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]

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.