Who are the Khmer Rouge?

In 1968, the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CCP), which was in opposition to the authorities, created a militarized current that became one of the parties to the civil war in Cambodia. They were the Khmer Rouge. They made Cambodia another stronghold of socialism in Southeast Asia.

Origins of the Current

The deplorable "Khmer Rouge" appeared a year after the beginning of the peasant uprising in the province of Battambang. The militia opposed the government and King Norodom Sihanouk. The discontent of the peasants was picked up and used by the leadership of the CCP. At first, the forces of the rebels were insignificant, but in a matter of months Cambodia plunged into the chaos of the civil war, which is justly considered as another episode of the Cold War and the struggle between the two political systems - communism and capitalism.

A few years later, the Khmer Rouge overthrew the regime established in the country after gaining independence from France. Then, in 1953, Cambodia was declared a kingdom, the ruler of which was Norodom Sihanouk. At first, he even enjoyed popularity among the local population. However, the situation in Cambodia was destabilized by the war in neighboring Vietnam, where, since the end of 1950, there was a smoldering confrontation between the Communists supported by China and the USSR and the democratic pro-American government. The "Red Menace" was hidden in the depths of Cambodia itself. The local communist party was formed in 1951. By the time the Civil War broke out, Pol Pot became its leader.

Personality of Pol Pot

The monstrous events in Cambodia in the 1970s in mass consciousness (including in our country) are most connected with two images. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge became symbols of inhumanity and genocide. But the leader of the revolution was beginning very modestly. According to the official biography, he was born on May 19, 1925 in a small, unremarkable Khmer village, hidden somewhere in the tropical jungles of Southeast Asia. At birth, there was no Pol Pot. The real name of the Khmer Rouge leader is Salot Sar. Pol Pot is a party pseudonym, which the young revolutionary took already in the years of his political career.

The social elevator of a boy from a modest family turned out to be education. In 1949 the young Pol Pot received a government scholarship that allowed him to move to France and enter the Sorbonne. In Europe, the student became acquainted with the Communists and was carried away by revolutionary ideas. In Paris he joined the Marxist circle. Education, however, Pol Pot never received. In 1952, he was expelled from university for his poor progress and returned to his homeland.

In Cambodia, Pol Pot entered the People's Revolutionary Party of Cambodia, which was later transformed into a communist party. His career in the organization of the newcomer began in the department of mass propaganda. The revolutionary began to publish in the press and soon became extremely famous. Paul Pot was always remarkable for his ambitions. Gradually, he ascended the party ladder, and in 1963 became its general secretary. The Khmer Rouge genocide was still far away, but history did its job - Cambodia was approaching the civil war.

The ideology of the Khmer Rouge

The Communists became more and more influential year after year. The new leader laid new ideological foundations, which he adopted from his Chinese comrades. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were supporters of Maoism, a set of ideas accepted as the official doctrine in the Celestial Empire. In fact, the Cambodian communists preached radical leftist views. Because of this, the Khmer Rouge were ambivalent towards the Soviet Union.

On the one hand, Pol Pot recognized the USSR as the forge of the first communist October revolution. But Cambodian revolutionaries had many claims to Moscow. Partly on this same ground, there was an ideological split between the USSR and China.

The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia criticized the Soviet Union for the policy of revisionism. In particular, they were against saving money - one of the most important signs of capitalist relations in society. Pol Pot also believed that agriculture was poorly developed in the USSR because of forced industrialization. In Cambodia, the agrarian factor played a huge role. The peasants were the absolute majority of the population in this country. As a result, when the Khmer Rouge regime came to power in Phnom Penh, Pol Pot did not ask for help from the Soviet Union, but rather focused on China.

The struggle for power

In the civil war that began in 1967, the Khmer Rouge was supported by the communist authorities of North Vietnam. Their opponents also acquired allies. The government of Cambodia focused on the United States and South Vietnam. Initially, the central power was in the hands of King Norodom Sihanouk. However, after a bloodless coup in 1970, he was overthrown, and the government was in the hands of Prime Minister Lon Nol. It was with him for another five years that the Khmer Rouge fought.

The history of the civil war in Cambodia is an example of an internal conflict in which extraneous forces actively intervened. At the same time, the confrontation in Vietnam continued. The Americans began to provide significant economic and military assistance to the government of Lon Nol. In the US, they did not want Cambodia to become a country where enemy Vietnamese troops could easily leave for rest and recuperation.

In 1973, American aviation began bombing positions of the Khmer Rouge. By that time, the US had withdrawn troops from Vietnam and could now concentrate on helping Phnom Penh. However, at a decisive moment, Congress gave its weighty word. Against the backdrop of massive anti-militarist sentiments in American society, politicians demanded that President Nixon stop bombing Cambodia.

Circumstances played into the hands of the Khmer Rouge. In these circumstances, the government troops of Cambodia began to retreat. On January 1, 1975, the Khmer Rouge's final offensive began on the capital Phnom Penh. Day after day, the city was deprived of all new supply lines, and the ring around it continued to narrow. On April 17, the Khmer Rouge established complete control over the capital. Two weeks before, Lon Nol had announced his resignation and moved to the United States. It seemed that after the end of the civil war, there would come a period of stability and peace. However, in fact, Cambodia was on the threshold of an even more terrible catastrophe.

Democratic Cambodia

Coming to power, the Communists renamed the country into Democratic Kampuchea. Pol Pot, who became head of state, announced three strategic goals for his government. First, he was going to stop the ruin of the peasantry and leave usury and corruption in the past. The second goal was to eliminate the dependence of Kampuchea on other countries. And, finally, the third: it was necessary to bring order in the country.

All these slogans seemed adequate, but in reality everything turned into the creation of a rigid dictatorship. Repression began in the country, initiated by the Khmer Rouge. In Cambodia, according to various estimates, from 1 to 3 million people were killed. The facts about the crimes became known only after the fall of the Pol Pot regime. During his reign Cambodia fenced off from the world with the Iron Curtain. News of her inner life was hardly leaked out.

Terror and repression

After the victory in the civil war, the Khmer Rouge began to completely rebuild the society of Kampuchea. According to their radical ideology, they abandoned money and liquidated this tool of capitalism. Urban residents were massively evicted in the village. Many habitual social and state institutions were destroyed. The government eliminated the system of medicine, education, culture and science. Foreign books and languages were banned. Even wearing glasses has caused the arrest of many residents of the country.

The Khmer Rouge, whose leader was extremely serious, literally in a few months left no trace of the previous order. All religions were subjected to repression. The strongest blow was dealt by Buddhists, who in Cambodia formed a noticeable majority.

The Khmer Rouge, whose photo of the repressions soon flew around the world, divided the population into three categories. The first included the majority of the peasants. In the second, there were residents of the districts who for a long time resisted the Communists' offensive during the civil war. Interestingly, then in some cities even American troops were based. All these settlements were subjected to "re-education", or, in other words, mass purges.

The third group included representatives of the intelligentsia, clergy, officials who were in the public service under the previous regime. Also attached to them were Lon Nol's army officers. Soon on a lot of these people, the savage torture of the Khmer Rouge was tried. Repressions were conducted under the slogan of fighting against the enemies of the people, traitors and revisionists.

Socialism in Cambodian

The population, which was forced into the village, began to live in communes that had strict rules. Most Cambodians were engaged in planting rice and wasting time on other low-skilled labor. The atrocities of the Khmer Rouge included harsh penalties for any crimes. Without trial and investigation, thieves and other minor violators of public order were shot. The rule extended even to the failure of fruit on plantations belonging to the state. Of course, all the land and enterprises of the country were nationalized.

Later, the international community described the crimes of the Khmer Rouge as genocide. Massacres were carried out on social and ethnic grounds. The authorities executed foreigners, including even Vietnamese and Chinese. Another reason for punishment was higher education. Going to a conscious confrontation with foreigners, the government completely isolated Kampuchea from the outside world. Diplomatic contacts were preserved only with Albania, China and North Korea.

Reasons for massacres

Why did the Khmer Rouge staged genocide in their native country, causing incredible harm to its present and future? According to the official ideology, the state needed a million able and faithful citizens to build a socialist paradise, and all the remaining several million inhabitants had to be destroyed. In other words, genocide was not a "kink on the ground" or a result of a reaction against imaginary traitors. Murders have become part of the political course.

Estimates of the death toll in Cambodia in the 1970s. Are extremely contradictory. The gap of 1 to 3 million is caused by the civil war, the abundance of refugees, the engagement of researchers, etc. Of course, the regime did not leave evidence of its crimes. People were killed without trial and investigation, which made it impossible to restore the chronicle of events, at least with the help of official documents.

Even films about the Khmer Rouge can not accurately convey the scale of the catastrophe that struck the unfortunate country. But even those few testimonies that became public due to international courts conducted after the fall of the Pol Pot government are terrifying. The main symbol of repression in Kampuchea was the prison Tuol Sleng. Today there is a museum. The last time tens of thousands of people were sent to this prison. All of them were supposed to be executed. Only 12 people survived. They were lucky - they did not have time to shoot before the change of power. One of those prisoners became a key witness at the trial of the Cambodian case.

Beat on religion

Repressions against religious organizations were legislated in the Constitution, which was adopted by Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge saw in any denomination a potential danger to their power. In 1975, Cambodia had 82,000 monks of Buddhist monasteries (Bonz). Only a few of them managed to escape and flee abroad. The extermination of the monks assumed a total character. No exceptions were made for anyone.

Destroyed Buddha statues, Buddhist libraries, temples and pagodas (before the civil war there were about 3 thousand, but in the end there was not a single one left). Like the Bolsheviks or communists in China, the Khmer Rouge used religious buildings as warehouses.

With special cruelty, Pol Pot supporters dealt with Christians, as they were bearers of foreign trends. Both the laity and priests were subjected to repression. Many churches were ruined and destroyed. During the terror, about 60 thousand Christians were killed and another 20 thousand Muslims.

War with Vietnam

In a few years the regime of Pol Pot led Cambodia to economic collapse. Many areas of the economy of the country were completely destroyed. Huge victims among the repressed led to the desolation of vast spaces.

Pol Pot, like every dictator, explained the causes of the collapse of Kampuchea wrecking activities of traitors and external enemies. More truly, this point of view was defended by the party. There was no Pol Pot in public space. He was known as "brother number 1" in the top eight of the party's leaders. Now this seems surprising, but in Cambodia, in addition, they introduced their own newspeak in the manner of the anti-utopia novel "1984". Many literary words were removed from the language (they were replaced by new ones approved by the party).

Despite all the ideological efforts of the party, the country was in a deplorable state. This led to the Khmer Rouge and the tragedy of Kampuchea. Pol Pot was in the meantime engaged in a growing conflict with Vietnam. In 1976, the country united under the rule of the Communists. However, the socialist closeness did not help the regimes to find a common language.

On the contrary, bloody skirmishes constantly took place on the border. The biggest was the tragedy in Batyuk. The Khmer Rouge invaded Vietnam and cut out an entire village, inhabited by about 3,000 peaceful peasants. The period of clashes on the border ended in December 1978, when Hanoi decided to end the Khmer Rouge regime. For Vietnam, the task was facilitated by the fact that Cambodia was experiencing economic collapse. Immediately after the invasion of foreigners began the uprising of the local population. On January 7, 1979, the Vietnamese took Phnom Penh. The power in it was just received by the United Front of National Salvation of Kampuchea, which was headed by Heng Samrin.

Again the partisans

Although the Khmer Rouge lost the capital, the western part of the country remained under their control. The next 20 years, these insurgents continued to harass the central authorities. In addition, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot survived and continued to lead large paramilitary forces hiding in the jungle. The fight against the perpetrators of the genocide was led by all the same Vietnamese (Cambodia itself lay in ruins and could hardly eradicate this serious threat).

Every year the same campaign was repeated. In the spring, a Vietnamese contingent of several tens of thousands of people invaded the western provinces, carrying out purges there, and in the autumn returned to their original positions. The autumn season of tropical downpours made it impossible for an effective fight against the partisans in the jungle. The irony was that during the years of its civil war, the Vietnamese Communists used the same tactics that the Khmer Rouge now used against them.

Final defeat

In 1981, the party partially removed Pol Pot from power, and soon she was completely dissolved. Some Communists decided to change their political course. In 1982, the Democratic Kampuchea Party was formed. This and several other organizations joined the coalition government, which was soon recognized by the UN. The legitimized Communists renounced Pol Pot. They acknowledged the mistakes of the previous regime (including the adventurousness of refusing money) and asked for forgiveness for repression.

Radicals led by Paul Later continued to hide in the forests and destabilize the situation in the country. Nevertheless, the political compromise in Phnom Penh led to the consolidation of the central government. In 1989, Vietnamese troops left Cambodia. The standoff between the government and the Khmer Rouge continued for another ten years. The failures of Pol Pot caused the collective leadership of the insurgents to remove him from power. The dictator, once seemingly invincible, was placed under house arrest. He passed away on April 15, 1998. According to one version, the cause of death was heart failure, on the other - Pol Pot was poisoned by his own supporters. Soon, the Khmer Rouge suffered a final defeat.