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Umeraevelopmen~
in
Cambodia
by
Khieu
.
.-\
cflt+
Samphan
Introduction
Khieu
Samphan's
doctoraE
thesis,* completed
in
Paris in
1959,
was
the first systematic application
of
Marxist
economic
theory
to
the
specific problems of Cambodia.
A5
such,
it
became a
basic text for
a
whole generation of Cambodianstudents in
Paris
during the
1960s.
It
was
also widely studiedand
discussed
among
the
left in Phnorn
Penh.
Foreshadowingmany of the policies that have been implemented inDemocratic Kampuchea, the thesis is important for
its
influence on the leaders of the
new
government
and
for thelight it casts
on
why they
have
adopted their present policies.*
Khieu
Samphan
Born
July
27,
1937,
Khieu
Samphan grew up in KompongCham as the
son
of
a
middle-ranking civil servant.
tn
1954
hereceived
a
Cambodian government scholarship
for
post-
graduate study
in
France,
where he
became
politically active.Together with
leng
5ary
and
Hou
Yuon.
he
attended Frenchpolitical meetings,
hcame
a
supporter of the Vietnameserevolutionary
cause
and traveled to international
peace
meetings
such
as
the
1955
Helsinki
Peace
Conference.
Back
in
Phnom
Penh, Khieu Sampharl founded the French-languageweekly,
I'Obsewateur.
Its
defenseofautarkic development andeconomic and cultural nationalism brought
the
magazine intoconflict with the neo-colonial and neo-aristocratic Sihanoukregime.
L'Qbservateur
was banned
in
1960
and
Khieu
Sarnphan
sent to prison for
a
month.After
a
period
as
a
teacher at
a
school for talented studentsfrom low-income families and
as
a
contributor
$0
a
Khmer-language newspaper, Khieu Samphan was elected to
the
Nationaf
Assembly
in
1962.
He
served briefly
in
Sihanoukascabinet
as
Secretary
of
Commerce. KhieuSamphan
and
Hou
Yuon,
then Secretary for Planning, were forced
to
resign in
June
1963.
For
Khieu
Sarnphan, this experience confirmedthat his analysis of Cambodia's situation
was
correct, but itconvinced him that his earlier hopes for reform
were
overlyoptimistic. In
the
Sihanouk government,
he
confronteddirectly the western-oriented elite
which
owed its existence to
"Cambodia's
Economy
and
Problems
of
I
ndustrialirat
ion."
for!
hcom-
ing
in
a
complete
translation
by
Laura
Summers,
who
teaches
in
the
Department
of
Politrcs
of
the
Un~versity
of
Lancacter
in
Lancester,
England.
This
rsue
of the
Indoch~na
hronrcle.
based
on
her
translaz~on
on
pragres,
was
ed~ted
by
Martha
Wbnnacker,
Lowell
Finley and
Candace
Falk.
We
would
l~ke
a
express
our
thanks
to
Ms.
Summers for
background intormalion
whtch
has
been
~ncorporated Into
thls
~ntrodwction.
For
a
deta~led
tudy
of
rhe
new
government's
pol~cles,
we
IndochrnaChronicle
No.
47.
"Carnbod~a.
The
Politlcs
of Food."
Cambdia6s position
in
the
world trade system. At the
same
time, the conditions he had analyzed in
his
thesis grew steadilyworse, making
the
need for change more
acute.
Out
of
the
cabinet, Khieu Samphan made
a
point
of
familiarizing himself with peasant problems in order to defendtheir Interests.
In
1966
he
won one of
the
largestparliamentary majorities
in
the
country. although Sihanoukpublicly opposed
his
reelection. But that election brought
a
conservative majority, which choseLt.Gen. Lon Nol
as
premier.
Fn
a
draconian effort
to
improve
the
falteringeconomy,
Lon
Nol's government
used
the army to forcepeasant5
to
sell rice
to
the government
at
a
price lower than
the
cost
of
production, sparking
a
rebellion in Battambangprovince early in 1967'. When the army struck back, peasantsburned
government
buildings
and
fled into the bush with theirfamilies. In Phnom
Penh,
Khieu Samphan and other leftistdeputies organized
a
demonstration calling for
the
resignation
of
the Lon Nol government and withdrawal of troops
from
Battambang. Soon afterward. Sihanouk
named
Kh
eu and fourother deputies
ar
instigators of
the
rebellion. Khieu Samphan,HouYuon
and
HuNim disappeared from Phnom
Penh.
Underground, the three deputies worked
to
developarmedstruggle against Sihanouk's government, which they
saw
as
increasingly dominated by rightwing urban commercialinterests.
By
the beginning
of
1969,
the
"Khmers Rouges,"
as
Sihanouk called them. centrolled large
areas
in
northern andsouthwesternCambodia.Threatened by
the
revolutionarymovement
and
envious of American support for the Saigonregime. Phnom
Penh's
commerc~aland parliamentary el~tesconspired
to
overthrow Sihanouk and secure Americansupport against the revolutionaries. In the spring of
1970
the
U.S.
dutifully entered Cambodia six
weeks
after Sihanouk
was
overthrown.Khieu Samphan and other revolutionaries immediatelyrallied
to
Sihanouk's
support.
Viewing
him
as
a
true
nationalist
because
of
his
consistent
.
anti-U.S.
and
anti-imperialist
positions, they objected only that
he
had never transformed
his
speeches into concrete development policies. Though theprince's
support
was
valuable
to
the
revolution, the
most
signiffcant factor in the
post-COLIP
growth
of
the
revolution
was
the support and mobilization
of
Khmer people in all walksof life.Khieu
Sarnphan's
qualifications
in
economics, education
and
political leadership, plus his experience
In
theunderground, made him
a
logicaf
choice,
first
as
Defense
Minister during
the
resistance struggle,
and
lateras
First
Deputy
Premier and then President of
the new
Democratic
State
of
Kampuchea.
He
is generally regarded
as
the
leadingfiqure In the
new
government.
INDOCHINA
CHRONICLE
The
Thesis
The analysis centers around the idea that underdevelop-ment is caused
by
colonial exploitat~on.
wh~ch
distorts the
colony's
economy so
badyy
that
it cannot develop. This
theory
of underdevelopment has been carried further by other ThirdWorld scholars, many of
whom
also studied in Paris during the
1950s
and
1960s.
In
a
recently
published
study,"
African scholar
Samir
Amin,whostudied with Khieu
Samphan
in Paris, explains whyiunderd~velopment
and
mass poverty occur. Amin's thesisdist~nguishes
etween
"central"
and
"peripheral" economies,which develop along entirely different paths. The primary"motors" for
the
central economies-the
U.S.,
Western Europeand Japan-are the production of capital goods {machineryand
raw
materials used in production) and that
of
goods
for
mass
consumption.
Since
industries producing for massconsumption cannot function unless there
is
a market for their
gods,
the
system
as
a
whole must
keep
wages
high enough toallow workers to consume. This accounts for the affluence ofthe "first world." Third world economies,
however,
have
beenintegrated into the world economy chiefly to supply
cheap
labor for foreign capital. The
growth
sectorsoftheireconomies produce
goods
for export andforluxuryconsumption
by
small elites
at
home. Goods for
mass
consumptian
are
praduced by subsistence farmers andimpoverished small craftspeople. Since there is little capitalistproduction for
a
mass
market, there
is
no requirementthat
wages
bekept
above
minimum survival levels.
As
long
as
sucheconomies remain part
of
the world economy dominated bythe central
states,
this pattern
of
growth will continue,perpetuating and even deepening inequality
and
poverty. Thecycle can
be
broken only by withdrawing from
the
uvorld
For
a
more
dera~ld
resentatEon
of
Amin's
theory.
see
box
on
page
18
.
economy
and
restructuring
the
local economy
on
a
self-centered
basis.
After
this restructuring is accomplished,
the
country
may
be able to reenter the world economy-buton its own terms.
Such
a
withdrawal
and
restructuring isuntikely without
a
revolutionary upheaval,
as
the
system
has
created
a
small
but powerful elite committed
to
itscontinuation.Khieu Samphan applFes this theory
to
Cambodia, although
its
concepts were not completely formulated
at
the
time hewrote.
The
thesis
is
arranged in
me
arts.
An abridged version
of
Part
I,
"The
Economy
in
Cambodia,"
is
presented here.
In
Chapter I, Khieu Samphan
descr~bes
the structure
of
theCambodian economy in the
1950s
and
analyzes
the
way
inwhich it had developed under nearly
a
century of Frenchcolonial control.
He
shows that the structure
of
the economy
is
largely pre-capitalist, with
a
large stagnating semi-feudalagrFcultural sector and
a
small,
weak
industrial sector.
He
goes
an to argue that
the
continued existence of this structure
is
the direct result of French interventionin
the
economy beforeCambodia
had
developed the essential elements
of
a
capitalist
system.
As
a
result, Cambodia could
not
develop
along
theCQWrSeearlier followed
by
France and other
western
capitafistcountries, and it
became
instead an appendage of thedominant French and international capitalist economies.
Kh
eu Samphan
sees
the role of
the
United States, which
was
expanding rapidly at the time
of
his writing,
as
essentiallyidenticat
to
that
of
the French.In
Chapter
ll,
Khieu Sarnphan
shows
that foreigninvestments are heavily concentrated in
export
production
(56
per cent) and activities that
support the
export sector
(20
percent).
He
attributes this partially to the earlier destruction
of
Cambodia's handicraft Fndustries. This had undermined thebuying
power
of the mass of Cambodians and left
no
internal
market to attract investment
in
production for internalconsumption.
As
a
result, export agriculture, intermediarycommerce and luxury production
for
the small group
of
Cambodians benefitting
from
the
import-export tradedeveloped. Rather than contribute to
the
even
development
of
September-November
1976
3
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