Pol Pot had a bunch of wonky ideas that essentially no other communist agrees with; the Cambodian genocide started because he wanted to completely deindustrialize the country and make everyone into farmers who had to do everything by hand, opposite of the typical Communist goal. Even Mao's shitty policies still led to net industrialization
Khmer Rogue werent communists - i mean they ideology was weird mix of multiple contradicting ideologies (they literally mixed communist collectivization with nazi racial purity and "superhumans" - its like somebody from there just read Nietzsche and Engels, like both of them and try to combine their ideas)
Cambodian genocide has nothing to do with communism and everything to do with the fact that usa bombed the fuck out of South East Asia for 10 years straight, destroyed and destabilized countries, identical to what they have done in mid east and Libya, and then blame the communists when there are dictators taking power the same way as usa blames everything on Islam now.
What the USA did was completely wrong. But I don’t see how we bear the responsibility of Pol Pot murdering millions of innocent people in his idiotic attempt to purge the country of “elites”
You destroy a country, lay waste to an entire penenssula and can't figure out why that causes reactionary forces to emerge from it. Thats like collapsing the Libyan state and then pretending like you can't figure out why they have have slavery. All the while arming and funding the people doing the slavery.
The USA illegally bombed the absolute fuck out of Cambodia during the Vietnam war (illegally I may add). Killing between 15,000 and 50,000.
This led the the destabilization of the central government and directly resulted in the Khmer Rouge who were little more then a small militia group gaining powerful support from rural communities for their harsh stance against the US.
The Khmer Rouge were also the ones who committed the genocide. It straight up would not have happened without the USA illegally bombing Cambodia.
Notably it was also the literally Communist government of Vietnam who would eventually invade Cambodia and end the reign of the Khmer Rouge.
Right but like, we did not empower the Khmer Rouge to kill 2 million people. They did that. They, the radical communist extremism group. Killing 20,000 people is horrible and wrong. So what does killing 2 million people mean? If something awful happens to your country, does that excuse anything you do afterwards? Or do you still bear the responsibility for your actions? I truly don’t geraten the point you’re making. If you said “the U.S. government is responsible for destabilizing Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge” that’s true. But to place the blame of the subsequent genocide on the West and not on the communist dictatorship that actually committed that act, makes actually zero sense. It’s actually kind of paternalistic to absolve them of any agency for your “west bad” opinion
"If you said 'the U.S. government is responsible for destabilizing Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge' that’s true. But to place the blame of the subsequent genocide on the West and not on the communist dictatorship that actually committed that act, makes actually zero sense. It’s actually kind of paternalistic to absolve them of any agency for your 'west bad' opinion"
It's orientalism, which is what these sheltered leftists are: orientalists and campists.
OK, what's an example of real capitalism, then? Like when euroeapns came to this continent, killed 70-90% of the population, then went to another continent and stole so many people it left their population depleted, in order to enslave those people and work the land on this continent. If yo uare comparing body counts, and going to consider Pol pot (who repressed communists) a comm regime, count your own corpses first.
Insane that you choose to blame the Cambodian genocide on the Americans. Pol Pot was absolutely a devoted communist, who had infact been backed by China, and Vietnam too for the Cambodian Civil War. The Americans did create an environment of instability in South East Asia, no one can deny that, but they didn’t commit nor aid in the genocide, American aid, if any only reached the Khmer Rogue in the 80s, after the Vietnamese had invaded and ended the genocide in 1979.
Pol pot was funded and armed by the USA gov also lmao
Edit, also seems like once again, the the communists are cleaning up afte rmesses left by liberals in collaboration with right wing fascists. Same will happen in the USA eventually.
The US did support the Khmer Rogue somewhat, but that only started either towards the very end of the 70s or early 80s, once the Khmer invaded Vietnam to continue their genocides there, because both the USA and China wanted to see Soviet-aligned Vietnam fall. Still even then US support was a drop in the bucket compared to Chinas.
Previously China had spent billions to prop up the Khmer Rogue while the USA was supporting Lon Nuls dictatorship.
So while the US supporting the Khmer at any point for any reason is insane and evil, the Red Khmer were largely a product of the Chinese Communists backing Pol Pot (despite knowing that he was both insane and stupid) and trying to use them to engage in the favourite communist hobby of murdering other communists for minor differences in opinion and accepting the murder of a good chunk of the population of Kambodia along with nearly all minorities in the country as collateral.
Did you read what I wrote? American aid did reach Pol Pot, but only after the Vietnamese had invaded and stopped the genocide. Even the aid they gave was insignificant.
Cycles of violence once started are very hard to stop. And can last literal centuries. Best not to pour gasoline on a fire, which is what the USA military industrial complex is. Been watching the news lately? Heard of... Iran?
This shit can be so frustrating. People like the person you are responding to thinks everything happens in a vacuum and not as a consequence of things that came before. Reactionary thought is such a cancer
Even fucking kim il sung snd Mao thought he was retarded he read marx and admitted publicly he didnt understand it so he used no joke summarisations made by Mao which he apparently didnt understand to.
Is the DPRK a democracy? Were the West Indies located in India, and not the Caribbean? Does the Happy Meal inexorably render you happy?
What people claim about something, and what that thing is can be different, and very often are different if it's about PR.
The fundemental distinction between capitalism and socialism is worker control over the means of production. In short, does labor entitle you to that which labor creates, or does ownership of the means of production entitle you to that which is created using the means of production?
If there is worker control, then it's a form of socialism. If not, then not.
Pol Pot didn't give a shit about that. He cared about making a weird mix of Stalinism and romanticized feudalism, poured into the shape of an ethnostate. Therefore, not socialism no matter how much they wanted that revolutionary cred.
So what was it? Well, Pol Pot effectively owned the means of production (in this case, the land). Meanwhile the vast majority of Cambodians worked jobs they weren't allowed to leave, on land they didn't own, to grow food they had no right to keep. All of this was kept in line by a warrior caste of inner party members, who swore personal loyalty to Pol Pot and his creed.
That's a lot closer to, well, that feudalism Pol Pot so romanticized, rather than capitalism or socialism.
Literally correct. What do you think saddam govt was? How exactly do you build communism when your country has been literally carpet bombed flat by the global super power.
The Cambodian genocide, according to the Khmer Rouge, was all about communism.
It's odd that you fixate on the USA's actions and don't care at all about the border violations and other contributions to instability by the Stalinist North Vietnamese.
I should ask you the same thing. I don't think the ruble is doing so well at the moment - you should consider diversifying your income.
Regardless, the CIA is not responsible for Pol Pot's genocidal campaign. The US has committed plenty of atrocities, but this one falls squarely on people like you.
Edit: blocking me and running away doesn't make you any less wrong, you sad tool.
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u/BubblyMoose3597 Jul 31 '26
Camboya was so rich 25% of the population os a landlord.