Pol Pot

Pol Pot ប៉ុល ពត
Born	Saloth Sâr 19 May 1925 Prek Sbauv, Kampong Thom, Cambodia
Died	15 April 1998 Choam, Oddar Meanchey, Cambodia
Cause of death	Heart attack
Nationality	Cambodian
Ideology	Marxism–Leninism Khmer nationalism Later: Democratic socialism Revisionism
Political party	CPK

Pol Pot (19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian revolutionary who governed Democratic Kampuchea as its Prime Minister from 1976 to 1979 and also acted as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea 1963 to 1981. His government would be overthrown by a Vietnamese invasion in December 1978 and he would be forced into exile in his country's western-most area, which would act as a holdout for the "Khmer Rouge" movement.

Born into a rural Khmer family, Pol Pot’s early life under French colonial rule shaped his later anti-imperialist views. Educated in Phnom Penh and Paris, he declared himself a Marxist–Leninist, rising through the CPK to lead a peasant and worker-driven movement against colonial and capitalist oppression. His tenure saw agrarian reforms and the evacuation of urban centers, aiming for a classless society. He diplomatically aligned Democratic Kampuchea with the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong and against the revisionist Soviet Union and its sponsored government in Vietnam. Pot would die on April 15, 1998 after a heart attack.

Pol Pot remains a controversial figure in communist circles. His supporters view him as a true communist revolutionary and champion of Kampuchea's sovereignty and resistance against Soviet and United States imperialism and social-imperialism while his opponents consider him to be an anti-communist, bourgeois nationalist, and traitor to Marxism.

Biography

Early life

Pol Pot was born on May 19, 1925, at Prek Sbauv, a small fishing village in Kampong Thom Province, Kampuchea, under French colonial rule within the Kingdom of Kampuchea, approximately 140 kilometers north of Phnom Penh. His family, of Khmer descent, owned approximately nine hectares of rice land and a modest house, placing them among the rural middle peasantry. His father, Pen Saloth (born 1890), was a farmer with a reputation for diligence, cultivating 6 hectares of paddy fields and 3 of orchards, yielding 5–6 tons of rice annually; his mother, Sok Nem (born 1895), managed the household and bore nine children—seven boys, two girls—of whom Saloth Sâr was the sixth. Prek Sbauv, with 300 residents, relied on the Sen River, a Mekong tributary, for fishing and irrigation, though colonial taxes of harvests left villagers in debt.

Saloth Sâr eventually moved to Phnom Penh to live with relatives, including an elder brother, Loth Suong, a clerk at the royal palace earning 30 piastres monthly, and a cousin, Meak, a dancer in the royal court earning room and board. This urban exposure—Phnom Penh’s residents included 10,000 French—revealed stark disparities: colonial officials lived in villas on Sisowath Quay, while 70% of Khmers occupied wooden shanties. His education began in 1932 at Wat Botum Vaddei, a Buddhist monastery near the palace, where he studied Khmer literacy and Pali scriptures for two years, followed by enrollment in 1934 at École Miche, a Catholic primary school run by French nuns, completing six grades by 1940 with 150 classmates. In 1942, he entered Lycée Sisowath, a prestigious secondary school with 1,200 students, studying French, mathematics, and history until 1947, though he failed his baccalauréat exams twice due to irregular attendance.

The Japanese occupation (March 9, 1941 – October 15, 1945) disrupted French control, seizing Phnom Penh with 20,000 troops and igniting anti-colonial sentiments that shaped his worldview. On July 20, 1946, he joined the Democratic Party, canvassing in Kompong Cham—70 villages, 50,000 voters—against French restoration, witnessing police kill 12 protesters in August 1946. In August 1949, Pol Pot won one of 21 government scholarships—out of 200 applicants—to study radio electronics at the École Française d’Électronique et d’Informatique (EFREI) in Paris, departing Saigon on September 15 aboard the SS Jamaique and arriving October 1, 1949, with a stipend of 3,000 francs monthly. In Paris, he rented a room at 11 Rue de Commerce for 500 francs, joined the French Communist Party (PCF) in July 1950—membership peaked at 800,000—and engaged in the Cercle Marxiste with 20 Kampuchean students, including Ieng Sary and Rath Samoeun. In the summer of 1950, Saloth Sâr joined an international youth labor brigade in Yugoslavia, part of the Communist Youth Union (KPYJ)’s “Work Brigade Action” to construct the Autoput Bratstvo i Jedinstvo (Highway of Brotherhood and Unity) linking Zagreb and Belgrade, an artery of socialist solidarity. He worked alongside volunteers from countries—France, Italy, Algeria among them—shoveling gravel and breaking stone for eight-hour shifts across several weeks, contributing to a national effort that saw 52,000 Yugoslav youths lay the highway’s foundation by year’s end. Housed in a collective camp near Zagreb—he lived the reality of Yugoslavia’s break from Soviet domination under Josip Broz Tito. He studied Marxist-Leninist texts—Marx’s Capital, Lenin’s State and Revolution—and Stalin’s Foundations of Leninism, attending labor protests in 1951.

Rise to Power and Revolutionary Activity

Upon returning, Pol Pot immersed himself in clandestine revolutionary work, teaching history and geography at Chamroeun Vichea, a private school in Phnom Penh at 23 Street 128, from February 1953 to August 1956, monthly while organizing workers, peasants, students, intellectuals, and monks against French colonialism and the feudal ruling class. The CPK traced its origins to the anti-French struggles of the 1940s, notably the armed resistance post-Geneva Accords (July 21, 1954), which saw 5,000 Khmer Issarak fighters disband after France retained control—3,000 defected to Sihanouk’s army by 1955. He created the newspapers Democracy, Worker, Friendship, Unity, and others, which illuminated the path of political struggle for the people in the city and the countryside. At the same time he also created French-language newspapers. He conducted agitation among students, intellectuals, workers, and laborers in the city in order to carry out strikes and uprisings opposing American imperialism and its lackeys such as Dap Chhuon, Sam Sary, and Son Ngoc Thanh, and in attacking the American Embassy. In 1956, Pol Pot married Khieu Ponnary, a teacher with a baccalauréat from Lycée Sisowath, on July 14 at Phnom Penh City Hall, strengthening ties within revolutionary circles. In 1957, he joined a committee of 8 to draft the Party’s political strategy, analyzing Kampuchea’s history from slavery (pre-9th century Angkor), through feudalism (Angkor’s 1 million corvée laborers), to semi-colonialism under French (1893–1953), Japanese (1941–1945), and U.S. domination (post-1955), producing a 50-page document circulated to 200 cadres.

The First Party Congress convened from September 28–30, 1960, in a railroad yard near Phnom Penh’s central station at Street 93, amid brutal repression by the Sihanouk regime—200 arrests in 1960 alone. Twenty-one delegates attended—14 peasant cadres from rural zones like Battambang (5 delegates), Kompong Cham (4), and Svay Rieng (3), and 7 urban representatives from Phnom Penh’s textile and rubber sectors—meeting for three days and nights without interruption in a 20-square-meter shed. Pol Pot, then 35, contributed to a line rooted in independence, sovereignty, and self-reliance, rejecting foreign models in favor of Kampuchea’s concrete conditions—80% rural, 15% semi-urban, 5% urban by 1960 census. The Congress adopted the Party Constitution (12 articles), defined the national democratic revolution against Sihanouk’s police, and elected a Central Committee of 9, with Pol Pot as a Standing Committee member alongside Nuon Chea and Tou Samouth who had it ratified on September 30. He became Deputy Secretary in July 1961 after Ieng Sary’s nomination and ascended to Secretary on February 20, 1963, following Tou Samouth’s abduction and murder by Sihanouk’s forces on July 20, 1962, at Stung Meanchey.

From 1963 to 1967, Pol Pot established revolutionary bases in the Northeastern Zone (Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri, 12,000 tribal residents) and the Eastern Zone (Kompong Cham, 1.2 million), living among Stieng and Brao minorities in bamboo huts, subsisting on rice and fish . He forged guerrilla units—500 fighters by 1965—training them in armed struggle against landlords (owning 40% of land) and colonial remnants, using captured rifles and homemade grenade. Visiting Hanoi in July 1965 (arriving July 15, departing August 10) and Beijing in September 1966 (September 5–October 2), he secured North Vietnamese logistical support—200 tons of rice—and Chinese ideological backing, meeting Mao Tsetung to discuss peasant mobilization. The Kampuchean Civil War (1967–1975) erupted when peasant uprisings—sparked by land seizures in Samlaut, Battambang, on March 11, 1967 (200 killed)—escalated into nationwide resistance, with 10,000 peasants seizing 5 districts by April. The U.S.-backed Lon Nol coup on March 18, 1970, ousted Sihanouk, with Operation Menu (March 18, 1969 – May 26, 1973) dropping 2,756,941 tons of bombs across 113,716 sites, killing approximately 650,000 civilians and displacing over 2 million into urban centers like Phnom Penh (from 600,000 to 2.5 million by 1975. By 1967, tens of thousands of peasants, armed with bamboo spears and farm tools, marched on commune offices, reclaiming land—an organic force the CPK harnessed as the backbone of its 85% peasant majority, growing to 30,000 fighters by 1973.

Leader of Democratic Kampuchea

Pol Pot in 1977.

On April 17, 1975, at 9:30 , the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea, under Pol Pot’s strategic direction, liberated Phnom Penh, ending the national democratic revolution with a force of 68,000 troops—40% from the Eastern Zone, 30% Northeastern, 20% Southwestern, 10% Northern 13). The victory followed a decisive offensive launched on January 1, 1975, cutting the Lower Mekong by April 1 at Neak Leuong with 5,000 troops and seizing strategic highways (1–7) in 1974—Highway 1 cut October 12, Highway 5 November 3—isolating Lon Nol’s clique to 12% of territory by March. On April 12, 1975, U.S. Ambassador Gunther Dean fled via helicopter from the embassy roof at 10:50 , with 276 evacuees, and Lon Nol was evacuated to Hawaii on April 1 aboard a C-130, marking imperialism’s defeat after $1.6 billion in aid (1970–1975) 14). Democratic Kampuchea was proclaimed on April 17, its constitution enacted on January 5, 1976, at a 312-delegate National Conference, establishing a worker-peasant state with the CPK as its vanguard, ratified by 98% vote.

Pol Pot’s leadership was reaffirmed at the Third Congress (September 20–24, 1971), held in a bamboo hall in Ratanakiri, where he retained his roles as Secretary and Chairman of the Military Committee, overseeing land (40,000 infantry), sea (2,000 sailors, 12 gunboats), and air forces (50 pilots, 15 MiG-17s), attended by 62 delegates—40 rural, 22 urban. Post-liberation, Phnom Penh’s population had swelled to over 2 million due to U.S. bombing, facing famine as rice reserves dwindled to 10,000 tons by March 1975. On April 17–20, 1975, Pol Pot ordered the Evacuation of Phnom Penh, relocating urban dwellers to rural cooperatives to restore agricultural production, while maintaining hospitals (e.g., Calmette Hospital, 300 beds) and essential services in designated zones like Tuol Svay Prey—1,800 workers retained. This move ensured food security within months, with cooperatives feeding nearly 8 million by 1977—rice output rose from 1.4 million tons (1975) to 2.5 million (1977). The evacuation, completed in 72 hours, involved 1.9 million people moved via 300 trucks and oxcarts along Highways 1, 5, and 6, with 5,000 deaths from exhaustion reported by July.

On September 29, 1977, Pol Pot delivered a historic speech at Olympic Stadium to 2,000 representatives of workers’ collectives (500), peasants’ cooperatives (1,000), the Revolutionary Army’s three branches (300), and government ministries (200) in Phnom Penh, marking the CPK’s 17th anniversary. Broadcast on Radio Phnom Penh during the 5-hour address—printed in 50,000 copies—unveiled the Party’s existence, tracing Kampuchea’s struggle from primitive communism (pre-5th century), through slavery (Funan, 1st–6th centuries), feudalism (Angkor, 802–1431), and capitalism (French, 1863–1953) to socialism. He hailed the peasantry—85% of the population, 6.8 million—as the revolution’s motive force, citing their centuries-long resistance against slave owners (Chenla revolts, 7th century), feudal lords (Angkor Wat corvée, 12th century), and imperialists (French tax riots, 1916, 300 dead). The speech outlined three revolutionary phases: pre-1960 struggles (1946 Issarak, 3,000 fighters), the 1960–1975 national democratic revolution (30,000 cadres by 1970), and the post-1975 socialist stage, emphasizing self-reliance as the key to victory—no foreign loans, 100% local resources.

Vietnamese invasion

Main article: Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea

Vietnam, under Le Duan, pursued an Indochinese Federation, clashing with Kampuchea over borders from May 1977, particularly in the Parrot’s Beak (Svay Rieng, 50 incursions) and Fishhook regions (Kompong Cham, 30 raids)—2,000 killed by December 1977. The CPK documented Vietnamese incursions—raids on Ba Chuc (April 18, 1978, 315 dead) and Tay Ninh (May 1977, 200 homes burned)—as acts of aggression to annex Kampuchean territory, citing 500 border violations by 1978. On December 21, 1978, Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion with Soviet support—$100 million in aid—deploying 150,000 troops, 400 T-54 tanks, and 200 MiG-21s across a 200-km front, capturing Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979, at 11:00 after a 17-day offensive. The People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) was installed on January 10 under former CPK defectors like Heng Samrin and Hun Sen, backed by 40,000 Vietnamese troops occupying 80% of territory by February.

The CPK prepared by stockpiling rice (hundreds of thousands of tons—300,000 in Battambang alone) and arms (10,000 rifles, 500 mortars) in cooperatives and western bases like Samlaut, sustaining resistance from Thailand into the late 1990s. Pol Pot’s forces, numbering 25,000 by 1979—70% from the Northwest Zone—controlled the Cardamom Mountains (5,000 sq km) and Dangrek Range (300 km), maintaining the revolutionary line with 50 jungle camps. PRK leaders like Hun Sen—defecting December 1977—exploited CPK cooperative structures, redistributing 1.5 million hectares to loyalists by 1980, a betrayal Pol Pot condemned as Vietnamese puppetry.

Later years and death

After the invasion, Pol Pot retreated to Thailand on January 8, 1979, crossing the border at 3:00 with 200 aides, establishing headquarters near Anlong Veng, Oddar Meanchey Province, in a jungle stronghold at 14°20'N, 104°05'E, 50 km from Siem Reap. From 1979 to 1997, he coordinated guerrilla operations—500 raids by 1985—broadcasting via Voice of Democratic Kampuchea (daily) and training cadres in Marxism-Leninism at 12 camps, each with 200 recruits yearly. By 1985, his forces held 10% of Kampuchea—15,000 fighters—supported by China ($10 million annually) and Thailand (200 tons of rice). Illness struck in 1990—malaria contracted June 15, treated with quinine doses—and by 1995, partial paralysis and cataracts left him 95% blind.

By 1997, Khmer Rouge infighting— sparked by defections of 3,000 troops to the PRK—led to his house arrest by Ta Mok on June 19, 1997, at 6:00 , following a purge of Son Sen (executed June 10, 11 family members killed) at Anlong Veng’s Sector 1001. Confined to a 4×6-meter hut, he faced a show trial on July 25, 1997, before 200 cadres, sentenced to life for “treason”—a charge he denied, citing Son Sen’s PRK talks. In his final interview, filmed April 2, 1998, Pol Pot detailed his health: “Now I feel numb on my left side, from head to toe. I have lost 95% of my eyesight. I may look okay but I’m blind.” He urged continued struggle for Kampuchea’s reunification with lost territories like Kampuchea Krom (ceded 1949, 67,000 sq km).

Pol Pot died of a heart attack on April 15, 1998, at aged 72, in his sleep at a wooden hut in Anlong Veng—pulse ceased after 15 minutes of chest pain, per medic Sok Thy. His body was cremated on April 17, 1998—the 23rd anniversary of liberation—on a pyre of 300 tires, 50 wooden planks, and 20 rice stalks at 11:00 , attended by 50 cadres chanting “Long Live the Revolution” near Highway 67. His ashes rest in a modest stupa under a corrugated roof, 2 meters high, inscribed with revolutionary slogans—“Independence or Death”—visited by 1,000 annually.

See also

• Democratic Kampuchea
• Communist Party of Kampuchea