The Communist Movement: Pol Pot And The Khmer Rouge

After they seized power in Cambodia in April 1975, Saloth "Pol Pot" Sar and the Khmer Rouge were responsible for the death of 1.5-3 million Cambodian's and were perhaps one of the most ruthless regimes of the 20th century. The aim of this investigation is to evaluate Pol Pot's means of maintaining power from 1975 to 1979. An account of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's drastic internal reforms including the slaughter of millions, economic reorganization, political restructuring, and the cultivation of social/ethnic groups will appear in section B. External forces including funding from China and the United States and repressive measures such as censorship, torture, and execution will be assessed. This

Later that same year, Pot and the Khmer Rouge took control over Cambodia. Pot wasted no time in starting his mission to reconstruct Cambodia. He thought that all the educated people needed to be killed (Melicharova). Also he thought that all noncommunist aspects of Cambodia needed to be wiped out. All rights you had were now gone. Religion was banned and if you were any kind of leader among the Buddhist monks, you were killed instantly (Melicharova). All kids were taken away and sent to work in the fields (Melicharova). If anyone was currently working and had a job, they were immediately killed along with their family members. It got so bad that you could be killed for just laughing, crying, and knowing another language. The Khmer Rouge motto was “To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss” (Melicharova). If you were lucky enough to escape death, you were put into the fields working usually from 4am to 10pm unpaid (“Pol”). From lack of food and sleep, people often became very ill which sadly led to death.

Pol Pot once said, “although a million lives have been wasted, our party does not feel sorry.” Pol Pot was the ruthless dictator of Cambodia during the 1970s and was single handedly responsible for millions of deaths and suffering. Pol Pot was considered a dictator because he was the leader of three consecutive parties and governments in Cambodia, and in all of them, he made his own people suffer while trying to make radical changes. His main goals were to completely reshape his country Cambodia, into a communist society based on peasants and agriculture. He wanted to create a new type of Cambodia where the population was made up of entirely workers and peasants, and all evidence of the wealthy classes was removed. Pol Pot wanted an equal society

The Khmer Rouge forces took over Cambodia, and evacuated the nation's cities. They emptied schools, hospitals, factories and abolished all forms of money and wages. Religion, popular culture, and all forms of self expression were forbidden. They were forced into the countryside to do forced labor, and got less than 90 grams of rice a day. Where most people died from fatigue, disease, execution, and starvation. Now people of Cambodia are exchanging this terrible genocide for healing. Trying to find peace and a resolution for all those who have lost loved ones, or encountered this terrible genocide

During times of trouble it is the structure of families which bring stability and fuel resilience. Families often support each other to survive a trauma because they are support systems. The Cambodian genocide led by the Khmer Rouge regime attempted to tear apart families and exploit their special bond. The Khmer Rouge soldiers took towns captive or burned them, and recruited youths to join their cause (Pran IX). From 1975 to 1979, all Cambodians were forced to live in labor camps and were forced to work fourteen to eighteen hours a day with only a single bowl of rice to eat. Family members were separated from one another purposefully to lower morale. During this period an estimated one-third of Cambodian’s population died due to malnutrition, illness, and execution (Pran X). Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors compiled by Dith Pran is important because it confirms the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime, explains how the Khmer Rouge gained power, and how the Khmer Rouge attempted to indoctrinate young children against their parents.

The aftermath of this mass genocide made Cambodia known for its infamous “Killing Fields” during the time of Pol Pot and his men. Last but not least, the genocide nearly exterminated the population of two million Cambodians out of six millions (Yale University, 2003).

Cambodia is a small country of Southeast Asia, less than half the size of the state of California (“World Without Genocide: Cambodian Genocide”). The Cambodian government in the mid 1970’s was unstable as Lon Nol, the Cambodian prime minister, and his forces were being stretched dealing with conflicts of Vietnamese communists, and a rising group of Cambodian communists called the Khmer Rouge Party. (Peace Pledge Union) As the government grew weaker and began to loose control, The Khmer Rouge Party overthrew the country. They began killing for their cause in 1975. The Khmer Rouge Party, under the rule of a man called Pol Pot, enforced a new way of life following values and rules similar to Maoist-Communism (“World Without Genocide: Cambodian Genocide”). The Khmer Party attempted, in simplistic terms, to nationally centralize the middle or farming class of Cambodia (“World Without Genocide: Cambodian

When the Soviet Union officially acknowledged the Viet Minh as the true Vietnamese government, the French communist group Parti communiste français declared their support for Vietnamese independence. Enraptured by their anti-colonialist views, Sar joined the Communist Party in 1950. He later became the head of the Khmer Student Association’s “Marxist Circle.” It was during this time period that Sar took on a new name, and a new mission in life. When Pol Pot returned to his home country in January 1953, he did so on a mission to overthrow his country’s government and put into power a communist dictatorship.

By the hundreds and thousands peasants left the countryside and settled in Phnom Penh. All these events helped Pol Pot rise in popularity. On April 17, 1975 Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh and took control of the

The Cambodian genocide began in 1975 when Pol Pot, a Khmer Rouge leader, attempted to for a Communist peasant farming society. About 1.5 million Cambodians died. [10]

Ever since the actions in Cambodia occurred, it has been debated whether it was an actual genocide. The general definition of genocide is the purposeful and methodical execution of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia demonstrated that a government can be guilty of genocide against its own nation. The radical communist party led by Pol Pot took over Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. After 1979, the Khmer Rouge left a traumatized Cambodian culture that continues to undergo the repercussions of the genocide. People over the age of forty in Cambodia have stories to tell of fear, cruelty, hunger and the loss of family members. However, the Cambodian government is not making an effort to recognize the negative occurrences that have posed itself in the history of their culture.

How did Pol pot's regime affect life in cambodia in the past and the present? Pol Pot's goal was to make Cambodia start at year zero. As soon as he came to power, He tried to eliminate anything that would ruin his idea for the utopia he wanted. The Khmer Rouge believed that to make the country perfect country, they must remove everything from the old way, including the old education way. In the past, Students were taught in Buddhist monasteries called Wats.(Bookbridge) After he took over, his first step was to remove education from Cambodia.

Pol Pot just got hooked and the idea of Communism and The Khmer Rouge played a huge role his plan because without them he would be nothing. The Khmer Rouge is really what has him so powerful putting him the driver seat doing whatever he wants, really the Khmer Rouge is his own little army. ”The Khmer Rouge was a brutal, murderous revolutionary group intent on revolutionizing Cambodian society. On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge army marched into Phnom Penh, the modern capital. Khmer Rouge soldiers, young peasants from the provinces, mostly uneducated teenage boys who had never been in a city before, swept through town.

Some say that Pol Pot was responsible for the power and control of Cambodia because “Pol Pot cut Cambodia off from the world. He banned foreign and minority languages and attacked the neighboring countries of Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand in an attempt to regain ancient ‘lost territory’” (The life of Pol Pot- Cambodia 4). This statement is true because the Khmer Rouge did gain part of their power by isolating the country, but Pol Pot is not fully responsible for that. There were other people involved, like Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan all of these people were also leaders in the Khmer Rouge. Nuon Chea was the second leader in the Khmer Rouge he is known as “The evil genius of the movement” (Chandler 1), because he is the one who was in charge of the prison system. He was one of the one’s with a heartless mind, planning tortures and executing innocent people.

While analyzing The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea, the section called “Open Conflict Between Socialist Nations”, revealed many components that led to a mandatory invasion of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge strived to reconquer the Mekong Delta, the region bordering Cambodia in the present day, of Vietnam. It turns out that Cambodia used to exert authority over the region, but throughout many decades, sovereignty transferred to the Vietnamese. In 1952, “the radical faction of the Khmer Students’ association in Paris-including ‘Pol Pot,’ Ieng