Communist Party of Kampuchea
Encyclopedia
The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as Khmer Communist Party (CPK), was a communist party
in Cambodia
. Its followers were generally known as Khmer Rouge
(Red Khmers).
(ICP) was divided into separate Cambodian, Lao
, and Vietnamese
communist parties. The decision to form a separate Cambodian communist party had been taken at the ICP congress in February the same year. Different sources claim different dates for the exact founding and the first congress of the party. The party congress did not elect a full Central Committee
, but instead appointed a 'Party Propagation and Formation Committee'. At the time of its formation, the Cambodian party was called Khmer People's Revolutionary Party. The Indochinese Communist Party had been heavily dominated by Vietnamese, and the KPRP was actively supported by the Vietnamese party during its initial phase of existence. Due to the reliance on Vietnamese support in the joint struggle against French colonial rule, the history of the party would later be rewritten, stating 1960 as the year of foundation of the party.
According to Democratic Kampuchea's version of party history, the Viet Minh
's failure to negotiate a political role for the KPRP at the 1954 Geneva Conference represented a betrayal of the Cambodian movement, which still controlled large areas of the countryside and which commanded at least 5,000 armed men. Following the conference, about 1,000 members of the KPRP, including Son Ngoc Minh, made a "Long March" into North Vietnam, where they remained in exile. In late 1954, those who stayed in Cambodia founded a legal political party, the Krom Pracheachon, which participated in the 1955 and the 1958 National Assembly elections. In the September 1955 election, it won about 4% of the vote but did not secure a seat in the legislature. Members of the Pracheachon were subject to constant harassment and to arrests because the party remained outside Sihanouk's Sangkum. Government attacks prevented it from participating in the 1962 election and drove it underground. It is speculated that the decision of Pracheachon to file candidates for the election had not been approved by the WPK. Sihanouk habitually labeled local leftists the Khmer Rouge, a term that later came to signify the party and the state headed by Pol Pot
, Nuon Chea
, Ieng Sary
, Khieu Samphan
, and their associates.
During the mid-1950s, two KPRP factions, the "urban committee" (headed by Tou Samouth
), and the "rural committee" (headed by Sieu Heng), emerged. In very general terms, these groups espoused divergent revolutionary lines. The prevalent "urban" line, endorsed by North Vietnam, recognized that Sihanouk, by virtue of his success in winning independence from the French, was a genuine national leader whose neutralism and deep distrust of the United States made him a valuable asset in Hanoi's struggle to "liberate" South Vietnam. Champions of this line hoped that the prince could be persuaded to distance himself from the right wing and to adopt leftist policies. The other line, supported for the most part by rural cadres who were familiar with the harsh realities of the countryside, advocated an immediate struggle to overthrow the "feudalist" Sihanouk. In 1959 Sieu Heng defected to the government and provided the security forces with information that enabled them to destroy as much as 90 % of the party's rural apparatus. Although communist networks in Phnom Penh and in other towns under Tou Samouth's jurisdiction fared better, only a few hundred communists remained active in the country by 1960.
organized their own communist movement, which had little, if any, connection to the hard-pressed party in their homeland. From their ranks came the men and women who returned home and took command of the party apparatus during the 1960s, led an effective insurgency against Sihanouk and Lon Nol from 1968 until 1975, and established the regime of Democratic Kampuchea.
Pol Pot, who rose to the leadership of the communist movement in the 1960s, was born in 1928 (some sources say in 1925) in Kampong Thum Province, northeast of Phnom Penh. He attended a technical high school in the capital and then went to Paris in 1949 to study radio electronics (other sources say he attended a school for printers and typesetters and also studied civil engineering).
Another member of the Paris student group was Ieng Sary. He was a Chinese-Khmer born in 1930 in South Vietnam. He attended the elite Lycée Sisowath
in Phnom Penh before beginning courses in commerce and politics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (more widely known as Sciences Po) in France. Khieu Samphan, considered "one of the most brilliant intellects of his generation," was born in 1931 and specialized in economics and politics during his time in Paris. In talent he was rivaled by Hou Yuon, born in 1930, who studied economics and law. Son Sen, born in 1930, studied education and literature; Hu Nim, born in 1932, studied law.
Most members of the Paris student group came from landowner or civil servant families. Three of the Paris group forged a bond that survived years of revolutionary struggle and intraparty strife, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary married Khieu Ponnary
and Khieu Thirith (also known as Ieng Thirith
), purportedly relatives of Khieu Samphan. These two well-educated women also played a central role in the regime of Democratic Kampuchea.
At some time between 1949 and 1951, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary joined the French Communist Party
. In 1951 the two men went to East Berlin
to participate in a youth festival
. This experience is considered to have been a turning point in their ideological development. Meeting with Khmers who were fighting with the Viet Minh (and whom they subsequently judged to be too subservient to the Vietnamese), they became convinced that only a tightly disciplined party organization and a readiness for armed struggle could achieve revolution. They transformed the Khmer Students' Association (KSA), to which most of the 200 or so Khmer students in Paris belonged, into an organization for nationalist and leftist ideas. Inside the KSA and its successor organizations was a secret organization known as the Cercle Marxiste. The organization was composed of cells of three to six members with most members knowing nothing about the overall structure of the organization. In 1952 Pol Pot, Hou Yuon, Ieng Sary, and other leftists gained notoriety by sending an open letter to Sihanouk calling him the "strangler of infant democracy." A year later, the French authorities closed down the KSA. In 1956, however, Hou Yuon and Khieu Samphan helped to establish a new group, the Khmer Students' Union. Inside, the group was still run by the Cercle Marxiste.
The doctoral dissertations written by Hou Yuon and Khieu Samphan express basic themes that were later to become the cornerstones of the policy adopted by Democratic Kampuchea. The central role of the peasants in national development was espoused by Hou Yuon in his 1955 thesis, The Cambodian Peasants and Their Prospects for Modernization, which challenged the conventional view that urbanization and industrialization are necessary precursors of development. The major argument in Khieu Samphan's 1959 thesis, Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development, was that the country had to become self-reliant and end its economic dependency on the developed world. In its general contours, Khieu's work reflected the influence of a branch of the "dependency theory
" school, which blamed lack of development in the Third World
on the economic domination of the industrialized nations.
On September 28-September 30, 1960, twenty-one leaders of the KPRP held a secret congress in a vacant room of the Phnom Penh railroad station. It is estimated that 14 delegates represented the 'rural' faction and seven the 'urban' faction. This pivotal event remains shrouded in mystery because its outcome has become an object of contention (and considerable historical rewriting) between pro-Vietnamese and anti-Vietnamese Khmer communist factions. At the meeting the party was renamed as the Workers Party of Kampuchea (WPK). The question of cooperation with, or resistance to, Sihanouk was thoroughly discussed. A new party structure was adopted. For the first time since, a permanent Central Committee
was appointed with, Tou Samouth, who advocated a policy of cooperation, as the general secretary of the party. His ally, Nuon Chea
(also known as Long Reth), became deputy general secretary; however, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary were named to the Central Committee to occupy the third and the fifth highest positions in the party hierarchy. Another committee member was veteran communist Keo Meas
. In Democratic Kampuchea, this meeting would later be projected as the founding date of the party, consciously downplaying the history of the party prior to Pol Pot's ascent to leadership.
On July 20, 1962, Tou Samouth was murdered by the Cambodian government. In February 1963, at the WPK's second congress, Pol Pot was chosen to succeed Tou Samouth as the party's general secretary. Tou's allies, Nuon Chea and Keo Meas
, were removed from the Central Committee and replaced by Son Sen
and Vorn Vet
. From then on, Pol Pot and loyal comrades from his Paris student days controlled the party center, edging out older veterans whom they considered excessively pro-Vietnamese.
Province in the northeast. Pol Pot had shortly before been put on a list of thirty-four leftists who were summoned by Sihanouk to join the government and sign statements saying Sihanouk was the only possible leader for the country. Pol Pot and Chou Chet were the only people on the list who escaped. All the others agreed to cooperate with the government and were afterward under 24-hour watch by the police.
In the mid 1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 100.
The region Pol Pot and the others moved to was inhabited by tribal minorities, the Khmer Loeu
, whose rough treatment (including resettlement and forced assimilation
) at the hands of the central government made them willing recruits for a guerrilla struggle. In 1965, Pol Pot made a visit of several months to North Vietnam and China. He probably received some training in China, which must have enhanced his prestige when he returned to the WPK's liberated areas. Despite friendly relations between Sihanouk and the Chinese, the latter kept Pol Pot's visit a secret from Sihanouk. In September 1966, the party changed its name to the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). The change in the name of the party was a closely guarded secret. Lower ranking members of the party and even the Vietnamese were not told of it and neither was the membership until many years later (when Pol Pot revealed the identity of the "Angkar" on September 29, 1977). The party leadership endorsed armed struggle against the government, then led by Prince
Norodom Sihanouk
. In 1967, several small-scale attempts at insurgency were made by the CPK but they met with little success.
In 1968, the Khmer Rouge launched a national insurgency across Cambodia. Though North Vietnam had not been informed of the decision, its forces provided shelter and weapons to the Khmer Rouge after the insurgency started. The guerrilla forces of the party were baptized as the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea. Vietnamese support for the insurgency made it impossible for the ineffective and poorly-motivated Royal Cambodian Army
to effectively counter it.
. Premier Lon Nol
, with the support of the National Assembly, deposed Sihanouk. Sihanouk, in exile in Beijing
, made an alliance with the Kampuchean Communist Party and became the nominal head of a Khmer Rouge-dominated government-in-exile (known by its French acronym, GRUNK
) backed by the People's Republic of China
. Sihanouk's popular support in rural Cambodia allowed the Khmer Rouge to extend its power and influence to the point that by 1973 it exercised de facto control over the majority of Cambodian territory, although only a minority of its population.
Historians have often cited the U.S. intervention and bombing campaign, spanning from 1965-1973 as a significant factor leading the Cambodian peasantry to increasing support of the Khmer Rouge. Not only were the massive bombings of rural areas considered unjust by vast sections of the local population, the destruction of villages disrupted the traditional rural lifestyle and facilitated the collective agrarian reorganization of the peasantry by the CPK.
When the U.S. Congress suspended military aid to the Lon Nol government in 1973, the Khmer Rouge made sweeping gains in the country, completely overwhelming the FANK
. On April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh
and overthrew the Khmer Republic
, executing all its officers.
The Standing Committee of the Khmer Rouge's Central Committee ("Party Center") during its period of power consisted of:
In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance
and currency
, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property
and relocating people from urban area
s to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into "Old People" through agricultural labor. These actions resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, illness, and starvation.
In Phnom Penh and other cities, the Khmer Rouge told residents that they would be moved only about "two or three kilometers" outside the city and would return in "two or three days." Some witnesses say they were told that the evacuation was because of the "threat of American bombing" and that they did not have to lock their houses since the Khmer Rouge would "take care of everything" until they returned. These were not the first evacuations of civilian populations by the Khmer Rouge. Similar evacuations of population
s without possessions had been occurring on a smaller scale since the early 1970s.
The Khmer Rouge attempted to turn Cambodia into a classless society by depopulating cities and forcing the urban population into agricultural commune
s through brutal totalitarian methods. The entire population was forced to become farmers in labour camps. During their four years in power, the Khmer Rouge overworked and starved the population, at the same time executing selected groups who had the potential to undermine the new state (including intellectuals) and killing many others for even minor breaches of rules.
Through the 1970s, and especially after mid-1975, the party was also shaken by factional struggles. There were even armed attempts to topple Pol Pot. The resultant purges reached a crest in 1977 and 1978 when thousands, including some important CPK leaders, were executed. The older generation of communists, suspected of having links with or sympathies for Vietnam were targeted by the Pol Pot leadership.
The CPK had been extremely secretive throughout its existence. Before 1975 the secrecy was needed for the party's survival and Pol Pot and his closest associates had relied on continuing the extreme secrecy in order to consolidate their position against those they perceived as internal enemies during their first two years of power. The revelation of the CPK's existence shortly before Pol Pot was due to travel to Peking resulted in pressure from China on the Khmer Rouge leaders to acknowledge their true political identity at a time that they increasingly depended on China's assistance against the threats from Vietnam.
Accordingly, Pol Pot in his speech claimed that the CPK's foundation had been in 1960 and emphasized its separate identity from Vietnamese communism
.
In early 1979, a pro-Vietnamese group of CPK dissidents led by Pen Sovan
held a congress (which they saw as the '3rd party congress', thus not recognizing the 1963, 1975 and 1978 party congresses as legitimate) near the Vietnamese border. Along with Heng Samrin
, Pen Sovan, was one of the foremost founding members of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation
(KUFNS or FUNSK), after becoming disillusioned with the Khmer Rouge. Effectively the CPK was then divided into two, with the Pen Sovan-led group
constituting a separate party.
The Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia along with the KUFNS, capturing Phnom Penh
on January 7, 1979. The Pen Sovan-led party was installed as the governing party of the new People's Republic of Kampuchea
. The CPK led by Pol Pot withdrew its forces westwards, to an area near the Thai border. With unofficial protection from elements of the Thai Army, it began guerrilla warfare against the PRK government. The party founded the Patriotic and Democratic Front of the Great National Union of Kampuchea
as a united front
in September 1979 to fight the PRK and the Vietnamese. The Front was led by Khieu Sampan. In December 1979 the armed forces under the command of the party, what remained of the erstwhile People's National Liberation Armed Forces of Kampuchea, were renamed National Army of Democratic Kampuchea
. In 1981 the party was dissolved, and substituted by the Party of Democratic Kampuchea
.
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
in Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
. Its followers were generally known as Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
(Red Khmers).
Foundation of the party; first divisions
The party was founded in 1951, when the Indochinese Communist PartyIndochinese Communist Party
The Indochinese Communist Party was a political party which was transformed from old Vietnamese Communist Party in October 1930...
(ICP) was divided into separate Cambodian, Lao
Lao People's Revolutionary Party
The Lao People's Revolutionary Party is a communist political party that has governed Laos since 1975. The policy-making organs are the politburo and the central committee. A party congress, which elects members to the politburo and central committee, is held every five years...
, and Vietnamese
Communist Party of Vietnam
The Communist Party of Vietnam , formally established in 1930, is the governing party of the nation of Vietnam. It is today the only legal political party in that country. Describing itself as Marxist-Leninist, the CPV is the directing component of a broader group of organizations known as the...
communist parties. The decision to form a separate Cambodian communist party had been taken at the ICP congress in February the same year. Different sources claim different dates for the exact founding and the first congress of the party. The party congress did not elect a full Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
, but instead appointed a 'Party Propagation and Formation Committee'. At the time of its formation, the Cambodian party was called Khmer People's Revolutionary Party. The Indochinese Communist Party had been heavily dominated by Vietnamese, and the KPRP was actively supported by the Vietnamese party during its initial phase of existence. Due to the reliance on Vietnamese support in the joint struggle against French colonial rule, the history of the party would later be rewritten, stating 1960 as the year of foundation of the party.
According to Democratic Kampuchea's version of party history, the Viet Minh
Viet Minh
Việt Minh was a national independence coalition formed at Pac Bo on May 19, 1941. The Việt Minh initially formed to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. When the Japanese occupation began, the Việt Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China...
's failure to negotiate a political role for the KPRP at the 1954 Geneva Conference represented a betrayal of the Cambodian movement, which still controlled large areas of the countryside and which commanded at least 5,000 armed men. Following the conference, about 1,000 members of the KPRP, including Son Ngoc Minh, made a "Long March" into North Vietnam, where they remained in exile. In late 1954, those who stayed in Cambodia founded a legal political party, the Krom Pracheachon, which participated in the 1955 and the 1958 National Assembly elections. In the September 1955 election, it won about 4% of the vote but did not secure a seat in the legislature. Members of the Pracheachon were subject to constant harassment and to arrests because the party remained outside Sihanouk's Sangkum. Government attacks prevented it from participating in the 1962 election and drove it underground. It is speculated that the decision of Pracheachon to file candidates for the election had not been approved by the WPK. Sihanouk habitually labeled local leftists the Khmer Rouge, a term that later came to signify the party and the state headed by Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
, Nuon Chea
Nuon Chea
Nuon Chea , also known as Long Bunruot , is a Cambodian former communist politician and former chief ideologist of Khmer Rouge. He was commonly known as "Brother Number Two" second in command to Pol Pot who was leader during the Cambodian Genocide 1975-1979...
, Ieng Sary
Ieng Sary
Ieng Sary was a powerful figure in the Khmer Rouge. He was the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979 and held several senior positions in the Khmer Rouge until his defection to the government in 1996....
, Khieu Samphan
Khieu Samphan
Khieu Samphan was the president of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as Cambodia's head of state and was one of the most powerful officials in the Khmer Rouge movement, though Pol Pot was the group's true political leader and held the most...
, and their associates.
During the mid-1950s, two KPRP factions, the "urban committee" (headed by Tou Samouth
Tou Samouth
Tou Samouth , also known as Achar Sok, was a Cambodian Communist politician. One of the founder members of the Party in Cambodia, and head of its more moderate faction, he is mainly remembered for mentoring Saloth Sar, the man who later became Pol Pot.-Career in the Khmer resistance:Samouth, one of...
), and the "rural committee" (headed by Sieu Heng), emerged. In very general terms, these groups espoused divergent revolutionary lines. The prevalent "urban" line, endorsed by North Vietnam, recognized that Sihanouk, by virtue of his success in winning independence from the French, was a genuine national leader whose neutralism and deep distrust of the United States made him a valuable asset in Hanoi's struggle to "liberate" South Vietnam. Champions of this line hoped that the prince could be persuaded to distance himself from the right wing and to adopt leftist policies. The other line, supported for the most part by rural cadres who were familiar with the harsh realities of the countryside, advocated an immediate struggle to overthrow the "feudalist" Sihanouk. In 1959 Sieu Heng defected to the government and provided the security forces with information that enabled them to destroy as much as 90 % of the party's rural apparatus. Although communist networks in Phnom Penh and in other towns under Tou Samouth's jurisdiction fared better, only a few hundred communists remained active in the country by 1960.
The Paris students' group
During the 1950s, Khmer students in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
organized their own communist movement, which had little, if any, connection to the hard-pressed party in their homeland. From their ranks came the men and women who returned home and took command of the party apparatus during the 1960s, led an effective insurgency against Sihanouk and Lon Nol from 1968 until 1975, and established the regime of Democratic Kampuchea.
Pol Pot, who rose to the leadership of the communist movement in the 1960s, was born in 1928 (some sources say in 1925) in Kampong Thum Province, northeast of Phnom Penh. He attended a technical high school in the capital and then went to Paris in 1949 to study radio electronics (other sources say he attended a school for printers and typesetters and also studied civil engineering).
Another member of the Paris student group was Ieng Sary. He was a Chinese-Khmer born in 1930 in South Vietnam. He attended the elite Lycée Sisowath
Lycee Sisowath
Lycée Preah Sisowath is a secondary school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The school was founded in 1873 as a collège and became a lycée in 1933.-History:...
in Phnom Penh before beginning courses in commerce and politics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (more widely known as Sciences Po) in France. Khieu Samphan, considered "one of the most brilliant intellects of his generation," was born in 1931 and specialized in economics and politics during his time in Paris. In talent he was rivaled by Hou Yuon, born in 1930, who studied economics and law. Son Sen, born in 1930, studied education and literature; Hu Nim, born in 1932, studied law.
Most members of the Paris student group came from landowner or civil servant families. Three of the Paris group forged a bond that survived years of revolutionary struggle and intraparty strife, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary married Khieu Ponnary
Khieu Ponnary
Khieu Ponnary was the first wife of Pol Pot, sister of Khieu Thirith and sister-in-law to Ieng Sary.Khieu Ponnary was born in 1920 in Battambang Province, and her sister, Khieu Thirith, was born about 12 years later. Their father, a Cambodian judge, abandoned the family during World War II,...
and Khieu Thirith (also known as Ieng Thirith
Ieng Thirith
Ieng Thirith was an influential figure in the Khmer Rouge, but was neither a member of the Khmer Rouge Standing Committee nor of the Central Committee. Her original name is Khieu Thirith...
), purportedly relatives of Khieu Samphan. These two well-educated women also played a central role in the regime of Democratic Kampuchea.
At some time between 1949 and 1951, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary joined the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
. In 1951 the two men went to East Berlin
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
to participate in a youth festival
3rd World Festival of Youth and Students
The Third World Festival of Youth and Students was held in 1951, in East Berlin, East Germany.The third WFYS was held in a period of growing international tension between the Soviet Union and the western powers; it took place against the background of the Korean War and the spread of communism in...
. This experience is considered to have been a turning point in their ideological development. Meeting with Khmers who were fighting with the Viet Minh (and whom they subsequently judged to be too subservient to the Vietnamese), they became convinced that only a tightly disciplined party organization and a readiness for armed struggle could achieve revolution. They transformed the Khmer Students' Association (KSA), to which most of the 200 or so Khmer students in Paris belonged, into an organization for nationalist and leftist ideas. Inside the KSA and its successor organizations was a secret organization known as the Cercle Marxiste. The organization was composed of cells of three to six members with most members knowing nothing about the overall structure of the organization. In 1952 Pol Pot, Hou Yuon, Ieng Sary, and other leftists gained notoriety by sending an open letter to Sihanouk calling him the "strangler of infant democracy." A year later, the French authorities closed down the KSA. In 1956, however, Hou Yuon and Khieu Samphan helped to establish a new group, the Khmer Students' Union. Inside, the group was still run by the Cercle Marxiste.
The doctoral dissertations written by Hou Yuon and Khieu Samphan express basic themes that were later to become the cornerstones of the policy adopted by Democratic Kampuchea. The central role of the peasants in national development was espoused by Hou Yuon in his 1955 thesis, The Cambodian Peasants and Their Prospects for Modernization, which challenged the conventional view that urbanization and industrialization are necessary precursors of development. The major argument in Khieu Samphan's 1959 thesis, Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development, was that the country had to become self-reliant and end its economic dependency on the developed world. In its general contours, Khieu's work reflected the influence of a branch of the "dependency theory
Dependency theory
Dependency theory or dependencia theory is a body of social science theories predicated on the notion that resources flow from a "periphery" of poor and underdeveloped states to a "core" of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former...
" school, which blamed lack of development in the Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
on the economic domination of the industrialized nations.
Clandestinity in Phnom Penh
After returning to Cambodia in 1953, Pol Pot threw himself into party work. At first he went to join with forces allied to the Viet Minh operating in the rural areas of Kampong Cham Province (Kompong Cham). After the end of the war, he moved to Phnom Penh under Tou Samouth's "urban committee" where he became an important point of contact between above-ground parties of the left and the underground secret communist movement. His comrades, Ieng Sary and Hou Yuon, became teachers at a new private high school, the Lycée Kambuboth, which Hou Yuon helped to establish. Khieu Samphan returned from Paris in 1959, taught as a member of the law faculty of the University of Phnom Penh, and started a left-wing, French-language publication, L'Observateur. The paper soon acquired a reputation in Phnom Penh's small academic circle. The following year, the government closed the paper, and Sihanouk's police publicly humiliated Khieu by beating, undressing and photographing him in public—as Shawcross notes, "not the sort of humiliation that men forgive or forget." Yet the experience did not prevent Khieu from advocating cooperation with Sihanouk in order to promote a united front against United States activities in South Vietnam. As mentioned, Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon, and Hu Nim were forced to "work through the system" by joining the Sangkum and by accepting posts in the prince's government.On September 28-September 30, 1960, twenty-one leaders of the KPRP held a secret congress in a vacant room of the Phnom Penh railroad station. It is estimated that 14 delegates represented the 'rural' faction and seven the 'urban' faction. This pivotal event remains shrouded in mystery because its outcome has become an object of contention (and considerable historical rewriting) between pro-Vietnamese and anti-Vietnamese Khmer communist factions. At the meeting the party was renamed as the Workers Party of Kampuchea (WPK). The question of cooperation with, or resistance to, Sihanouk was thoroughly discussed. A new party structure was adopted. For the first time since, a permanent Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
was appointed with, Tou Samouth, who advocated a policy of cooperation, as the general secretary of the party. His ally, Nuon Chea
Nuon Chea
Nuon Chea , also known as Long Bunruot , is a Cambodian former communist politician and former chief ideologist of Khmer Rouge. He was commonly known as "Brother Number Two" second in command to Pol Pot who was leader during the Cambodian Genocide 1975-1979...
(also known as Long Reth), became deputy general secretary; however, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary were named to the Central Committee to occupy the third and the fifth highest positions in the party hierarchy. Another committee member was veteran communist Keo Meas
Keo Meas
Keo Meas was a Cambodian communist politician. Keo Meas, then a fourth-year student at the Phnom Penh Teachers Training College was recruited to the Indochinese Communist Party by Son Sichan in 1946. In 1950, he became a leading figure within the United Issarak Front...
. In Democratic Kampuchea, this meeting would later be projected as the founding date of the party, consciously downplaying the history of the party prior to Pol Pot's ascent to leadership.
On July 20, 1962, Tou Samouth was murdered by the Cambodian government. In February 1963, at the WPK's second congress, Pol Pot was chosen to succeed Tou Samouth as the party's general secretary. Tou's allies, Nuon Chea and Keo Meas
Keo Meas
Keo Meas was a Cambodian communist politician. Keo Meas, then a fourth-year student at the Phnom Penh Teachers Training College was recruited to the Indochinese Communist Party by Son Sichan in 1946. In 1950, he became a leading figure within the United Issarak Front...
, were removed from the Central Committee and replaced by Son Sen
Son Sen
Son Sen was a Cambodian Communist politician and soldier. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea/Party of Democratic Kampuchea, the Khmer Rouge, from 1974 to 1992, Sen oversaw the Party's security apparatus, including the Santebal secret police and the notorious...
and Vorn Vet
Vorn Vet
Vorn Vet born Pen Thuok, was a deputy prime minister for the economy of Democratic Kampuchea...
. From then on, Pol Pot and loyal comrades from his Paris student days controlled the party center, edging out older veterans whom they considered excessively pro-Vietnamese.
Insurgency in rural Cambodia
In July 1963, Pol Pot and most of the central committee left Phnom Penh to establish an insurgent base in RatanakiriRatanakiri
Ratanakiri is a province in northeastern Cambodia that borders Laos to the north, Vietnam to the east, Mondulkiri Province to the south, and Stung Treng Province to the west. The province extends from the mountains of the Annamite Range in the north, across a hilly plateau between the Tonle San...
Province in the northeast. Pol Pot had shortly before been put on a list of thirty-four leftists who were summoned by Sihanouk to join the government and sign statements saying Sihanouk was the only possible leader for the country. Pol Pot and Chou Chet were the only people on the list who escaped. All the others agreed to cooperate with the government and were afterward under 24-hour watch by the police.
In the mid 1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 100.
The region Pol Pot and the others moved to was inhabited by tribal minorities, the Khmer Loeu
Khmer Loeu
The Khmer Loeu are the Mon–Khmer highland tribes in Cambodia. Although the origins of this group are not clear, some believe that the Mon–Khmer-speaking tribes were part of the long migration of these people from the northwest. The Austronesian-speaking groups, Rade and Jarai, apparently came to...
, whose rough treatment (including resettlement and forced assimilation
Forced assimilation
Forced assimilation is a process of forced cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups, into an established and generally larger community...
) at the hands of the central government made them willing recruits for a guerrilla struggle. In 1965, Pol Pot made a visit of several months to North Vietnam and China. He probably received some training in China, which must have enhanced his prestige when he returned to the WPK's liberated areas. Despite friendly relations between Sihanouk and the Chinese, the latter kept Pol Pot's visit a secret from Sihanouk. In September 1966, the party changed its name to the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). The change in the name of the party was a closely guarded secret. Lower ranking members of the party and even the Vietnamese were not told of it and neither was the membership until many years later (when Pol Pot revealed the identity of the "Angkar" on September 29, 1977). The party leadership endorsed armed struggle against the government, then led by Prince
Prince
Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...
Norodom Sihanouk
Norodom Sihanouk
Norodom Sihanouk regular script was the King of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 until his semi-retirement and voluntary abdication on 7 October 2004 in favor of his son, the current King Norodom Sihamoni...
. In 1967, several small-scale attempts at insurgency were made by the CPK but they met with little success.
In 1968, the Khmer Rouge launched a national insurgency across Cambodia. Though North Vietnam had not been informed of the decision, its forces provided shelter and weapons to the Khmer Rouge after the insurgency started. The guerrilla forces of the party were baptized as the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea. Vietnamese support for the insurgency made it impossible for the ineffective and poorly-motivated Royal Cambodian Army
Royal Cambodian Army
The Royal Cambodian Army is a part of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. It has ground forces which numbered about 175,000 divided into eleven divisions of infantry, with integrated armour and artillery support...
to effectively counter it.
Rise to power
The political appeal of the Khmer Rouge was increased as a result of the situation created by the removal of Sihanouk as head of state in 1970Cambodian coup of 1970
The Cambodian coup of 1970 refers to the removal of the Cambodian Head of State, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, after a vote in the National Assembly on 18 March 1970. Emergency powers were subsequently invoked by the Prime Minister Lon Nol, who became effective head of state...
. Premier Lon Nol
Lon Nol
Lon Nol was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice, as well as serving repeatedly as Defense Minister...
, with the support of the National Assembly, deposed Sihanouk. Sihanouk, in exile in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, made an alliance with the Kampuchean Communist Party and became the nominal head of a Khmer Rouge-dominated government-in-exile (known by its French acronym, GRUNK
GRUNK
The Royal Government of National Union of Kampuchea, usually known by the French acronym GRUNK, was a government-in-exile of Cambodia, based in Beijing, that was in existence between 1970 and 1976...
) backed by the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
. Sihanouk's popular support in rural Cambodia allowed the Khmer Rouge to extend its power and influence to the point that by 1973 it exercised de facto control over the majority of Cambodian territory, although only a minority of its population.
Historians have often cited the U.S. intervention and bombing campaign, spanning from 1965-1973 as a significant factor leading the Cambodian peasantry to increasing support of the Khmer Rouge. Not only were the massive bombings of rural areas considered unjust by vast sections of the local population, the destruction of villages disrupted the traditional rural lifestyle and facilitated the collective agrarian reorganization of the peasantry by the CPK.
When the U.S. Congress suspended military aid to the Lon Nol government in 1973, the Khmer Rouge made sweeping gains in the country, completely overwhelming the FANK
Fánk
Fánk is a sweet traditional Hungarian cake. The most commonly used ingredients are: flour, yeast, butter, egg yolk, a little bit of rum, a sniff of salt, milk and oil to deep fry with. After the pastry has risen for approximately 30 minutes the result is an extreme light doughnut-like pastry...
. On April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...
and overthrew the Khmer Republic
Khmer Republic
The Khmer Republic or République Khmère, was the republican government of Cambodia that was formally declared on October 9, 1970. The Khmer Republic was disestablished in 1975 and was followed by the totalitarian communist state known as Democratic Kampuchea.-Background:Formally declared on October...
, executing all its officers.
The Khmer Rouge in power
The leadership of the Khmer Rouge was largely unchanged between the 1960s and the mid-1990s. The Khmer Rouge leaders were mostly from middle-class families and had been educated at French universities.The Standing Committee of the Khmer Rouge's Central Committee ("Party Center") during its period of power consisted of:
- Brother number 1 Pol PotPol PotSaloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
(Saloth Sar)—General Secretary of the Communist Party of KampucheaGeneral Secretary of the Communist Party of KampucheaGeneral Secretary of the Central Committee was the highest office in the Communist Party of Kampuchea. The General Secretary was elected at plenary sessions of the Party's Central Committee, and chaired the Secretariat and Politburo. The office was abolished when the CPK dissolved in 1981, two...
, 1963–98; Prime MinisterPrime ministerA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
of Democratic Kampuchea, 1976–79
- Brother number 2 Nuon CheaNuon CheaNuon Chea , also known as Long Bunruot , is a Cambodian former communist politician and former chief ideologist of Khmer Rouge. He was commonly known as "Brother Number Two" second in command to Pol Pot who was leader during the Cambodian Genocide 1975-1979...
(Long Bunruot)—President of the Kampuchean People's Representative AssemblyKampuchean People's Representative AssemblyThe Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly was the official name of the unicameral legislature of Cambodia during the Democratic Kampuchea period...
; Chief ideologist of the Khmer Rouge
- Brother number 3 Ieng SaryIeng SaryIeng Sary was a powerful figure in the Khmer Rouge. He was the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979 and held several senior positions in the Khmer Rouge until his defection to the government in 1996....
—Deputy Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea; Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1975–79
- Brother number 4 Khieu SamphanKhieu SamphanKhieu Samphan was the president of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as Cambodia's head of state and was one of the most powerful officials in the Khmer Rouge movement, though Pol Pot was the group's true political leader and held the most...
—President of the State Presidium (head of stateHead of StateA head of state is the individual that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state. His or her role generally includes legitimizing the state and exercising the political powers, functions, and duties granted to the head of...
) of Democratic Kampuchea
- Brother number 5 Ta MokTa MokTa Mok , which means "Grandfather Mok" in Khmer, was the nom de guerre of Chhit Choeun , a senior figure in the leadership of the Khmer Rouge...
(Chhit Chhoeun)— Leader of the National Army of Democratic KampucheaNational Army of Democratic KampucheaThe National Army of Democratic Kampuchea was a Cambodian guerrilla force. NADK were the armed forces of the Party of Democratic Kampuchea , operating between 1979 and the late 1990s.-History:...
; Last Khmer Rouge leader, Southwest Regional Secretary (died in custody awaiting trial for genocideGenocideGenocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
, July 21, 2006)
- Brother number 13 Ke PaukKe PaukKe Pauk, also known as Kae Pok, was born Ke Vin in Chhouk Ksach Village, Chhouk Ksach Sub-district, Baray District, Kampong Thom Province in 1934. He died, apparently of natural causes, while asleep in his home at Anlong Veng on the 15th February, 2002...
—Regional Secretary of the Northern Zone
- Son SenSon SenSon Sen was a Cambodian Communist politician and soldier. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea/Party of Democratic Kampuchea, the Khmer Rouge, from 1974 to 1992, Sen oversaw the Party's security apparatus, including the Santebal secret police and the notorious...
—Minister of Defense
- Yun YatYun YatYun Yat, alias Comrade At, was the wife of Son Sen, defence minister of Democratic Kampuchea. On October 9, 1975, the Standing Committee of Communist Party of Kampuchea placed her in charge of information and education inside and outside of the country...
—Minister of Education, 1975–77; Minister of InformationMinister of InformationThe Ministry of Information , headed by the Minister of Information, was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of World War I and again during World War II...
(replaced Hu NimHu NimHu Nim, alias "Phoas" was a Cambodian Communistintellectual and politician who held a number of ministerial posts.His long political career included spells with the Sangkum regime...
in 1977)
In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
and currency
Currency
In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property
Private property
Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...
and relocating people from urban area
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
s to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into "Old People" through agricultural labor. These actions resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, illness, and starvation.
In Phnom Penh and other cities, the Khmer Rouge told residents that they would be moved only about "two or three kilometers" outside the city and would return in "two or three days." Some witnesses say they were told that the evacuation was because of the "threat of American bombing" and that they did not have to lock their houses since the Khmer Rouge would "take care of everything" until they returned. These were not the first evacuations of civilian populations by the Khmer Rouge. Similar evacuations of population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
s without possessions had been occurring on a smaller scale since the early 1970s.
The Khmer Rouge attempted to turn Cambodia into a classless society by depopulating cities and forcing the urban population into agricultural commune
Collective farming
Collective farming and communal farming are types of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise...
s through brutal totalitarian methods. The entire population was forced to become farmers in labour camps. During their four years in power, the Khmer Rouge overworked and starved the population, at the same time executing selected groups who had the potential to undermine the new state (including intellectuals) and killing many others for even minor breaches of rules.
Through the 1970s, and especially after mid-1975, the party was also shaken by factional struggles. There were even armed attempts to topple Pol Pot. The resultant purges reached a crest in 1977 and 1978 when thousands, including some important CPK leaders, were executed. The older generation of communists, suspected of having links with or sympathies for Vietnam were targeted by the Pol Pot leadership.
The Angkar
On September 29, 1977, Pol Pot publicly declared the existence of the CPK in a five-hour long speech. He revealed the true character of the "angkar" , the supreme authority in Cambodia, an obscure ruling body that had been kept in seclusion.The CPK had been extremely secretive throughout its existence. Before 1975 the secrecy was needed for the party's survival and Pol Pot and his closest associates had relied on continuing the extreme secrecy in order to consolidate their position against those they perceived as internal enemies during their first two years of power. The revelation of the CPK's existence shortly before Pol Pot was due to travel to Peking resulted in pressure from China on the Khmer Rouge leaders to acknowledge their true political identity at a time that they increasingly depended on China's assistance against the threats from Vietnam.
Accordingly, Pol Pot in his speech claimed that the CPK's foundation had been in 1960 and emphasized its separate identity from Vietnamese communism
Communist Party of Vietnam
The Communist Party of Vietnam , formally established in 1930, is the governing party of the nation of Vietnam. It is today the only legal political party in that country. Describing itself as Marxist-Leninist, the CPV is the directing component of a broader group of organizations known as the...
.
Fall of the Khmer Rouge
By December 1978, because of several years of border conflict and the flood of refugees fleeing Cambodia, relations between Cambodia and Vietnam deteriorated. Pol Pot, fearing a Vietnamese attack, ordered a pre-emptive invasion of Vietnam. His Cambodian forces crossed the border and looted nearby villages. Despite American and Chinese aid, these Cambodian forces were repulsed by the Vietnamese.In early 1979, a pro-Vietnamese group of CPK dissidents led by Pen Sovan
Pen Sovan
Pen Sovan, sometimes also spelt Pen Sovann , was the first Prime Minister of the Hanoi-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea. He served from June 27, 1981 until December 5, 1981. And he was Secretary General of Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party from 1979 to 5 December 1981...
held a congress (which they saw as the '3rd party congress', thus not recognizing the 1963, 1975 and 1978 party congresses as legitimate) near the Vietnamese border. Along with Heng Samrin
Heng Samrin
Heng Samrin is a Cambodian politician. He was the chairman of the People's Republic of Kampuchea and the State of Cambodia , and later vice chairman and chairman of the National Assembly of Cambodia since 2006....
, Pen Sovan, was one of the foremost founding members of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation
Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation
The Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation , often simply referred to as Salvation Front or by its French acronym FUNSK , was the nucleus of a new Cambodian regime, that would later establish the People's Republic of Kampuchea .Its foundation took place in 1978 in Vietnam by...
(KUFNS or FUNSK), after becoming disillusioned with the Khmer Rouge. Effectively the CPK was then divided into two, with the Pen Sovan-led group
Cambodian People's Party
The Cambodian People's Party is the current ruling party of Cambodia.This party was formerly known as Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party...
constituting a separate party.
The Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia along with the KUFNS, capturing Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...
on January 7, 1979. The Pen Sovan-led party was installed as the governing party of the new People's Republic of Kampuchea
People's Republic of Kampuchea
The People's Republic of Kampuchea , , was founded in Cambodia by the Salvation Front, a group of Cambodian leftists dissatisfied with the Khmer Rouge, after the overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's government...
. The CPK led by Pol Pot withdrew its forces westwards, to an area near the Thai border. With unofficial protection from elements of the Thai Army, it began guerrilla warfare against the PRK government. The party founded the Patriotic and Democratic Front of the Great National Union of Kampuchea
Patriotic and Democratic Front of the Great National Union of Kampuchea
The Patriotic and Democratic Front of the Great National Union of Kampuchea was a Kampuchean mass organization set up by the Communist Party of Kampuchea on August 21, 1979 after the fall of Democratic Kampuchea to Vietnamese troops and the subsequent proclamation of the People's Republic of...
as a united front
United front
The united front is a form of struggle that may be pursued by revolutionaries. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organisation created by revolutionaries in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.According to the theses of...
in September 1979 to fight the PRK and the Vietnamese. The Front was led by Khieu Sampan. In December 1979 the armed forces under the command of the party, what remained of the erstwhile People's National Liberation Armed Forces of Kampuchea, were renamed National Army of Democratic Kampuchea
National Army of Democratic Kampuchea
The National Army of Democratic Kampuchea was a Cambodian guerrilla force. NADK were the armed forces of the Party of Democratic Kampuchea , operating between 1979 and the late 1990s.-History:...
. In 1981 the party was dissolved, and substituted by the Party of Democratic Kampuchea
Party of Democratic Kampuchea
Party of Democratic Kampuchea was a political party in Cambodia, formed as a continuation of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in December 1981. In the mid-1980s it publicly claimed that its ideology was "democratic socialism," having ostensibly renounced Communism.-History:The dissolution of CPK...
.
See also
- Agrarian socialismAgrarian socialismAgrarian socialism is a socioeconomic political system which combines an agrarian way of life with socialist economic policies.When compared to standard socialist systems which are generally urban/industrial , internationally oriented, and more progressive/liberal in terms of social orientation,...
- Communist Youth League of KampucheaCommunist Youth League of KampucheaCommunist Youth League of Kampuchea was a youth organization in Cambodia, the youth wing of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. The organization was initially called Democratic Youth League. It published Tung Krahom....
- Party of Democratic KampucheaParty of Democratic KampucheaParty of Democratic Kampuchea was a political party in Cambodia, formed as a continuation of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in December 1981. In the mid-1980s it publicly claimed that its ideology was "democratic socialism," having ostensibly renounced Communism.-History:The dissolution of CPK...