Pol Pot (1925-1998) was a Cambodian communist revolutionary, the leader of the Khmer Rouge and Cambodia’s de facto leader between April 1975 and January 1979. Pol Pot was born Saloth Sar in a small village around 90 miles north of the capital Phnom Penh. His father was an affluent farmer rather than a peasant, so Sar’s upbringing was more comfortable than that of other village children. At age nine he was sent to Phnom Penh for schooling, studying first at a Buddhist monastery, then at a French Catholic school. After failing his academic courses Sar studied carpentry before winning a government scholarship to study radio electronics in France. While in France he became interested in Marxist ideology and involved in communist groups. Sar joined the French Communist Party in 1951 and undertook volunteer work in socialist Yugoslavia.
Sar returned to Cambodia in 1953 and taught history and geography at a private school. By now, however, his true passion was revolution. Using the pen name Pol Pot he worked as an organiser and strategist with Cambodian communist groups. In late 1960 Pol Pot and his followers seized control of the Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP) and renamed it the Workers’ Party of Kampuchea (WPK). As the Vietnam conflict intensified, Pol Pot and the WPK relocated to Cambodia’s north-east, to establish a base camp and link up with North Vietnamese forces. The WPK was renamed the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) in 1966. Pol Pot and his followers spent the late 1960s recruiting, building support and training for an armed takeover of Cambodia. A March 1970 coup by US-backed general Lon Nol increased support for Pol Pot and the CPK. Under Pol Pot’s leadership, the Khmer Rouge evolved from a small insurgency into a significant revolutionary force. The group placed Phnom Penh under siege in 1973, finally taking control of the capital in April 1975.
Under Pol Pot’s leadership, the Khmer Rouge began to impose its own form of ‘peasant communism’ on Cambodia. Agricultural production was prioritised and collectivised, while other industries and pursuits, such as education, were outlawed. The Khmer Rouge used genocide to eliminate intellectuals, political dissidents, class enemies, even those considered surplus to the country’s labour needs. Unlike other communist leaders, like Mao Zedong, Pol Pot was a reclusive figure who rarely delivered speeches or appeared in public. Instead, he relied on his lieutenants and functionaries to implement his orders. Pol Pot was eventually driven from power in January 1979, after Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia and captured Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge continued to wage war against subsequent Cambodian governments, though by the 1990s its numbers had dwindled significantly.
Pol Pot lived the rest of his life in exile in Thailand and northern Cambodia. In 1998 the Khmer Rouge agreed to hand him to an international court, to face charges of war crimes and genocide. Pol Pot died shortly after, probably by suicide. Few mourned the man who led one of the 20th century’s most destructive regimes and oversaw one of history’s deadliest genocides.
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