History of Norodom Chantaraingsy in Khmer, with his picture in yound age. On the page 13 is a picture of Dap Chhuon accepting a gift of the arm from Sihanouk. I haven’t read this book myself yet.

Ta Mok studied Pali canons for eight years, as his biography states. His father married only at 40, having spent 20 years as a monk. I wonder that it might have influenced him the same way as it influenced Pol Pot. Nuon Chea in his interview posted on Khmerization said that he was always a Buddhist. Very interesting connections. The more you study the more you impressed.

There’s connection between Issaraks and Communists. Many started their way as Issaraks and turned to communism. In relation to posted above Vietnamese had more intelligentsia, they translated Lenin into Vietnamese, as far as I know about Khmer translations- there were none. Maybe it’s the difference in cultures.

However, given his anti-town sentiments, it appears he learnt something in A-Level fashion regarding M-L theory.

“The state is an organism whose purpose is to maintain the power of one class by exercising dictatorship over others in all domains. … But the State is also an instrument that creates a privileged social stratum which, as it develops, becomes cut off from the proletariat and from labour. This has happened, for example, in the Soviet Union … and [to some extent] in [North] Korea and in China. In conformity with Marxist-Leninist principles, it is necessary to … reduce progressively this defect which is the State until it is extinguished completely, giving place to [a system of] self-management of factories by the proletariat and of agriculture by the peasants. The privileged upper stratum will then disappear altogether.

Up to now, the fact we do not use money has greatly reduced private property and thus has promoted the overall trend towards the collective. If we start using money again, it will bring back sentiments of private property and drive the individual away from the collective. Money is an instrument which creates privilege and power. Those who possess it can use it to bribe cadres … [and] to undermine our system. If we allow sentiments of private property to develop, little by little people’s thoughts will turn only to ways of amassing private property … If we take that route, the in one year, or 10 or 20 years, what will become of our Cambodian society which up to now is so clean?”

Mind you, acting as a DK central government hangman, proved to be quite valuable in massing power within the new state, keeping zonal administration in the family.

…Yes, it does seem that many of the first generation of Issarak leaders were figures belonging almost to the 19th century, with their straggling bands of followers and harshly primitive nationalism. Compared to them the Vietnamese resistance was enormously more sophisticated. Chuuon was a case in point, though he eventually gained enough knowledge of regional geopolitics to declare himself a committed anti-communist, despite once exchanging congratulatory messages with Ho Chi Minh himself. Some of the others such as Achar Yi actually went out of their way to kill ethnic Vietnamese villagers, and all groups would no doubt have been a convenient refuge for deserters and criminals. The ICP would have faced an uphill struggle, in other words.

In this context it isn’t surprising that the Viet Minh tried to court Chantarangsey, who was popular, had some military experience and political awareness, seemed receptive to ‘progressive ideas’ and of course had a claim to the throne. And once Tou Samouth and other monks, or ex-monks, joined the ICP the traditional sources of authority in Cambodia could be used in another way to spread new political concepts, getting around the recruitment issue.

I guess that one of the few figures in DK who really seemed a part of this earlier phase of development was Ta Mok – an effective guerrilla commander who relied on a strong local power base, cultivated a fearsome reputation, and was vocally anti-Vietnamese. By all accounts his understanding of the actual ‘politics’ involved was fairly basic.

It’s also interesting that you’ve mentioned Dap Chhuon. It was the increasing refusal of people such as this in the Issarak movement, to collaborate with the Vietminh, along with a change of government in Thailand, that by 1949 looked to America for large-scale military and economic aid, which saw the Vietnamese give serious thought to cultivating a Cambodian Communist movement for the first time, filling leadership posts with those Issaraks who had joined the ICP. Coincidently, I’m writing a post on the Comintern-era federation principle and how this was interpreted by the Vietnamese Communists, regarding Laos and Cambodia.