Hello,

What is your source about Pol Pot saying that 1 million of
patriots is enough ?
all I read was about Ieng Sary or Khieu Samphan
and for the last, based on a false interview.
See Chomsky, the political economy of human rights, t. II,
After the Cataclysm.

Put 'pol pot million patriots' into google.

Try this:http://pilger.carlton.com/print/48737

I appreciate articles written by John Pilger. Here he is,
by sympathy for Veetnam, giving a phoney not referenced
quote. Your quote is even different.
All I could find was that Pol pot, talking about a long -
till 700 years - war against Vietnam, said that if 1
Cambodian can beat 30 Vietnamese, than there would always
be 2 millions Cambidans alive to rebuild the country.
Pilger is probably misquoting Kiernan misquoting Pol Pot.
About Kiernan's stunts, it is interesting to read Steve
HEDER, " Racism, Marxism, Labelling, and Genocide in Ben
Kiernan's " The Pol Pot Regime" ", South East Asia
Research, vol.5, n 2, July 1997, IP Publishing for SOAS,
University of London, pp.101-153.

One more thing:
I also thought that "Khmer Rouge" were killing people with
spectacles. But it's not written in serious, adult-written
testimonies. Intellectuals who were not criticizing the new
power were in a state of being observed, and sometimes
there wese used to write economic reports or to count.

Jean,
Searching for accuracy. 

>To make things clear, I am just a Ph.D. student who has
some time to share some scratches of knowledge.

Your remark make me think that according to Plato nobody is
voluntarily bad.
I personally don't know anyone who is always definitively
and absolutely bad. Everything in this world is not just
black or burning sun, is it ?<<

Pol Pot was an intellectual (of the French type). Very dangerous. He seems to have believed his own daft theories. He was also a member of the minor aristocracy. I suspect that gave him a feeling of contempt for ordinary people. Like many aristocrats he seems to have believed other people existed only for his own convenience. The fact that all this was labelled 'communism' is not important. In practice it was indistinguishable from fascism or other forms of absolute monarchy.

Go and study the piles of bones.

Thank you for continuing the discussion.

I agree that Pol Pot considered himself as an intellectual,
and stuck to his economical plans ordering 3 tons per
hectare and the globalization of superior cooperatives. The
leadership doesn't seem to have clearly wanted to reduce
the state demands in paddy rice, though it constantly
appealed the cadres -in the offcial organ, Revolutionary
Banner- to increase the standard of living of the people -
which should have been a major struggle.
On the other side, he was suspicious about intellectuals
who spent more of their time in France than him, these
people were actually purged as agents of the French Service
de Defense et de Contre-espionage...

It is difficult to say if he was really filled with
contempt for all the people. Chandler has written that he
knew how to establish a relation of equality with his
subordinates. Christophe Peschoux wrote that, like Son Sen,
he was very popular among people during conferences made
after 1979 (unlike Nuon Chea). But he was also kind only to
lull the spirit of vigilance of suspects... Sihanouk was
fooled by both Son Sen and Pol Pot, and considered them as
charming.
They are, of course, like Janus.

About piles of bones, and the notion of genocide, I have
read a very interesting study, criticizing Ben Kiernan,
made by a person whom I consider as the best specialist of
the cambodian communist question :

Steve HEDER, " Racism, Marxism, Labelling, and Genocide in
Ben Kiernan's " The Pol Pot Regime" ", South East Asia
Research, vol.5, n 2, July 1997, IP Publishing for SOAS,
University of London, pp.101-153.

Best regards,
Jean

>>About piles of bones, and the notion of genocide, I have
read a very interesting study, criticizing Ben Kiernan,
made by a person whom I consider as the best specialist of
the cambodian communist question :<<

Nevertheless the bones are there.

I see no need to try and explain them away. During the Pol Pot era large numbers of people were killed casually for no obvious reason other than the fear and paranoia of the leadership, and their contempt for the rights of other people.

If we have to label that regime or put it in a category, it is best compared with Nazism, but much worse. There was racism (hatred of the Vietnamese) and autocracy (arbitrary power).

Look at my Glossary category (Glossary)

Another way of thinking about Cambodia is to study the formation of cults and cult behaviour.

See Arthur J. Deikman - The Wrong Way Home for a discussion of how cult behaviour develops in a group of people. This is a powerful idea.

I have read some of your glossary entries.
Pol Pot never wanted to return to a primitive society.
You can read his main speech, 27 sept 1977, in the
Summaries of WOrld BRoadcasts, by the monitoring services
of the BBC, DAily report, Part 3, FAr EAst, 30 sept 1977 -
1 oct 1977, where he shortly says that Cambodia knew the
period of primitive communism, where there was no class
struggle. It is a marxist viewpoint as you wirte elsewhere.

I have also read a book on the "Shining path.." in Peru,
where it is said that contrary to what is often written,
this movement was not refering to the Incas, and that the
comparison with the KR was false. (Alain Hertoghe, Alain
Labrousse, "Le sentier lumineux du Perou. Un
nouvelintegrisme dans le tiers monde". La Decouverte, 1989).
About Cambodia they were refering to ELizabeth BEcker's
book, with which I sometimes disagree.

BEst regards,
JEan

>>I have read some of your glossary entries.
Pol Pot never wanted to return to a primitive society.
You can read his main speech, 27 sept 1977, in the
Summaries of WOrld BRoadcasts, by the monitoring services
of the BBC, DAily report, Part 3, FAr EAst, 30 sept 1977 -
1 oct 1977, where he shortly says that Cambodia knew the
period of primitive communism, where there was no class
struggle. It is a marxist viewpoint as you wirte elsewhere.<<

It is not easy to find what a person's thoughts are. His actions, however, can be observed. The evacuation of the cities forced people to give up all their modern machinery. The forced collectivisation made people use hand labour only. An urban intellectual might fantasise that agricultural life before machinery was idyllic. In reality it wasn't. Life was only good for the gentry who lived off the labour of others (like Pol Pot's family). One of the great advances of modern society is the use of machinery to relieve the grinding labour of the whole agricultural period. Pol Pot went back from that.

Like all these movements, including the Taliban, he made an exception of weapons. I am not a Marxist but I believe Marx postulated an earlier state of human life (perhaps he meant what is now called the Hunter Gatherer cultures) where people had everything in common. In reality of course hunter gatherers have few possessions anyway.

If Pol Pot thought he was driving people back to that stage of human social development he was mistaken and the mistake costs the lives of millions. Agricultural society is not a communist society.

>>I have also read a book on the "Shining path.." in Peru,
where it is said that contrary to what is often written,
this movement was not refering to the Incas, and that the
comparison with the KR was false. (Alain Hertoghe, Alain
Labrousse, "Le sentier lumineux du Perou. Un
nouvelintegrisme dans le tiers monde". La Decouverte, 1989).
About Cambodia they were refering to ELizabeth BEcker's
book, with which I sometimes disagree.<<

Another urban intellectual fantasising about what was good for the peasants. I don't want a shining path to communism. Nor did they. Peru does suffer from a concentration of government efforts in the urban areas and a neglect of the countryside. Communism is not the answer. Nor is terrorism, which only made things worse for the peasants.

Note I have spent a lot of my life in the rural areas of Africa, as a teacher.

The aim was not to return to an agrarian state of society, how prove sufficiently the Radio slogans, Party organs, the
maintaining of manufactures or the attempts to build light industries in Kampuchea. The agricultural production should
have permitted to finance a gReat Leap Forward toward a future industry. (a good study based on testimonies was
made by M.-A. Martin, " L'industrie dans le Kampuchea democratique (1975-1978) ", Etudes Rurales, n 89-90-91,
1983). And the future occupied sufficiently the rulers' minds so as the radio said in July 1975 that " all the vestiges of he
old regime are destroyed " or as Pol Pot said again in 1978 to yugoslavian journalists " We want to get rid of the
remants of the Past" (David Chandler, Pol Pot, frere numero un, Plon, pp.238 et 240. S.W.B., Part 3 : Far East, BBC, for
ex.: 6 March, 11 May , and 1st august 1978. S.W.B., BBC, 11 April 1978).