In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was hoisted out of power in a coup de tat. General Lon Nol, backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States (US), successfully seized power in Cambodia. Nol, as opposed to Sihanouk, was pro US, something the US valued in their war against Cambodia's bordering nation of Vietnam. Nol took little consideration of the people and their needs, and his corrupt administration stirred support for the Khmer Rouge (Seekins, 4). At that time, the Kh

The Khmer Rouge built Cambodian society upon exploiting the masses of the people. In 1970, the Khmer Rouge established mutual assistance groups in the zones that they controlled. Here, small groups of farmers worked together to achieve higher efficiency. In 1973, the Khmer Rouge established low-level cooperatives. Here, peasants lent their land to their fraudulent government, but still had "control" over their land. Finally, in 1974, High-level Cooperatives were established. Private property was abolished, and the harvest was collected by the government and distributed "equally" amongst the people. But in reality, it was only Khmer Communist Party (KCP) officials that adequately received food. As the Four Year Plan defined, the Khmer Rouge tried to establish a complex and intricate irrigation system, based on the seasonal rains that Cambodia received, in which they would be able to produce and harvest rice all year long. With literally everyone in the fields, one would think a government with no other substantiated plans aside from agriculture would achieve it in four years. Yet it is no surprise that Pol Pot failed to achieve his primary goal. Millions of deaths and years of hard work for millions more were not enough for Pol Pot to achieve anything productive.

mer Rouge, a thirty-year-old Communist movement, began their take over of Cambodia. In the five-year period that followed, Cambodia befell into a Civil War between the Khmer Rouge and Lon Nol's forces. On April 17th, 1976, the Khmer Rouge succeeded and marched into Phnom Penh.

The Khmer Rouge, at the time, was led by Pol Pot, formerly known as Saloth Sar. Sar had received an education in radio electronics in France. In France, Sar was introduced to Marxism. His teachers led him to believe that Cambodia, a prosperous monarchy at the time, should go through an "agricultural revolution," converting Cambodia to a classless agrarian country (Geyer, 1). In doing so, Pol Pot was believed that Cambodian society would flourish. "The toxic Soviet/European Marxist genie had been let out of the bottle to poison what had been a peaceful and prosperous faraway land." The ideas of Communism and Marxism had swept through Cambodia's youthful educated middle class like a wildfire. Sar knew this, and when he returned to Cambodia he secretly began work to exploit the growing unrest. At first he became a teacher, and adopted the pseudonym that would go down in history as one of the most notorious name in history - Pol Pot. Soon he became the leader of the Khmer Rouge - a group of guerillas who mixed Marxism with ancient Cambodian mysticism.

In retrospect, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's own ignorant ideas of self-supremacy ultimately led them to their demise. Their "classless" society had failed, and living conditions were horrible. For years, Pol Pot had despotically ruled Cambodia, while methodically purging any "threat" in his own party that could have possible led to reform. Pol Pot single-handedly killed a once prosperous nation. In 1979, when the Khmer

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Approximate Word count = 2059
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)