Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare
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Supharidh Hy
Feb 15, 2005, 2:28:39 PM2/15/05
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Far Eastern Economic Review
January 2005
Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare
by Philip Short
John Murray, 448 pages, £25
Reviewed by David Chandler
Mr. Chandler is author of Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol
Pot (Westview 2nd edition, 2000) and The Tragedy of Cambodian History
(Yale, 1991).
As its title suggests, Philip Short’s readable and capacious book is both a
biography of Pol Pot (1925-1998) and a political history of Cambodia since
World War II. Cambodia followers will be as thrilled as I was by his new
findings and by 175 pages of finely tuned, illuminating notes. Pol Pot: The
History of a Nightmare (published by Henry Holt in North America as Pol
Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare) is the most thorough-going, most closely
argued study of the Khmer Rouge to appear to date.
To declare a personal interest, I have written books about Cambodia’s
recent history and about Pol Pot that were published in 1991 and 1992.
Without comparing Mr. Short’s work to mine, I hasten to praise the energy
of his research, the elegance of his writing and the richness of his
sources. Mr. Short has drawn on many of the same materials as I did, as
well as a wealth of others that I knew nothing about or failed to exploit.
The availability of sources for students of Cambodia’s recent past has
expanded dramatically since I conducted my re search. Mr. Short has made
excellent use, for example, of Vietnamese, Chinese and French archives that
were largely inaccessible to me. He has also profited from the newfound
volubility of many former Khmer Rouge cadres who, since the demise of the
movement in the late 1990s, have become eager to talk about their part in
it - perhaps to sidestep their culpability for its horrors. Finally, Mr.
Short’s years in France, Africa and China - he is an experienced BBC
journalist and the author of three other books, most recently the highly
acclaimed Mao: A Life - provided comparative insights that lend a depth of
focus to much of what he writes.
The hybrid quality of the book, however, has pulled him in contradictory
directions. Sometimes he seems to lay the blame for Democratic Kampuchea at
the feet of Pol Pot and his colleagues. On other pages he suggests that
Cambodia’s culture was largely to blame - an approach I find unpersuasive.
The title Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare compounds the problem. Is
"Pol Pot" the nightmare, or does the word apply to Cambodian history?
Should an "and" or an "or" have come after the phrase "Pol Pot"? Whose
nightmare is it?
That said, the historical narrative that Mr. Short has assembled is very
perceptive and smoothly written. So are the bio graphical sections of the
book, although they brought me no closer to understanding the "personality"
of Pol Pot or to knowing why he acted as he did. The emptiness at the
center of the man is not Mr. Short’s fault, but it must have disappointed
such a skilled biographer to find his subject, after years of research, to
be so elusive, mediocre and enigmatic.
The framework of Pol Pot’s life, unfortunately, has little explanatory
power. Born into a rich peasant family with palace connections, Saloth Sar,
as he was originally named, was a below-average student. He gained a
scholarship at 24 to study radio-electricity in Paris. Like many of his
Cambodian friends, he neglected his studies and joined the French Communist
Party. He struck no one as a potential leader.
In 1953 he returned home and spent a few months in the Vietnamese-dominated
Cambodian resistance. This sojourn gave him better credentials as a
communist than his more talented friends accrued by lingering in France.
For the next 10 years he taught school and rose to the top of Cambodia’s
tiny, clandestine communist movement that offered the only resistance to
Sihanouk’s one-party rule.
In the late 1960s the collective leadership of the Khmer Rouge worked out a
strategy for seizing power and for running the country. They did so in
isolation. The coup against Norodom Sihanouk in 1970 played into their
hands when thousands joined the Khmer Rouge hoping to reinstate the prince
or to alleviate injustice. In 1975, led from the shadows by Pol Pot, the
Khmer Rouge came to power and set in motion policies that led directly or
indirectly to the deaths of over 1.4 million people. Four years later, the
regime was driven out by a Vietnamese invasion. Pol Pot, who had come into
the open in 1977, returned to the forest to lead an increasingly powerless
faction. He died in bed, perhaps by suicide, after 19 years spent more or
less in hiding.
Mr. Short’s treatment of Cambodia’s political history, whether or not it
intersected with Pol Pot’s career, struck me as sensible, balanced and
perceptive. My only reservation about the book is that after so many years
of research, Mr. Short seems to be impatient with Cambodia. I find his
arguments oversimplified and reductive when he writes about the Cambodian
"psyche" and concludes that there is very little that is "rational" in
Cambodian culture. The notion that Cambodia is "primitive" has a long
pedigree, and Mr. Short’s impatience with Khmer Rouge anti-intellectualism
has been shared by many scholars.
I would argue, however, that the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary tradition
itself was more to blame for the horrors of the Khmer Rouge than flaws in
local culture. The relentless logic of Marxism-Leninism (with its impunity
for Party leaders, its sense of entitlement and its alleged obedience to
laws of history), when it was reinforced by Cambodian traditions of
authoritarianism, led to many of the excesses of the Khmer Rouge.
The Cambodian revolution did not fail because its leaders misread Marx and
Lenin but because these men and women were encouraged by China, their own
hubris and what the French call l’aire du temps to set out on a murderous
journey. When they did so they paid no attention to those deeply rooted and
humane aspects of Cambodian behavior that celebrated family, food, freedom
of movement, happiness and fair play. The Khmer Rouge were defeated, at
enormous cost, by the people whose abiding values they sought to overthrow.
Every writer on Cambodia must wrestle with the question of where the
responsibility lay for the nightmare of the Khmer Rouge and Mr. Short’s
welcome, intelligent study is bound to inspire informed and fruitful
debate.[End]
January 2005
Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare
by Philip Short
John Murray, 448 pages, £25
Reviewed by David Chandler
Mr. Chandler is author of Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol
Pot (Westview 2nd edition, 2000) and The Tragedy of Cambodian History
(Yale, 1991).
As its title suggests, Philip Short’s readable and capacious book is both a
biography of Pol Pot (1925-1998) and a political history of Cambodia since
World War II. Cambodia followers will be as thrilled as I was by his new
findings and by 175 pages of finely tuned, illuminating notes. Pol Pot: The
History of a Nightmare (published by Henry Holt in North America as Pol
Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare) is the most thorough-going, most closely
argued study of the Khmer Rouge to appear to date.
To declare a personal interest, I have written books about Cambodia’s
recent history and about Pol Pot that were published in 1991 and 1992.
Without comparing Mr. Short’s work to mine, I hasten to praise the energy
of his research, the elegance of his writing and the richness of his
sources. Mr. Short has drawn on many of the same materials as I did, as
well as a wealth of others that I knew nothing about or failed to exploit.
The availability of sources for students of Cambodia’s recent past has
expanded dramatically since I conducted my re search. Mr. Short has made
excellent use, for example, of Vietnamese, Chinese and French archives that
were largely inaccessible to me. He has also profited from the newfound
volubility of many former Khmer Rouge cadres who, since the demise of the
movement in the late 1990s, have become eager to talk about their part in
it - perhaps to sidestep their culpability for its horrors. Finally, Mr.
Short’s years in France, Africa and China - he is an experienced BBC
journalist and the author of three other books, most recently the highly
acclaimed Mao: A Life - provided comparative insights that lend a depth of
focus to much of what he writes.
The hybrid quality of the book, however, has pulled him in contradictory
directions. Sometimes he seems to lay the blame for Democratic Kampuchea at
the feet of Pol Pot and his colleagues. On other pages he suggests that
Cambodia’s culture was largely to blame - an approach I find unpersuasive.
The title Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare compounds the problem. Is
"Pol Pot" the nightmare, or does the word apply to Cambodian history?
Should an "and" or an "or" have come after the phrase "Pol Pot"? Whose
nightmare is it?
That said, the historical narrative that Mr. Short has assembled is very
perceptive and smoothly written. So are the bio graphical sections of the
book, although they brought me no closer to understanding the "personality"
of Pol Pot or to knowing why he acted as he did. The emptiness at the
center of the man is not Mr. Short’s fault, but it must have disappointed
such a skilled biographer to find his subject, after years of research, to
be so elusive, mediocre and enigmatic.
The framework of Pol Pot’s life, unfortunately, has little explanatory
power. Born into a rich peasant family with palace connections, Saloth Sar,
as he was originally named, was a below-average student. He gained a
scholarship at 24 to study radio-electricity in Paris. Like many of his
Cambodian friends, he neglected his studies and joined the French Communist
Party. He struck no one as a potential leader.
In 1953 he returned home and spent a few months in the Vietnamese-dominated
Cambodian resistance. This sojourn gave him better credentials as a
communist than his more talented friends accrued by lingering in France.
For the next 10 years he taught school and rose to the top of Cambodia’s
tiny, clandestine communist movement that offered the only resistance to
Sihanouk’s one-party rule.
In the late 1960s the collective leadership of the Khmer Rouge worked out a
strategy for seizing power and for running the country. They did so in
isolation. The coup against Norodom Sihanouk in 1970 played into their
hands when thousands joined the Khmer Rouge hoping to reinstate the prince
or to alleviate injustice. In 1975, led from the shadows by Pol Pot, the
Khmer Rouge came to power and set in motion policies that led directly or
indirectly to the deaths of over 1.4 million people. Four years later, the
regime was driven out by a Vietnamese invasion. Pol Pot, who had come into
the open in 1977, returned to the forest to lead an increasingly powerless
faction. He died in bed, perhaps by suicide, after 19 years spent more or
less in hiding.
Mr. Short’s treatment of Cambodia’s political history, whether or not it
intersected with Pol Pot’s career, struck me as sensible, balanced and
perceptive. My only reservation about the book is that after so many years
of research, Mr. Short seems to be impatient with Cambodia. I find his
arguments oversimplified and reductive when he writes about the Cambodian
"psyche" and concludes that there is very little that is "rational" in
Cambodian culture. The notion that Cambodia is "primitive" has a long
pedigree, and Mr. Short’s impatience with Khmer Rouge anti-intellectualism
has been shared by many scholars.
I would argue, however, that the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary tradition
itself was more to blame for the horrors of the Khmer Rouge than flaws in
local culture. The relentless logic of Marxism-Leninism (with its impunity
for Party leaders, its sense of entitlement and its alleged obedience to
laws of history), when it was reinforced by Cambodian traditions of
authoritarianism, led to many of the excesses of the Khmer Rouge.
The Cambodian revolution did not fail because its leaders misread Marx and
Lenin but because these men and women were encouraged by China, their own
hubris and what the French call l’aire du temps to set out on a murderous
journey. When they did so they paid no attention to those deeply rooted and
humane aspects of Cambodian behavior that celebrated family, food, freedom
of movement, happiness and fair play. The Khmer Rouge were defeated, at
enormous cost, by the people whose abiding values they sought to overthrow.
Every writer on Cambodia must wrestle with the question of where the
responsibility lay for the nightmare of the Khmer Rouge and Mr. Short’s
welcome, intelligent study is bound to inspire informed and fruitful
debate.[End]
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