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Pol Potism, or else known as Khmer Rougeism, is a totalitarian[3], economically far-left, anti-industrial[4], ethno-ultranationalist, anti-intellectual and highly genocidal ideology inhabiting the top left corner of the Political Compass. He was supported by Maoism during the Cambodian Civil War[5]. He strongly hates and has killed many intellectuals[6], people with glasses[6], landlords, rich people, urbanites, political dissidents, Buddhists[7], Vietnamese people[8], journalists, Muslims, Christians and Chinese people. He also hates currency[9][10] and has a habit of blowing up central banks[11].

History

Origins

Pol Pot was born as Saloth Sâr in Prek Sbauv, French Protectorate of Cambodia in the 1920s to a rich and prosperous family that had connections to the Cambodian monarchy. Saloth Sar was educated at some of Cambodia's most elite schools and gained access to further education and went to study in Paris, France from 1949-1953. While in Paris, Saloth Sar became interested in socialism and joined the Marxist-Leninist organization, Cercle Marxiste where he would become influenced by the works of both Joseph Stalin and Peter Kropotkin. Saloth Sar returned to Cambodia in 1953 at the height of the First Indochina War and Khmer Việt Minh a mixed Vietnamese and Cambodian guerrilla subgroup of the North Vietnam-based Việt Minh to free Indochina from the French colonizers. In November 1953, King Norodom Sihanouk declared Cambodia's independence from France and roughly almost all Khmer Việt Minh left the country for North Vietnam. However, Saloth Sar remained in Cambodia and together with his fellow comrades decided to bring about communism through electoral means and founded the socialist party, Pracheachon. However, in 1955 Norodom Sihanouk abdicated the throne and through voter fraud became the country's Chief of State and turned Cambodia into a de-facto one-party state and began to crack down on Pracheachon’s members.

In 1962, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Saloth Sar began to form his revolutionary movement with the purpose of overthrowing Norodom Sihanouk’s regime and establishing contact with the Viet Cong. Saloth Sâr and his comrades sought to develop their own, explicitly Cambodian variant of the ideology which moved away from the orthodox Marxist focus on the urban proletariat as the forces of a revolution to build socialism, giving that role instead to the rural peasantry, the far larger class in Cambodian society. In 1962, Tou Samouth disappeared, assumed to had been captured by Sihanouk‘s administration, although some believe Sar had killed his mentor to gain power.

In April 1965 Saloth Sar traveled to Vietnam and met Ho Chi Minh and Lê Duẩn who refused him support for his cause as they didn’t consider Norodom Sihanouk to be an enemy. In Hanoi, Saloth Sâr read through the archives of the Communist Party of Vietnam, concluding that his Vietnamese counterparts were committed to pursuing an Indochinese Federation led by Vietnam and that their interests were therefore incompatible with Cambodia's. In November of the same year, Saloth Sar flew from Hanoi to Beijing, China, and met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping among other prominent Chinese communists. Saloth Sar would gain much sympathy from the Communist Party of China as they shared his negative view of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s revisionism amid the Sino-Soviet split. CCP officials also trained him on topics like the dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggles, and political purges.

Saloth Sar returned to Cambodia the next year and together with his comrades renamed their organization the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). Norodom Sihanouk began referring to its members as the "Khmer Rouge" ('Red Cambodians'), but they did not adopt this term themselves.

Cambodian Civil War

In 1968 the Cambodian Civil War escalated as the government responded to attacks committed by the Khmer Rouge with scorched-earth policies, aerially bombarding areas where rebels were active. The army's brutality indirectly aided the insurgents' cause as the uprising spread, over 100,000 villagers joined them. In March 1970, while Sâr was in Beijing, Cambodian parliamentarians led by Lon Nol deposed Norodom Sihanouk in a US-backed coup when he was out of the country. Sihanouk also flew to Beijing, where the Chinese and North Vietnamese Communist Parties urged him to form an alliance with the Khmer Rouge to overthrow Lon Nol's right-wing government. Sihanouk then formed his own government-in-exile in Beijing and launched the National United Front of Kampuchea to rally Lon Nol's opponents which helped massively increase the Khmer Rouge in numbers. In April 1970, North Vietnamese armies, in collaboration with the Viet Cong, nevertheless invaded Cambodia to attack Lon Nol's forces which dragged Cambodia into the Vietnam War. US on the orders of President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger initiated Operation Freedom Deal a massive aerial bombing campaign targeted at Vietnamese forces alongside the South Vietnamese border in Cambodia. The US bombing campaign accelerated the collapse of rural Cambodian society, caused between 50 000 and 200 000 civilian casualties, and only made it easier for Khmer Rouge to gain support through anti-American sentiment. The same year Saloth Sar began to refer to himself as “Pol Pot.” The Khmer Rouge established vast control of the rural areas of Cambodia, which they called the “liberated zones”, where they sought to establish good relations with the peasants whose livelihood had been destroyed by the war.

In 1972, the Khmer Rouge began trying to refashion all of Cambodia in the image of the poor peasantry and forced all of those living under its control to dress like poor peasants, with black clothes, and red-and-white krama scarves, and sandals made from car tires. CPK members were expected to attend "lifestyle meetings" in which they engaged in criticism and self-criticism which cultivated an atmosphere of perpetual vigilance and suspicion within the movement. In May 1973, Pol Pot ordered the collectivization of villages in the territory it controlled and over the following 6 months, 60,000 Cambodians fled from areas under Khmer Rouge control. Relations between the Khmer Rouge and the North Vietnamese continued as Pol Pot ordered the internment of many of the Khmer Rouge who had spent time in North Vietnam and were considered too sympathetic to them.

In 1974 the Khmer Rouge began to expel the populations of Cambodia's cities to rural villages which they saw as a necessity to dismantle capitalism which they associated with the urban culture. In 1975, Lon Nol’s government collapsed and Lon Nol himself fled to the US, allowing the Khmer Rouge to seize Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. Shortly after taking the city, the Khmer Rouge announced that its inhabitants had to evacuate to escape a forthcoming US bombing raid with the false promise of that they would eventually be allowed to return to the city. The evacuation of Phnom Penh had over 2.5 million people out of the city with very little preparation; between 15,000 and 20,000 of these were removed from the city's hospitals and forced to march and 20,000 people died along the route.

Democratic Kampuchea

On the 5th of January 1976, Democratic Kampuchea was proclaimed, a totalitarian one-party state led by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The Cambodian population was officially known as "Kampuchean" rather than "Khmer" to avoid the ethnic specificity associated with the latter term and the Khmer language, now labeled "Kampuchean" by the government, was the only legally recognized language. The Standing Committee agreed to link several villages in a single co-operative of 500 to 1000 families, with the goal of later forming commune-sized units twice that size. Communal kitchens were also introduced so that all members of a commune ate together rather than in their individual homes. From the summer of 1976, the government ordered that children over the age of seven would live not with their parents but communally with Khmer Rouge instructors. There were no wages in Pol Pot’s Cambodia and as such has been classified as a “Slave State” by scholars and historians.

The Khmer Rouge also classified people based on their religious and ethnic backgrounds. Buddhist monks were viewed as social parasites and designated a "special class" and were set to manual labor in the rural co-operatives and irrigation projects. Crackdowns on dissidents and party purges were justified on the grounds to prevent foreign infiltration from the KGB or the Vietnamese. Enemies of the state were encouraged to confess to the accusations, often after torture or the threat of torture, with these confessions then being read out at party meetings. The Khmer Rouge converted a disused secondary school in Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng region into a security prison, S-21 in which between 15,000 and 20,000 people would be killed including a dozen Westerners, and only seven people survived.

From late 1976 onward, and especially in the middle of 1977, the levels of violence increased across Democratic Kampuchea, particularly at the village level. Across the country, peasant cadres tortured and killed members of their communities whom they disliked, and some even engaged in cannibalism. Growing numbers of Cambodians attempted to flee to Thailand and Vietnam. According to the CPK's own figures, by August 1977 between 4000 and 5000 party members had been liquidated as "enemy agents" or "bad elements".

Most of the aid for the Khmer Rouge regime came from China as the Chinese leadership saw Pol Pot’s government as a bulwark against Vietnamese influence in Indochina. Mao pledged $1 billion in military and economic aid to Cambodia, including an immediate $20 million grant. Many thousands of Chinese military advisors and technicians were also sent to the country to assist in projects like the construction of the Kampong Chhnang military airport.

It is generally estimated that 1.5 and 2 million people, approximately a quarter of Cambodia's population were killed because of the Khmer Rouge regime’s policies.

Cambodian-Vietnamese War

Out of fear of Vietnamese expansionism, there were continuous border clashes between Cambodia and Vietnam. In January 1978, the Cambodian Army launched raids on various Vietnamese villages. The Vietnamese Politburo then concluded that it must not leave Pol Pot in power and began to train Cambodian refugees to overthrow Pol Pot’s government.

On 25 December 1978, the Vietnamese Army launched its full-scale invasion of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh once again and in January 1979, Vietnam installed a new government led by former dissidents of Pol Pot’s regime, which renamed Cambodia the "People's Republic of Kampuchea." Although many Cambodians had initially hailed the Vietnamese as saviors, over time resentment against the occupying force grew.

The Khmer Rouge turned to China for support against the invasion and in China they set up their "Voice of Democratic Kampuchea" radio station, which remained their main outlet for communicating with the world. In February, the Chinese attacked northern Vietnam, hoping to draw Vietnamese troops away from the invasion of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge also received the support financial and logistical support from the US, UK, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, North Korea, and Romania, who wanted to curtail Vietnamese and Soviet influence in the region. In November 1979, the United Nations General Assembly voted to recognize the Khmer Rouge delegation, rather than that of the Vietnamese-backed government, as the legitimate government of Cambodia.

In December 1981, Pol Pot and his comrades decided to dissolve the Communist Party of Kampuchea, possibly to appease his foreign backers. Reflecting the ideological shift in the Khmer Rouge, collective eating was ended, the ban on individual possessions was lifted, and children were again allowed to live with their parents. In 1983, Pol Pot traveled to Bangkok, Thailand for a medical check-up where he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. Two years later Pol Pot traveled to Beijing, China to undergo cancer treatment at a military hospital.

Fall of Khmer Rouge

Tend of the Cold War had repercussions for Cambodia as the fall of the Soviet Union meant that the US stopped Vietnamese domination of Cambodia as an issue and stopped recognizing the Khmer Rouge delegation at the UN. The Khmer Rouge continued to carry out massacres against Vietnamese settlers in Cambodia. This was met with resistance by UN Peacekeepers and military forces led by Vietnamese-backed Prime Minister Hun Sen. By 1996, the Khmer Rouge had lost almost all the territory they held in the interior of Cambodia, being restricted to a few hundred miles along the northern border.

Pol Pot's health was rapidly declining and in 1997 ordered the killing of his former comrade Son. This led to the military leader of former Democratic Kampuchea Ta Mok turning on Pol Pot and letting military forces loyal to him apprehend him, putting Saloth Sar under house arrest.

American journalist Nate Thayer conducted Pol Pot's last interview while Pol Pot was under house arrest. Pol Pot stated that his "conscience is clear" but acknowledged that mistakes were made and told Thayer that "I want you to know that everything I did, I did for my country". On 15 April 1998, Pol Pot died in his sleep of heart failure. However, Tayer, claimed that Pol Pot committed suicide when he became aware of Ta Mok's plan to hand him over to the US. Three days later, Pol Pot’s body was cremated on a pyre of tires and rubbish, utilizing traditional Buddhist funerary rites.

Personality and Behaviour

Pol Potism thinks that communism can make Cambodia great again, like in the good olde Khmer Empire days. He’s a farmer that wants everyone to work on the fields and farms. He’s also very paranoid saying that someone is a "Vietnamese Spy", or a "Revisionist Spy". Anyone too smart or "not pure Cambodian" ends up being brutally beaten by him against a tree or strangled with a bag.

How to Draw

Flag of Pol Potism
  1. Draw a ball with eyes (eyes can optionally be squinting)
  2. Fill it red
  3. Draw two yellow lines (the lower one being bigger than the other) and three yellow mountain-looking things (the middle one being bigger than the other two) on top of the lines.
  4. (Optional) Add a military green Mao cap and a white scarf with red plaid.

Relations

Friends

  • Juche - Stood strong against capitalism! Though you should stop embracing intellectualism (which is really saying something isn't it).
  • Agrarian Socialism and National Agrarianism - Farmers of Cambodia unite!
  • Kakistocracy - We shall destroy intellectuals together.
  • Ultranationalism & Ethnonationalism - I did genocide on ethnic minorities in Cambodia. They all lived in a city and were bourgeois anyway.
  • National Communism - Make Cambodia great again with communism!
  • National Bolshevism - Cites me as an inspiration. I just wish Dugin was more anti-intellectual, though.
  • Burmese Way to Socialism - My slightly more tame counterpart from Myanmar.
  • Neoluddism - My best bomber friend! Fuck cities and industry!
  • State Atheism - Killing religious people? Based!
  • Hive-Mind Collectivism - This is based! If your ideas were possible, I'd embrace you. I even forced everyone to wear the same clothes.
  • Esoteric Fascism - ឈាមនិងដី! (Blood and Soil!) Yes, Himmler did wear glasses, but I let it slide this time.
  • National Primitivism - Basically me, to some extent.
  • Maoism - My inspiration. He helped me a lot during the civil war and I learned a lot from him. [5] Though your ideology is too hard to understand for me and I don’t get the cultural revolution thing.

Frenemies

  • Marxism–Leninism - I really liked you before 1955 but then you supported V**tnamese scum.
  • Neoconservatism - Oh no, my greatest enemy, the damn capitalist pig that caused Operation Menu. Henry Kissinger is a filthy imperialist, one I despise. *wink* At least you armed us and helped us against the Vietnamese! But sunglasses are still glasses.
  • Marxism - We are totally Marxists. Your books are too hard to understand though... :(
  • Hoxhaism - Albania is the ideal socialist state,[12] but why did you support those filthy Vietnamese over me?[13]
  • Chomskyism - You're a filthy anarchist intellectual who wears glasses, but you also denied the Cambodian Genocide and openly supported me, so thanks I guess.
  • Reactionary Socialism - The Khmer Empire was BASED, but knock it off with the crusades and monarchy talk. Only an atheistic republic will restore the Khmer race to greatness.
  • Machajskism - Nerds suck and agrarianism is based, but why do you hate the state?
  • Lys Noir - You were inspired by me, but you are an anarcho-monarchist, which is cringe.

Enemies

Further Information

Literature

Wikipedia

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pl:Polpotyzm zh:波尔布特主义

  1. ↑ https://evolutionnews.org/2012/12/lets_not_be_so/
  2. ↑ Friends of Pol Pot
  3. ↑ https://www.jstor.org/stable/3992949
  4. ↑ https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/khmer-rouge-james-tyner-cambodia-violence
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 https://web.archive.org/web/20201217133253/https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/chinas-aid-emboldens-cambodia
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/cambodia#:~:text=Because%20the%20Khmer%20Rouge%20placed,Pol%20Pot%27s%20reign%20of%20terror.
  7. ↑ https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/buddhism-and-revolution-cambodia
  8. ↑ https://sfi.usc.edu/collections/cambodian-genocide
  9. ↑ https://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/riel-value-money-how-worlds-only-attempt-abolish-money-has-hindered-cambodias-economic-
  10. ↑ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-khmer-rouge-abolished-money-now-they-want-ours-1291688.html
  11. ↑ https://theacheron.medium.com/that-one-time-pol-pot-blew-up-the-central-bank-e130c23b64a0
  12. ↑ Kiernan, Ben (2008). The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300142990.
  13. ↑ https://espressostalinist.com/2011/10/26/enver-hoxha-on-pol-pot/
  14. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Caldwell
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