.[28]

The second level was then structured regionally, from zone, according to DK’s geographical divisions (see politics), to sector, district, and finally commune/village/cooperative/branch, somewhat reproducing what had been set up with the FAPLNK (see chart). It is likely the two autonomous regions under direct command of the Central Committee of the CPK were also included militarily in the central national layer.[29]

Finally, and in connection with the themes of deep societal change and repression, at a village level, militia groups (Korng Chhlorb) advised the heads of villages (khum) and looked for traitors.[30] Child groups (see society) could be promoted to militia group level.[31] 

 


[1] Steve Heder, Cambodian communism and the Vietnamese model, (Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus Press: 2004), pp.118-119; 131-143; 144-147; Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot came to power: a History of Communism in Kampuchea, 1930-1975 (London: Verso 1985), pp.268-288.

[2] Heder, Cambodian Communism, p.131; Hélène Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945, Mass Violence & Résistance”, [en ligne], 9 March, 2008, http://bo-k2s.sciences-po.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/cambodia-1945, ISSN 1961-9898, accessed on 12 January 2022.

[3] Heder, Cambodian Communism, pp.118-119; 131-143; 144-147; Kiernan, How Pol Pot, pp.268-288.

[4] Ibid., Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945”

[5] Hélène Lavoix, ’Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’: the construction of nation-ness, authority and opposition – The case of Cambodia (1861-1979) (PhD Thesis, SOAS – University of London: 2005) using MAE – Asie – Cambodge file 126 – 620 – Monthly Report – —/03/1968; MAE – Asie - file C128 – French Embassy Monthly reports – January to November 1969; MAE – Asie - file C128 – 761 –note from the French Embassy in Phnom-Penh to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs 22/04/196ç; MAE – Asie - file C130 - 2 – French Embassy Monthly reports – December 1969.

[6] Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’, Appendix 26.

[7] David P. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History: politics, war, and revolution since 1945 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press: 1992), p. 184; Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the destruction of Cambodia, (London: Hogarth Press, 1979. ed. 1991). pp. 20-28, 91-95.

[8] Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’,, Appendix 29 using “Elements of the Communist Organization in Kampuchea – 1970 to February 1973” using SHAT/14S371/75A3/FUNK forces activity from 1970 to 1973/19/02/1973

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Timothy Carney, “Heng Samrin's Armed Forces and the Military Balance in Cambodia”, International Journal of Politics, Vol. 16, No. 3, Cambodia: Politics and International Relations (FALL 1986), pp. 154-155.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945” for detailed references.

[17] Watch a video taken by a French crew of journalists on 21 April 1975, as the FAPLNK (peacefully) took Poipet (on the Khmero-Thai border): https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/caa7500344801/khmers-rouges 
[18] Nhem Boraden, The Khmer Rouge: Ideology, Militarism, and the Revolution that Consumed a Generation: Ideology, Militarism, and the Revolution That Consumed a Generation, ABC-Clio, 2013, p. 60.

[19] Ibid. p.61.

[20] Ibid; Yale Genocide Studies Program (GSP) “The Khmer Rouge National Army: Order of Battle, January 1976”.

[21] Nhem Boraden, The Khmer Rouge, p. 61.

[22] Steve Heder, “The Kampuchean-Vietnamese Conflict,” Southeast Asian Affairs, 1979, pp.157-186.

[23] Lavoix, “Cambodia from 1945” using SWB/FE/4905/A3/1/PPradio/Mayaguezrelease/14/05/1975.

[24] Steve Heder, “Within the victorious CPK leadership,” unpublished, 2002, p.26 Interview 103, Mai Rut, 19 January 1981; Margaret Slocomb, An Economic History of Cambodia in the Twentieth Century, (NUS Press, Singapore: 2010, p.217.
[25] See notably the non academic work using notably Vietnamese sources by an anonymous author on “soviet.empire.com http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=55168

[26] Nhem Boraden, The Khmer Rouge, p. 61 and others.

[27] Yale GSP “Order of Battle, January 1976”; Craig Etcheson, “Written Record for the ECCC”, 2018, ECCC 00142826-00142891_E3_494_EN; Nhem Boraden, The Khmer Rouge, pp. 60-62.

[28] Watch a DK military parade that took place on 1 January 1976 in Phnom-Penh: https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/vdd06002001/defile-militaire-khmer-rouge (Archives of INA).
[29] Yale GSP “Order of Battle, January 1976”.

[30] Nhem Boraden, The Khmer Rouge, p. 61.

[31] A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979), pp. 33-34.

[32] Nhem Boraden, The Khmer Rouge, pp. 60-62.

[33] Nhem Boraden, The Khmer Rouge, pp. 60-62.
 

About the author

Dr Helene Lavoix is the Founder and President of the Red Team Analysis Society, a Paris-based research institute and think tank focused on international relations, geopolitics, and risk management. She holds a PhD in Political Science and Master of Science in International Politics of Asia from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her research interests vary from counter-terrorism, artificial intelligence and conflict to diplomacy, climate change, and pandemics.