Geography as destiny: Cities, villages and Khmer Rouge orientalism

Comparative Studies in Society and History

Volumn 38, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 730-758

  McIntyre, Kevin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

FORCED MIGRATION; KHMER ROUGE; ORIENTALISM; POPULATION DISPLACEMENT; URBAN-RURAL MIGRATION;

CAMBODIA;

EID: 0030419826     PISSN: 00104175     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s001041750002051x     Document Type: Article

References (160)

1. Karl D. Jackson, "The Ideology of Total Revolution," in Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death, Karl D. Jackson, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 72. The full version was: The red, red blood splatters the cities and plains of the Cambodian fatherland, The sublime blood of the workers and peasants, The blood of revolutionary combatants of both sexes. The blood spills out into great indignation and a resolute urge to fight. 17 April, that day under the revolutionary flag The blood certainly liberates us from slavery.
2. David P. Chandler, "Preface," Cambodian Culture Since 1975: Homeland and Exile, May M. Ebihara, Carol A. Mortland, Judy Ledgerwood, eds. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), xi. The typhoon metaphor is Chandler's.
3. Radio Phnom Penh, May 14, 1975, quoted in Jackson, "Ideology of Total Revolution," Cambodia 1975-1978, 66.
4. David P. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and Revolution since 1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 246-7.
5. Ben Kiernan has suggested the bombings, especially from 1973 on, played a major role in radicalizing parts of the Cambodian peasantry during the war, contributing to the brutality that devolved on the "new people" under DK. (Ben Kieman, How Pol Pot Came to Power: A History of Communism in Kampuchea, 1930-75 (London: Verso, 1985), 390-1.
6. Ieng Sary, quoted in R. A. Burgler, The Eyes of the Pineapple: Revolutionary Intellectuals and Terror in Democratic Kampuchea (Fort Lauderdale: Verlag Beitenbach Publishers, 1990), 70-71.
7. Ibid. Pol Pot's comments on the evacuation of the cities were contained in the press release of a press conference that he conducted in October 1977. Pol Pot acknowledged that the decision to evacuate Phnom Penh was made at a party meeting in February 1975.
8. Chandler, Tragedy of Cambodian History, 247.
9. Estimates of the number of Khmer Rouge soldiers vary widely. Karl Jackson estimates they were a force of about 60,000 in the total Cambodian population of over 7 million (Karl D. Jackson, "Introduction. The Khmer Rouge in Context," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 9). Others put the numbers at anywhere from 70,000 to 200,000 soldiers and local militia (Burgler, The Eyes of the Pineapple, 311, n6).
10. Estimates of the number of Khmer Rouge soldiers vary widely. Karl Jackson estimates they were a force of about 60,000 in the total Cambodian population of over 7 million (Karl D. Jackson, "Introduction. The Khmer Rouge in Context," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 9). Others put the numbers at anywhere from 70,000 to 200,000 soldiers and local militia (Burgler, The Eyes of the Pineapple, 311, n6).
11. Karl D. Jackson, "Introduction," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 9.
12. Michael Vickery, "Democratic Kampuchea: Themes and Variations," in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea: Eight Essays, Monograph Series, no. 25, David P. Chandler and Ben Kiernan, eds. (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1983), 131. A prolific writer and well-known analyst of the DK era, Vickery has gone to great lengths in much of his writing to counter what he calls the Standard Total View (STV): The idea that the situation in Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge was uniformly horrific before 1978. He suggests the conditions and number of deaths were what would normally be expected following the period from 1970 to 1975 and that what occurred in DK was not the result of the policies adopted by the party center ruled by Pol Pot's faction. "This means that central policy was less murderous than believed, and that the worst conditions which may have prevailed before 1978 in certain areas, were aberrations from policy rather than its goals." After the emergency conditions were alleviated in 1975, the DK policies of social leveling and cultural reorientation toward agricultural production became the means to exercise "petty vengeance against real or imagined class enemies." For Vickery, "This was an irrational economic choice." (Vickery, "Democratic Kampuchea: Themes and Variations," in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea, 131.) Anthony Barnett offers an alternative view to Vickery's. He argues that, although not every event in DK from 1975-78 was centrally planned by the Pol Pot faction in Phnom Penh, the faction nevertheless held effective power during the period and deliberately worked to impose a rather uniform set of policies on the country through a reign of terror. The general policy included the evacuation of cities and towns and an economic, social, and cultural transformation through the elimination of money, exchange of commodities, communal ownership of land, and religion, and the institution of communal eating. Hence, while variation existed across regions in Cambodia during this period, DK center policies and power were the primary reasons for the conditions under the regime. Though DK was far from "a perfectly functioning, fully established machinery of power," the struggle for power between individuals and factions of the Khmer Rouge led to a progressive implementation of Pol Pot's policies and "the deliberate extension of the Center's absolute control on a sector-by-sector basis" (Anthony Barnett, "Democratic Kampuchea: A Highly Centralized Dictatorship," in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea, 224).
13. Michael Vickery, "Democratic Kampuchea: Themes and Variations," in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea: Eight Essays, Monograph Series, no. 25, David P. Chandler and Ben Kiernan, eds. (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1983), 131. A prolific writer and well-known analyst of the DK era, Vickery has gone to great lengths in much of his writing to counter what he calls the Standard Total View (STV): The idea that the situation in Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge was uniformly horrific before 1978. He suggests the conditions and number of deaths were what would normally be expected following the period from 1970 to 1975 and that what occurred in DK was not the result of the policies adopted by the party center ruled by Pol Pot's faction. "This means that central policy was less murderous than believed, and that the worst conditions which may have prevailed before 1978 in certain areas, were aberrations from policy rather than its goals." After the emergency conditions were alleviated in 1975, the DK policies of social leveling and cultural reorientation toward agricultural production became the means to exercise "petty vengeance against real or imagined class enemies." For Vickery, "This was an irrational economic choice." (Vickery, "Democratic Kampuchea: Themes and Variations," in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea, 131.) Anthony Barnett offers an alternative view to Vickery's. He argues that, although not every event in DK from 1975-78 was centrally planned by the Pol Pot faction in Phnom Penh, the faction nevertheless held effective power during the period and deliberately worked to impose a rather uniform set of policies on the country through a reign of terror. The general policy included the evacuation of cities and towns and an economic, social, and cultural transformation through the elimination of money, exchange of commodities, communal ownership of land, and religion, and the institution of communal eating. Hence, while variation existed across regions in Cambodia during this period, DK center policies and power were the primary reasons for the conditions under the regime. Though DK was far from "a perfectly functioning, fully established machinery of power," the struggle for power between individuals and factions of the Khmer Rouge led to a progressive implementation of Pol Pot's policies and "the deliberate extension of the Center's absolute control on a sector-by-sector basis" (Anthony Barnett, "Democratic Kampuchea: A Highly Centralized Dictatorship," in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea, 224).
14. Michael Vickery, "Democratic Kampuchea: Themes and Variations," in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea: Eight Essays, Monograph Series, no. 25, David P. Chandler and Ben Kiernan, eds. (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1983), 131. A prolific writer and well-known analyst of the DK era, Vickery has gone to great lengths in much of his writing to counter what he calls the Standard Total View (STV): The idea that the situation in Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge was uniformly horrific before 1978. He suggests the conditions and number of deaths were what would normally be expected following the period from 1970 to 1975 and that what occurred in DK was not the result of the policies adopted by the party center ruled by Pol Pot's faction. "This means that central policy was less murderous than believed, and that the worst conditions which may have prevailed before 1978 in certain areas, were aberrations from policy rather than its goals." After the emergency conditions were alleviated in 1975, the DK policies of social leveling and cultural reorientation toward agricultural production became the means to exercise "petty vengeance against real or imagined class enemies." For Vickery, "This was an irrational economic choice." (Vickery, "Democratic Kampuchea: Themes and Variations," in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea, 131.) Anthony Barnett offers an alternative view to Vickery's. He argues that, although not every event in DK from 1975-78 was centrally planned by the Pol Pot faction in Phnom Penh, the faction nevertheless held effective power during the period and deliberately worked to impose a rather uniform set of policies on the country through a reign of terror. The general policy included the evacuation of cities and towns and an economic, social, and cultural transformation through the elimination of money, exchange of commodities, communal ownership of land, and religion, and the institution of communal eating. Hence, while variation existed across regions in Cambodia during this period, DK center policies and power were the primary reasons for the conditions under the regime. Though DK was far from "a perfectly functioning, fully established machinery of power," the struggle for power between individuals and factions of the Khmer Rouge led to a progressive implementation of Pol Pot's policies and "the deliberate extension of the Center's absolute control on a sector-by-sector basis" (Anthony Barnett, "Democratic Kampuchea: A Highly Centralized Dictatorship," in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea, 224).
15. Charles H. Twining, "The Economy," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 115.
16. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History, 247, 260.
17. Ibid., 247.
18. Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power, 385.
19. Timothy Carney, "The Unexpected Victory," in Cambodia 1975-1978, Karl D. Jackson, ed., 33.
20. Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power, 327-9. The July 1971 meeting also saw the election of Khieu Samphan to full membership on the central committee. Kiernan suggests that Samphan (one of three intellectuals in attendance in addition to Hu Nim and Hou Yuon) was opposed to some of the economic measures presented at the conference. But he also quotes Tea Sabun, a participant at the conference, as saying that while others, especially Hou Yuon, were critical of the ideas presented, "'Khieu Samphan did not have much to say.'"
21. Ibid., 370. In 1972 in Kompong Chhnang, a village controlled by the Khmer Rouge, peasants were first organized into mutual-aid teams. The following year, the Khmer Rouge formed production cooperatives, stored rice in collective warehouses, and instituted communal eating. Food ran short, and peasants became discontented. According to Ben Kiernan, "within a year villagers were being executed for stealing food from the common store." Similar policies were instituted in other areas, including Kampot, Kandal, and Kompong Thom. The CPK abolished land ownership, initiated forced collectivization, eliminated trade, and effectively dispensed with money through the introduction of a barter system (Carney, "Unexpected Victory," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 29).
22. Ibid., 370. In 1972 in Kompong Chhnang, a village controlled by the Khmer Rouge, peasants were first organized into mutual-aid teams. The following year, the Khmer Rouge formed production cooperatives, stored rice in collective warehouses, and instituted communal eating. Food ran short, and peasants became discontented. According to Ben Kiernan, "within a year villagers were being executed for stealing food from the common store." Similar policies were instituted in other areas, including Kampot, Kandal, and Kompong Thom. The CPK abolished land ownership, initiated forced collectivization, eliminated trade, and effectively dispensed with money through the introduction of a barter system (Carney, "Unexpected Victory," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 29).
23. Kieman, How Pol Pot Came to Power, 371.
24. Ibid., 384-5.
25. Ibid., 390. Kiernan implies the evacuations were related to the potential threat from American aerial bombing. He also notes, however, that they provided further experience for the Khmer Rouge following their ascension to power in Cambodia.
26. Serge Thion, "Chronology of Khmer Communism," in Revolution and Its Aftermath, 291-5.
27. Ibid., 296. There may have been earlier influences by Chinese communism on the eventual leaders of the CPK. Thion suggests that some of the Khmer students in France (which included Saloth Sar, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon, Khieu Ponnary, and Khieu Thirith) were already developing an affinity for post-revolutionary China, in contrast to the Soviet Union whose history and experience were more alien to them. In 1977, Pol Pot publicly acknowledged the influence of Mao and Chinese communism as early as 1957. In a Foreign Broadcast Information Service transcript, Pol Pot stated, "We set up a committee in 1957 to formulate the line and policies of the party . . . . We also learned from the experience of the world revolution and in particular Comrade Mao Tse-tung's works and the experience of the Chinese revolution played an important role at that time. After summing up the concrete experiences of the world revolution, particularly under the guidance of Comrade Mao Tse-tung's works, we have found a road conforming with the concrete conditions and social conditions in our country. Therefore, the committee for formulating our Party's line has worked out a program concerning the Party line and submitted it to the first Party Congress held on September 30, 1960, for examination and adoption" (quoted in Kenneth M. Quinn, "Explaining the Terror," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 219-20. Emphasis in the original). Due to the backward rewriting of party history in which the Khmer Rouge has on occasion engaged, this should be considered carefully. However, it is plausible. During the 1950s China was influencing discussions within communist circles around the world, including France, on a variety of issues including Stalin's approach to communism. See below.
28. Ibid., 296. There may have been earlier influences by Chinese communism on the eventual leaders of the CPK. Thion suggests that some of the Khmer students in France (which included Saloth Sar, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon, Khieu Ponnary, and Khieu Thirith) were already developing an affinity for post-revolutionary China, in contrast to the Soviet Union whose history and experience were more alien to them. In 1977, Pol Pot publicly acknowledged the influence of Mao and Chinese communism as early as 1957. In a Foreign Broadcast Information Service transcript, Pol Pot stated, "We set up a committee in 1957 to formulate the line and policies of the party . . . . We also learned from the experience of the world revolution and in particular Comrade Mao Tse-tung's works and the experience of the Chinese revolution played an important role at that time. After summing up the concrete experiences of the world revolution, particularly under the guidance of Comrade Mao Tse-tung's works, we have found a road conforming with the concrete conditions and social conditions in our country. Therefore, the committee for formulating our Party's line has worked out a program concerning the Party line and submitted it to the first Party Congress held on September 30, 1960, for examination and adoption" (quoted in Kenneth M. Quinn, "Explaining the Terror," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 219-20. Emphasis in the original). Due to the backward rewriting of party history in which the Khmer Rouge has on occasion engaged, this should be considered carefully. However, it is plausible. During the 1950s China was influencing discussions within communist circles around the world, including France, on a variety of issues including Stalin's approach to communism. See below.
29. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "The German Ideology," in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, David McLellan, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 161. In his history of the formation of European nation-states, Charles Tilly has characterized the separation between town and countryside: For a century or so before 1500, manufacturing for urban markets had been spreading into the countryside - most notably in the form of cottage industries of Flanders, southern England, and northern Italy. So the city-based bourgeoisie already had a variety of holds on the countryside: as merchants handling peasant produce, as masters of cities exerting organized pressure on the countryside to assure their own provisioning, as entrepreneurs in rural industry, as lenders of money, and, increasingly, as landlords in the hinterlands of the larger cities (Charles Tilly, "Reflections on the History of European State-Making," in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Charles Tilly, ed. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975], 21).
30. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "The German Ideology," in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, David McLellan, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 161. In his history of the formation of European nation-states, Charles Tilly has characterized the separation between town and countryside: For a century or so before 1500, manufacturing for urban markets had been spreading into the countryside - most notably in the form of cottage industries of Flanders, southern England, and northern Italy. So the city-based bourgeoisie already had a variety of holds on the countryside: as merchants handling peasant produce, as masters of cities exerting organized pressure on the countryside to assure their own provisioning, as entrepreneurs in rural industry, as lenders of money, and, increasingly, as landlords in the hinterlands of the larger cities (Charles Tilly, "Reflections on the History of European State-Making," in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Charles Tilly, ed. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975], 21).
31. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, Ben Fowkes, trans. (New York: Vintage Books, 1977, emphasis added, 472). According to Ira Katznelson, discussions of the city were "neither central in a descriptive sense, nor manifestly the main subject" of Marx's work. As with other major theorists of his time (including Durkheim, Weber, Tönnies, and Simmel), Marx "dealt with the city, of course, but only as a small part of the larger project of coming to terms with an industrial, capitalist, state-centred modernity. Just the same, the large modern city was an inescapable and constitutive element of all their considerations of these hallmarks of the modern world" (Ira Katznelson, Marxism and the City [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992], 10).
32. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, Ben Fowkes, trans. (New York: Vintage Books, 1977, emphasis added, 472). According to Ira Katznelson, discussions of the city were "neither central in a descriptive sense, nor manifestly the main subject" of Marx's work. As with other major theorists of his time (including Durkheim, Weber, Tönnies, and Simmel), Marx "dealt with the city, of course, but only as a small part of the larger project of coming to terms with an industrial, capitalist, state-centred modernity. Just the same, the large modern city was an inescapable and constitutive element of all their considerations of these hallmarks of the modern world" (Ira Katznelson, Marxism and the City [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992], 10).
33. Maurice Meisner, Marxism, Maoism and Utopianism: Eight Essays (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 32.
34. Ibid., 33,38.
35. V. I. Lenin, "A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism," quoted in Meisner, Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism, 49.
36. Ibid., 48-52.
37. Ibid., 61. To be sure, the political programs and economic practices of postrevolutionary China have not conformed to a rigid set of ideas. For example from 949 to 1956 the Chinese were both reorganizing agricultural production on a wide scale and trying to industrialize the country quickly. To do the latter they borrowed heavily from the Soviet model. According to David Bachman, "in this [the Chinese] were aided extensively by Soviet advisers. Sovietsupplied factories were the core projects of industrialization, and Soviet procedures guided Chinese planning and management practices" (David Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy and Leadership in China: The Institutional Origins of the Great Leap Forward [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], 19). Bachman says the industrial policies were uncontroversial and did not involve ideological disputes. By 1956 serious problems in the economy had surfaced and China began to move away from the Soviet model. This move, or set of moves - including the revival and expansion of markets, and their subsequent discarding - laid the groundwork for the Great Leap Forward.
38. Ibid., 61. To be sure, the political programs and economic practices of postrevolutionary China have not conformed to a rigid set of ideas. For example from 949 to 1956 the Chinese were both reorganizing agricultural production on a wide scale and trying to industrialize the country quickly. To do the latter they borrowed heavily from the Soviet model. According to David Bachman, "in this [the Chinese] were aided extensively by Soviet advisers. Sovietsupplied factories were the core projects of industrialization, and Soviet procedures guided Chinese planning and management practices" (David Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy and Leadership in China: The Institutional Origins of the Great Leap Forward [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], 19). Bachman says the industrial policies were uncontroversial and did not involve ideological disputes. By 1956 serious problems in the economy had surfaced and China began to move away from the Soviet model. This move, or set of moves - including the revival and expansion of markets, and their subsequent discarding - laid the groundwork for the Great Leap Forward.
39. The Chinese Communist Party did not always hold such views. From its formation in 1921, the party focused on organizing the urban proletariat. For several years it a aligned with the Kuomintang whose success, says Barrington Moore, "had been mainly due to its ability to harness and ride the tides of discontent among the peasants and the workers" (Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World [Boston: Beacon Press, 1966], 188). Even after April 1927, when Chiang Kaishek turned against the communists in a slaughter of workers, intellectuals and others, the party continued its urban strategy for a time, trying to "win power through proletarian risings in the cities with disastrous and bloody consequences" (Ibid., 223). Moore believes the party showed slight interest in a peasant revolutionary approach until 1926. Meisner, citing Mao, believes the break from orthodox Marxism came as early as 1925 (Meisner, Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism, 63).
40. The Chinese Communist Party did not always hold such views. From its formation in 1921, the party focused on organizing the urban proletariat. For several years it a aligned with the Kuomintang whose success, says Barrington Moore, "had been mainly due to its ability to harness and ride the tides of discontent among the peasants and the workers" (Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World [Boston: Beacon Press, 1966], 188). Even after April 1927, when Chiang Kaishek turned against the communists in a slaughter of workers, intellectuals and others, the party continued its urban strategy for a time, trying to "win power through proletarian risings in the cities with disastrous and bloody consequences" (Ibid., 223). Moore believes the party showed slight interest in a peasant revolutionary approach until 1926. Meisner, citing Mao, believes the break from orthodox Marxism came as early as 1925 (Meisner, Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism, 63).
41. The Chinese Communist Party did not always hold such views. From its formation in 1921, the party focused on organizing the urban proletariat. For several years it a aligned with the Kuomintang whose success, says Barrington Moore, "had been mainly due to its ability to harness and ride the tides of discontent among the peasants and the workers" (Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World [Boston: Beacon Press, 1966], 188). Even after April 1927, when Chiang Kaishek turned against the communists in a slaughter of workers, intellectuals and others, the party continued its urban strategy for a time, trying to "win power through proletarian risings in the cities with disastrous and bloody consequences" (Ibid., 223). Moore believes the party showed slight interest in a peasant revolutionary approach until 1926. Meisner, citing Mao, believes the break from orthodox Marxism came as early as 1925 (Meisner, Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism, 63).
42. Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China, 2. In Bachman's analysis, the Great Leap Forward has meant several things to the CCP. It was the specific time period of 1958-60, an economic development and resource allocation strategy, and one of three pillars of Chinese Communist political thought after that period. It also represented a state of mind, an idea first suggested by Roderick MacFarquhar. Among the elements of this mental state were: "denigration of technical expertise, a charged ideological atmosphere, the idea that through struggle anything was possible, and the belief that physical laws did not necessarily apply to properly indoctrinated citizens" (Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China, 2-3).
43. Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China, 2. In Bachman's analysis, the Great Leap Forward has meant several things to the CCP. It was the specific time period of 1958-60, an economic development and resource allocation strategy, and one of three pillars of Chinese Communist political thought after that period. It also represented a state of mind, an idea first suggested by Roderick MacFarquhar. Among the elements of this mental state were: "denigration of technical expertise, a charged ideological atmosphere, the idea that through struggle anything was possible, and the belief that physical laws did not necessarily apply to properly indoctrinated citizens" (Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China, 2-3).
44. Ibid., 4.
45. Roderick MacFarquhar, "The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao," in The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao, Roderick MacFarquhar et al., eds. (Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1989), 3-18. Kenneth Quinn, "Explaining the Terror," Cambodia 1975-1978, 225.
46. Roderick MacFarquhar, "The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao," in The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao, Roderick MacFarquhar et al., eds. (Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1989), 3-18. Kenneth Quinn, "Explaining the Terror," Cambodia 1975-1978, 225.
47. Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China, 2. Statistics on the numbers of deaths from the campaign vary widely. The figure of 14 million is the official Chinese estimate, although Bachman estimates the number to be close to 30 million and Kenneth Quinn suggests a figure of close to 20 million, if one accounts for deaths through 1962, when the last effects of the disasters were felt (Quinn, "Explaining the Terror," Cambodia 1975-1978, 225). Roderick MacFarquhar has described the results of the Great Leap Forward as "a largely man-made famine, the worst in human history, result[ing] in the deaths of anywhere between 28 and 43 million people" (Roderick MacFarquhar, "Introduction," in The Politics of China, 1949-1989, Roderick MacFarquhar, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 2.
48. Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China, 2. Statistics on the numbers of deaths from the campaign vary widely. The figure of 14 million is the official Chinese estimate, although Bachman estimates the number to be close to 30 million and Kenneth Quinn suggests a figure of close to 20 million, if one accounts for deaths through 1962, when the last effects of the disasters were felt (Quinn, "Explaining the Terror," Cambodia 1975-1978, 225). Roderick MacFarquhar has described the results of the Great Leap Forward as "a largely man-made famine, the worst in human history, result[ing] in the deaths of anywhere between 28 and 43 million people" (Roderick MacFarquhar, "Introduction," in The Politics of China, 1949-1989, Roderick MacFarquhar, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 2.
49. Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China, 2. Statistics on the numbers of deaths from the campaign vary widely. The figure of 14 million is the official Chinese estimate, although Bachman estimates the number to be close to 30 million and Kenneth Quinn suggests a figure of close to 20 million, if one accounts for deaths through 1962, when the last effects of the disasters were felt (Quinn, "Explaining the Terror," Cambodia 1975-1978, 225). Roderick MacFarquhar has described the results of the Great Leap Forward as "a largely man-made famine, the worst in human history, result[ing] in the deaths of anywhere between 28 and 43 million people" (Roderick MacFarquhar, "Introduction," in The Politics of China, 1949-1989, Roderick MacFarquhar, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 2.
50. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History, 52. Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power, 172.
51. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History, 52. Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power, 172.
52. Ibid., 119.
53. "Khieu Samphan: Giving Up on Socialism?" (interview with Christel Pilz, The Asia Record, October 1980, 13). I have seen no source which explicitly states that Khieu Samphan was a member of the French Communist Party. Yet, even if he was not, it seems not unreasonable to believe he was at least influenced by the PCF.
54. For years, the PCF displayed great fealty toward the Soviet Union, whose dramatic lurches between policies forced the PCF to contort its positions at various points in order to conform. Examples include the Nazi-Soviet nonagression pact and the subsequent reproach of this after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Following the War, the PCF participated in a coalition government with the Socialists, Christian Democrats, and several smaller parties. In a dispute over Prime Minister Paul Ramadier's economic policy, the PCF deputies were dismissed from the cabinet in May 1947. The Marshall Plan to rebuild post-war Europe was announced in June, only to be rejected by the Soviet Union as an infringement on its sovereignty. The split between the Soviet Union and the United States widened over the Soviet Union's hostility to the U.S.-European Atlantic alliance. In September, Stalin created the Cominform, intending it to pressure the PCF and the Italian Communist Party (PCI) into a hard line against the Atlantic alliance. At the Cominform conference. Andre Zhdanov presented the framework that would orient much of Soviet and European communist party actions for several years. According to the Zhdanov line, the world after the War was divided into two blocs, an imperialist, anti-democratic one led by the United States and an anti-imperialist, democratic one led by the Soviet Union. The former represented capitalism and war, the latter peace and human progress. Ronald Tiersky has described the first Cominform meeting as a "scathing critique of Western European Communist collaboration in 'bourgeois parliamentarism' - not that this was condemned as a contradiction of Marxist-Leninist principles however, but rather that circumstances had necessitated a change in tactics that the PCF and PCI leaderships had 'failed to perceive' on their own." As the United States and the Soviet Union maneuvered into the Cold War that fall, the PCF - the largest political party in France at the time - was successively reduced by the Ramadier government to an "embarrassing spectacle" of conducting merely symbolic actions, often through ancillary organizations instead of the party itself. It was thus left to wander a political wilderness (Ronald Tiersky, French Communism, 1920-1972 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974, emphasis in the original), 164.
55. Quinn believes PCF Stalinism greatly affected the leadership of the Khmer Rouge, though the connections he draws are inferential (Quinn, "Explaining the Terror," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 231-5). Kiernan was told by Keng Vannsak, a member of the Marxist Circle, that Ieng Sary spent time studying Stalin's writings on national minorities and was "attracted to Stalin's technique of controlling the organizational structure of the Communist Party by 'holding the dossiers'" (Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power, 120-1). Sary, Pol Pot's brother-in-law, would later become one of the most powerful of the Khmer Rouge's inner circle.
56. Quinn believes PCF Stalinism greatly affected the leadership of the Khmer Rouge, though the connections he draws are inferential (Quinn, "Explaining the Terror," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 231-5). Kiernan was told by Keng Vannsak, a member of the Marxist Circle, that Ieng Sary spent time studying Stalin's writings on national minorities and was "attracted to Stalin's technique of controlling the organizational structure of the Communist Party by 'holding the dossiers'" (Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power, 120-1). Sary, Pol Pot's brother-in-law, would later become one of the most powerful of the Khmer Rouge's inner circle.
57. The November Hungarian invasion greatly damaged the PCF. A number of intellectuals resigned from the party, including Aimé Césaire. "Fellow travelers" such as Jean-Paul Sartre, in sympathy with - but not members of - the party, severed their relations with the PCF. Still others, including Pablo Picasso and Paul Tillard, engaged in public disputes over the PCF's position (François Fejtö, The French Communist Party and the Crisis of International Communism [Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1967], 76-78). Thorez is alleged to have told Khrushchev that the PCF lost half its membership over the Hungarian invasion (M. Adereth, The French Communist Party: A Critical History (1920-84): From Comintern to 'The Colours of France' [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984], 234).
58. The November Hungarian invasion greatly damaged the PCF. A number of intellectuals resigned from the party, including Aimé Césaire. "Fellow travelers" such as Jean-Paul Sartre, in sympathy with - but not members of - the party, severed their relations with the PCF. Still others, including Pablo Picasso and Paul Tillard, engaged in public disputes over the PCF's position (François Fejtö, The French Communist Party and the Crisis of International Communism [Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1967], 76-78). Thorez is alleged to have told Khrushchev that the PCF lost half its membership over the Hungarian invasion (M. Adereth, The French Communist Party: A Critical History (1920-84): From Comintern to 'The Colours of France' [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984], 234).
59. Ibid., 163. The United States, Soviet Union, and the United Nations denounced the attack, making it a fiasco for the British, French, and Israelis.
60. Ibid., 166.
61. François Fejtö, The French Communist Party, 103. Fejtö's book (especially pages 74-115) and Ronald Tiersky's French Communism, 1920-1972 (pages 112-225) provide the basis for much of the preceding discussion on developments in France.
62. François Fejtö, The French Communist Party, 103. Fejtö's book (especially pages 74-115) and Ronald Tiersky's French Communism, 1920-1972 (pages 112-225) provide the basis for much of the preceding discussion on developments in France.
63. Fejtö, The French Communist Party, 95.
64. Ibid., 105. The factors cited above were critical in the development of the Sino-Soviet split of 1961. The split divided the world's communist parties. Most of the Western parties supported the Soviet Union. Additionally, "Maoist groups were formed in many countries in opposition to the existing" communist parties (Adereth, The French Communist Party: A Critical History, 235).
65. Ibid., 105. The factors cited above were critical in the development of the Sino-Soviet split of 1961. The split divided the world's communist parties. Most of the Western parties supported the Soviet Union. Additionally, "Maoist groups were formed in many countries in opposition to the existing" communist parties (Adereth, The French Communist Party: A Critical History, 235).
66. His translator, Laura Summers, suggests that Samphan restrained his political analysis. As a Khmer student abroad he was closely watched by the royal government of Cambodia. Also, French intellectuals were deeply divided over events in Europe and Algeria, and the fall of the Fourth Republic. His jury consisted of faculty members from the right and the left. Given this, he was judicious (Laura Summers, "Translator's Introduction," in Khieu Samphan, Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development, Laura Summers, trans. Data Paper, no. 111 [Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, March 1979], 2).
67. Samphan, Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development, 23. Samphan never precisely defined the terms feudal, capitalist, or precapitalist. He often used an inferential approach instead, matching various Cambodian economic forms and behaviors with what he believed were the European equivalents.
68. Ibid., 25, 28.
69. Ibid., 34-35. Emphasis in the original. Samphan generalized the European experience across all countries and states on the continent. That such an attempt is risky is indicated in Theda Skocpol's remark that "properly speaking, there is no such thing as a genetically 'feudal state' or 'capitalist state.' Rather, there are variously organized states coexisting with various patterns of economic production and exchange. By this definition, plenty of room is left for variation across time and space, within as well as between types of socioeconomic systems, in the ways states are organized and the mix of activities they undertake" (Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers [Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1992], 43).
70. Ibid., 34-35. Emphasis in the original. Samphan generalized the European experience across all countries and states on the continent. That such an attempt is risky is indicated in Theda Skocpol's remark that "properly speaking, there is no such thing as a genetically 'feudal state' or 'capitalist state.' Rather, there are variously organized states coexisting with various patterns of economic production and exchange. By this definition, plenty of room is left for variation across time and space, within as well as between types of socioeconomic systems, in the ways states are organized and the mix of activities they undertake" (Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers [Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1992], 43).
71. Summers' translation incorrectly states the French intervened in 1836 (Ibid., 30).
72. Ibid., 32.
73. Ibid., 32. Samphan was quoting Paul Collard's 1925 Le Cambodge et les Cambodgiens.
74. Ibid., 32. Samphan was quoting Paul Collard's 1925 Le Cambodge et les Cambodgiens.
75. Ibid., 33.
76. Ibid., 34, 33.
77. Ibid., 30.
78. Ibid., 30-31.
79. Ibid., 31.
80. Ibid., 37.
81. Ibid., 30-37.
82. Ibid., 37-41. The Angkorean period in Cambodia lasted from A.D. 802 to 1431 (David Chandler, A History of Cambodia, 2nd ed. [Boulder: Westview Press, 1992], 29).
83. Ibid., 37-41. The Angkorean period in Cambodia lasted from A.D. 802 to 1431 (David Chandler, A History of Cambodia, 2nd ed. [Boulder: Westview Press, 1992], 29).
84. Sampan, Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development, 58, 68.
85. Ibid., 69-82. Samphan was not per se against exports but how exporting had developed under French colonialism. He was careful to note that he was not proposing autarky, a complete withdrawal from the international market. In fact, he suggested that Southeast Asian countries coordinate their efforts at industrialization.
86. Ibid., 83.
87. Ibid., 90-93. He defined strict control of exchange as "control which disregards short-term gains that might come along from any sort of foreign capital influx" (Ibid., 90).
88. Ibid., 90-93. He defined strict control of exchange as "control which disregards short-term gains that might come along from any sort of foreign capital influx" (Ibid., 90).
89. Ibid., 93. The movement of private capital should be stopped since it was impossible for the state to distinguish capital that came into the country for productive investment from that which was used to bolster the liquidity of foreign banks.
90. Ibid., 95-98. Samphan believed that collecting monetary taxes from peasants could "indirectly strengthen ancient structure" by making peasants more reliant for cash on usurers and traders "at a time when overall rural structure remains fundamentally precapitalist" (Ibid., 97).
91. Ibid., 95-98. Samphan believed that collecting monetary taxes from peasants could "indirectly strengthen ancient structure" by making peasants more reliant for cash on usurers and traders "at a time when overall rural structure remains fundamentally precapitalist" (Ibid., 97).
92. Ibid., 75.
93. Ibid., 77.
94. Ibid., 102.
95. Ibid., 101.
96. Samphan believed the other changes in the countryside would allow peasants to lower costs. They might then consume more of what they had already been producing, rather than putting it on the market.
97. Ibid., 103.
98. Ibid., 103-4.
99. Ibid., 110. In a statement about the parasitic nature of cities, Samphan claimed: "Under conditions of international integration, transportation networks do not contribute to growth in domestic exchange. They only channel foreign merchandise into remote corners of the countryside to compete with what remains of national handicrafts and to drain agricultural produce from the country for foreign industrial use. With [the] control of foreign trade and the change in its structure following from this, transportation networks will forcibly facilitate domestic exchange between city and countryside, among cities and villages" (Ibid.).
100. Ibid., 29-30.
101. Ibid., 52-53, 56.
102. Ibid., 54. Samphan's table showing this incorrectly stated the percentages as 85.43 percent and 94.72 percent, respectively. I recalculated the total number of workers engaged in unproductive versus productive activities, then the percentages and obtained the higher percentages.
103. Ibid., 53.
104. Democratic Kampuchea Party Center, "The Party's Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields, 1977-1980," in Pol Pot Plans the Future: Confidential Leadership Documents from Democratic Kampuchea, 1976-1977, Monograph Series, no. 33, David P. Chandler, Ben Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua, eds. (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1988), 45.
105. Carney, "Unexpected Victory," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 18.
106. Ibid. Questions arise, too, regarding changes in Samphan's thought across time. Did he begin in 1959 with a core of belief, craft his dissertation cautiously to avoid problems with his ideologically divided faculty jury at the University of Paris, then return to the core when he was under fewer constraints? Did he modify his views substantially over the years, becoming increasingly radicalized through his experiences in Cambodian electoral politics and later through a protracted guerrilla war? Or were the basic beliefs present from early on, to become more explicitly stated as time progressed? In light of his admission that he turned to communism while a student, he likely reflected some of his ideas in the dissertation to the extent he believed possible. He also may have modified those which he felt needed it, for whatever reasons. I am not interested in drawing a complete match between Samphan's dissertation and Khmer Rouge practice but in considering continuities that seem to exist.
107. Summers, "Translator's Introduction," Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development, 19.
108. Karl D. Jackson, "The Ideology of Total Revolution," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 42-43, 47-48, 58.
109. Twining, "The Economy," in Cambodia 1975-1978, 109-50.
110. Democratic Kampuchea Party Center, "The Party's Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields, 1977-1980," in Pol Pot Plans the Future, 119.
111. Ibid., 45-47. I compared the two documents, noting points of convergence and divergence between them. As it would be cumbersome to list each page number for both documents on all points, I have summarized the convergences above. Points of divergence generally emerge in two areas. First, Samphan did not address questions concerning literature, education, science, or art to any significant degree. He also largely neglected health care. The reader should note that because of space limitations not all the specific points were covered in my overview of Samphan's dissertation.
112. Ibid., 50-51, 89-96. Both the dissertation and the four-year plan discussed at length the specific crops to cultivate or gather. These included corn for animal feed; cash crops such as rubber, cotton, jute, sugar cane, tobacco; fruits; forest products; and plant extracts for traditional Khmer medicines. Both documents highlighted animal husbandry and development of the fishing industry.
113. Ibid., 96-100. Specific light industries and products targeted in each document included textiles, cigarettes, sugar, noodles, paper, and bicycles. Specific heavy industries and products targeted included chemical processing, iron smelting, electric power, construction, petroleum, and rubber.
114. Ibid., 101, 104.
115. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 3.
116. Katznelson, Marxism and the City, 11.
117. Ferdinand Tönnies, Community and Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 76, 78.
118. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of interpretive Sociology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 1218, 1224.
119. Ibid., 1227, 1231, 1240, 1243.
120. Said, Orientalism, 154.
121. Karl Marx, quoted in Said, Orientalism, 153.
122. Ibid., 154.
123. Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social Environment (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989), 82. Rabinow bases his analysis on Michel Foucault's dissection of the interrelated nature of power and knowledge. Foucault saw the social sciences and the history of penal institutions as extensions of the same "technology of power," the means by which power is exercised in a rational, scientific process (Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1979), 23. Foucault argued that as capitalism rose to ascendence, the economy of power - its distribution, raw material, commodities - needed to change. Required under the new socio-economic relations was a new power economy, more dispersed, more equitably distributed, less concentrated than had obtained under feudal relations of production. For example, what mattered was not to punish less but more effectively. The defining element for this transformation was discipline. Discipline was not new to capitalism, but the disciplinary method that emerged focused on governing the most minute aspects of human behaviors. It was "exercised according to a codification that partitions as closely as possible time, space, movement" (Ibid., 137). Rabinow believes that urban planning, as it arose in France and the colonies, reflected this new economy and technology of power.
124. Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social Environment (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989), 82. Rabinow bases his analysis on Michel Foucault's dissection of the interrelated nature of power and knowledge. Foucault saw the social sciences and the history of penal institutions as extensions of the same "technology of power," the means by which power is exercised in a rational, scientific process (Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1979), 23. Foucault argued that as capitalism rose to ascendence, the economy of power - its distribution, raw material, commodities - needed to change. Required under the new socio-economic relations was a new power economy, more dispersed, more equitably distributed, less concentrated than had obtained under feudal relations of production. For example, what mattered was not to punish less but more effectively. The defining element for this transformation was discipline. Discipline was not new to capitalism, but the disciplinary method that emerged focused on governing the most minute aspects of human behaviors. It was "exercised according to a codification that partitions as closely as possible time, space, movement" (Ibid., 137). Rabinow believes that urban planning, as it arose in France and the colonies, reflected this new economy and technology of power.
125. Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social Environment (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989), 82. Rabinow bases his analysis on Michel Foucault's dissection of the interrelated nature of power and knowledge. Foucault saw the social sciences and the history of penal institutions as extensions of the same "technology of power," the means by which power is exercised in a rational, scientific process (Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1979), 23. Foucault argued that as capitalism rose to ascendence, the economy of power - its distribution, raw material, commodities - needed to change. Required under the new socio-economic relations was a new power economy, more dispersed, more equitably distributed, less concentrated than had obtained under feudal relations of production. For example, what mattered was not to punish less but more effectively. The defining element for this transformation was discipline. Discipline was not new to capitalism, but the disciplinary method that emerged focused on governing the most minute aspects of human behaviors. It was "exercised according to a codification that partitions as closely as possible time, space, movement" (Ibid., 137). Rabinow believes that urban planning, as it arose in France and the colonies, reflected this new economy and technology of power.
126. Ibid., 3. France was interested not just in remaking the countryside of the colonies, as both Rabinow and Eugen Weber discuss in their respective work. Weber details the modernization of rural France that resulted in peasants being brought more fully into the nation-state. Focusing primarily on the period from 1870 to 1914, Weber traces the manner in which peasants lived prior to this modernization, the factors which led to the enormous changes they underwent, and the effects that these changes had upon peasant culture. In the minds of urban dwellers of the time, the city was forward and outward-looking, the spring of civilization. In contrast, the rural areas were seen as inner-looking and enclosed. "The prevailing belief," according to Weber, was "that areas and groups of some importance were uncivilized, that is, unintegrated into, unassimilated to French civilization: poor, backward, ignorant, savage, barbarous, wild, living like beasts with their beasts" (Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976], 5). Weber concluded that the acculturation of the French peasantry amounted to "the civilization of the French by urban France, the disintegration of local cultures by modernity and their absorption into the dominant civilization of Paris and the schools . . . . What happened was akin to colonization, and may be easier to understand if one bears that in mind." (Ibid., 486).
127. Ibid., 3. France was interested not just in remaking the countryside of the colonies, as both Rabinow and Eugen Weber discuss in their respective work. Weber details the modernization of rural France that resulted in peasants being brought more fully into the nation-state. Focusing primarily on the period from 1870 to 1914, Weber traces the manner in which peasants lived prior to this modernization, the factors which led to the enormous changes they underwent, and the effects that these changes had upon peasant culture. In the minds of urban dwellers of the time, the city was forward and outward-looking, the spring of civilization. In contrast, the rural areas were seen as inner-looking and enclosed. "The prevailing belief," according to Weber, was "that areas and groups of some importance were uncivilized, that is, unintegrated into, unassimilated to French civilization: poor, backward, ignorant, savage, barbarous, wild, living like beasts with their beasts" (Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976], 5). Weber concluded that the acculturation of the French peasantry amounted to "the civilization of the French by urban France, the disintegration of local cultures by modernity and their absorption into the dominant civilization of Paris and the schools . . . . What happened was akin to colonization, and may be easier to understand if one bears that in mind." (Ibid., 486).
128. Ibid., 3. France was interested not just in remaking the countryside of the colonies, as both Rabinow and Eugen Weber discuss in their respective work. Weber details the modernization of rural France that resulted in peasants being brought more fully into the nation-state. Focusing primarily on the period from
129. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, Charles Lam Markmann, trans. (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1967), 183-91.
130. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Constance Farrington, trans. (New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1963), 34. The precise influence of Fanon on Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge generally is open to some speculation. Karl Jackson claims that "Khieu Samphan's Paris connection certainly included the early writings of Samir Amin and probably at a later date the writing of Frantz Fanon" ("Intellectual Origins of the Khmer Rouge," in Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death, Karl D. Jackson, ed. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989], 245). Amin's 1957 dissertation and later work have examined the effects of integrating economies of developing countries into the international system. Amin may have inspired the autarky that the Khmer Rouge pursued. Samphan's dissertation does cite Amin. The influence of Fanon is more problematic. Jackson draws a very strong textual connection between Samphan, the Khmer Rouge, and Fanon. But Black Skin, White Masks, the work of Fanon's most widely known during Samphan's time in Paris is substantially different in tenor, tone and recommendations than The Wretched of the Earth, published two years after Samphan's dissertation. I agree with Jackson about the striking resemblances between some of Fanon's writing in the latter book and the pronouncements that emerged from Democratic Kampuchea. Still, we must be cautious in the degree to which we imply that the Khmer Rouge were drawing directly from Fanon.
131. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Constance Farrington, trans. (New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1963), 34. The precise influence of Fanon on Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge generally is open to some speculation. Karl Jackson claims that "Khieu Samphan's Paris connection certainly included the early writings of Samir Amin and probably at a later date the writing of Frantz Fanon" ("Intellectual Origins of the Khmer Rouge," in Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death, Karl D. Jackson, ed. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989], 245). Amin's 1957 dissertation and later work have examined the effects of integrating economies of developing countries into the international system. Amin may have inspired the autarky that the Khmer Rouge pursued. Samphan's dissertation does cite Amin. The influence of Fanon is more problematic. Jackson draws a very strong textual connection between Samphan, the Khmer Rouge, and Fanon. But Black Skin, White Masks, the work of Fanon's most widely known during Samphan's time in Paris is substantially different in tenor, tone and recommendations than The Wretched of the Earth, published two years after Samphan's dissertation. I agree with Jackson about the striking resemblances between some of Fanon's writing in the latter book and the pronouncements that emerged from Democratic Kampuchea. Still, we must be cautious in the degree to which we imply that the Khmer Rouge were drawing directly from Fanon.
132. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Constance Farrington, trans. (New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1963), 34. The precise influence of Fanon on Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge generally is open to some speculation. Karl Jackson claims that "Khieu Samphan's Paris connection certainly included the early writings of Samir Amin and probably at a later date the writing of Frantz Fanon" ("Intellectual Origins of the Khmer Rouge," in Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death, Karl D. Jackson, ed. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989], 245). Amin's 1957 dissertation and later work have examined the effects of integrating economies of developing countries into the international system. Amin may have inspired the autarky that the Khmer Rouge pursued. Samphan's dissertation does cite Amin. The influence of Fanon is more problematic. Jackson draws a very strong textual connection between Samphan, the Khmer Rouge, and Fanon. But Black Skin, White Masks, the work of Fanon's most widely known during Samphan's time in Paris is substantially different in tenor, tone and recommendations than The Wretched of the Earth, published two years after Samphan's dissertation. I agree with Jackson about the striking resemblances between some of Fanon's writing in the latter book and the pronouncements that emerged from Democratic Kampuchea. Still, we must be cautious in the degree to which we imply that the Khmer Rouge were drawing directly from Fanon.
133. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Constance Farrington, trans. (New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1963), 34. The precise influence of Fanon on Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge generally is open to some speculation. Karl Jackson claims that "Khieu Samphan's Paris connection certainly included the early writings of Samir Amin and probably at a later date the writing of Frantz Fanon" ("Intellectual Origins of the Khmer Rouge," in Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death, Karl D. Jackson, ed. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989], 245). Amin's 1957 dissertation and later work have examined the effects of integrating economies of developing countries into the international system. Amin may have inspired the autarky that the Khmer Rouge pursued. Samphan's dissertation does cite Amin. The influence of Fanon is more problematic. Jackson draws a very strong textual connection between Samphan, the Khmer Rouge, and Fanon. But Black Skin, White Masks, the work of Fanon's most widely known during Samphan's time in Paris is substantially different in tenor, tone and recommendations than The Wretched of the Earth, published two years after Samphan's dissertation. I agree with Jackson about the striking resemblances between some of Fanon's writing in the latter book and the pronouncements that emerged from Democratic Kampuchea. Still, we must be cautious in the degree to which we imply that the Khmer Rouge were drawing directly from Fanon.
134. Ibid., 33.
135. Ibid., 30.
136. The Khmer Rouge prepared at least two four-year plans, one each in 1976 and 1977.
137. Samphan, Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development, 32-33. Emphasis added.
138. Ibid., 38. Emphasis added.
139. Ibid., 41.
140. Ibid.
141. Ibid., 42.
142. May Ebihara, "Intervillage, Intertown, and Village-City Relations in Cambodia," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 220:6 (1974), 359. Sobay is a pseudonym for the village where she studied.
143. May Ebihara, "Revolution and Reformulation in Kampuchean Village Culture," in The Cambodian Agony, David A. Ablin and Marlowe Hood, eds. (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1987), 17.
144. Ebihara, "Intervillage, Intertown, and Village-City Relations in Cambodia," 359. The importance of bilateral kinship patterns in Cambodia deserves greater attention. Ebihara's attention to the subject is brief. Scholars have considered the role of such patterns in other countries of Southeast Asia, with very fruitful results. Alfred McCoy, for example, has discussed its impact on the control of state power in the Philippines. He argues that elite bilateral family networks have brought "real strengths to the competition for political office and profitable investments. A kinship network has a unique capacity to create an informal political team that assigns specialized roles to its members, thereby maximizing coordination and influence" (Alfred W. McCoy, An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines [Madison: University of Wisconsin Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1993], 10).
145. Ebihara, "Intervillage, Intertown, and Village-City Relations in Cambodia," 359. The importance of bilateral kinship patterns in Cambodia deserves greater attention. Ebihara's attention to the subject is brief. Scholars have considered the role of such patterns in other countries of Southeast Asia, with very fruitful results. Alfred McCoy, for example, has discussed its impact on the control of state power in the Philippines. He argues that elite bilateral family networks have brought "real strengths to the competition for political office and profitable investments. A kinship network has a unique capacity to create an informal political team that assigns specialized roles to its members, thereby maximizing coordination and influence" (Alfred W. McCoy, An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines [Madison: University of Wisconsin Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1993], 10).
146. Ibid., 374-5.
147. Milada Kalab, "Study of a Cambodian Village," Geographical Journal, 134:4 (1968), 521. Khum is a pseudonym for the village where she studied.
148. Ibid. If replicated in other areas, this could have important implications for any analysis of landownership in Cambodian society, a key part of Khieu Samphan's dissertation.
149. Ibid., 533.
150. Ibid., 525.
151. Ibid., 527.
152. Gyan Prakash, "Can the Subaltern Ride? A Reply to O' Hanlon and Washbrook," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34:1 (1992), 176.
153. Gyan Prakash, "Post-Orientalist Third World Histories," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 32:2 (1990), 399. Prakash classifies Marxism as a "foundational" approach: History is founded on an identity, class, "which resists further decomposition into heterogeneity." Prakash is not picking per se on Marxists. He extends his definition of foundational to other approaches that use categories which are taken as irreducible.
154. Anthony Leeds, Cities, Classes, and the Social Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 73.
155. Ibid., 53. Emphasis in the original.
156. Ibid., 72.
157. Ibid., 86. Emphasis in the original.
158. "Sharpen the Consciousness of the Proletarian Class to be as Keen and Strong as Possible," reprinted from Revolutionary Flags (September-October 1976), Kem Sos and Timothy Carney, trans., in Cambodia 1975-1978, 283.
159. "Sharpen the Consciousness of the Proletarian Class to be as Keen and Strong as Possible," reprinted from Revolutionary Flags (September-October 1976), Kem Sos and Timothy Carney, trans., in Cambodia 1975-1978, 283.
160. Chandler, Tragedy of Cambodian History, 247. According to Chandler, the Khmer Rouge used the phrase in propaganda.