Democratic Kampuchea
By early 1976 the Communist Party of Kampuchea hardliners grew tired of tolerating Sihanouk's antics, and placed him under house arrest. The existing government was quickly dismantled and Prince Sihanouk was removed as the nation's head of state. Cambodia became a Communist republic, and Khieu Samphan became the first president.
On May 13, 1976 Pol Pot had been appointed Prime Minister of Cambodia, and began to implement sweeping socialist reforms to the nation. The US bombing had caused the countryside to be emptied, and the cities overcrowded (Phnom Penh's population increased by over 1 million immediately prior to 1976). Cambodia was on the verge of starvation by the time the Communist Party of Kampuchea gained power. To deal with this, the CPK evacuated citizens from the cities to the countryside where they were forced into communal farms. Property became communalized, and education was done at communal schools. Politicians and bureaucrats were killed, while Phnom Penh was turned into a ghost city, and many died of starvation, illnesses or execution. The casualty list from the civil war and the CPK consolidation of power is disputed. A figure of three million deaths between 1975 and 1979 was given by the Vietnamese-sponsored Phnom Penh regime, the PRK. Father Ponchaud suggested 2.3 million; the Yale Cambodian Genocide Project estimates 1.7 million; Amnesty International estimated 1.4 million ; and the United States Department of State, 1.2 million. Khieu Samphan and Pol Pot, who could be expected to give underestimations, cited figures of 1 million and 800,000, respectively.
Some believe that under Pol Pot's regime Cambodia was the country that came the closest to existing as a pure communalist state. Collective farms were implemented as the sole form of egalitarian, subsistence living, and the campaigns of killings were implemented as a way of eliminating the intellectual opposition of those who refused to participate in the system.
In late 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia. The Cambodian army was easily defeated, and Pol Pot fled to the Thai border. In January 1979, Vietnam installed a puppet government under Heng Samrin, composed of Khmer Rouge who had fled to Vietnam to avoid the purges. This was followed by widespread defections to the Vietnamese by Khmer Rouge officials in Eastern Cambodia, largely motivated by the fear that they would be accused of collaboration even if they did not defect. Pol Pot retained a sufficient following to keep fighting in a small area in the west of the country. At this point the PRC, which had earlier supported Pol Pot, attacked, creating a brief Sino-Vietnam War.
Pol Pot, an enemy of the Soviet Union, also gained support from Thailand and the US. In particular, the US and the PRC vetoed the allocation of Cambodia's United Nations General Assembly seat to a representative of Heng Samrin's government. Influenced by realpolitik the US directly and indirectly supported Pol Pot, who espoused radically revised variant of Maoism adapted to Khmer nationalism. Envisaging a perfectly egalitarian agrarianism, the Khmer Rouge favored a direct route to communism, thus bypassing the intermediate stage of socialism. Anti-modern and isolationist, Pol Pot was quite the opponent of Soviet orthodoxy. Because he was anti-Soviet, the United States, Thailand and People's Republic of China considered him preferable to the pro-Vietnamese government.
Aftermath
At times, the United States directly and indirectly supported Pol Pot and his hostility against the Soviet Union. The US attempted to foster an anti-Vietnamese alliance between Pol Pot, Sihanouk and the nationalist, Son San. In pursuit of this end, Pol Pot officially resigned in 1985, but continued as de facto CPK leader and dominant force within the alliance. Opponents of the CPK claimed that the CPK were sometimes acting in an inhumane manner in areas controlled by the alliance.
In 1989, Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia. Pol Pot refused to cooperate with the peace process, and kept fighting the new coalition government. The Khmer Rouge kept the government forces at bay until 1996, when the demoralised troops started deserting. Several important Khmer Rouge leaders also defected.
In 1997, Pol Pot executed his life-long right hand Son Sen for wanting to make a settlement with the government, but then he himself was arrested by Khmer Rouge military chief Ta Mok, and was sentenced to lifelong house arrest. In April of 1998, Ta Mok fled into the forest following a new government attack, and took Pol Pot with him. A few days later, on April 15, 1998, Pol Pot died, reportedly of a heart attack.
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