For nearly a century the Khmer working class and Cambodia were part of the French colonial empire (Indo-China) then endured a precarious independence at the time of the Vietnam War. Between 1969-75 Cambodia was bombed by the Americans 'back to the stone age' (General Curtis LeMay 1965) and was even invaded in 1970 by American troops. After the end of the conflict in South East Asia in 1975 the Khmer Rouge or the Communist Party of Kampuchea led by Pol Pot emerged from the jungles and took control of Cambodia.
Pol Pot and his fellow vanguardists were educated in Paris in the 1950s and were part of the 'Cercle Marxiste', a Cambodian communist students group based on a Leninist ideology, a distortion of the writings of Marx and Engels. They took inspiration from Lenin ideas in The Right of Nations to Self-determination (1914) where he wrote 'The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally support.' The Cambodian communists adopted concepts from Maoism such as agrarian socialism, the peasant peoples as the revolutionary subject in history, and the centrality of the peasant people's war, 'political power grows out of the barrel of a gun' (Mao Zedong 1927).
The central role of the peasants in Cambodian development was described by Hou Yuon in The Cambodian Peasants and Their Prospects for Modernization, which went against Marxist ideas that industrialization was a necessary precursor of capitalist development. Khieu Samphan's Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development argued Cambodia had to become self-reliant and end its economic dependency on the developed world.
In power 1975-79 the Khmer Rouge adopted a radical programme of isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and money, outlawing religions, confiscating all private property, and depopulating the cities by relocating the urban dwellers to collective farms where forced labour was widespread. There was an anti-intellectual campaign whereby doctors and teachers were sent to work in the fields, and even 'eyeglasses were seen as a sign of intellectualism.' (Robert D Kaplan).
The Socialist Standard in October 1978 pointed out that Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge was not a classless, moneyless society and nothing to do with either communism or socialism: 'Cambodia's need to import raw materials, medicines, and the like has necessitated the setting-up of a trading company in Hong Kong. A large foreign-trade deficit has been financed by China. At a time when the daily rice ration was a mere 250 grams per person, Deputy Prime Minister Ieng Sary stated that rice was being exported to earn foreign exchange (FEER 29.10.76. and 10.12.76). Most people live on little more than rice, yet according to Phnom Penh radio: 'We are boosting the production of our fresh and salt water fish for export. This will bring the money we need to buy various engines and motors for our factories and build the economy of cur new Cambodia' (SWB 25.6.75). In their drive to industrialisation, Cambodia's rulers are well aware that they cannot do entirely without money. The Vietnamese press has published accounts of Cambodian-committed atrocities which in their horror equal any of those recounted by refugees to Western journalists. One Hanoi paper described the new Cambodian villages as 'forced labour brigades of the age of slavery'(Guardian 20.7.78).'
In early 1979 a Vietnamese invasion ousted Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and the horror of the Cambodian holocaust of the Khmer people was exposed to the world. Around 2 million Cambodians died in the 'killing fields' through overwork, starvation and execution. In Britain the 'killing fields' were exposed by John Pilger in articles for the Daily Mirror. In 1984 a film The Killing Fields was released based on the book The Death and Life of Dith Pran by American journalist Sydney Schanberg about his stringer Dith Pran's experiences under the Khmer Rouge.
Pol Pot and his fellow vanguardists were educated in Paris in the 1950s and were part of the 'Cercle Marxiste', a Cambodian communist students group based on a Leninist ideology, a distortion of the writings of Marx and Engels. They took inspiration from Lenin ideas in The Right of Nations to Self-determination (1914) where he wrote 'The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally support.' The Cambodian communists adopted concepts from Maoism such as agrarian socialism, the peasant peoples as the revolutionary subject in history, and the centrality of the peasant people's war, 'political power grows out of the barrel of a gun' (Mao Zedong 1927).
The central role of the peasants in Cambodian development was described by Hou Yuon in The Cambodian Peasants and Their Prospects for Modernization, which went against Marxist ideas that industrialization was a necessary precursor of capitalist development. Khieu Samphan's Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development argued Cambodia had to become self-reliant and end its economic dependency on the developed world.
In power 1975-79 the Khmer Rouge adopted a radical programme of isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and money, outlawing religions, confiscating all private property, and depopulating the cities by relocating the urban dwellers to collective farms where forced labour was widespread. There was an anti-intellectual campaign whereby doctors and teachers were sent to work in the fields, and even 'eyeglasses were seen as a sign of intellectualism.' (Robert D Kaplan).
The Socialist Standard in October 1978 pointed out that Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge was not a classless, moneyless society and nothing to do with either communism or socialism: 'Cambodia's need to import raw materials, medicines, and the like has necessitated the setting-up of a trading company in Hong Kong. A large foreign-trade deficit has been financed by China. At a time when the daily rice ration was a mere 250 grams per person, Deputy Prime Minister Ieng Sary stated that rice was being exported to earn foreign exchange (FEER 29.10.76. and 10.12.76). Most people live on little more than rice, yet according to Phnom Penh radio: 'We are boosting the production of our fresh and salt water fish for export. This will bring the money we need to buy various engines and motors for our factories and build the economy of cur new Cambodia' (SWB 25.6.75). In their drive to industrialisation, Cambodia's rulers are well aware that they cannot do entirely without money. The Vietnamese press has published accounts of Cambodian-committed atrocities which in their horror equal any of those recounted by refugees to Western journalists. One Hanoi paper described the new Cambodian villages as 'forced labour brigades of the age of slavery'(Guardian 20.7.78).'
In early 1979 a Vietnamese invasion ousted Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and the horror of the Cambodian holocaust of the Khmer people was exposed to the world. Around 2 million Cambodians died in the 'killing fields' through overwork, starvation and execution. In Britain the 'killing fields' were exposed by John Pilger in articles for the Daily Mirror. In 1984 a film The Killing Fields was released based on the book The Death and Life of Dith Pran by American journalist Sydney Schanberg about his stringer Dith Pran's experiences under the Khmer Rouge.
No comments:
Post a Comment