This is just a bit of filler until new and hopefully better posts appear in this New Year. Being the nerd that I am, I own several old copies of publications which some might say border on the kitsch, although unintentionally. Below are snippets taken from the second of three September 1976 editions of the usually once a week Peking Review, all on the death of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. Clunky, hyphenated (Marxist-Leninist) clichés with capital letters also abound when right-clicking the link at the bottom of this page. I mourn the loss of people being able to express themselves as human beings. The file contains messages of condolence sent by the leaders of North Korea, Albania, Romania and Indochina, including the DK leadership, expressing their grief to the Chinese Communist Party and Government (then the Chinese people), followed by their paper ministerial positions. Pol Pot is just the prime minister, instead of Comrade Secretary General of a Communist Party undergoing a troubled period of ‘restructuring.’
This kind of thing is only interesting for demonstrating the two-sided attitude of the Democratic Kampuchean government when it came to revealing bits and pieces about themselves, or more specifically their political outlook — whether for an accurate reflection of their ideological adherence to certain kinds of ‘thought,’ passed down to them in an apostolic line from one thinker to another; or otherwise going through the motions of ritual and merely paying lip service. As a ‘non-aligned’ Communist-ruled state in the making, outward relations with friends in the Communist world bloc stressed the importance of this or that influence of orthodox Marxist-Leninist theory and/or political positions. It was indeed a 1976 radio broadcast in China, and not the speech made at the 1977 Khmer Party’s Congress, which mentioned for the first time the supposed Marxism-Leninism of the Khmer Communists (read that as being the Pol Pot group in power); although this kind of utterance was largely absent internally, inside DK, except for the consumption of cadres. But the ugly chauvinism and absurd confidence of the Khmer Communists was expressed plentifully, with the fanciful idea that given the uniqueness of the Kampuchean Revolution, a social upheaval without any known precedent, it was something which had made the whole world lift up their heads, and take notice of a ruined bombed-out country undergoing a doomed transformation with an ‘awesome’ and ‘clear-sighted’ Angkar at the helm. But for all their viewing of foreignness as an affront to Kampuchean pride, along with their domestic self-regard reeking of impudence, China and North Korea weren’t slagged off by the CPK.
For those of a sensitive disposition, please be aware there is an image of saddened children below. After wiping away their tears, the industrious little mites no doubt carried on the fight against Teng Tsiao Ping and right-wing deviationism, until they finally arrived at correct revolutionary verdicts. Or something. With barely-formed consciousnesses, under the influence of cynical manoeuvring or courageously acting like some collective superstructural sweeping brush (take your pick). Unfortunately, when I pop my clogs, I won’t continue to live (forever, I might add) in the hearts of the world’s largest human population.
Perhaps of slightly more serious interest to some of you, Peking Review also published for English-language readers FUNK and GRUNK statements during the Cambodian Civil War (messages from Norodom Sihanouk, Khieu Samphan et al), some of which will be reproduced here on this blog at some point.
Good grief! Download messages of condolence, by right-clicking here.
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That’s you buggered now sunshine. The CCP’s cyber censors will ban your popular blog from the Chinese internet.
That stuff is old hat now mate. But just to be on the safe side here’s some glossy, positive spin on the 1989 Tiananmen Square ‘incident.’
Notice the pervy solider checking out the behind of the saluting majorette.
Say, if there’d been some geopolitical reason the Pol Pot regime was beneficial to the UK, what would a middle class liberal defence of Democratic Kampuchea be like?
Cambodia as a pawn to be used by larger foreign powers, from either of the two old world blocs (contemporary conditions are in a different context) is nothing new. A liberal defence? Hmm … Well, the ‘Pol Pot regime’ didn’t formally become DK until 1976. However, British interests were served a little with the DK government’s exporting of Cambodian rice. A trading house was established in Hong Kong, the Reng Fung Company, through which DK could deal with foreign countries and find outlets for its products. These countries included the UK.
Now, putting my tongue firmly in my cheek, if the DK regime had survived then the defence of a contemporary approximation of an isolated ‘Socialist’ state with an unacceptable level of repression, but acts as an interesting holiday destination for adventurous professionals (as pointed out in the Guardian travel supplement) would go something like this:
‘Here we have a country which has transformed itself from a once ruined land into a place of self-sustainability and a pioneer in ‘green’ government policy regarding the widespread development of organic, environmentally friendly agriculture. In this country, since 1975, household carbon footprints have increasingly become the envy of the world.’
This is interesting too for the Cultural Revolution, although it’s something which has been confused with the Great Leap as a major influence on the KR. The latter has some similarities with the KR’ strict work regimentation, and a rural base for kickstarting industrialisation. The CR was largely an urban phenomenon though, and given the KR view of the urban areas as being parasitical, and their policy of emptying them isn’t congruent with the former. Anti-intellectualism of both the CR and KR is misunderstood too, although the lessons of any Maoism learned by the Cambodians were warped to the extreme. Blank slates and the literalness of cadres in applying policy, often meaning through force or the threat of. They just thought a new and better intellectual life would flourish after the socialist infrastructure had been built and the population had been reforged. A very simple view, although their process was a complex one, all trying to closely mix this development and reshaping consciousness. Mobilisation for this revolution of theirs was not voluntary on the part of a significant part of the population. You can’t change humanity by government decree! The Cultural Revolution had a huge well of popular support, millions of people, frustrated Chinese finally finding a way to be actively part of a political process. The KR were a minority movement imposing its will on a people. At first there was a considerable amount of popular support from the poor peasantry, but they couldn’t carry it through to another stage. Eventually alienated their core support with disastrous policy decisions and terror.
The paper seems to have gotten it wrong. Mao didn’t create the Red Guards, he just endorsed them.
Yes, it’s good to note that although the Cultural Revolution saw its militancy being imitated beyond China, regarding DK policy its effects were superficial in the Cambodian siltation. It’s true though that urban political activists, with a significant Chinese presence, were receptive to it, particularly the concept of mass democracy. Those who were part of Phnom Penh’s educational milieu, and who were oriented towards the left, supported a China-Cambodia Friendship Association, of which future DK leaders were involved. This was shut down by Sihanouk who believed the organisation was acting as a transmitter of political subversion. It’s also true that before the Khmer Communist insurgency got off the ground, in the wake of the Samlaut Rebellion in 1967, Lon Nol soldiers and police confiscated printed Cultural Revolution material translated into Khmer. They also seized Little Red Books, printing materials and equipment for propaganda purposes upon discovering caches of weapons and supplies for the rebels hiding out in the countryside. Some of those rebels who were either captured dead or alive through 1967 and 68, were identified as students of known leftist teachers who had fled to the maquis, and had followed them. Some were also rural teachers themselves.
The Cultural Revolution may have been inspiring, but what happened in China did not correspond with the ideological choices made by those in the Cambodian maquis, or rather the Pol Pot group who had left for the countryside in 1963, and who would become more dominant politically than those educationalists who left the capital and other towns in 1967. The main bloody battles of the Cultural Revolution in China were fought in the urban centres, between rival factions of middle school and university students. The Khmer Communists emptied the urban areas, and their own revolution was carried out in the name of Cambodia’s poor peasants, most of whom were uneducated. Despite send downs of urban youth and other assorted Red Guard groups larking about in the countryside on summer trips, China’s peasantry were insulated from much of the Cultural Revolution’s turbulent developments.
Of more relevancy in trying to find a comparison of Chinese and Khmer Communist policy would be the Great Leap, yes. Although there are significant differences here too. I’ll post more on this topic when I’ve got the time.
On to the Great Leap, with industrialisation and the peasantry. Before its launch the Anti-Rightist campaign had primed the countryside with people who could be used for this kind of endeavour. Of course people can’t eat pig iron, but that wasn’t the point I’m making, but rather where this diverges with Khmer Communist policy was the rejection of old-society expertise, or a refashioning of it to serve the purposes of the newly emerging polity. Experts wouldn’t help in the development of a Socialist economy but rather first learn to be poor and with the peasantry reforge themselves mentally through manual work. A refashioned mind would create new technologies for a new society. Better than that of the old. There were exceptions, as modern technology was used and also modified in ad hoc fashion. The engines of army jeeps used for creating water pumps, generators and the like. Chemical pesticides imported from abroad, as well as new tractors and other equipment brought in. Its use wasn’t completely foresworn, but apparently the CPK leadership were enthused by reports (false or otherwise) of development advancing in line with their stress on labour-intensive methods by trial and error. The revolution was in the name of Cambodia’s poor peasants who had suffered and sacrificed much, so working elan meant the necessary revolutionary consciousness supposedly already found in this coarse mass would somehow be created (but in reality never was) in ‘new’ people. Then both old and new sections of the population would be transformed as the economy developed further. Taking an agricultural route to industrialisation was rational, but their methods weren’t.
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