The People's Republic of Kampuchea, 1979-1989: The Revolution after Pol Pot

by Margaret Slocomb

When the Khmer Rouge troops entered Phnom Penh on 17th April 1975, it seemed that the Cambodian revolution had been secured. During the following four years, Cambodian society was dramatically transformed at great cost in terms of human misery and death. Despite its outward display of total power, the regime of Democratic Kampuchea was deeply fragmented along factional lines within the Communist Party of Kampuchea which eventually ripped it apart. On the morning of 25th December 1978, a huge military force of the People's Army of Vietnam spearheaded a counter attack by the Kampuchean Front for National Salvation, led by a former KR commander, Heng Samrin. They found a country in ruins, the economy shattered and the people shocked and dispirited.

This book examines the Cambodian revolution before and after Pol Pot and attempts to explain the reasons for its ultimate failure. In particular, it traces the efforts of the post-DK regime, that of the People's Republic of Kampuchea, to rebuild both the state and the revolution. Many factors intervened to defeat their efforts to restore revolution. Nevertheless, the PRK did rebuild the state and the economy, and it helped return people's lives to the conditions of pre-revolutionary days.

Genres: History

387 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2004

Reviews

[Sovatha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slocomb told a story of a period in Cambodian history when the people had to stand up on their feet right after everything was swept away by the Khmer Rouge. Her story was told in a way that would not be very receptive by the current opposition to the Cambodian government who after the 2013 national election has gained major popular support. The opposition labels the event in 1979 when the Vietnamese army came into Cambodia and fought the Khmer Rouge out of the country as an invasion, after which a puppet government was established. This has been their political rhetoric they have used so many times in political campaigns and in their anti-government campaigns. But they did not realize that what they labeled 'invasion' might have been what rescued a figurative 'drowning man' who had nothing to hold on to. Slocomb said the Vietnamese coming into Cambodia was like giving a stick to this drowning man and gave him a chance to survive again. She agreed that when one is drowning, one would grab whatever thing that one could hold on to. It's just human instinct. This is the metaphor that explains the People's Republic of Kampuchea period. Slocomb painted a somewhat positive picture of this regime through mostly archival research and personal anecdotes being one of the first groups of foreigners coming in to work in Cambodia during that time. Although her history might not be as detailed, there is plenty of information from the archives that she based this book on. People who do not know much of the PRK might have thought of the regime as socialist-communist state who might have not granted as much freedom to their people and whose pursue of socialist goals was at the demise of development. Such perspective might not necessarily be false, but the truth is when you experience 'hell', anything better than it is 'paradise'.

This is a good book to read for students of Southeast Asian History and Asian Studies in general.