This article, written by some ultraleftist, provides a decent background of Cambodia, the material conditions prior to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, the geopolitical relations between the indochinese peoples, how ww2 influenced the region, the Vietnam War and Cambodia's involvement, the conflict within Cambodia between the Capitalists and the Khmer communists, the seizure of power and the rule of the Khmer, the racialized caste system and enslavement of the people across the different regions, and the eventual downfall and the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge rule.
Ultraleftist biases aside, it's a well written article that compiles up what little is known of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. I basically walked away from it thinking Pol Pot most likely was criminally incompetent as the General secretary of the party as he allowed the regional and district secretaries to rule their areas like Assyrian God-Kings over enslaved peoples under his nose, if I were to be charitable and believe his account that he didn't know of the atrocities committed by those under him.
I hold the position that anyone who upholds Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge - as anything other than the what not to do as a Revolutionary - as a crank individually and a complete hinderence to whatever party they join should they go against their party's line and practice Khmer Rouge theory.
Another thing I’ve theorized about this kind of thing is the tales of atrocities. For example, when people talk about China bad reddit moment, or Cuba bad Gusano moment, it’s usually like, “they stole my grand dads egg monopoly, and freed my Cuban slaves.” And they usually have zero evidence. With the Khmer Rouge, there are piles of skulls and former death camps. You can tell a genocide when you see one.
also considering how there's compiled evidence of the ethno-based caste system that quite literally placed non-cambodians on the level of subhuman slaves, somehow below the "normal" level of cambodian slavery, in their society that resembles the southern antebellum state, it's easily arguable that the liberation forces of Vietnam and China were justified in their invasion of that neo-feudalist state. Although it's a shame they were forced to let it to fall back into monarchism.
The Sino-Soviet split caused some pretty wacky foreign policy decisions by China.
Like the time they supported the Afghan Mujahideen in their fight against the USSR aligned (or puppet depending on the period) Socialist, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Putting them on the same side as the United States, working together against the Soviet Union.
They even went as far as to provide tacit support to a number of Uyghur Muslims from Xinjiang to fight alongside the Taliban.
Than, shockingly, when these radicalized Uyghur's arrived back in Xinjiang many launched jihad against the Chinese state. Blow-Back from Chinese Afghan policy did play a significant role in the intensification of the Xinjiang conflict
While I'm critically supportive of China, I still don't like the tendency of many here to just write off Xinjiang as a region filled with "radical Islamic terrorists" (all of whom seemingly appeared from thin air), from which punitive actions against the population is justified, while ignoring the role of successive generations of Chinese leadership in intensifying tensions in Xinjiang, and at times outright adding fuel to the fire, as was the case with Chinese support for the Mujaheddin.
Pol Pot never even pretended to be a maoist until after Mao's death iirc. And I'm pretty sure he didn't even really understand maoism, or marxism, or any of these things. Basically he was a massive idiot and a psycho. Like, the dude had to repeat a bunch of classes in school, and when he went to France he read Marx and by his own admission didn't really understand much, preferring Stalin and Kropotkin (lmao). People who knew him before he became who he became just describe him as "mediocre and pleasant". I'm not even 100% sure he understood what was happening from what I have read about him. It genuinely confuses me how he managed to rise as high up as he did, but from accounts about him he was charismatic, because he was really polite and soft spoken to everyone. Btw Pol Pot isn't even his real name, but it wasn't like with Lenin either, he had a bunch of weird nick names like 87, 99, first brother, and many more. Pol Pot is just one that stuck.
In addition to the quality content already written, there could be a lot of discussion about Pol's actions in the early time, support of the US for Pol, his horrible understanding of theory, his wrong application of some variant of world system theory and such. But it isn't worth the letters that would be used.
Everything is said, Pol is not to be supported and discussion is not really warranted. If we would like to talk about something it ought to be the victims, the influence of Imperialist states.
Same for Vietnam the position and perspective of Vietcong soldiers and people etc. does not exist in the Western world.
Am banned from r/communism101 for telling a Pol Pot apologist to go fuck himself. I've been to the Killing Fields and the Tuol Leng/S-21 prison, and this shit was pure evil.
I recall a really weird struggle sesh on the old sub between some guy from Cambodia who was screaming into the void about anarchists for supporting Pol Pot and linking to some weird blog posts all about Pol Pot being an anarchist, and (thanks to the magic of the internet) eventually an anarchist who supported Pol Pot actually did show up. Pretty wild ride.
Noam Chomsky mostly took it back and it wasn't really ever support anyways, it was the same thing Chomsky does for everywhere that the US had involvement in. But that one legitimately supported Pol Pot because they thought "he was the one who came closest to liberation" lmao
Mainstream denunciations of Pol Pot sometimes lose sight of the basic fact that the US bombing campaign of Cambodia was also genocidal and laid the foundation for Pol Pot’s hellish policies.
Don’t defend Pol Pot, but also remind Westerners who started the mass killings first.
Do we have pol pot discourse on this site?
No. He's bad and anyone trying to defend him is gulaged faster than a Soyuz rocket
Good. Was pol pot just a really shitty human being that used Maoism as a shield or do I have it wrong?
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If we’re going to be fair, so did Ho Chi Minh, supplied by the OSS during 1945. But it’s about what you do immediately after I guess.
This article, written by some ultraleftist, provides a decent background of Cambodia, the material conditions prior to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, the geopolitical relations between the indochinese peoples, how ww2 influenced the region, the Vietnam War and Cambodia's involvement, the conflict within Cambodia between the Capitalists and the Khmer communists, the seizure of power and the rule of the Khmer, the racialized caste system and enslavement of the people across the different regions, and the eventual downfall and the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge rule.
Ultraleftist biases aside, it's a well written article that compiles up what little is known of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. I basically walked away from it thinking Pol Pot most likely was criminally incompetent as the General secretary of the party as he allowed the regional and district secretaries to rule their areas like Assyrian God-Kings over enslaved peoples under his nose, if I were to be charitable and believe his account that he didn't know of the atrocities committed by those under him.
I hold the position that anyone who upholds Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge - as anything other than the what not to do as a Revolutionary - as a crank individually and a complete hinderence to whatever party they join should they go against their party's line and practice Khmer Rouge theory.
Another thing I’ve theorized about this kind of thing is the tales of atrocities. For example, when people talk about China bad reddit moment, or Cuba bad Gusano moment, it’s usually like, “they stole my grand dads egg monopoly, and freed my Cuban slaves.” And they usually have zero evidence. With the Khmer Rouge, there are piles of skulls and former death camps. You can tell a genocide when you see one.
also considering how there's compiled evidence of the ethno-based caste system that quite literally placed non-cambodians on the level of subhuman slaves, somehow below the "normal" level of cambodian slavery, in their society that resembles the southern antebellum state, it's easily arguable that the liberation forces of Vietnam and China were justified in their invasion of that neo-feudalist state. Although it's a shame they were forced to let it to fall back into monarchism.
Well, to be honest, China did invade vietnam around that same time because the Sino Soviet split was so awful
The Sino-Soviet split caused some pretty wacky foreign policy decisions by China.
Like the time they supported the Afghan Mujahideen in their fight against the USSR aligned (or puppet depending on the period) Socialist, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Putting them on the same side as the United States, working together against the Soviet Union.
They even went as far as to provide tacit support to a number of Uyghur Muslims from Xinjiang to fight alongside the Taliban.
Than, shockingly, when these radicalized Uyghur's arrived back in Xinjiang many launched jihad against the Chinese state. Blow-Back from Chinese Afghan policy did play a significant role in the intensification of the Xinjiang conflict
While I'm critically supportive of China, I still don't like the tendency of many here to just write off Xinjiang as a region filled with "radical Islamic terrorists" (all of whom seemingly appeared from thin air), from which punitive actions against the population is justified, while ignoring the role of successive generations of Chinese leadership in intensifying tensions in Xinjiang, and at times outright adding fuel to the fire, as was the case with Chinese support for the Mujaheddin.
weird how supporting terrorists always comes around to bite whoever supported them in the ass.
If I was a leader of a country, I simply wouldn't fund right-wing terror groups.
if I was a leader of a country, I wouldn't fund anything with a wiff of right-wing tendency.
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Pol Pot never even pretended to be a maoist until after Mao's death iirc. And I'm pretty sure he didn't even really understand maoism, or marxism, or any of these things. Basically he was a massive idiot and a psycho. Like, the dude had to repeat a bunch of classes in school, and when he went to France he read Marx and by his own admission didn't really understand much, preferring Stalin and Kropotkin (lmao). People who knew him before he became who he became just describe him as "mediocre and pleasant". I'm not even 100% sure he understood what was happening from what I have read about him. It genuinely confuses me how he managed to rise as high up as he did, but from accounts about him he was charismatic, because he was really polite and soft spoken to everyone. Btw Pol Pot isn't even his real name, but it wasn't like with Lenin either, he had a bunch of weird nick names like 87, 99, first brother, and many more. Pol Pot is just one that stuck.
Well, Ho Chi Minh changed his name a lot too, but he was a good person. Also, as an anarchist, how do you prefer Kropotkin over Marx?
Yeah but like he changed it into weird shit all the time. Like, literally robot names.
99 was a great SW:TCW character
In addition to the quality content already written, there could be a lot of discussion about Pol's actions in the early time, support of the US for Pol, his horrible understanding of theory, his wrong application of some variant of world system theory and such. But it isn't worth the letters that would be used.
Everything is said, Pol is not to be supported and discussion is not really warranted. If we would like to talk about something it ought to be the victims, the influence of Imperialist states.
Same for Vietnam the position and perspective of Vietcong soldiers and people etc. does not exist in the Western world.
Am banned from r/communism101 for telling a Pol Pot apologist to go fuck himself. I've been to the Killing Fields and the Tuol Leng/S-21 prison, and this shit was pure evil.
I recall a really weird struggle sesh on the old sub between some guy from Cambodia who was screaming into the void about anarchists for supporting Pol Pot and linking to some weird blog posts all about Pol Pot being an anarchist, and (thanks to the magic of the internet) eventually an anarchist who supported Pol Pot actually did show up. Pretty wild ride.
Damn, that really is something else. Humans are a strange species.
Noam Chomsky?
Noam Chomsky mostly took it back and it wasn't really ever support anyways, it was the same thing Chomsky does for everywhere that the US had involvement in. But that one legitimately supported Pol Pot because they thought "he was the one who came closest to liberation" lmao
Semi unrelated, I was really privileged to meet a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide. It sickens me to this day how much the west funds theses massacres
Mainstream denunciations of Pol Pot sometimes lose sight of the basic fact that the US bombing campaign of Cambodia was also genocidal and laid the foundation for Pol Pot’s hellish policies.
Don’t defend Pol Pot, but also remind Westerners who started the mass killings first.
Always and forever, comrade. Destabilization, power vacuums, etc.