Khmer Rouge Purges: Were They Necessary for the Revolution?

Introduction: Revolutions and Their Aftermath

Revolutions have a tendency to gain a terrible momentum. The level of both organization and anger required to overturn an established government — especially one that is either of long standing or autocratic in nature, or both — can continue to build in intensity and force even after the previous government has fallen and the revolution has succeeded. The result of such revolutionary force tends to run in at least two directions, and often both at once. The revolution may turn inward, destroying (and usually executing) its original leaders. And it may turn outward, destroying the very nation it sought to rescue. The most radical revolutionary governments are likely to do both.

This paper analyzes the purges of the Khmer Rouge that followed its revolutionary takeover of the government of Cambodia, assessing whether such purges were necessary to maintain the revolutionary vision that the Khmer Rouge brought to power. It also examines the broader claim of necessity: can a revolution and its leaders ever truly justify the level and nature of violence that occurred under the rule of the Khmer Rouge? The answer, from an external perspective, must be no.

Before beginning this analysis, a brief history of how the Khmer Rouge came to power and stayed in power — albeit briefly — is necessary. The Khmer Rouge, a name that translates to "Red Cambodians," was applied to the members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Khieu Samphan, Democratic Kampuchea as a regime lasted from 1975 to 1979. The fact that this regime was able to maintain power for such a brief period suggests that its strategies — both genocidal and involving internal purges — were ultimately unsuccessful. The leaders of the revolution would argue, even after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, that the revolution would never have succeeded at all without an insistence on internal standards that resulted in the purges.

Historical Background

The regime is known today primarily for its external politics — that is, for the actions it took against the people of Cambodia as a whole. The government attempted a widespread program comparable to the Cultural Revolution in China, which resulted in the deaths of many of the nation's most educated citizens.

There is no doubt that the Khmer Rouge leaders, who were educated in France and had visited the Soviet Union and China, were substantially influenced by authoritarian communism. Some of the policies of Democratic Kampuchea, such as mass collectivization and purges, can be attributed to ideological forerunners, particularly the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In addition to the thousands of executions, the government's policy that the nation be absolutely self-sufficient led to widespread famine and preventable deaths, compounded by the regime's refusal to import medications and the destruction of the intellectual class that might otherwise have produced them (Rinaldo, 1997).

The initial executions of the nation's educated classes seem, in retrospect, to have been a case of short-term ideological gain at the expense of long-term sustainability. One can compare the result of the slaughter of educated Cambodians to other, more successful revolutions, such as the French Revolution. While that revolution also turned on its own — executing individuals who had once been beloved heroes — the French spared many of their intellectuals, preserving a class that could, and did, reconstruct the nation after the violence had abated (Kiernan, 2004, p. 87).

Estimates of the human cost of the Khmer Rouge's attempt to create the purest possible form of Communist government vary, but Amnesty International estimates that 1.4 million Cambodians died — roughly half by torture and execution, and the other half through famine and disease. In effect, the government killed anyone for whom it could find an excuse. Very quickly this tendency to kill anyone not considered absolutely pure in both intention and behavior turned inward, as members of the Khmer Rouge began to prey on each other. While the party's leaders insisted that the purges were essential for maintaining perfect ideological purity, this proved to be an impossible goal, since no human endeavor can ever be perfect.

The political and philosophical influences that prompted the Khmer Rouge leadership to slaughter its own citizens also produced a series of purges within the leadership itself, as individuals turned on each other in an effort to achieve an ever-purer form of Communism. The criteria used by leaders to execute one another seem, in retrospect, to have been highly arbitrary and often deliberately contrived (Kiernan, 2004, p. 43).

Internal Purges

To the extent that these qualities were apparent to the Khmer Rouge leadership at the time, the conclusion must be that such purges were not necessary to maintain revolutionary momentum or fervor. Indeed, if these qualities were recognized at the time, the purges can be argued to have been actively destructive of the revolution's aims.

Internal executions began in 1976 — the year after the Khmer Rouge took power — and continued through 1978, the year before the regime was officially overthrown by Vietnam, by which point it had already lost a significant degree of internal cohesion. This destruction of internal consistency was in large measure the result of the erosion of trust among the leaders themselves.

A key question regarding the necessity of the purges concerns their intent. If Pol Pot's intent was to refine the ideological stance of cadres and party leaders, one might argue that the purges were possibly necessary. However, if his intent was to ensure the continuation of a pure revolutionary government, then the purges must be considered failures — they hastened the end of the Khmer Rouge's time in power rather than securing it (Kiernan, 2004, p. 119).

Conclusion

The Khmer Rouge, in their pursuit of ideological purity and following a xenophobic policy that targeted whole groups of cadres based on ethnic and religious identity, conducted internal purges that slaughtered thousands of their own. While party leaders believed these purges were necessary to maintain the revolution, hindsight makes clear that they were one of the principal factors that condemned it. The purges destroyed internal cohesion, drove capable cadres into the arms of Vietnam, and ultimately accelerated the very collapse the leadership sought to prevent.