Gague P. HansenMay 2014

Mental Transformations Under the Khmer Rouge

During their short rule from 1975-1979, the Khmer Rouge killed approximately 1.7 million of its own people and completely transformed the Cambodian society.[footnoteRef:1] While there is ample literature on many aspects of the Khmer Rouge, there is little that focuses specifically on the regimes endeavor to alter the way its people thought and even less still on the reception of such endeavors. By relying on sources directly from the Democratic Kampuchea and its Khmer Rouge followers, along with survivor accounts, this essay will attempt to combine both of these topics by arguing that the Khmer Rouge relied on motivational rhetoric, ideological education and ambiguity to transform the societys mentality in favor of its goals of agricultural productivity, revolutionary loyalty and an increased control of the society, and that these brainwashing techniques were largely unsuccessful. [1: Death toll estimate from the Cambodian Genocide Program, The CGP, 1994-2013,accessed 12 May 2014 at: http://www.yale.edu/cgp/.]

To give a general overview of the argument, the paper will first review the Khmer Rouges goals, analyze its attempts to accomplish those goals, pausing after each to reflect on the effectiveness of those attempts, and finally review the argument and make a conclusion on societal transformation based on the given evidence.

Goals of the Khmer Rouge (After recruiting a sizable cadre and appealing to the previous governments injustice,) the communist party of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) and their Khmer Rouge followers seized power on April 17, 1975 and immediately (reconstructed) the society according to their new goals, three of which this paper will focus on. The first of these was to create a self-reliant and worker-peasant state based on agriculture. In hopes of increasing rice harvests, the party sought (to increase the societys livelihood and provide everyone with their basic needs.(give stat/quote). Moreover, they wished to dramatically expedite this agricultural process in order to drive the countrys economy and prove their socialisms superiority to the previous capitalist system.[footnoteRef:2] But just because the Khmer Rouge wanted to increase harvests does not mean the workers would be receptive to the intense work that such a goal would necessitate; in order for the Khmer Rouge to really increase agricultural productivity, they would need to make their peasantry want to work more. [2: Report Number 6, 028 0177 71, Red Khmer Policy and Activity, captured in December 1970 (Pike Archives, 1971).]

In addition to agriculture, their second goal was to continue to spread the revolutionary struggle against imperialism and colonialism. DK viewed all foreign influence as deplorable, exemplified by Pol Pot the partys ___ and primary leader and his directive to abolish, uproot, and disperse the cultural, literary, and artistic remnants of the imperialists, colonialists, and all of the other oppressor classes in order to make way for their social revolution.[footnoteRef:3] To do this, the Khmer Rouge embarked on a violent campaign to expel or kill anyone that represented such foreign influence, like the educated, religious, and wealthy. (But while killing the entire population who were not peasants might ____it did not guarantee that those remaining would become supporters of the revolution. They needed their peasantry to share both an equal hatred for the imperials and loyalty to its revolutionary principles.[footnoteRef:4] [3: Pol Pot, The Partys Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields, in Pol Pot Plans the Future, pp. 36.] [4: Ibid., 44. ]

Finally, the Khmer wanted to retain control of the society and discourage any possibility of resistance. They knew that not everyone would quickly assume their agrarian and socialist aspirations; despite the characteristic violence and suppression they would employ to suppress any possible dissenters.[footnoteRef:5] The Khmer Rouge became more hated after each of their murderous and exploitive days, increasing their need to tighten their control. And while its bloodthirsty cadres were feared for the inclination to murder anyone who violated party rules, the Khmer Rouge searched for a psychological weapon to hold these people in their paralyzed submission and fear. [5: See David Chandler, Voices From S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pots Secret Prison (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) for an example of one of their most notorious methods of violently quieting dissenters. ]

With such drastic goals, it became necessary for the Khmer Rouge to transform the societys mentality in their accordance. In light of these three goals, this paper will now examine how the Khmer Rouge attempted to change the societys mentality in their favor.

Rhetoric for Agricultural Productivity[footnoteRef:6] [6: Much of the rhetoric pointed out in the section and throughout the paper, are slogans, watchwords and sayings provided by Henri Locards Pol Pots Little Red Book: The Sayings of Angkar (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2004). On page 20 of his introduction, Locard loosely defines these phrases as stereotyped language that was incorporated into the speeches of local cadres, and, along with revolutionary songs and educational playlets, they constituted the corpus of ideological teachings inflicted day and night on the population. On page 19 he explains that the main phrases were devised by the DKs Standing Committee, along with the rest of the partys literature.]

In an effort to increase productivity and the societys fervor for work, the KR relied heavily on its rhetoric to improve its workers attitude towards agricultural work, firstly by promising an increased livelihood. One needs only to read the first objective under the Building socialism in agriculture section of Pol Pots Four Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields (1976) to see why the Khmer Rouge emphasized agriculture: To aim to serve the peoples livelihood, and to raise the peoples standard of living quickly.[footnoteRef:7] Indeed, according to the Khmer Rouge, He who has rice possesses all, and by pushing their agricultural goals on their workers, they assured them that their lives would improve along with their productivity. [7: Pol Pot, The Partys Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields, in Pol Pot Plans the Future, pp. 51. ]

Another way they used simple rhetoric in attempt to improving the workers attitude towards agriculture was by providing a target of producing three tons of rice per hectare from all of the land in Cambodia. Speaking at a party assembly, Pol Pot stated that if they could attain three tons per hectare standard in 1976, thus tripling the agricultural output of 1975, they would move from agricultural incompetency to mastery within three to five years.[footnoteRef:8] With a concrete, although ambitious goal from their highest authority, the Khmer Rouge cadres could then try to engrave this goal into their workers consciousness. But this typically took the form of simple directives: Produce three tons per hectare, or more simply One hectare, three tons! were commonly repeated in speeches nightly speeches or shouted from cadres to workers, hoping that the simple exposure to such goals would increase worker productivity.[footnoteRef:9] [8: Excerpt Report on the Leading Views of the Comrade Representing the Party Organization at a Zone Assembly in Pol Pot Plans the Future, pp. 31. ] [9: Locard, Pol Pots Little Red Book, No. 312.]

Still a third way they attempted to improve the attitude towards work is by equating its production goals to an agricultural battlefield and fight against imperialism. The slogans and Roll up your trousers, tie up your sampot [a traditional garment] to launch a fierce attack for production and Transform your anger into enthusiasm to launch an attack on work are examples of how the Khmer tried to channel the Cambodians emotions into agriculture. The battlefield word struggle (prayot) was used in more unconventionally agricultural ways, as in: Struggle to plant strategic crops, and struggle against flooding.[footnoteRef:10] Democratic Kampuchea documents would also equate work with battle, as in their orders to Start the storming attacks to achieve the plan of 3-6 tons per hectare which later stressed the need for commanders, another military reference for mere cadres, to improve their outputs by inspiring workers for the ongoing battle of production.[footnoteRef:11] [10: Franois Ponchaud,Cambodia: Year Zero (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978), pp. 110.] [11: The Partys Instruction on a Variety of Main Issues in the Second Half of 1977, letter from the Communist Party of Kampucheas Central Committee to male and female cadres (Documentation Center of Cambodia), unofficial translation by Bunsou Sour.]

When these techniques failed, the Khmer Rouge used more forceful slogans and regulation to remind Cambodians that there was no life apart from constant work under their regime, as those who could not work were quickly killed, asserting the necessity to work with the desire for survival.[footnoteRef:12] Although their Constitution praises that Every citizen in Democratic Kampuchea is guaranteed a living and that there is absolutely no unemployment, these statements were only true because no one was allowed to stop working.[footnoteRef:13] The Phnom Penh radio constantly quoted the revolutionary principles like Though shalt continually join in the peoples production and love thy work.[footnoteRef:14] But if Cambodians were actually content with their work and the food it produced, it was because they were forced to be. If a worker complained about their lack of food, one refugee recalls, the Khmer Rouge would reply: If youre not happy well take you to a place where there is more than enough to eat, meaning the rice fields where they executed people who were dissatisfied.[footnoteRef:15] The choice was clear: love your work or die. Most workers chose the former, but what was the actual impact of the Khmer Rouges attempts to increase worker enthusiasm through their rhetorical slogans, goals, or forceful threats? [12: See Lafreniere, Bree, and Daran Kravanh,Music Through the Dark: a Tale of Survival In Cambodia, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2000), chapter four for examples of peasants being killed for not being able to work.] [13: Constitution, Article 12] [14: Radio Phnom Penh (January 31, 1976), quoted in: Ponchaud,Cambodia: Year Zero, pp. 118. ] [15: Ponchaud,Cambodia: Year Zero, pp. 60.]

(Moreover, slogans like There are no Sundays; there are only Mondays and While alive, you must work! were reminders of their dependence on work to survive.[footnoteRef:16] The slogan If you do not complete your task during the day, you will complete it by night even more clearly conveys this fact. But these reminders were mostly unnecessary, for the rising quotas forced the workers to spend more time in the fields from eight hours a day in 1975 to fourteen hours in some regions by 1978.[footnoteRef:17] The Khmer Rouge took these quotas seriously, of course, and not meeting them proved to be fatal at Bak Pra, for example, the underperforming workers were often killed.[footnoteRef:18] If one thing was clear, it was that the Khmer Rouge worked hard to get their workers to commit to agriculture as much as they did, but that they were also willing to force work upon them if needed. [16: Locard, Pol Pots Little Red Book, pp. 246.] [17: Ibid.] [18: Ponchaud,Cambodia: Year Zero, pp. 56.]

Despite the Khmer Rouges most persistent rhetorical efforts, however, Cambodians did not begin to love their work as the party had hoped, mostly because their reaped none of the benefits of their tireless such work. Despite Pol Pots assurances that Cambodias agricultural productivity would increase the countrys livelihood, the reality of widespread starvation and worker exploitation completely undermined the partys most appeal rhetoric. The Khmer Rouge used the tirelessly produced harvests, not to evenly feed their workers, but to build secret reserves in the forests, feed the cadres, and supply exports to China in exchange for consumer goods and arms that they needed to retain power.[footnoteRef:19] The Khmer Rouges decision to give the workers higher quotas and more serious threats instead of needed food resulted in a loss of faith with the government because it had lied to them too often, giving them no desire to make this renewed effort, at the end of which they feel they will be despoiled yet again. [footnoteRef:20]One worker, Daran Kravanh, remembers that the rice they had produced was driven somewhere else, and that they only received one cup of rice each day at the most, not enough to feed stave their hunger and not nearly enough to make them believe in the merits of agriculture.[footnoteRef:21] Also noting the disappearance of the harvests, Pin Yathay said that The [agricultural] system never worked, going on to explain how people felt cheated, and had no heart for their work after seeing their food vanish. But the Khmer Rouge did not discontinue their coercive handling of the harvests once the workers became angry, but continued to use the food to build up secret reserves and export to China for consumer goods and arms they needed to retain control.[footnoteRef:22] By degrading people into production animals and then stealing their feed, the Khmer Rouge lost their credibility and squashed any sense of ownership and dignity that might have grown within their workers. [19: Locard, Pol Pots Little Red Book, pp. 241. ] [20: Ponchaud,Cambodia: Year Zero, pp. 61.] [21: Lafreniere, Music Through the Dark, pp. 82. ] [22: Locard, Pol Pots Little Red Book, pp. 241. ]

Interestingly, even the Khmer Rouge cadres were not inspired to work according to the rhetoric they constantly employed. As one of the common directives towards soldiers stated: For Soldiers, the orders are as follows:1 A rife in one hand, and production with the other.2 Overthrow the old society and create the new revolutionary one!3 Learn from the people, but do not tail them![footnoteRef:23] [23: Ibid., pp. 232. ]

As it turned out, the soldiers had a much easier time pointing their rifles at their workers and ordering them to improve their work than they did at putting up a shovel and working along the peasants, as point one implies. Exemplified by Pin Yathays observations of the soldiers and their reluctance to work, despite constantly extolling agriculture to us.[footnoteRef:24] To both the peasants and soldiers, work was not at all as beneficial or fulfilling as the Khmer Rouges rhetoric might make it seem. [24: Pin Yathay and John Man, Stay Alive, My Son (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2000), pp. 201]

Re-education for RevolutionBefore the Khmer Rouge could re-educate the people with their new revolutionary principles, they needed to destroy the existing education system, which they did with swiftness and brutality. Immediately in 1975, the Khmer Rouge embarked on a mass campaign to identify and kill or expel all intellectuals, especially teachers.[footnoteRef:25] Wishing, as Pol Pot said in his 1977 speech, to do away with all vestiges of the past, the Khmer Rouge destroyed 90 percent of all school buildings, emptied libraries and burned their contents.[footnoteRef:26] Valuing only a peasant and party-based education, the party had no use for the old and foreign styles of learning in their new society. [25: The Vietnamese newspaper summed up the Khmer Rouges approach towards teachers nicely: Kampuchea does not need intellectuals.] [26: Quote from Pol Pot, in Thomas Munroe Clayton Education and Language-in-Education in Relation to External Intervention in Cambodia, 1620-1989 (Ann Arbor: ProQuest, 1995), pp. 199.]

With the old education system abolished, the leaders proceeded to use ideological re-education, typically referred to as re-education, to brainwash Cambodians with their revolutionary principles, first through the memorization of revolutionary material at political meetings. These meetings were held a three to four times a week after the work day and usually consisted of a cadre leader reciting party ideologies to workers, like Let us all live as one huge new family and think only of the interest of the collective.[footnoteRef:27] The memorization of revolutionary songs was also a standard part of these meetings that present revolutionary ideals. The Red Flag, sung at the beginning of every meeting is full of revolutionary encouragement to continue to struggle against the old society: Dont spare a single reactionary imperialist: drive them from Kampuchea./Strive and strike, strive and strike, and win the victory, win the victory.[footnoteRef:28] The KR attempted to use the memorization of these songs to evoke emotion and give them for revenge by constructing a terrible enemy. [27: Locard, Pol Pots Little Red Book, No. 350.] [28: Ben Kiernan and Chanthou Boua.Peasants and Politics In Kampuchea, 1942-1981(London: Zed Press , 1982),pp. 326. ]

In addition, their creation and propagation of the Democratic Kampucheas National Anthem: Glorious April 17th is perhaps the best example of how the KR used revolutionary song to promote their revolutionary ideology. Written by Pol Pot at the beginning of the 1975, the anthem commemorates Cambodias liberation day when the Khmer Rouge took over in April 17th and begins with: Bright red Blood which covers towns and plainsOf Kampuchea, our Motherland,Sublime Blood of workers and peasantsSublime Blood of revolutionary men and women fighters!The Blood changing into unrelenting hatred,And resolute struggle,On April 17th under the Flag of the Revolution,Frees from slavery![footnoteRef:29] [29: Kampuchea Constitution, .http://archive.org/stream/SelectedDocumentsOfTheKhmerRouge/KRdocs_djvu.txt]

The violent themes of blood, hatred, struggle and revolution was repeated again throughout the anthem, just as they were pressed upon the peasants for the entirety of the Khmer Rouges re-education and regime. Pol Pot committed these principles to the political re-education, asserting that everyone must listen, pay respects to, and sing his anthem at their political meetings, so as to make a firm stand of resolute patriotism and to protect and preserve our territory.[footnoteRef:30] Just as their agricultural slogans attempted to get workers to use their hoes as weapons against unproductivity by their constant exposure, so did the cadres use these revolutionary songs as weapons for the social revolution, with the Khmer Rouge simply presenting their ideals in a recital way. [30: Pot, Pol. Pol, 1977. Speech at 27 September KCP Anniversary Meeting. FBIS IV. October 4. H1-37]

While the memorization of revolutionary material was meant to motivate Cambodians with revolutionary ideas, emphasis on self-criticism was a more forceful effort to make them bow down to the party in loyalty. During these re-education sessions, each worker was expected to report their day in meticulous detail in an exercise to make them completely vulnerable and honest to their cadre leaders; they reported what work had been done, how well it had been done, how much rest had been taken, and even how many times they defecated. [footnoteRef:31] Before the sessions ended, Yathay recalls that each worker was required to recite a tired affirmation of their loyalty to their leaders: I humble myself before those gathered here so that they can see me . . . Comrades, I need your help to become aware of my faults and my errors. I humble myself before Angakar. I must be a good revolutionaryI humble myself so that Angkar can purify me, criticize me to be even more submissive.[footnoteRef:32] These professions of loyalty were of course humiliating for people to say, but as exercises of humiliation, that was their intent. [31: Yathay, Stay Alive, My Son, pp. 114.] [32: Ibid.]

In an especially sinister example of the partys brainwashing attempts, the partys focused on the childrens revolutionary development. Khmer Rouges high value of children was no secret. Indeed, Pol Pot asserted that the young must make a great effort to re-educate themselvesYou [the children] have to be, and remain, faithful to the revolution. People age quickly. Being young, you are at the most receptive age, and capable to assimilate what the revolution stands for better than anyone else.[footnoteRef:33] While Pol Pot here put the burden on the children to do their own re-educating, the Khmer Rouge took responsibility for this role, as they quickly attempted to sever any ties to counter-revolutionary concepts that their children might have been exposed to, like the commitment to family. They did this by separating children from their parents and sending them to specialized educational meetings for 3-4 hours a day, where they were told phrases like Dont rely on your parents, rely on Angkar.[footnoteRef:34] Starting at the age of twelve, they learn love their country, hate the Americans, and to love the workers and peasants who are their moms and dads, the emphasis on exporting the role of child raising from the parents to the party.[footnoteRef:35] [33: FBIS, 19 Oct 1977, H 2. ] [34: Locard, Pol Pots Little Red Book, No. 89, 90. ] [35: Radio Penohm Penh (April 9, 1976), quoted in Year Zero, pp. 123. ]

After destroying their concept of family, the Khmer Rouge could then enforce their commitment to the revolution by teaching children how to provide them with information to help the party. After destroying their concept of family, the Khmer Rouge could then enforce their commitment to the revolution by teaching children how to provide them with information to help the party. This usually took the form of instructing the children to spy on those in opposition to the party. These Pol Pot-ist teachers usually grilled small children in order to get information about their neighbors, which the teachers would then report to the higher authorities so that arrests could be made.[footnoteRef:36] Some children were allowed to return to their parents after their re-education to spy and turn-in their own parents, a particular example of the faith the Khmer Rouge had in their twisted tactics of brainwashing their children.[footnoteRef:37] [36: Chuon Meng, Let Us Look at the World of the Khmers (Phnom Penh, printed by the Ministry of Information and Culture, 1980), pp. 30.] [37: R.A. Burgler, The Eyes of the Pineapple: Revolutionary Intellectuals and Terror in Democratic Kampuchea (VSaarbrcken: Verlag Publishers), pp. 82. ]

In addition to severing family loyalty, they forced young students to read their monthly periodical Revolutionary Young Men and Women, they aimed to build an organ to educate, construct, and nurture the principle of revolutionary political consciousness in our young men and women and change their old worldview progressively and cause the adoption of a new, revolutionary worldview as a replacement.[footnoteRef:38] [38: Manifesto of the Periodical Revolutionary Young Men and Women, No. 1, August 1973 in Timothy Carney, Communist Party Power in Kampuchea: Documents and Discussion (Dp 106) (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 12. ]

Despite Pol Pots victorious claim that 98% to 99% of the population are for the revolution and build the revolutionary socialism with all their heart, most Cambodians were not transformed into revolutionaries because they recognized the ideological re-education as the brainwashing technique that it was.[footnoteRef:39] For one refugee, the ideas were so empty and the policies so useless that the re-education effort was nothing more than a myth because the Khmer Rouge lacked intelligence and moral standing.[footnoteRef:40] Others saw the effort to educate as a way to justify and continue the regimes flagrant excuses to kill.[footnoteRef:41] The poet Chuon Meng was not fooled either, who wrote in his Let us look at the world of the Khmers: [39: Pol Pot, Long Live the 17th anniversary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, (New York: Kampuchea Residents) pp. 62. ] [40: Yathay, Stay Alive, My Son, pp. 172. ] [41: Ibid., 91. ]

[Verse] 53 The word study sessionWhen we hear these words, full of sweetness and honesty, we are filled with joy; still, it is not a question of education, but of brainwashing in truth, a gang of criminals who are cheating us and put us to death.[footnoteRef:42] [42: Meng, Chuon, Let Us Look at the World of the Khmers (Phnom Penh, printed by the Ministry of Information and Culture, 1980), pp. 30. ]

For the innocent or uneducated children, however, the Khmer Rouge revolutionary education seemed to make them successful revolutionaries. Although the adults and previously educated children could easily spot the re-education campaigns empty principles, some of the very young and very innocent children were indeed indoctrinated into the revolution. After coming home from their education sessions, the children talk very little to their parents, and then only in monosyllables, as though they feel no need to communicate with them, as the French priest Franois Ponchaud observed in 1967.[footnoteRef:43] As an even more fearful example of the effects of this education, workers at a Thai refugee Childrens Centre reported that Tee, a 13 year-old who, in addition to abusing herself and tearing off her clothes, kept repeating violent phrases like I will kill you because you killed my mother . . . I want to eat your flesh, to drink your blood . . .[footnoteRef:44] Unfortunately, the Khmer Rouges severance of family and glorification of blood throughout their education seemed to have worked all too well on Tee. [43: Ponchaud,Cambodia: Year Zero, pp. 123.] [44: United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees, Kampuchea Refugee Report,1980.]

Ambiguity for Control If the agricultural directives were aimed at increasing work enthusiasm, and the re-education at creating revolutionary loyalty, then the partys clandestine policy was meant to construct fear in Cambodians, which would then continue to allow them to be controlled. The partys reluctance to identify themselves in order to keep the public unclear about their leaders is the first way this can be seen. It was true that most of Cambodians did not know the names or faces behind the party that they were supposed to submit to. Considering the Khmer Rouges general principle of secrecy, this is no wonder. Pol Pots heroic five-hour speech, where he revealed himself as the mastermind behind the Democratic Kampuchea, did not occur until September 1977, almost a full two years after his regime seized control of the country in 1975. Pol Pot was not the only one unwilling to reveal his identity: as one sees from the interviews between journalists and Nuon Chea, President of the Standing Committee and the second most influential Khmer Rouge behind Pol Pot, the party intentionally kept their elections, locations, and official meetings secret.[footnoteRef:45] This lack of transparency and interaction with the public was not due to any laziness or shyness from the leaders, but to their principle of clandestine work, as Chea again explains: In this post liberation period, clandestine work is essential . . . . Secret work is of essence in all that we are undertaking . . . If the enemy knows where we are, the revolution would be at risk. It is only thanks to it that we are masters of our fate and that we shall be victorious.[footnoteRef:46] With no surprise, the secrecy of the party was aimed at making the party so ambiguous that no one loyalist or imperialist knew what they were up against. [45: Summers, Laura, The Journal of Communist Studies, vol. 3, no.1 (London: 1987), p. 27.] [46: Ibid.]

The partys confusing use of Angkar was another of their more psychological techniques to use ambiguity as an avenue towards Cambodian confusion and submission. Angkar means something like government, yet the Khmer Rouge distorted this word with their constant and inconsistent applications that it created the sense of constant surveillance and secrecy, making people uncertain about whom their rulers were. In sayings like Angkar has the eyes of a pineapple, the government is portrayed as an all-seeing social entity above the workers.[footnoteRef:47] In his September 1997 speech Pol Pot introduced the specific party of Democratic Kampuchea as Angkar, but so few people heard or understood the message that the general population still did not have the foggiest clue as to its identity.[footnoteRef:48] To add to their confusion, Cambodians were told that they themselves were Angkar, connoting unification more than scrutiny.[footnoteRef:49] [47: Locard, Pol Pots Little Red Book, pp. 105. ] [48: Burgler, The Eyes of the Pineapple, pp. 203.] [49: Ponchaud,Cambodia: Year Zero, pp. 135.]

Its identity so deeply confused, the Khmer Rouge could then use Angkar to define their own godliness and justify any of their actions. Although local cadres were often uneducated and unqualified to lead an entire village, they were experts at distorting the use of Ankar to project their own divnity and create fear: Angkar is the master of your destiny . . . Angkar has many detours. Angkar is not to be predicted . . . Do not believe what Angkar says will be forever . . . But Angkar always has its reasons.[footnoteRef:50] The Khmer Rouge leaders, all of a sudden became corrupt gods, who were allowed to do whatever they wanted because of their simply connection to the ambiguous Angkar. [50: Yathay, Stay Alive, My Son, pp. 66.]

With its secret use of terms like Angkar, the Khmer Rouge proved to be much more skilled at terrifying Cambodians than they were at inspiring them, as most of them indeed did become fearful and confused as a result of the KRs ambiguity. The use of Angkar was indeed the psychological weapon of fear that it was intended to be, but its meaning was perhaps too mysterious, as even some of the party leaders could not fully understand it, like the Khmer Rouge Ambassador to the UN from 1975-1992 Thiounn Prasith, who admitted that he could not understand clearly about the political line of the Front and the activities of the party, among other problems he had in carrying out the regimes tasks.[footnoteRef:51] [51: Prasith, Thiounn, Autobiography of former Khmer Rouge Ambassador to the United Nations (Dated 25 December 1976).]

Summary and ReflectionsAs this paper has shown, the Khmer Rouge rule over Cambodia from 1975-1979 was characterized by their attempts to change its societys mental structure in accordance with their goals. In order to improve their goal of harvesting three tons of rice per hectare, the party attempted to mediate a deep sense of love and attachment between peasants and their agricultural work through their use of rhetorical slogans. In order to make Cambodians more loyal revolutionaries, the Khmer Rouge mandated a revolutionary re-education, which focused more on memorization of party songs, self-submission exercises and the development of its children than it did on any standard curriculum of learning. Finally, understanding that the could not have absolute power or control of peoples minds without being fearfully shrouded in mystery, Pol Pot and his followers deployed a principle of ambiguity, where they refused to publicize their identities and further distorted words like Angkar as psychological weapons to terrify the population.Despite the Khmer Rouges efforts, however, most of the societys mentality was not radically transformed. Due to the absence of any benefit from their tireless toil in the rice fields, workers did not grow to view agriculture as the final solution to their problems. On the contrary, the Khmer Rouges extraction of the harvest and rigid workdays only made workers view agriculture with more contempt. Similarly, after going through their re-education campaign, most Cambodians did not feel a loyalty towards their party or its revolutionary goals, with the exception of the youngest and most impressionable children, who could indeed be brainwashed through the constant exposure to revolutionary propaganda. But while the Khmer Rouge could not easily get people to work or truly remain loyal, they could nevertheless control them, as one can see by the publics fearful and confused reactions to the partys ambiguities.Using the given insight of the Khmer Rouge throughout the paper, one can make a few broad conclusions about the nature of endeavors to change a populations mentality. First, a regimes inability to improve society or stay true to its promises can cripple its reputation with its people. By promising an increase in productivity to be the path to success and happiness and then depriving their workers of their own harvests, the Khmer Rouge betrayed both their credibility and their own goals, for none of the workers wanted to work any harder for the same unjust results. Second, the simple and continuous exposure to radical propaganda can only persuade the youngest and most uneducated of people. Third, a partys use of secrecy can indeed consolidate its control, but at the price of confusing the same people that it hoped to win loyalty from. To be short, a regime only has the chance to favorable alter the mentality of its society if its policy improves the lives of their subordinates. If the Khmer Rouge would have used the harvests to adequately and evenly feed its workers, provided a universal and practical education that empowered the poor, and created a society of openness and honesty, then perhaps Cambodians would have valued their work, stayed loyal to their national party, and not live in fear or misery.

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Pol Pot, Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea, leads Cambodian Guerrillas in the jungle, Jun. 23, 1979 (Pol Pot, Cambodia, Associated Press: Image ID 790623094, accessed 12 May 2014).

A young Cambodian government soldier stands in a foxhole, at Ang Snoul along Highway 4, and counts his money on April 9, 1975 that was his payment for March. A bag of U.S. supplied rice is in back of him (Veasna, Cambodia: Foxholes, Associated Press, Image ID 7504090312, accessed 12 May 2014).

A Khmer Rouge soldier waves his pistol and orders store owners to abandon their shops in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 17, 1975 as the capital fell to the communist forces. A large portion of the city's population was reportedly forced to evacuate. Photo from West German television film (Christoph Froehder, Associated Press: Image ID 750417061, accessed 12 May 2014).

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