2020 IB Extended Essays

6

students while there, many of whom went on to become central figures in the Khmer Rouge

Regime, including Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Son Sen 9 .

They learnt of the political theory which upheld previous communist and Marxist rulings

such as Stalin’s rule of Russia. The political ideas of Stalinism fascinated the group with

Stalin’s 1912 essays Marxism and the National Question and The History of the Communist

Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR being one of the main focuses in their learning 10 . The former

essay resonated particularly with the Khmers which laid out the definition of a nation as a

‘stable, historically constituted community’ with a ‘common culture, language and territory’.

The traditional Khmer belief equates both ‘race’ and ‘nation’ with cultural behaviour which

the Khmers believed related to Stalin’s ideas of a common community 11 . Stalin’s other work,

The History of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR, highlighted Stalin’s six basic

lessons, which the Khmer Rouge would implement in their leadership. Stalin stressed the

importance of correct leadership. Above all, Stalin urged eternal vigilance, writing that ‘the

party grows ever stronger by cleansing itself of opportunist elements’ 12 . This core belief of

Stalin’s was implemented by the Khmer Rouge, through the eradication of anyone who

could oppose their rule, therefore it can be said that the Killing fields have a foreign origin.

The political ideologies that surrounded Stalinism resonated particularly with the Khmers,

whose culture likewise had little place for subtle checks and balances.

9 Mao Tse-Tung 1939, 'The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party', Maoist Documentation Project. n.p., viewed 10 April 2020, < https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume- 2/mswv2_23.htm > 10 Woods, A & Grant, T 2018, Marxism and the national question, In Defence of Marxism, viewed 10 April 2020, < https://www.marxist.com/marxism-national-question250200/part-three-lenin-on-the-national-question.htm > 11 Mao Tse-Tung 1941, 'Rectify the Party's Style of Work', Maoist Documentation, n.p. viewed 11 April 2020, < https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_02.htm > 12 Short, P 2004, Pol Pot; the History of the Nightmare, Hachette UK Company, London.