Michael Vickery provides valuable information and insights despite his bias in favor of communist revolution.19 He discusses what he regards as the prejudiced nature of most early reports about the system and its atrocities. He notes specific inaccuracies of many kinds; for example, the evacuation of Phnom Penh may have been less hurried and more humane than at first reported, and not all doctors, intellectuals, and skilled workers were killed. Vickery blames inaccurate reporting on ideological bias and sensation-seeking and on the fact that refugees in Thailand, who were the only available source of information, were largely people with a stake in the overthrown system. Vickery argues that these people could not be trusted and, in the process, shifts the blame to the victims. He writes:
These were the people – spoiled, pretentious, contentious, status-conscious at worst, or at best simply soft, intriguing, addicted to city comforts and despising peasant life – who faced the communist exodus order on 17 April 1975. For them the mere fact of leaving an urban existence with its foreign orientation and unrealistic expectations to return to the land would have been a horror, and a horror compounded by their position on the receiving end of orders issued by illiterate peasants. On the whole they cared little or nothing for the problems of the “other half of their countrymen, and would have been quite content to have all the rural rebels bombed away by American planes. Even having seen the damage done to the country during the war they seem to exclude it from their thoughts, almost never mention it unless asked, and then seem astonished that anyone would take interest in what happened in the rural areas before they arrived there in 1975.20
Only in passing does Vickery report, in a footnote, that most of these “city people” were in fact recent refugees from the countryside, former peasants. Moreover, being “soft,” “spoiled,” or “intriguing” hardly justifies murder. Despite his bias, Vickery’s account of the nature and extent of atrocities is very similar to other accounts.
However, he points out variations in the level of atrocities in different provinces, under the rule of different leaders, and at different times. For example, after the initial killings, murders and executions became rare in 1975 and 1976, and then commonplace in 1977 and 1978. These variations were associated with struggles among the leadership. Pol Pot and his group were highly influential in the central government from the start, but the leadership in some of the provinces opposed them. Pol Pot lost his position as prime minister from June to October 1975, and the regime was milder during that time. After that, his faction consolidated its power and the severity of the system increased.
Ideology, world view, and the aims of the Khmer Rouge
The major tenets of the Khmer Rouge ideology were to create a society organized around the soil, a peasant society in which life was to be communal. Neither private property, knowledge, nor pleasures were to differentiate people or separate the individual from the community. Social leveling was one aim of the evacuation of cities. Life was to be simple and ascetic. Everyone was to have the status of a simple peasant.
Policies and actions expressing the ideology and world view of the Pol Pot group, other than those already described, included the establishment of communal dining and the elimination of education, except for early primary grade schooling in some areas. The young received ideological indoctrination. The communists also tried to establish a purely barter economy. People were supposed to despise wealth and money. Upon their victory in Phnom Penh, the communist troops destroyed money.
Technology was mistrusted and destroyed, except for some factories producing goods deemed absolutely essential, mainly for agriculture. Strong nationalism and an emphasis on national self-reliance were part of the ideology. One reason for this emphasis was mistrust. The Pol Pot group mistrusted everyone: the people, especially the “new” people; communists with a background or beliefs different from their own; and other countries, especially Vietnam. Their suspicion and fear were one reason for the killings. Those killed after October 1976 included many old-time communists, especially those who spent periods of time in Hanoi and were suspected of Vietnamese sympathies.
The scope of intended change was enormous. “Its designs penetrated beyond the reorganization of political and economic institutions, social relations and kinship systems, and into the very seat of human consciousness itself. This was genuine totalitarianism... .The aim was to transform the grammar of thought within the culture.”21 The sources of this fanatical ideology were (1) certain characteristics of Cambodian culture, (2) personal experiences of Pol Pot and his associates, (3) ideas within the communist movement and the example of communist states, and (4) changes that resulted from learning by doing and from the political and social consequences of the Pol Pot group’s actions.
The genocidal ideology was created by a small group of people. Given the assumption stated early in the book that there will often be some individuals who evolve deviant and destructive ideologies, important questions are how did they gain followers and how did their followers become the perpetrators of their genocidal ideals?
Cultural preconditions: the roots of ideology and genocide
The Cambodian genocide had many cultural and historical roots or building blocks. This is especially so if we look far enough back in time. David Chandler described substantial continuity from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century in many Cambodian practices and customs, such as clothing, ceremonies, and the worship of the king.22 In spite of nineteenth- and twentieth-century societal upheavals, many of these cultural elements persisted.
Class divisions, urban—rural rift, and slavery. Cambodia was a country with deep class divisions. The king was an object of devotion for the people. However, the country was actually ruled by a rich oligarchy that controlled the land and taxed the peasants. The aristocracy expressed its devaluation of the common people
