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Maoism, also known as Mao Zedong Thought (simplified Chinese: 毛泽东思想; traditional Chinese: 毛澤東思想; pinyin: Máozédōng sīxiǎng), is a political theory derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976). Its followers, known as Maoists, consider it as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxism. Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding ideology of the Communist Party of China (CPC). It fell into disfavour in China in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping introduced sweeping reforms.

Maoism is also used to refer to Mao's belief in the mobilization of the masses, particularly in large-scale political movements; it can also refer to the egalitarianism that was seen during Mao's era as opposed to the free-market ideology of Deng Xiaoping; some scholars additionally define personality cults and political sloganeering as "Maoist" practices. Contemporary Maoists in China criticize the social inequalities created by a capitalist and "revisionist" Communist party.

Internationally, Maoist organizations mainly draw upon Mao's ideology of the People's War, mobilizing large parts of rural populations to revolt against established institutions by engaging in guerrilla warfare. Notable Maoist organizations and armed groups currently exist in several countries, most notably the Shining Path in Peru, the Naxalites in India, and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist); the latter of which is the only current Maoist party holding power through a democratic process.^[1]

Maoism also pushes for an adapted version of Trotskys theory of permanent revolution. This theory, known as the theory of 3 permanent world revolutions, is a core aspect of Marx-Lenin-Maoism.

Origins[link]

Although often described as an evolution of Marxism/Leninism, Maoism is defined more by its theoretical and ideological departures from orthodox Marxism or Leninism than by its similarities to the Western versions of modern socialism. Thus, the origins of Maoism cannot be found in Marxist writings alone, but also in the modern Chinese intellectual tradition in which he was raised.

The modern Chinese intellectual tradition[link]

The modern Chinese intellectual tradition of the turn of the twentieth century is defined by two central concepts, iconoclasm and nationalism.^[2]

Iconoclastic revolution/anti-Confucianism[link]

By the turn of the twentieth century, a proportionately small yet socially significant cross-section of China's traditional elite (i.e. landlords and bureaucrats), found themselves increasingly skeptical of the efficacy and even the moral validity of Confucianism.^[3] These skeptical iconoclasts formed a new segment of Chinese society, a modern intelligensia, whose arrival, or as lauded historian of China Maurice Meisner would label it, their defection, heralded the beginning of the destruction of the gentry as a social class in China.^[4] The fall of the last Chinese imperial dynasty in 1911 marked the final failure of the Confucian moral order, and did much to make Confucianism synonymous with political and social conservatism in the minds of Chinese intellectuals. It was this association of conservatism and Confucianism which lent to the iconoclastic nature of Chinese intellectual thought during the first decades of the Twentieth century.^[5]

Chinese iconoclasm was expressed most clearly and vociferously by Chen Duxiu during the New Culture Movement which occurred between 1915 and 1919.^[6] Proposing the, "total destruction of the traditions and values of the past," the New Culture Movement was spearheaded by the New Youth, a periodical which was published by Chen Duxiu and which was profoundly influential on a young Mao Zedong whose first published work appeared on the magazine's pages.^[6]

Nationalism and the appeal of Marxism[link]

Along with iconoclasm, radical anti-imperialism dominated the Chinese intellectual tradition and slowly evolved into a fierce nationalist fervor which influenced Mao's philosophy immensely and was crucial in adapting Marxism to the Chinese model.^[7] Vital to understanding Chinese nationalist sentiments of the time is the Treaty of Versailles which was signed in 1919. The Treaty aroused a wave of bitter nationalist resentment in Chinese intellectuals as lands formerly ceded to Germany in Shandong were, without consultation with the Chinese, transferred to Japanese control rather than returned to Chinese sovereignty.^[8] The negative reaction culminated in the May 4th Incident which occurred on that day in 1919. The protest began with 3,000 students in Beijing displaying their anger at the announcement of the Versailles Treaty's concessions to Japan yet rapidly took a violent turn as protesters began attacking the homes and offices of ministers who were seen as cooperating with, or in the direct pay of the Japanese.^[8] The May 4th Incident and Movement which followed, "catalyzed the political awakening of a society which had long seemed inert and dormant"^[8]

Yet another international event would have a large impact on not only Mao but also the Chinese intelligensia was the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Although the revolution did elicit interest among Chinese intellectuals, socialist revolution in China was not considered a viable option until after the May 4th Incident.^[9] Afterwards, "To become a Marxist was one way for a Chinese intellectual to reject both the traditions of the Chinese past and Western domination of the Chinese present" Maurice Meisner, Mao's China and After, page 18.

Mao's personal philosophy[link]

Along with the Chinese intellectual tradition which was prevalent during his youth, it is clear that Mao's personal philosophy, his idealism and populist leanings, were foundational to the formation and profile of Maoism. Mao´s political ideas emerge from his personal ethics. One source is commentaries to "A System of Ethics" by Friederich Paulsen (1917-1918)where he expressed: "I do not agree with the view that to be moral, the motive of one action has to be benefiting others...Morality does not have to be defined in relation to others...People like me want to ...satisfy our hearts to the full, and in doing so we automatically have the most valuable moral codes. Of course there are people and objects in the world, but they are only for me". ^[10] His politics were consistent with this personal values and views.

Idealism[link]

Mao believed that human consciousness is the key factor in human history. In other words, Mao can be seen as an idealist and as such, directly contravenes the deterministic tenets of orthodox Marxism.^[11] Mao had the utmost faith that, through the actions of "dedicated revolutionaries" a new social reality could be formed which would be in harmony with his ideals.^[11]

Populism[link]

Mao also believed strongly in the concept of a unified "people". These notions were what prompted him to investigate the peasant uprisings in Hunan while the rest of the China's communists were in the cities and focused on the orthodox Marxist proletariat.^[12] Many of the pillars of Maoism such as the distrust of intellectuals and the abhorrence of occupational specialty are typical populist ideas.^[7] The concept of "People's War" which is so central to Maoist thought is directly populist in its origins. Mao believed that intellectuals and party cadres had to become first students of the masses to become teachers of the masses later. This concept was vital to the strategy of the "People's War."^[7]

Nationalism[link]

Also crucially important to the adaption of Marxism to the Chinese model and the formation of Maoism were Mao's nationalist impulses.^[13] Mao truly believed that China was to play a crucial preliminary role in the socialist revolution internationally. This belief, or the fervor with which Mao held it, separated Mao from the other Chinese Communists and led Mao onto the path of what Leon Trotsky called, "Messianic Revolutionary Nationalism" which was central to his personal philosophy and is demonstrated in his long-standing hostile relationship with ComIntern.^[12]

The Yan'an period[link]

During the period immediately following the Long March, Mao and the Chinese Communist Party were headquartered in Yan'an, which is a prefecture-level city in the Shaanxi province. During this period Mao clearly established himself as a Marxist theoretician and produced the bulk of the works which would later be canonized into the "thought of Mao Zedong".^[14] The rudimentary philosophical base of Chinese Communist ideology is laid down in Mao's numerous dialectical treatises and was conveyed to newly recruited party members. This period truly established ideological independence from Moscow for Mao and the CCP.^[14] Although the Yan'an period did answer some of the questions, both ideological and theoretical, which were raised by the Chinese Communist Revolution, it left many of the crucial questions unresolved; including how the Chinese Communist Party was supposed to launch a socialist revolution while completely separated from the urban sphere.^[14]

Components[link]

Basic components[link]

1. People's war: The armed branch of the party must not be distinct from the masses. To conduct a successful revolution the needs and demands of the masses must be the most important issues.
2. New Democracy: In so called backward countries, socialism cannot be introduced before the country has gone through a period in which the material conditions improve. This cannot be done by the bourgeoisie, as its progressive character is long since replaced by a regressive character.
3. Contradictions as the most important feature of society: Society is dominated by a wide range of contradictions. As these are different in nature, they must also be handled in different ways. The most important divide is the divide between contradictions among the masses and contradictions between the masses and their enemies, where the enemies are recognized as all who contradict Maoism. Also the socialist institutions are plagued with contradictions, and these contradictions must not be suppressed as they were during Stalin's era.
4. Cultural revolution: The revolution does not wipe out bourgeois ideology; the class-struggle continues, and even intensifies, during socialism. Therefore a constant struggle against these ideologies and their social roots must be conducted. Cultural Revolution is directed also against traditionalism.
5. Three Worlds Theory: During the Cold War, two imperialist states formed the “first world”; the United States and the Soviet Union. The second world consisted of the other imperialist states in their spheres of influence. The third world consisted of the non-imperialist countries. Both the first and the second world exploit the third world, but the first world is the most aggressive part. The workers in the first and second world are “bought up” by imperialism, preventing socialist revolution. The people of the third world, on the other hand, have not even a short-sighted interest in the prevailing circumstances. Hence revolution is most likely to appear in third world countries, which again will weaken imperialism opening up for revolutions in other countries too.^[15]

Contradiction[link]

Mao drew information from the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin in elaborating his theory. Philosophically, his most important reflections emerge on the concept of "contradiction" (maodun). In two major essays, On contradiction and “On the correct handling of contradictions among the people”, he adopts the positivist-empiricist idea (shared by Engels) that contradiction is present in matter itself (and thus, also in the ideas of the brain). Matter always develops through a dialectical contradiction:

"The interdependence of the contradictory aspects present in all things and the struggle between these aspects determine the life of things and push their development forward. There is nothing that does not contain contradiction; without contradiction nothing would exist".^[16]

Furthermore, each contradiction (including class struggle, the contradiction holding between relations of production and the concrete development of forces of production) expresses itself in a series of other contradictions, some dominant, others not.

"There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions".^[17]

Thus, the principal contradiction should be tackled with priority when trying to make the basic contradiction "solidify". Mao elaborates further on this theme in the essay On Practice. On the relation between knowledge and practice, between knowing and doing”. Here, “Practice” connects "contradiction" with "class struggle" in the following way: Inside a mode of production, there are three realms where practice functions: economic production, scientific experimentation (which also takes place in economic production and should not be radically disconnected from the former) and finally, class struggle. These may be considered the proper objects of economy, scientific knowledge, and politics.^[18]

These three spheres deal with matter in its various forms, socially mediated. As a result, they are the only realms where knowledge may arise (since truth and knowledge only make sense in relation to matter, according to Marxist epistemology). Mao emphasizes—like Marx in trying to confront the "bourgeoisie idealism" of his time—that knowledge must be based on empirical evidence.

Knowledge results from hypotheses verified in the contrast with a real object; this real object, despite being mediated by the subject’s theoretical frame, retains its materiality and will offer resistance to those ideas that do not conform to its truth. Thus, in each of these realms (economic, scientific and political practice), contradictions (principle and secondary) must be identified, explored and put to function to achieve the communist goal. This involves the need to know, "scientifically", how the masses produce (how they live, think, and work), to obtain knowledge of how class struggle (the main contradiction that articulates a mode of production, in its various realms) expresses itself.

People's war[link]

Maoism's political orientation emphasizes the "revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structures", which Mao termed a "People's War". Usually involving peasants, its military strategies have involved guerrilla war tactics focused on surrounding the cities from the countryside, with a heavy emphasis on political transformation through mass involvement of the lower classes of society.

Agrarian socialism[link]

Maoism departs from conventional European-inspired Marxism in that its focus is on the agrarian countryside, rather than the industrial urban forces. This is known as Agrarian socialism. Notably, Maoist parties in Peru, Nepal and Philippines have adopted equal stresses on urban and rural areas, depending on the country's focus of economic activity. Maoism broke with the state capitalist framework of the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev and dismisses it as modern revisionism, a traditional pejorative term among communists referring to those who fight for capitalism in the name of socialism.

New Democratic revolution[link]

The theory of the New Democracy was known to the Chinese revolutionaries from the late 40’s. This thesis held that for the majority of the peoples of the planet, the long road to socialism could only be opened by a ‘national, popular, democratic, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution [the language of the day], run by the communists.'^[19]

And in the context of New Democratic revolution, the rationality of such economic policies as to destroy feudalism on the basis of land to the tiller, to confiscate all foreign and domestic economic establishments with a monopolistic character and to limit, control and guide private capital that do not control public life, have been proved in practice.^[20]

Mao's intellectual Marxist development[link]

Mao’s” Intellectual” Marxist development can be divided into five major periods: (1) The Initial Marxist Period from 1920–1926; (2) the formative Maoist period from 1927–1935; (3) the mature Maoism period from 1935–1940; (4) the civil war period from 1940–1949; and (5) the post-1949 period, following the revolutionary victory.

1. The Initial Marxist Period from 1920–1926: Marxist thinking employs imminent socioeconomic explanations; Mao’s reasons were declarations of his enthusiasm. Mao did not believe education alone would bring about the transition from capitalism to communism because of three main reasons. (1) Psychologically: the capitalists would not repent and turn towards communist on their own; (2) the rulers must be overthrown by the people; (3) “the proletarians are discontented, and a demand for communism has arisen and had already become a fact.”^[21] These reasons do not provide socioeconomic explanations, which usually forms the core of Marxist ideology.
2. The Formative Maoist Period from 1927–1935: In this period, Mao avoided all theoretical implications in his literature and employed a minimum of Marxist category thought. His writings in this period failed to elaborate what he meant by the “Marxist method of political and class analysis”.^[22] Prior to this period, Mao was concerned with the dichotomy between knowledge and action. Now, he was more concerned with the dichotomy between revolutionary ideology and counter-revolutionary objective conditions. There was more correlation drawn between China and the Soviet model.
3. The Mature Maoist Period from 1935–1940: Intellectually, this was Mao’s most fruitful time. The shift of orientation was apparent in his pamphlet “Strategic Problems of China’s Revolutionary War” (Dec, 1936). “This pamphlet tried to provide a theoretical veneer for his concern with revolutionary practice.”^[23] Mao started to separate from the Soviet Model since it was not automatically applicable to China. China’s historical particularism viewed through Marxist eyes served as the link between the Marxist process and China.
4. The Civil-War Period from 1940-1949: Unlike the Mature period, this period was intellectually barren. Mao focused more on revolutionary practice and paid less attention to Marxist theory. “He continued to emphasize theory as practice-oriented knowledge.”^[24] The biggest topic of theory he delved into was in connection with the cheng-feng movement of 1942. It was here that Mao summarized the correlation between Marxist theory and Chinese practice; “The target is the Chinese revolution, the arrow is Marxism-Leninism. We Chinese communists seek this arrow for no other purpose than to hit the target of the Chinese revolution and the revolution of the east.”^[24] The only new emphasis was Mao’s concern with two types of subjectivist deviation: 1) Dogmatism, the excessive reliance upon abstract theory; 2) Empiricism, excessive dependence on experience.
5. The post-1949 period, following the revolutionary victory: The victory of 1949 was a conformation of theory and practice. “Optimism is the keynote to Mao’s intellectual orientation in the post-1949 period.”^[25] Mao assertively revised theory to relate it to the new practice of socialist construction. These revisions are apparent in the 1951 version of “On Contradiction”. “In the 1930’s, when Mao talked about contradiction, he meant the contradiction between subjective thought and objective reality. In “Dialectal Materialism” of 1940, he saw idealism and materialism as two possible correlations between subjective thought and objective reality. In the 1940s he introduced no new elements into his understanding of the subject-object contradiction. Now, in the 1951 version of “On Contradiction”, he saw contradiction as a universal principle underlying all processes of development, yet with each contradiction possessed of its own particularity."^[26]

Departure from Leninism[link]

Mao departed from Leninism not only in his near-total disinterest in the urban working class but also in his concept of the nature and role of the Party. For Lenin, the Party was sacrosanct because it was the incarnation of the "proletarian consciousness," and there was no question about who were the teachers and who were the pupils. For Mao, on the other hand, this question would always be virtually impossible to answer.^[27]

Post-revolution[link]

In its post-revolutionary period, Mao Zedong's thought is defined in the CPC's Constitution as "Marxism-Leninism applied in a Chinese context", synthesized by Mao Zedong and China's "first-generation leaders". It asserts that class struggle continues even if the proletariat has already overthrown the bourgeoisie, and there are capitalist restorationist elements within the Communist Party itself. Maoism provided the CPC's first comprehensive theoretical guideline with regards to how to continue socialist revolution, the creation of a socialist society, socialist military construction, and highlights various contradictions in society to be addressed by what is termed "socialist construction". While it continues to be lauded to be the major force that defeated "imperialism and feudalism" and created a "New China" by the Communist Party of China, the ideology survives only in name on the Communist Party's Constitution; Deng Xiaoping abolished most Maoist practices in 1978, advancing a guiding ideology called "Socialism with Chinese characteristics.^[28]

Maoism after Mao[link]

This article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. Please help improve the article with a good introductory style. (March 2009)

People's Republic of China

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of People's Republic of China

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Shortly after Mao's death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping started the capitalist reforms of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1978 beginning the radical change of Mao's ideology in the PRC.^[29] Although Mao Zedong Thought nominally remains the state ideology, Deng's admonition to seek truth from facts means that state policies are judged on their practical consequences; the role of ideology in determining policy, in many areas, has thus been considerably reduced. Deng also separated Mao from Maoism, making it clear that Mao was fallible and hence that the truth of Maoism comes from observing social consequences rather than by using Mao's quotations as holy writ, as was done in Mao's lifetime.^[30]

In addition, the party constitution has been rewritten to give the capitalist ideas of Deng Xiaoping prominence over those of Mao. One consequence of this is that groups outside China which describe themselves as Maoist generally regard China as having repudiated Maoism and restored capitalism, and there is a wide perception both in and out of China that China has abandoned Maoism. However, while it is now permissible to question particular actions of Mao and to talk about excesses taken in the name of Maoism, there is a prohibition in China on either publicly questioning the validity of Maoism or questioning whether the current actions of the CPC are "Maoist."

Although Mao Zedong Thought is still listed as one of the four cardinal principles of the People's Republic of China, its historical role has been re-assessed. The Communist Party now says that Maoism was necessary to break China free from its feudal past, but that the actions of Mao are seen to have led to excesses during the Cultural Revolution.^[30]

The official view is that China has now reached an economic and political stage, known as the primary stage of socialism, in which China faces new and different problems completely unforeseen by Mao, and as such the solutions that Mao advocated are no longer relevant to China's current conditions. The official proclamation of the new CPC stand came in June 1981, when the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh National Party Congress Central Committee took place. The 35,000-word "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" reads:

"Mao Zedong is the Chinese people's savior!", an old slogan painted on the brick wall of a Chinese Buddhist Temple

"Chief responsibility for the grave 'Left' error of the 'cultural revolution,' an error comprehensive in magnitude and protracted in duration, does indeed lie with Comrade Mao Zedong . . . . [and] far from making a correct analysis of many problems, he confused right and wrong and the people with the enemy. . . . Herein lies his tragedy."^[31]

Both Maoist critics^[who?] outside China and most Western commentators^[who?] see this re-working of the definition of Maoism as providing an ideological justification for what they see as the restoration of the essentials of capitalism in China by Deng and his successors. In 1978 this led to the Sino-Albanian Split when Albanian leader Enver Hoxha denounced Deng as a revisionist and formed Hoxhaism as an anti-revisionist form of Marxism.

Mao himself is officially regarded by the CPC as a "great revolutionary leader" for his role in fighting the Japanese and creating the People's Republic of China, but Maoism as implemented between 1959 and 1976 is regarded by today's CPC as an economic and political disaster. In Deng's day, support of radical Maoism was regarded as a form of "left deviationism" and being based on a cult of personality, although these 'errors' are officially attributed to the Gang of Four rather than to Mao himself.^{[citation needed]} Thousands of Maoists were arrested in the Hua Guofeng period after 1976, with prominent Maoists sentenced to death.^{[citation needed]}

Maoism internationally[link]

Maoism outside China[link]

From 1962 onwards, the challenge to the Soviet hegemony in the World Communist Movement made by the CPC resulted in various divisions in communist parties around the world. At an early stage,^{[citation needed]} the Albanian Party of Labour sided with the CPC. So did many of the mainstream (non-splinter group) communist parties in South-East Asia, like the Burmese Communist Party, Communist Party of Thailand, and Communist Party of Indonesia. Some Asian parties, like the Workers Party of Vietnam and the Workers Party of Korea attempted to take a middle-ground position.

The Khmer Rouge of Cambodia is said to have been a replica of the Maoist regime. According to BBC The Communist Party of Kampuchea (Cambodia), better known as the "Khmer Rouge", identified strongly with Maoism, and is generally labeled a "Maoist" movement today.^[32][33] Maoists, however, are quick to point out that the CPK strongly deviated from Marxist doctrine, and that the few references to Maoist China in CPK propaganda were critical of the Chinese.^[34]

In the west and south, a plethora of parties and organizations were formed that upheld links to the CPC. Often they took names such as Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) or Revolutionary Communist Party to distinguish themselves from the traditional pro-Soviet communist parties. The pro-CPC movements were, in many cases, based among the wave of student radicalism that engulfed the world in the 1960s and 1970s.

Only one Western classic communist party sided with CPC, the Communist Party of New Zealand. Under the leadership of CPC and Mao Zedong, a parallel international communist movement emerged to rival that of the Soviets, although it was never as formalized and homogeneous as the pro-Soviet tendency.

After the death of Mao in 1976 and the resulting power-struggles in China that followed, the international Maoist movement was divided into three camps. One group, composed of various ideologically nonaligned groups, gave weak support to the new Chinese leadership under Deng Xiaoping. Another camp denounced the new leadership as traitors to the cause of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. The third camp sided with the Albanians in denouncing the Three Worlds Theory of the CPC (see Sino-Albanian Split.)

Che Guevara, though initially praising the Soviet Union prior to, during and shortly after the Cuban Revolution, later came out in support of Maoism, and advocated the adoption of the ideology throughout Latin America. The pro-Albanian camp would start to function as an international group as well,^[35] led by Enver Hoxha and the APL, and was also able to amalgamate many of the communist groups in Latin America, including the Communist Party of Brazil and Marxist-Leninist Communist Party in Ecuador. Later Latin American Communists such as Peru's Shining Path also embraced the tenets of Maoism.

The new Chinese leadership showed little interest in the various foreign groups supporting Mao's China. Many of the foreign parties that were fraternal parties aligned with the Chinese government before 1975 either disbanded, abandoned the new Chinese government entirely, or even renounced Marxism-Leninism and developed into non-communist, social democratic parties. What is today called the "international Maoist movement" evolved out of the second camp – the parties that opposed Deng and claimed to uphold the legacy of Mao.

India[link]

• Maoism in India

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is a Maoist political party in India which aims to overthrow the government of India.^[36] It was founded on September 21, 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCC). The merger was announced to the public on October 14 the same year. In the merger a provisional central committee was constituted, with the erstwhile People's War Group leader Muppala Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathi as General Secretary. It is currently proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Indian government for organizing mass killings in furtherance of their ideology.

Nepal[link]

The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), a national communist party with a revolutionary background, is a follower of Maoism, although it is believed that the party has developed its own ideology, Prachanda Path, which was developed taking Nepal's political, sociological and geographical constraints into consideration. Still, this party is believed to have taken Maoism as its doctrine as its name suggests.

Norway[link]

In Norway, the maoism of the ml-movement (ml-bevegelsen) was described in the 2012 movie by Wong Men Hoi, The East is Red.^[37]

United States[link]

In the United States, the Black Panther Party, especially Huey Newton, was profoundly influenced by Maoist thought.

In the USA the Kasama Project (KP), was initiated by former RCP USA members critical of what they viewed as the dogmatism and cult of personality of RCP USA. KP describes itself as seeking to radically re-imagine contemporary revolutionary politics. It is deeply influenced by Maoist thought, in particular as developed by the RCP USA, but claims members who arrive from other traditions, such as anarchism.

Spain[link]

The Communist Unification of Spain is an independent party that follows Marxist-Leninism and Maoism.

Somalia[link]

In Africa, Siad Barre's regime in Somalia is often cited as being pro-Maoist, as it sided with the People's Republic of China during the Sino-Soviet split and, as such, China provided support to the regime during its war with the pro-Soviet nations of Ethiopia, Cuba and South Yemen.

Maoist organizations[link]

Today, there is no consensus on who does and who does not represent Maoism. Various efforts have sought to regroup the international communist movement under Maoism since the time of Mao's death in 1976.

One notable organization was the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM). RIM was founded in 1984 and included such notable organizations as the Communist Party of Peru (PCP), also known as "Sendero Luminoso" or "Shining Path," the then Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), now known as the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) UCPN(M), and the Revolutionary Communist Party USA (RCP(USA)). Today, the RIM appears to be defunct or near defunct. The magazine associated with the RIM, A World To Win, has not published an issue since 2006, though A World To Win News Service still publishes regularly on the internet.^[38]

In addition, many of the one-time RIM organizations have become increasingly critical of each other. This has resulted in many public splits. For example, recently the RCP USA has criticized the UCPN(M) as revisionist after the UCPN(M) abandoned its people's war for the parliamentary road. In addition, Red Sun, a web page that claims to be affiliated with some faction the Communist Party of Peru, has criticized both the UCPN(M) and RCP USA. Another movement that has criticized the UCPN(M) is the Communist Party of India (Maoist) -- although they were never formally a RIM member, the CPI(Maoist) was formed out of three organizations, some of which were RIM members, at conferences organized by RIM.^[39][40]

Another effort at regrouping the international communist movement is the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO). Two notable parties that participate in the ICMLPO are the Marxist Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The ICMLPO seeks to unity around Marxism-Leninism, not Maoism. However, some of the parties and organizations within the ICMLPO identify as Mao Zedong Thought or Maoist.

Criticisms and interpretations[link]

Maoism has fallen out of favour within the Communist Party of China, beginning with Deng Xiaoping's reforms in 1978. Deng believed that Maoism showed the dangers of "ultra-leftism", manifested in the harm perpetrated by the various mass movements that characterized the Maoist era. In Chinese Communism, the term "left" can be taken as a euphemism for Maoist policies. However, Deng stated that the revolutionary side of Maoism should be considered separate from the governance side, leading to his famous epithet that Mao was "70% good, 30% bad". China scholars generally agree that Deng's interpretation of Maoism preserves the legitimacy of Communist rule in China but at the same time criticizes Mao's brand of economic and political governance.

Critic Graham Young claims that Maoists see Joseph Stalin as the last true socialist leader of the Soviet Union, but allows that the Maoist assessments of Stalin vary between the extremely positive and the more ambivalent.^[41] Some political philosophers, such as Martin Cohen, have seen in Maoism an attempt to combine Confucianism and Socialism - what one such called 'a third way between communism and capitalism'.^[42]

Enver Hoxha critiqued Maoism from a Marxist-Leninist perspective, arguing that new democracy halts class struggle, the theory of the three worlds is "counter-revolutionary" and questioned Mao's guerilla warfare methods.

See also[link]

• Chinese New Left
• Cult of Personality
• Deng Xiaoping Theory
• History of the People's Republic of China
• New Democracy
• Three Represents
• Quotations from Chairman Mao

External to China:

• Communist Party of India (Maoist)
• Guevarism
• Naxalite
• Naxalite-Maoist insurgency

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Marxism in the Chinese Revolution by Arif Dirlik
• Rethinking Mao: Explorations in Mao Zedong's Thought by Nick Knight
• The Function of "China" in Marx, Lenin, and Mao by Donald Lowe
• Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism by Maurice Meisner
• Mao’s China and After by Maurice Mesiner
• The Political Thought of Mao Tse-Tung by Stuart Schram
• Mao Tse-Tung, The Marxist Lord of Misrule. On Practice and Contradiction by Slavoj Zizek

External links[link]

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General[link]

Selected organizations[link]

Revolutions[link]

Pol Pot
Pol Pot in 1978
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea
In office February 1963 – 1981 (party dissolved)
Deputy	Nuon Chea (as vice-secretary)
Preceded by	Tou Samouth
Succeeded by	None (party dissolved)
Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea
In office 14 April 1976 – 27 September 1976
President	Khieu Samphan
Preceded by	Khieu Samphan
Succeeded by	Nuon Chea
In office 25 October 1976 – January 7, 1979
President	Khieu Samphan Religion: None
Preceded by	Nuon Chea
Succeeded by	Pen Sovan
Personal details
Born	(1925-05-19)19 May 1925[1][2] Kampong Thom Province, French Indochina
Died	15 April 1998(1998-04-15) (aged 72) Anlong Veng, Kingdom of Cambodia
Political party	Communist Party of Kampuchea
Spouse(s)	1) Khieu Ponnary (div.) 2) Mea Son

This article contains Khmer text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Khmer script.

Saloth Sar (19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998),^[1][2] better known as Pol Pot (Khmer: ប៉ុល ពត), was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge^[3] from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. From 1976 to 1979, he also served as the prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea. Pol Pot became leader of Cambodia on April 17, 1975.^[4] During his time in power he imposed agrarian socialism, forcing urban dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects. The combined effects of forced labor, malnutrition, poor medical care, and executions resulted in the deaths of approximately 21% of the Cambodian population.^[5] In all, an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people (out of a population of slightly over 8 million) died as a result of the policies of his three-year premiership.^[6][7][8]

In 1979, after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, Pol Pot fled to the jungles of southwest Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge government collapsed.^[9] From 1979 to 1997, he and a remnant of the old Khmer Rouge operated near the border of Cambodia and Thailand, where they clung to power, with nominal United Nations recognition as the rightful government of Cambodia. Pol Pot died in 1998 while under house arrest by the Ta Mok faction of the Khmer Rouge. Since his death, rumours that he was poisoned have persisted.^[10]

Biography[link]

Early life (1925–61)[link]

Prek Sbauv, birthplace of Pol Pot.

Saloth Sar was born on May 19, 1925—the eighth of nine children,^[11] and the second of three sons. He was from a moderately wealthy family of Sino-Khmer descent^[12][13] living in the small fishing village of Prek Sbauv, Kampong Thom Province during the French colonialism of the area. In 1935, Sar left Prek Sbauv to attend the École Miche, a Catholic school in Phnom Penh. His sister Roeung was a concubine of King Sisowath Monivong, so he often visited the royal palace.^[14] In 1947, he gained admission to the exclusive Lycée Sisowath, but was unsuccessful in his studies.

Paris[link]

After switching to a technical school at Russey Keo, north of Phnom Penh, Saloth Sar qualified for a scholarship for technical studies in France. He studied radio electronics at the EFR in Paris from 1949 to 1953. He also participated in an international labour brigade building roads in Zagreb in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1950. After the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh as the government of Vietnam in 1950, French Communists (PCF) took up the cause of Vietnam's independence. The PCF's anti-colonialism views attracted many young Cambodians, including Sar.

In 1951, he joined a communist cell in a secret organization known as the Cercle Marxiste ("Marxist circle") which had taken control of the Khmer Student's Association (AER) that same year. Within a few months, Saloth joined the PCF. His poor academic record was a considerable advantage within the anti-intellectual PCF who saw uneducated peasants as the true proletariat.^{[citation needed]}

Return[link]

As a result of failing his exams in three successive years, Sar was forced to return to Cambodia in January 1953. He was the first member of the Cercle Marxiste to return to Cambodia. He was given the task of evaluating the various groups rebelling against the government. He recommended the Khmer Viet Minh,^{[clarification needed]} and in August 1954, Sar, along with Rath Samoeun, travelled to the Viet Minh Eastern Zone headquarters in the village of Krabao in the Kampong Cham Province/Prey Veng Province near the border of Cambodia.

Sar learned that the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP) was little more than a Vietnamese front organization. Due to the 1954 Geneva peace accord, requiring all Viet Minh forces and insurgents be expelled, a group of Cambodians followed the Vietnamese back to Vietnam (as cadres Vietnam would use in a future war to liberate Cambodia). The rest, including Sar, returned to Cambodia.

After Cambodian independence following the 1954 Geneva Conference, both left and right wing parties struggled for power in the new government. Khmer King Norodom Sihanouk pitted the parties against each other while using the police and army to suppress extreme political groups. Corrupt elections in 1955 led many leftists in Cambodia to abandon hope of taking power by legal means. The communist movement, while ideologically committed to guerrilla warfare in such circumstances, did not launch a rebellion due to the party's weakness.

After his return to Phnom Penh, Sar became the liaison between the above-ground leftist parties (Democrats and Pracheachon) and the underground communist movement. He married Khieu Ponnary on July 14, 1956. She returned to Lycée Sisowath, becoming a teacher, while Sar taught French literature and history at Chamraon Vichea, a newly established private college.^[15]

The path to rebellion (1962–68)[link]

In January 1962, the Cambodian government arrested most of the leadership of the far-left Pracheachon party before parliamentary elections, which were to take place that June. Their newspapers and other publications were closed. Such measures effectively ended any legitimate political role of the communist movement in Cambodia. In July 1962, the underground communist party secretary Tou Samouth was arrested and later killed while in custody, allowing Sar to become the acting leader. At a 1963 party meeting, attended by at most 18 people, Sar was elected secretary of the party's central committee. That March, Saloth went into hiding after his name was published in a list of leftist suspects put together by the police for Norodom Sihanouk. He fled to the Vietnamese border region and made contact with Vietnamese units fighting against South Vietnam.

In early 1964, Sar convinced the Vietnamese to help the Cambodian communists set up their own base camp. The party's central committee met later that year and issued a declaration calling for armed struggle, emphasizing "self-reliance" in accordance with extreme Cambodians. In the border camps, the ideology of the Khmer Rouge was gradually developed. The party, breaking with Marxism, declared that rural peasant farmers were the true working class proletarian and lifeblood of the revolution. This is, in some sense, explained by the fact that none of the central committee were in any sense "working class." All of them had grown up in a feudal peasant society.

After another wave of repression by Sihanouk in 1965, the Khmer Rouge movement under Saloth grew at a rapid rate. Many teachers and students left the cities to the countryside to join the movement.

In April 1965, Sar went to North Vietnam to gain approval for an uprising in Cambodia against the government. North Vietnam refused to support any uprising due to ongoing negotiation with the Cambodian government. Sihanouk promised to allow the Vietnamese to use Cambodian territory and Cambodian ports in their war against South Vietnam.

After returning to Cambodia in 1966, Sar organized a party meeting where a number of important decisions were made. The party was officially, but secretly, renamed the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). Lower ranks of the party were not informed of the decision. It was also decided to establish command zones and prepare each region for an uprising against the government.

In early 1966, fighting broke out in the countryside between peasants and the government over the price paid for rice. Sar's Khmer Rouge was caught by surprise by the uprisings and was unable to take any real advantage of them. But the government's refusal to find a peaceful solution to the problem created rural unrest that played into the hands of the Communist movement.

It was not until early 1967 that Sar decided to launch a national uprising, even after North Vietnam refused to assist it in any meaningful way. The uprising was launched on January 18, 1968 with a raid on an army base south of Battambang. The Battambang area had already seen two years of great peasant unrest. The attack was driven off by the army, but the Khmer Rouge had captured a number of weapons, which were then used to drive police forces out of Cambodian villages.

By the summer of 1968, Sar began transitioning from a party leader working with a collective leadership, into the absolutist leader of the Khmer Rouge movement. Where before he had shared communal quarters with other leaders, he now had his own compound with a personal staff and guards. Outsiders were no longer allowed to approach him. Rather, people were summoned into his presence by his staff.

The path to power (1969–75)[link]

The movement was estimated to consist of no more than 200 regular members, but the core of the movement was supported by a number of villagers many times that size. While weapons were in short supply, the insurgency was still able to operate in twelve of nineteen districts of Cambodia. In 1969 Sar called a party conference and decided on a change in the propaganda strategy. Prior to 1969, opposition to Sihanouk was the main focus of their propaganda. However, the party decided to shift the propaganda against the right-wing parties of Cambodia and their alleged pro-American attitudes. While the party ceased making anti-Sihanouk public statements, in private the party had not changed its view of him.

The road to power for Sar and the Khmer Rouge was opened by the events of January 1970 in Cambodia. Sihanouk, while out of the country, ordered the government to stage anti-Vietnamese protests in the capital. The protesters quickly went out of control and wrecked the embassies of both North and South Vietnam. Sihanouk, who had ordered the protests, then denounced them from Paris and blamed unnamed individuals in Cambodia for them. These actions, along with intrigues by Sihanouk's followers in Cambodia, convinced the government that he should be removed as head of state. The National Assembly voted to remove Sihanouk from office. Afterward, the government closed Cambodia's ports to Vietnamese weapons traffic and demanded that the Vietnamese leave Cambodia.

The North Vietnamese reacted to the political changes in Cambodia by sending Premier Phạm Văn Đồng to meet Sihanouk in China and recruit him into an alliance with the Khmer Rouge. Sar was also contacted by the Vietnamese who now offered him whatever resources he wanted for his insurgency against the Cambodian government. Sar and Sihanouk were actually in Beijing at the same time but the Vietnamese and Chinese leaders never informed Sihanouk of the presence of Saloth or allowed the two men to meet. Shortly after, Sihanouk issued an appeal by radio to the people of Cambodia to rise up against the government and support the Khmer Rouge. In May 1970, Saloth finally returned to Cambodia and the pace of the insurgency greatly increased.

Earlier, on March 29, 1970, the Vietnamese had taken matters into their own hands and launched an offensive against the Cambodian army. A force of 50 Vietnamese quickly overran large parts of eastern Cambodia reaching to within 15 miles (24 km) of Phnom Penh before being pushed back. In these battles the Khmer Rouge and Saloth played a very small role.

In October 1970, Sar issued a resolution in the name of the Central Committee. The resolution stated the principle of independence mastery which was a call for Cambodia to decide its own future independent of the influence of any other country. The resolution also included statements describing the betrayal of the Cambodian Communist movement in the 1950s by the Viet Minh. This was the first statement of the anti-Vietnamese/self sufficiency at all costs ideology that would be a part of the Pol Pot regime when it took power years later.

Through 1971, the Vietnamese (North Vietnamese and Viet Cong) did most of the fighting against the Cambodian government while Sar and the Khmer Rouge functioned almost as auxiliaries to their forces. Sar took advantage of the situation to gather in new recruits and to train them to a higher standard than previously was possible. Sar also put resources of Khmer Rouge organizations into political education and indoctrination. While accepting anyone regardless of background into the Khmer Rouge army at this time, Saloth greatly increased the requirements for membership in the party. Students and so-called middle peasants were now rejected by the party. Those with clear peasant backgrounds were the preferred recruits for party membership. These restrictions were ironic in that most of the senior party leadership including Saloth came from student and middle peasant backgrounds. They also created an intellectual split between the educated old guard party members and the uneducated peasant new party members.

In early 1972, Sar toured the insurgent/Vietnamese controlled areas in Cambodia. He saw a regular Khmer Rouge army of 35,000 men taking shape supported by around 100,000 irregulars. China was supplying five million dollars a year in weapons and Sar had organized an independent revenue source for the party in the form of rubber plantations in eastern Cambodia using forced labour.

The Khmer Rouge also used the massive U.S bombings of villages in Eastern Cambodia, where over two million tons of bombs were dropped during Operation Menu, to aid in their recruitment of members.

After a central committee meeting in May 1972, the party under the direction of Sar began to enforce new levels of discipline and conformity in areas under their control. Minorities such as the Chams were forced to conform to Cambodian styles of dress and appearance. These policies, such as forbidding the Chams from wearing jewelry, were soon extended to the whole population. A haphazard version of land reform was undertaken by Saloth. Its basis was that all land holdings should be of uniform size. The party also confiscated all private means of transportation at this time. The 1972 policies were aimed at reducing the peoples of the liberated areas to a sort of feudal peasant equality. These policies were generally favourable at the time to poor peasants and extremely unfavourable to refugees from towns who had fled to the countryside.

In 1972, the Vietnamese army forces began to withdraw from the fighting against the Cambodian government. Sar issued a new set of decrees in May 1973 which started the process of reorganizing peasant villages into cooperatives where property was jointly owned and individual possessions banned.

Control of the countryside[link]

The Khmer Rouge advanced during 1973. After they reached the edges of Phnom Penh, Sar issued orders during the peak of the rainy season that the city be taken. The orders led to futile attacks and wasted lives among the Khmer Rouge army. By the middle of 1973, the Khmer Rouge under Sar controlled almost two-thirds of the country and half the population. Vietnam realized that it no longer controlled the situation and began to treat Saloth as more of an equal leader than a junior partner.

In late 1973, Sar made strategic decisions about the future of the war. His first decision was to cut the capital off from contact from outside supply and effectively put the city under siege. The second decision was to enforce tight command on people trying to leave the city through the Khmer Rouge lines. He also ordered a series of general purges. Former government officials, along with anyone with an education, were singled out in the purges. A set of new prisons was also constructed in Khmer Rouge run areas. The Cham minority attempted an uprising to stop the destruction of their culture. The uprising was quickly crushed, Saloth ordered that harsh physical torture be used against most of those involved in the revolt. As previously, Saloth tested out harsh new policies against the Cham minority, before extending them to the general population of the country.

The Khmer Rouge also had a policy of evacuating urban areas to the countryside. When the Khmer Rouge took the town of Kratie in 1971, Saloth and other members of the party were shocked at how fast the liberated urban areas shook off socialism and went back to the old ways. Various ideas were tried to re-create the town in the image of the party, but nothing worked. In 1973, out of total frustration, Saloth decided that the only solution was to send the entire population of the town to the fields in the countryside. He wrote at the time "if the result of so many sacrifices was that the capitalists remain in control, what was the point of the revolution?". Shortly after, Sar ordered the evacuation of the 15,000 people of Kompong Cham for the same reasons. The Khmer Rouge then moved on in 1974 to evacuate the larger city of Oudong.

Internationally, Sar and the Khmer Rouge were able to gain the recognition of 63 countries as the true government of Cambodia. A move was made at the UN to give the seat for Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge, they prevailed by three votes.

In September 1974, Sar gathered the central committee of the party together. As the military campaign was moving toward a conclusion, Saloth decided to move the party toward implementing a socialist transformation of the country in the form of a series of decisions. The first being to evacuate the main cities, moving the population to the countryside. The second dictated they would cease to put money in circulation and quickly phase it out. The final decision was that the party would accept Sar's first major purge. In 1974, Saloth had purged a top party official named Prasith. Prasith was taken out into a forest and shot without any chance to defend himself. His death was followed by a purge of cadres who, like Prasith, were ethnically Thai. Sar's explanation was that the class struggle had become acute, requiring a strong stand against party enemies.

The Khmer Rouge were positioned for a final offensive against the government in January 1975. Simultaneously, at a press event in Beijing, Sihanouk proudly announced Sar's "death list" of enemies to kill after victory. The list, which originally contained seven names expanded to 23, including all the senior government leaders along with the military and police leadership. The rivalry between Vietnam and Cambodia also came out into the open. North Vietnam, as the rival socialist country in Indochina, was determined to take Saigon before the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh. Shipments of weapons from China were delayed, in one instance the Cambodians were forced to sign a humiliating document thanking Vietnam for shipments of Chinese weapons.

In September 1975, the government formed a Supreme National Council with new leadership, with the aim of negotiating a surrender to the Khmer Rouge. It was headed by Sak Sutsakhan who had studied in France with Saloth, and was cousin to the Khmer Rouge Deputy Secretary Nuon Chea. Saloth reacted to this by adding the names of everyone involved to his post-victory death list. Government resistance finally collapsed on September 17, 1975.

Leader of Kampuchea (1975–79)[link]

Skulls of Khmer Rouge victims

Mass grave in Choeung Ek

The Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. As the leader of the Communist Party, Saloth Sar was the designated leader of the new regime. He took the name "brother number one" and declared his nom de guerre Pol Pot. This derives from Politique potentielle, the French equivalent of a phrase supposedly coined for him by the Chinese leadership. An alternative version of the origin of Pol Pot's name is from Philip Short, who states that Saloth Sar announced that he was adopting the name in July 1970 and suspects that it is derived from pol: “the Pols were royal slaves, an aboriginal people,” and that “Pot” was simply a “euphonic monosyllable” that he liked.^[16]

A new constitution was adopted on January 5, 1976, officially altering the country's name to "Democratic Kampuchea." The newly established Representative Assembly held its first plenary meeting on April 11 – 13, electing a new government with Pol Pot as prime minister. His predecessor, Khieu Samphan was instead given the position of head of state as President of the State Presidium. Prince Sihanouk was given no role in the government and was placed under detention.

Immediately after the fall of Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge began to implement their concept of Year Zero and ordered the complete evacuation of Phnom Penh and all other recently captured major towns and cities. Those leaving were told that the evacuation was due to the threat of severe American bombing and it would last for no more than a few days.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had been evacuating captured urban areas for many years, but the evacuation of Phnom Penh was unique due to its scale. The first operations to evacuate urban areas occurred in 1968 in the Ratanakiri area and were aimed at moving people deeper into Khmer Rouge territory to better control them. From 1971–1973, the motivation changed. Pol Pot and the other senior leaders were frustrated that urban Cambodians were retaining old habits of trade and business. When all other methods had failed, evacuation to the countryside was adopted to solve the problem.

In 1976, people were reclassified as full-rights (base) people, candidates and depositees – so called because they included most of the new people who had been deposited from the cities into the communes. Depositees were marked for destruction. Their rations were reduced to two bowls of rice soup, or "p'baw" per day. This led to widespread starvation. "New people" were allegedly given no place in the elections taking place on March 20, 1976, despite the fact the constitution supposedly established universal suffrage for all Cambodians over age 18.

The Khmer Rouge leadership boasted over the state-controlled radio that only one or two million people were needed to build the new agrarian communist utopia. As for the others, as their proverb put it, "To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss."^[17]

Hundreds of thousands of the new people, and later the depositees, were taken out in shackles to dig their own mass graves. Then the Khmer Rouge soldiers beat them to death with iron bars and hoes, or buried them alive. A Khmer Rouge extermination prison directive ordered, "Bullets are not to be wasted." These mass graves are often referred to as The Killing Fields.

Photos of the victims of the Khmer Rouge, Tuol Sleng

The Khmer Rouge also classified people by religion and ethnic group. They banned all religion and dispersed minority groups, forbidding them to speak their languages or to practice their customs. They especially targeted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Christians, Western-educated intellectuals, educated people in general, people who had contact with Western countries or with Vietnam, disabled people, and the ethnic Chinese, Laotians and Vietnamese. Some were put in the S-21 camp for interrogation involving torture in cases where a confession was useful to the government. Many others were summarily executed. Confessions forced at S-21 were extracted from prisoners through such methods as raising prisoners by their arms tied behind and dislocating shoulders, removing toenails with pliers, suffocating a prisoner repeatedly and skinning a person while alive.^[18]

According to François Ponchaud's book Cambodia: Year Zero, "Ever since 1972, the guerrilla fighters had been sending all the inhabitants of the villages and towns they occupied into the forest to live and often burning their homes, so that they would have nothing to come back to." The Khmer Rouge refused offers of humanitarian aid, a decision that caused a humanitarian catastrophe: millions died of starvation and brutal government-inflicted overwork in the countryside. To the Khmer Rouge, outside aid went against their principle of national self-reliance.

Property became collective, and education was dispensed at communal schools. Children were raised on a communal basis. Even meals were prepared and eaten communally. Pol Pot's regime was extremely paranoid. Political dissent and opposition was not permitted. People were treated as opponents based on their appearance or background. Torture was widespread, thousands of politicians and bureaucrats accused of association with previous governments were executed. Phnom Penh was turned into a ghost city, while people in the countryside were dying of starvation, illnesses, or simply killed.

U.S. officials had predicted that more than one million people would be killed by the Khmer Rouge if they took power,^[19] and President Gerald Ford had warned of "an unbelievable horror story."^[20] Different estimates as to the number killed by the Khmer Rouge regime vary from 750,000 to over three million. Analysis of 20,000 mass grave sites by the DC-Cam Mapping Program and Yale University indicate at least 1,386,734 victims.^[21] Estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a population of around 8 million.^[22][23]. A figure of 3 million deaths between 1975 and 1979 was given by the People's Republic of Kampuchea. François Ponchaud suggested 2.3 million, R.J. Rummel 2.4 million (counting democide in the civil wars), the Yale Cambodian Genocide Project 1.7 million, and Amnesty International 1.4 million. Demographer Marek Sliwinski concluded that at least 1.8 million were killed from 1975–9 on the basis of the total population decline, compared to roughly 40,000 killed by the U.S. bombing.^[24] Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia suggests that the death toll was between 2 and 2.5 million, with a "most likely" figure of 2.2 million. After five years of researching some 20,000 grave sites, he concludes that, "these mass graves contain the remains of 1,386,734 victims of execution."^[25] Execution is believed to have accounted for about 30–50 percent of the death toll. This would indicate 2.5 to 3 million deaths, but normal mortality over this period would have accounted for about 500,000 deaths — subtracting this from the total sum, we arrive at Etcheson's range for the number of "excess" deaths attributable to the Khmer Rouge regime.^[25] A U.N. investigation reported 2–3 million dead, while UNICEF estimated 3 million had been killed.^[26] Even the Khmer Rouge acknowledged that 2 million had been killed—though they attributed those deaths to a subsequent Vietnamese invasion.^[27] By late 1979, U.N. and Red Cross officials were warning that another 2.25 million Cambodians faced death by starvation due to “the near destruction of Cambodian society under the regime of ousted Prime Minister Pol Pot,”^[28] who were saved by American and international aid after the Vietnamese invasion. It is estimated that at least half a million more were starved to death or slaughtered after the invasion from Vietnam.^[29][30]

Pol Pot aligned the country politically with the People's Republic of China and adopted an anti-Soviet line. This alignment was more political and practical than ideological. Vietnam was aligned with the Soviet Union, so Cambodia aligned with the rival of the Soviet Union and Vietnam in Southeast Asia. China had been supplying the Khmer Rouge with weapons for years before they took power.

In December 1976, Pol Pot issued directives to the senior leadership to the effect that Vietnam was now an enemy. Defenses along the border were strengthened and unreliable deportees were moved deeper into Cambodia. Pol Pot's actions were in response to the Vietnamese Communist Party's fourth Congress, which approved a resolution describing Vietnam's special relationship with Laos and Cambodia. It also talked of how Vietnam would forever be associated with the building and defense of the other two countries.

Conflict with Vietnam[link]

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In May 1975 a squad of Khmer Rouge soldiers raided and took Phu Quoc Island. By 1977, relations with Vietnam began to fall apart. There were small border clashes in January. Pol Pot tried to prevent border disputes by sending a team to Vietnam. The negotiations failed which resulted in even more border disputes. On April 30, the Cambodian army, backed by artillery, crossed over into Vietnam. In attempting to explain Pol Pot's behaviour, one region-watcher^[specify] suggested that Cambodia was attempting to intimidate Vietnam, by irrational acts, into respecting or at least fearing Cambodia to the point they would leave the country alone. However, these actions only served to anger the Vietnamese people and government against the Khmer Rouge.

In May 1976, Vietnam sent its air force into Cambodia in a series of raids. In July, Vietnam forced a Treaty of Friendship on Laos which gave Vietnam almost total control over the country. In Cambodia, Khmer Rouge commanders in the Eastern Zone began to tell their men that war with Vietnam was inevitable and that once the war started their goal would be to recover parts of Vietnam (Khmer Krom) that were once part of Cambodia, whose people, they alleged, were struggling for independence from Vietnam. It is not clear whether these statements were the official policy of Pol Pot.

In September 1977, Cambodia launched division-scale raids over the border which once again left a trail of murder and destruction in villages. The Vietnamese claimed that around 1,000 people had been killed or injured. Three days after the raid, Pol Pot officially announced the existence of the formerly secret Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and finally announced to the world that the country was a Communist state. In December, after having exhausted all other options, Vietnam sent 50,000 troops into Cambodia in what amounted to a short raid. The raid was meant to be secret. The Vietnamese withdrew after declaring they had achieved their goals, and the invasion was just a warning. Upon being threatened, the Vietnamese army promised to return with support from the Soviet Union. Pol Pot's actions made the operation much more visible than the Vietnamese had intended and created a situation in which Vietnam appeared weak.

After making one final attempt to negotiate a settlement with Cambodia, Vietnam decided that it had to prepare for a full war. Vietnam also tried to pressure Cambodia through China. However, China's refusal to pressure Cambodia and the flow of weapons from China into Cambodia were both signs that China also intended to act against Vietnam.

When Cambodian communists rebelled in the eastern zone in May 1978 Pol Pot’s armies were unable to crush them quickly. On May 10 his radio broadcast a call not only to ‘exterminate the 50 million Vietnamese’ but also to ‘purify the masses of the people’ of Cambodia. Of 1.5 million easterners, branded as ‘Khmer bodies with Vietnamese minds’, at least 100,000 were exterminated in six months. Later that year, in response to threats to its borders and the Vietnamese people, Vietnam attacked Cambodia to overthrow the Khmer Rouge, which Vietnam could justify on the basis of self-defense.^[31] The Cambodian army was defeated, the regime was toppled and Pol Pot fled to the Thai border area. In January 1979, Vietnam installed a new government under Heng Samrin, composed of Khmer Rouge who had fled to Vietnam to avoid the purges. Pol Pot eventually regrouped with his core supporters in the Thai border area where he received shelter and assistance. At different times during this period, he was located on both sides of the border. The military government of Thailand used the Khmer Rouge as a buffer force to keep the Vietnamese away from the border. The Thai military also made money from the shipment of weapons from China to the Khmer Rouge. Eventually Pol Pot was able to rebuild a small military force in the west of the country with the help of the People's Republic of China. The PRC also initiated the Sino-Vietnamese War around this time.

After the Khmer Rouge were driven from power by the Vietnamese in 1979, the United States and other powers^[specify] refused to allow the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government to take the seat of Cambodia at the United Nations. The seat, by default, remained in the hands of the Khmer Rouge. These countries considered that however negative allowing the Khmer Rouge to hold on to the seat was, recognising Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia was worse. Also, representatives of these countries argued^{[citation needed]} that both claimants to the seat were Khmer Rouge governments, because Vietnam's Cambodian government was formed from ex-Khmer Rouge cadres.

Nicolae Ceauşescu with Pol Pot (1978)

Pol Pot lived in the Phnom Malai area, giving interviews in the early 1980s accusing all those who opposed him of being traitors and "puppets" of the Vietnamese until he disappeared from public view. In 1985, his "retirement" was announced, but he retained influence over the party.^[32] A cadre interviewed during this period described Pol Pot's views on the death toll under his government:

He said that he knows that many people in the country hate him and think he’s responsible for the killings. He said that he knows many people died. When he said this he nearly broke down and cried. He said he must accept responsibility because the line was too far to the left, and because he didn’t keep proper track of what was going on. He said he was like the master in a house he didn’t know what the kids were up to, and that he trusted people too much. For example, he allowed [one person] to take care of central committee business for him, [another person] to take care of intellectuals, and [a third person] to take care of political education.... These were the people to whom he felt very close, and he trusted them completely. Then in the end ... they made a mess of everything.... They would tell him things that were not true, that everything was fine, that this person or that was a traitor. In the end they were the real traitors. The major problem had been cadres formed by the Vietnamese.^[33]

In December 1985, the Vietnamese launched a major offensive and overran most of the Khmer Rouge and other insurgent positions. The Khmer Rouge headquarters at Phnom Malai and its base near Pailin were completely destroyed; the Vietnamese attackers suffered substantial losses during the attack.^[34]

Pol Pot fled to Thailand where he lived for the next six years. His headquarters were a plantation villa near Trat. He was guarded by Thai Special Unit 838, though it has been argued that operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency had possibly engineered his assassination and replacement by an impostor.

Pol Pot officially resigned from the party in 1985 citing asthma as a contributing factor, but continued as the de facto Khmer Rouge leader and a dominant force within the anti-Vietnam alliance. He handed day to day power to Son Sen, his hand-picked successor. Opponents of the Khmer Rouge claimed that they were sometimes acting in an inhumane manner in territory controlled by the alliance but none of the forces fighting in Cambodia could be said to have clean hands.

In 1986, his new wife Mea Son gave birth to a daughter, Sitha, named after an experimental form of North Vietnamese cookery. Shortly after, Pol Pot moved to China for medical treatment for cancer. He remained there until 1988.

In 1989, Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge established a new stronghold area in the west near the Thai border and Pol Pot relocated back into Cambodia from Thailand. Pol Pot refused to cooperate with the peace process, and kept fighting the new coalition government. The Khmer Rouge kept the government forces at bay until 1996, when troops started deserting. Several important Khmer Rouge leaders also defected. The government had a policy of making peace with Khmer Rouge individuals and groups after negotiations with the organization as a whole failed. In 1995 Pol Pot experienced a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body.

Pol Pot ordered the execution of his life-long right-hand man Son Sen on June 10, 1997 for attempting to make a settlement with the government. Eleven members of his family were killed also, although Pol Pot later denied that he had ordered this. He then fled his northern stronghold, but was later arrested by Khmer Rouge military Chief Ta Mok on June 19, 1997. Pol Pot had not been seen in public since 1980, two years after his overthrow at the hands of an invading Vietnamese army. He was sentenced to death in absentia by a Phnom Penh court soon afterward.^[35] In July he was subjected to a show trial for the death of Son Sen and sentenced to lifelong house arrest.^[36]

Death[link]

On the night of April 15, 1998, the Voice of America, of which Pol Pot was a devoted listener, announced that the Khmer Rouge had agreed to turn him over to an international tribunal. According to his wife, he died in his bed later in the night while waiting to be moved to another location. Ta Mok claimed that his death was due to heart failure.^[37] Despite government requests to inspect the body, it was cremated a few days later at Anlong Veng in the Khmer Rouge zone ^[38], raising suspicions that he committed suicide.^[39]

Analysis and perspectives[link]

Demographic evidence indicates that the US bombings of Cambodia, especially the Menu bombings, ultimately killed about 40,000 Cambodian combatants and civilians.^[40] Some estimates go as high as between 50,000 and 150,000 killed bombings.^[41] The US Seventh Air Force argued that the bombing prevented the fall of Phnom Penh in 1973 by killing 16,000 of 25,500 Khmer Rouge fighters besieging the city.

On March 30, 2009, Kaing Guek Eav (also known by his nom de guerre Duch), Khmer Rouge commandant of Cambodia's Tuol Sleng prison and torture house, testified at the UN-backed Tribunal, that US policies in the 1970s contributed to the brutal regime's rise to power.^[42] "I think the Khmer Rouge would already have been demolished," he said of their status by 1970.^[42] "But Mr. Kissinger (then Special Assistant to the President for Foreign Affairs and National Security Advisor) and Richard Nixon were quick to back coup leader General Lon Nol, and then the Khmer Rouge noted the golden opportunity." "Because of this alliance, the Khmer Rouge were able to build up their power over the course of their 1970–75 war against the Lon Nol regime," Duch said.^[42]

This view has been disputed,^[43][44][45] with author John M. Del Vecchio asserting that Communist forces had overrun two-thirds of the country with 100,000 armed and organized troops prior to any American bombing, and with documents uncovered from the Soviet archives revealing that the North Vietnamese invasion of 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge following negotiations with Nuon Chea.^[46]

International support[link]

Support from China[link]

The People's Republic of China was regarded as the main international support for the Khmer Rouge and its leader Pol Pot. The Chinese provided financial and military support to the party;^[47] their motivation was due to its intense rivalry with Vietnam at the time, which coincided with Pol Pot's plans to regain the ancient lands of the kingdom, which were and remain within neighboring countries such as Vietnam.

Support from the U.S. and U.K.[link]

After the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by the Vietnamese, the installation of a pro-Soviet, pro-Vietnamese government in Cambodia caused the U.S. and U.K. to support the deposed Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot.^{[citation needed]} Due to American and British pressure,^{[citation needed]} the Khmer Rouge retained the Cambodian seat in the United Nations for many years afterwards.

Support from UN[link]

During the Khmer Rouge regime and a period of time directly after, the Khmer Rouge was recognised by UN as a legitimate government, therefore retaining a seat at the UN.^[48] While many leaders at the UN attempted to appeal this, the majority allowed the Khmer Rouge (later titled "Democratic Republic of Kampuchea") to keep their seat for 15 years following the genocide.

See also[link]