The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79

by Ben Kiernan

This edition of Ben Kiernan’s definitive account of the Cambodian revolution and genocide includes a new preface that takes the story up to 2008 and the UN-sponsored Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Asia, Politics, Research, True Crime, 20th Century

477 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Dr. Benedict F. Kiernan is an American academic and historian. He obtained his PhD from Monash University, Australia in 1983 under the supervision of David P. Chandler. He joined the Yale History Department in 1990, and founded the award-winning Cambodian Genocide Program at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies in 1994, and the comparative Genocide Studies Program in 1998. He is the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History, Professor of International and Area Studies and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University. His previous books include How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 1930–1975 and The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979, published by Yale University Press.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm writing this review from Vietnam, having visited Cambodia last week and bought this book in the Killing Fields museum just outside Phnom Penh. "Get Kiernan, he's the best by far," the lively shopkeeper advised. I was only happy to: the museum, just like the Tuol Sleng torture site, doesn't really teach history, but vibes. "No smiling", a pictogram warned redundantly, hung on the wall of a still bloodstained interrogation room, side by side with a censored photo of its last victim, taken by the Vietnamese liberators. Our Killing Fields guide: "Let this be a warning for all you tourists to take back home." I'm sure no one on this trip came out with an understanding of how the Khmer Rouge came to power, why the killings occurred, or what this means. Hence, Kiernan.

If US intervention in Vietnam hadn't spilled over, there would be no Pol Pot. That much is clear. The porous borders of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia permitted Viet Minh and Viet Cong to establish bases in the jungle, which Henry Kissinger subsequently felt obliged to carpet bomb. The pragmatic Khmer prince Sihanouk was deposed by his US-inclined general, Lon Nol, and fled to China in 1970. Between the military quislings and a decapitated monarchy, a power vacuum opened up in the countryside.

The Indochinese communist party and its paramilitaries, the Issaraks, had fought together against the French since the 50s, and still consituted a broad, multinational and ideologically moderate network. The Cambodian communists in the east of the country worked together with the Vietnamese. Those further inland, however, sought to build an autonomous movement that might one day liberate Cambodia from not just US bombings and an urban ruling class that felt wholly alien to its secluded countryside, but also from its more powerful neighbour, Vietnam. As the B-52s devastated ever more of the countryside, landing cushily on the Phnom Penh airfields, so did the hatred towards the central government grow and the membership of the Khmer Rouge swell. In 1973, the US pulled back its military support; in 1975, Phnom Penh was taken by the Khmer Rouge.

Everything before this point is explainable. Very little after is. Phnom Penh, a city which had objectively become overcrowded with a million rural refugees, was wholly emptied in a few days' time. Michael Vickery elsewhere suggests that this is in keeping with official Red Cross advice, in order to keep starvation at bay, but Kiernan shows that Angkar (the secret committee behind the regime) was uninterested in such a goal. They wanted the city emptied to consolidate political power and make impossible organized resistance, to remove the most obvious target for foreign bombers, and also as a logical step towards smashing the exploiter class.

Henceforth, Cambodians belonged to one of three castes: 'base people', the dependable rural inhabitabts; 'new people', former urban dwellers, government officials, intellectuals and traders; and 'deportees'. Only base people had a semblance of rights; the others were forever treated with suspicion. Religion was forbidden, as were most minority and foreign languages. Angkar was to build a clean slate for its new system, with no money or private property, no feudal remnants nor privacy — all meals were to be had in communal halls, there was to be no private cutlery, nor any individual foraging. Offences were, from the early days of the regime, punished by wanton violence. The entire country was transformed into a massive labour camp, with all groups mixed together, supposedly in the interest of national reconstruction and the creation of a new revolutionary psyche.

While this was going on, to no-one's particular enthusiasm, the ultranationalist Center of the secret Communist Party was waging war against its Indochinese chapters. Eastern officers were incessantly summoned to their own unprovoked execution, with everyone with potential loyalties towards Lon Nol or Vietnam thrown in for good measure. As in Nazi Germany, the more the state became embroiled in foreign wars, the more voracious these paranoiac massacres became. This undeclared civil war only ended because the eastern party chapters, sensing that they would never survive their own comrades, reached out to Vietnam and beat Phnom Penh together. Pol Pot's dreams of "1 Khmer beating 30 Vietnamese" were snuffed out in only a few days.

Between all this, Kiernan estimates almost 2 million Cambodians lost their lives -- today, Cambodian experts round this up to 3 million. Kiernan attributes this in equal parts to violence, disease and starvation, but it's clear that all these plagues were a consequence of Angkar's calamitous governance. I wish, however, he'd given the reader an insight into what the organisation's members hoped to achieve. Like the nazis, the leadership genuinely seemed to believe its own wildest fantasies; by "purifying the Khmer" the war with Vietnam should swing in its favour. But what about the untold members on every other level, who implemented daily punishments, disappearances, the banning of religion and the complete disruption of everyday family life? Drawing on James C Scott, Kiernan argues that the peasantry was not an enthusiastic actor in this process, but then who was? The nazi holocaust can be pretty well explained at every level of the process of decisionmaking; the Khmer Rouge, however, remains a monster whose contours can be sketched, but whose inner drive remains a feverish mystery.

[Indi Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very, very dry - more like a college textbook than a "light read," but it is titled "The Pol Pot Regime: Really long subtitle," so I'm not sure what else I expected. It was very dry, have I mentioned that?, but very informative. Perhaps too informative. I would recommend First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung or A Year in S-21 by Van Nath for those wanting to know the personal side of the Khmer Rouge. For those wanting to know everything there is to know about the regime - every year in every zone - this book is for you. Just be prepared for a lot of footnotes. Great for research.

[Darrell Gerber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, it is thorough but in a very academic style. It's like a PhD dissertation but from someone that shouldn't be still writing a dissertation. Lots of facts and first-person accounts but little story telling and context. You can get A LOT of information from this book but really not learn much.

[Will Albers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chock full of details but short on analysis. I'm left wondering why this happened, why did the regime do all of these things. Why were individuals within the regime so willing to murder all of these people? The book is fascinating at times but seemed mostly to be a listing of numbers...number of families killed in an area, number of people killed in an area. Ultimately it's shocking and mind numbing to realize what depths of depravity humans are willing to fall towards.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kiernan was very thorough in his research, and presented that... thoroughly. However, he failed to provide the short hints of context for the individuals, locations, or events. This complete lack of a framework made the book hard to follow and the research less relevant for a reader who is not an expert of the Cambodian genocide.

[Heskarioth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book, very detailed account of what happened in Cambodia after Pol Pot's thugs took over the country.
The Khmer Rouge was responsible for the death of (at least) 1.5 million people (in a country of 7.7 million people) in less than 5 years of regime. And that toll would have been much higher had Vietnam not invaded the country.
I'm adding this book to the:
"But true communism was never really implemented" bookshelf.
I highly recommend this reading.

[Ross Bonander · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a historian of the Khmer Rouge Kiernan is maybe without peer, the research is meticulous. For me though the most value was in the personal anecdotes and stories he collected.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slut delen där de beskrivs hur bybor börjar ta revenge på Röda Khemer officerare var (utan att nog ens mena det) otroligt tillfredsställande.

[Nigel Street · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I cannot add a lot to what has already been said with regard to this account of what is undoubtedly one of the great human tragedies of all time. The research is exhaustive and the author is clearly very concerned about being accused of not taking a balanced view and relying on the account of too few when drawing conclusions. As was already stated this reads more like a dissertation or funded research piece rather than a book to be read by someone wanting to get a deeper understanding of the why, what and when of this desperate time in Cambodia’s history. If statistics are you’re thing along with lots of cross referencing with other material of the time then you probably know about this account long ago, otherwise mere mortals like me may better served by other more accessible accounts such as those recommended by others in their reviews.

[Marianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to learn about what happenede in Cambodia, but this was so bogged down in super specifics. It was hard to follow. It read like a dissertation. I did get the general idea of how horrid things were there.

[Jb3 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Khmer Rouge apologist

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some problems with this book, but I thought this book had a number of strengths. I was looking for an historical overview of this period inside Cambodia, and this book does a good job of that. I have not been able to find many options, and I had this one in my library already. I came away with a really good understanding of what happened inside Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 when the Vietnamese took Phnom Penh, and that is what I was going for.

Kiernan is considered an authority on this subject, as he has spent extensive time in Cambodia and interviewed hundreds of survivors of the stated time period. Much of this book is based on his interviews. The book could really, really, use some editing. He spends so much time going person by person and interview by interview and it gets old. Many are saying similar things. It isn't organized very well. There are a few chapters that rely heavily on these interviews, and while important for the record, it doesn't lend itself to being very readable.

Outside of this complaint, I really liked this book. I got the information I was looking for. The following is my overview.

In the early 70s the Khmer Rouge grew a base of supporters in rural Cambodia. Originally supported by Vietnam and China, they later broke with Vietnam. The US carpet bombing of Cambodia certainly helped the Khmer Rouge gain support, and they said Lon Nol was working with the US. By 1975 they made it to Phnom Penh and took over. But there were organization problems from the beginning. Groups from different areas made it to Phnom Penh and weren't on the same page. In particular, the group from the East was less violent and cruel, and this characteristic persisted about the East throughout the reign of the Khmer Rouge, at least on a relative basis.

The Khmer Rouge immediately started evacuating Phnom Penh people to the countryside to work in cooperatives with the peasants already there. The people from cities like Phnom Penh became known as "new people", while poor people already from the villages were "base people". At least until 1978 or so, base people had it better, in general, than new people. Anyone who previously was a teacher or police officer or the like was poorly treated and often killed. Everyone was worked nearly and often to death. Their job was to grow more rice in Cambodia than was really possible, and that is what most people spent all their time doing. The largest minority, the Muslim Chams, were certainly targeted, though all religion was banned.

Pol Pot rose to the top of Angkar, the Organization, or CPK (Communist Party of Kampuchea). Cambodia was known as Democratic Kampuchea (DK). They were never extremely well organized it seems. They were constantly looking for spies and accused thousands at least of being such. Eventually they started to crumble. The seemed to kill so many leaders throughout the organization for perceived disloyalty or any other number of probably false reasons, it seems no wonder they fell apart. The biggest mistake ended up being the decision to attack Vietnam.

The Khmer Krom refers to Khmers living in southern Vietnam, Cochinchina, which historically belonged to Cambodia at some time. Angkar decided to reconquer this area from Vietnam. Hun Sen was stationed in Eastern Cambodia, an area which never fell perfectly in line with Angkar. He and a group of Khmer Rouge leaders, including So Phim, rebelled, and gained the support of Vietnam. At the end of 1978, Vietnam decided to send a large force and expel the Khmer Rouge, and were able to do so very quickly. They surely saved the lives of tens of thousands by getting rid of the regime.

Kiernan puts the death toll between 1975 and 1979 around 1.5 million people, many from outright murder, and many from starvation and disease. He tells many horrific stories throughout the book of murders that took place, including the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. He ends the book here, though the story of Pol Pot is far from over, though from here out relegated to the periphery as a new Vietnam-backed communist regime took over.

[Larsen Puch · Rating 4 out of 5]

En este libro se exponen los resultados de una exhaustiva investigación periódística sobre el régimen del terror impuesto por los Jemeres Rojos entre 1975 y 1979, después de que su bando ganara la guerra civil que asoló al país a partir de 1967. Todo el sudeste asiático se vio envuelto en convulsiones políticas y conflictos armados de gran intensidad. La Guerra de Vietnam, sin duda, es uno de los factores influyentes en estos acontecimientos traumáticos y desoladores. Es impresionante el grado de extremismo ideológico de esta agrupación comunista. Una de sus primeras medidas fue evacuar las ciudades y obligar a las personas a vivir en aldeas bajo un regimen de trabajo forzoso. Junto con ello, la población se ve dividida en grupos sociales, según su relación o vínculos con el regimen anterior, su procedencia social y geográfica, además de su pertenencia a una etnia en particular. Desde un inicio comienzan las ejecuciones y matanzas de grupos específicos que gradualmente fueron ampliándose hasta llegar a purgas de los mismos cuadros del partido único gobernante.  Los Jemeres Rojos tenían la pretensión de formar un Estado comunista de corte maoísta, supuestamente autónomo y nacionalista, aunque China fue un soporte clave para la mantención de este sistema demencial, debido a las fluidas relaciones comerciales que ambos países sostuvieron. Creo que nadie puede permanecer indiferente ante el grado de crueldad y de fanatismo de los Jemeres Rojos. Recién en el año 2007 se llevaran a cabo detenciones y juicios a algunos de los dirigentes de Kampuchea Democrática. Otros fallecieron antes o fueron ejecutados en las purgas que Pol Pot y sus cercanos llevaron a cabo al más puro estilo estalinista.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough study of the Pol Pot regime. I often felt like the bigger picture was lost in the details, which Kiernan definitely does not skimp on. The biggest takeaways I had from this book were: 1) As has been proven again and again, there seems to be no limit to what humans are willing to put each other through for their own selfish motivations, and there seems to be no limit to how many people are willing to be the muscle for those motivations. 2) I much better understand all the people from older generations who are so terrified of communism that every progressive action, to them, feels like we are hurtling into the abyss of it. This happened so quickly, it feels, and was so damaging. It starts with a few slogans, a common thread of taking back the people's power, and suddenly you're in forced work camps and forced communal eating and your family is separated and ~1.6 million people are dead for the most inane reasons.

Finally, I wondered throughout how things would have been different if the US had not been in the region. I didn't know the close ties US bombing and the Vietnam War had to this shift of power (though it's unsurprising given the time). Given Pol Pot's background and the world context in general, maybe it would have happened regardless. But the Khmer Rouge definitely would have had fewer propaganda slogans to use about imperialist America's bombs. Definitely lessons to learn from this book.

[Jacob V. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kiernan's history of the regime is absolutely tremendous. He goes to great lengths to be completely transparent in his claims and his treatment of the genocide, and he examines key points raised by other scholars, particularly the description of the Khmer Rouge as a bloodthirsty peasant uprising, and he introduces very original analysis about the racial questions of the genocide.

His work is exhaustive and even introduced basic facts about the Pol Pot regime previously not covered by historians.

The only criticism I can think of is that some of the accounts and interviews can go on a bit long after the point has been made. However, this is a feature, not a bug, as Kiernan is always uncovering the complexity of the genocide and how it differed drastically by region. My more personal criticism would simply be that I felt that there was more room to elaborate more in some other places, and I would have enjoyed more speculation or poetic asides from the author, who is clearly talented, but these were probably not included simply because this is meant to read like a proper history.

[Felix Sun · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many user reviews say this is "too academic", I disagree. It is just poor writing, regardless of the author's reputation, this is just unstructured lazy writing with the objective to publish, not to educate or explain.

Hundreds of exotic names thrown around without much clear context to help the reader to understand it. There is little explanation why things happened, the contradictions, and suddenly the last chapter talks about the downfall.

There are two ways to approach this book:
a) if you are already somewat familiar with the topic, you read this slowly, with cross reference online on your own. This way you will else something, but the book is unreadable.
b) if not, treat this like a coffee table book. The book will be readable, but you will learn very little.

This is the frist serious book that I read on this topic, but there must be other books that cover this topic better. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who is new to the Khmer Rouge topic.

[Daniel Esquivel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very detailed account of the events that are sometimes hard to understand happened in southeast Asia...but they did happen with the help of a number of factors (US intervention in the region is only one).

If you are looking for an overview then I think this book is not for you since it is way too detailed and you will lose yourself in it, at least I felt like that sometimes...but if you really need to make a research or study on the subject then I think is a good resource.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough going.

Loads of information, names dates and places to take in.

I probably should have picked a less academic and detailed book as an introduction to this (I wanted more information having read and watched "first they killed my father").

Jolly impressive journalism nonetheless.

Strangely silent on testimony from those who actually committed the atrocities - perhaps there is a good reason for this.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently visited Cambodia for the first time, I thought I knew something about this terrible part of the history of this beautiful country. This book showed me that I had only the slightest inkling of the brutality of the Pol Pot regime. A must-read for anyone interested in genocidal regimes.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had been looking for a while for a history of the Cambodian genocide and the Khmer Rouge regime and so opted for Kiernan's book. But I struggled to get through it. It is very dry, academic, incredibly detailed and so difficult to follow at times. Would not recommend as a starting off point for learning about the events in Cambodia.

[Gustav Bech Henriksen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough research and most comprehensive description of the Cambodian genocide that I have read. However, its repetitiveness and scholarly nature makes it, at times, hard and boring to read. For most people interested in the genocide, I would suggest instead a personal memoir like that of Haing Ngor or Chanrithy Him.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty good left leaning but non marxist overview of democratic kampuchea. quite a bit of focus on different factions and conflict within the cpk and the extreme nationalism and racist ideology of the regime.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A textbook of information about the Pol Pot regime. It's not an easy fluff read and when reading the stats it's sad knowing each of those in the numbers were people. There was a lot of good data in the book and i learned lots.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up literally the minute I finished "How Pol Pot Came to Power", and I definitely recommend reading them in order -- there are some parts in this book that condense a ton of genuinely important stuff, by referencing the previous one.

[BookWaffle :3 · Rating 2 out of 5]

You would have thought that this book would agree that the US paved the way for the Khmer Rouge to slaughter millions within four years. However, it does not; instead, it seems to downplay individuals' lives, treating them as mere statistics under a horrible regime.

[Scott Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

The definitive text for those interested in the KR genocide. Comprehensive and scholarly yet still approachable and well-written.

[Steven Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Critical read for anyone trying to understand what happened in Cambodia and the events leading up to it. Heavy but valuable

[Winifred]

This is not a "killing fields" work. If it was, I would never had picked it up. I can't even read about orphanages, prisons, zoos or cruelty. But a flip through indicated it was more of a CIA, military dispatch, white paper volume. I know little about the Cambodian war and so chose this to get more informed. Here go my nuggets:

Cambodia rural culture was nuclear family centered but they rarely knew their grandparents names. This is not a big point in the book - but it baffles me.

The U.S. carpet bombing a people it was not at war with - made the average Cambodian terrified of the U.S. and gave reason for hating the Americans.

This made many of them prime recruits for the underground communists who were considered the Cambodians only defense. At least they cared about the peasants. The king/president was an American puppet who lived in the city.

As the Vietnam conflict is ending, the Communists become more bold and use the fear of american bombs to evacuate ENTIRE cities withinin days. There was massive confusion among all parties about where they were to go, many did not want to go - but no-one had to be convinced that any and all population centers were easy targets for the U.S. It made no sense when they bombed the border with vietnam, why wouldn't they go for the cities just out of spite?

This is when Kiernan begins this masterwork of both journalism and historiagrphy. He takes on all others who have written seriously about the war and dissects their works while at the same time proving his details to the most minute levels with voluminous interviews, use of reams of paperwork not destroyed, and many surveys taken in the refugee camps. There must be near a thousand footnotes.

I know little of military history, so this was an eye-opener.

Pol Pot hated Vietnam - lots of "issues' there - therapy might have done him some good. He also hated so many subgoups that I can't name them all. Eventually the hate rested on his own staff and that is when his immediate officers began the insurrection that ended the regime.

Pol Pot relied on China for crucial imports - paying for them with anything he could get his hands on. The Chinese considered many of Cambodian animals as powerful herbal remedies and aphrodisiacs. Geckos included. Who knew. So Pol Pot not only starved to death 25% of the populatin -he created an ecological disaster zone.

And while the whole population is forced to grow more and more seasons of rice with little rest and even less rations - Pol Pot is paying for imports with RICE.

This just made me cry. I learned much about this war but now I have even more questions and a heavy heart. What am I to do with this knowledge?

[Aubrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a fantastic introduction into the Khmer Rouge, and the regime that instigated genocide on Cambodia. Through interviews from survivors, refugees, and even Khmer Rouge defectors, we see a clear picture of what occurred during the years of 1975-1979. In the most simplistic of terms - Pol Pot was driven mad by his own ideology.

As leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot instigated an onslaught of terror and destruction in order to fulfill his ideological notion that Cambodia needed to be purged and cleansed. Instigating genocide under these conditions falls under the international crime of ethnic cleansing, which constitutes part of the UN Genocide Convention. It doesn't end there. Pol Pot's tyranny even caused him to turn on his own people - feeding into his self-induced paranoia and mistrust of those within his own regime.

The book expertly explains, in full detail, how all of this occurs, and why, to the best of its abilities. The Khmer Rouge was a closed regime - not much information about the regime got out, and even less circulated around the regime.

What the book doesn't do is outline this information in a productive, linear manner. I found the time-line a bit thrown off and askew just with the sheer amount of information that needs to be processed. The reader jumps around the time-line quite a bit, ascertaining the entire situation. I found this a bit confusing, and I had to go and re-read a few parts. However, this also gave me the understanding I needed on the history of Cambodia and its people in order to better establish the beginnings of the genocide, and the actions of the Khmer Rouge.

Anyone interested in this instance of genocidal mass violence should look into this book - and take their time reading it. It's a comprehensive account of the regime's control of Cambodia from 1975-1979. Through interviews and first-hand accounts, we can achieve quite the intense understanding of what happened during those years. All we're missing a clean, clear time-line of the events with less back-and-forth.

[Elijah Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those that attempt to perfect society have to realize that there is no perfection on this world, as it is not translated. Pol Pot was a very intelligent leader, just as all the other revolutionary thinkers. What he failed to understand, like so many reformers, is that he is only a man. He is not perfect, and his vision of society is flawed, like all others. Kiernan is a fluent writer that brings down the hammer with hard facts and real expressions of the glorious horror that occurred during this time. Pol Pot teaches us that humanity is not perfect, and though he was well educated, if you cannot keep your support through just doings, you will be turned on. The reason he failed, despite the fact that cruelty to humanity eventually will be hated anyway, is that his own people are human as well. Since they cannot hold to the standards they were forcing upon others, it was impossible for them to band together in what they thought was a great cleansing. Pol Pot fell because perfection does not exist, and his followers saw that better than he did, so they turned on one another, and his revolution was quickly dispersed. I have no doubt that he could have taken Vietnam, but since his order was not just, and his people were so loyal that they took this perspective to the extreme that ally turned on ally, no revolution will succeed when that mindset comes into play.