Clayton - Building The New Cambodia Educational Destruction and Construction Under The Khmer Rouge X

History of Education Society
Building the New Cambodia: Educational Destruction and Construction under the Khmer Rouge,
1975-1979
Author(s): Thomas Clayton
Source: History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp. 1-16
Published by: History of Education Society
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the New Cambodia: Educational
Building
Destruction and Construction under the
Khmer 1975-1979
Rouge,
Thomas Clayton
On 17 April 1975, the communist Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom

Penh and established Democratic Kampuchea. Declaring an end to "over
two thousand years of Cambodian history,"1 Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot
announced a new beginning, referred to metaphorically by scholars ofthe
period as the "Year Zero."2 The "new Cambodia" lasted exactly three years,
eight months, and twenty days, during which time the people of Cambo?
dia were subjected to a cataclysmic social experiment as part of what one his-
torian has termed "the world's most radical... revolution."3
Many first-hand accounts and scholarly analyses based on interviews
with refugees describe the horrifying events ofthe late 1970s.4
Closing
Cambodia off from nearly all communication with the outside world, the
Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh and all other urban centers, and city
dwellers were sent to the countryside where they were forced to work in agri-
Thomas Clayton is an assistant professor of English at the University of Kentucky. Research

for this article was supported by grants from the University of Pittsburgh School of Educa?
tion. The author wishes additionally to thank David Ayres for his helpful comments and
suggestions.
?Citedby David Chandler, A Historyof Cambodia,2nd ed. (Boulder, 1993), 209.
2EkSam Ol, "The Situation of Higher and Technical Education in the State of Cam?
bodia since January 7th 1979" (Paper presented at the Cambodian Workshop on Recon?
struction and Development, Penang, Malaysia, 1991); Eva Mysliwiec, Punisbingthe Poor:The
InternationalIsolationof Kampuchea(Oxford, 1988); Eva Mysliwiec, "Cambodia: NGOs in
Transition," in BetweenHopeandlnsecurity:The SocialConsequences ofthe CambodianPeacePro?
cess,ed. Peter Utting (Geneva, 1994), 97-111; Francois Ponchaud, CambodiaYearZero(New
York, 1978).
3Ben Kiernan, "The Survival of Cambodia's Ethnic Minorities," Cultural Survival
Quarterly14 (no. 3, 1990): 64.
4Forfirst-hand accounts, see Haing Ngor, A CambodianOdyssey(New York, 1987); Pin
Yathay, StayAlive, My Son (New York, 1987); Someth May, Cambodian Witness (New York,
1987); Martin Stuart-Fox and Ung Bunheang, TheMurderousRevolution:Life and Death in Pol
Pofs Kampuchea(Bangkok, 1986). For interviews with refugees, see David Chandler, Ben Kier?
nan, and Muy Hong Lim, The Early PhasesofLiberationin NorthwesternCambodia:Conversa-
tions with Peang Sophi (Clayton, 1976); Ben Kiernan, Cambodia:The Eastern Zone Massacres
(New York, 1986);Kiernan, "The Survivalof Cambodia'sEthnic Minorities; Ben Kiernan, The
Pol Pot Regime:Race,Power,and Genocidein Cambodiaunderthe KhmerRouge, 1975-79 (New
Haven, 1996); Ben Kiernan and Chanthou Boua, Peasantsand Politicsin Kampuchea,1942-
1981 (London, 1982); Michael Vickery, Cambodia:1915-1982 (Boston, 1984).
HistoryofEducation
Quarterly Vol. 38 No. 1 Spring1998
2 History of Education Quarterly
cultural cooperatives under brutal supervision. Many people suspected of

association with the previous regime were assassinated, as were students, teach?
ers, engineers, doctors, and other educated Cambodians. Though there
was considerable variation in Khmer Rouge policies and severity across
time and geography,5 knowledge of a foreign language or use of a minor?
ity language could be cause for execution. The family structure weakened
as a result of frequent relocations and at least some forced marriages and removals
of children from their parents. Religion was banned, monks were defrocked,
markets and currency were abolished, and schools were demolished.
In this process of social destruction, many hundreds of thousands of
Cambodians died, either killed outright by the Khmer Rouge or succumbing
to hunger, overwork, or disease. Lack of census data makes a precise figure
impossible to define, and consequently estimates ofthe death toll between
1975 and 1979 range from 750,0006 to 3,331,678.7 It is generally accepted
that between one and two million Cambodians died in these years.8
Though it is difficult to imagine this violence directed by Cambodi?
ans toward Cambodians, it is perhaps not difficult to understand. Khmer Rouge
soldiers had been recruited "from the poorest population strata ofthe vil-
lages."9 The latent anger of these "previously... downtrodden [worker-peas-
ants]"10 toward more privileged Cambodians was exploited by Khmer Rouge
leaders for the purpose of radically altering Cambodia's social structure.
Borrowing a metaphor from Mao, David Chandler comments that "it was
thought that these young people [who were seen as] 'poor and blank* pages
on which it was easy to inscribe the teachings of the revolution .. . would
lead the way in transforming Cambodia."11 Unfortunately, the anger ofthe
oppressed, once roused, was difficult to contain, and "random executions
[were meted out by Khmer Rouge soldiers] for the merest show of insub-
ordination."12 As one Khmer Rouge cadre is alleged to have commented, "We
were so angry when we came out ofthe forest [that is, came to power], that
we didn't want to spare even a baby in its cradle."13
sFor discussions, see David Ayres, "Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge Leaping Forward
into the Past" (draft chapter for Ph.D. diss., University of Sydney, 1996); Vickery, Cambodia,
1915-1982.
?Vickery,Cambodia,1915-1982, 187.
7Governmentstatisticsfrom the People's Republic of Kampuchea,cited by Grant Cur?
tis, Cambodia:A CountryProfik(Stockholm, 1989), 6. The communistPeople's Republicof Kam?
puchea, established in 1979, was extremely hostile toward the Khmer Rouge.
8Mysliwiec,Punishingthe Poor, 1.
9Kimmo Kiljunen, Kampuchea:Decadeofthe Genocide(London, 1984), 8.
10Kiljunen,Kampuchea,8.
"Chandler, History,211.
"Kiljunen, Kampuchea,17.
BReragee account cited by Chandler, Kiernan, and Muy Hong Lim, Early Phasesof
Liberation,9. Indeed, childrenwere not spared.For refiigee accounts of such incidents, see Ken-
neth Quinn, "The Origins and Development of Radical Cambodian Communism" (Ph.D.
diss., University of Maryland, 1982).
Building the New Cambodia 3
It is more difficult to understand the motivation of Pol Pot and the

leadership of Democratic Kampuchea in initiating such epic upheaval and
destruction. While we can characterize the Khmer Rouge leaders as gen-
uine revolutionaries for whom no feudal or capitalist social institution or prod-
uct was sacred,14 their hypocrisy is nevertheless confounding. They themselves
were multilingual urbanites with advanced educations,15 and yet they tar-
geted others with similar backgrounds for extermination. In his attempt to
understand the evacuation of cities, Chandler notes that Pol Pot and the lead?
ership of Democratic Kampuchea may have been "fearful for their own
security."16 Perhaps this same insecurity drove the Khmer Rouge leaders to
destroy those individuals who, like themselves, might aspire to power in
Cambodia. Hinting toward a similar explanation, Marie Martin suggests
that the Khmer Rouge leaders sought to "rid themselves of those [people]
capable of leading the masses."17
The violence and destruction for which Democratic Kampuchea "has
become a paradigm"18 was, however, only part of the equation envisioned
by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Kenneth Quinn argues that the first goal
of the Cambodian revolution, as in the Soviet and Chinese communist rev-
olutions, was to "destroy the old society and its social, political, economic,
and cultural infrastructure" so completely that it would be impossible for
these structures to reestablish themselves.19 Subsequently, a new society,
radically different from the one it succeeded, was to be constructed. Focus-
ing more on things destroyed than things replaced, Pol Pot described this
new society in 1978:
We are building socialism without a model. We do not wish to copy any-

one; we shall use the experience gained in the course ofthe liberation struggle.
There are no schools, faculties or universities in the traditional sense, although
they did exist in our country prior to liberation, because we wish to do awaywith
all vestiges ofthe past. There is no money, no commerce, as the state takes care
of provisioning all its citizens. . . . We evacuated the cities; we resettled the
inhabitants in the rural areas where the living conditions could be provided for
this segment of the new Cambodia. The countryside should be the focus of
attention for our revolution, and the people will decide the fate of the cities.20
14Chandler,History,209; also see David Chandler, BrotherNumberOne:A PoliticalBiog-

raphyofPol Pot (Boulder, 1992).
15Forbiographies of Khmer Rouge leaders, see Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to
Power:A HistoryofCommunismin Kampuchea,1930-1915 (London, 1985).
16Chandler,Mtfory,210.
17MarieMartin, Cambodia:A ShatteredSociety(Berkeley, 1994).
18MichaelVickery, "Cambodia,"in Comingto Terms:Indochina,the UnitedStates,and the
War, eds. Douglas Allen and Ngo Vinh Long (Boulder, 1991), 105.
19KennethQuinn, "The Pattern and Scope of Violence," in Cambodia1915-1918: Ren-
dezvouswithDeath, ed. Karljackson (Princeton, 1989), 180.
20PolPot's remarks to visiting Yugoslavian journalists in March 1978, cited by Mysli?
wiec, Punishingthe Poor,6-7.
In the new Cambodia, previous class structures were to be overturned, with

worker-peasants "taking charge of state power."21 Though this amounted
more to a reversal of social stratifications than to the eradication of the
class system, Khmer Rouge radio claimed in 1975 that the "new Cambo?
dian society is a community in which man is no longer exploited by man.
It is a community without oppressed or oppressors. It is an equal society where
there are no rich or poor and all are equal and harmoniously united in the
common effort to increase production, defend, and build their beloved
fatherland."22
Though the 1976 Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields called
for both agricultural and industrial development,23 agriculture was to intend-
ed to remain the cornerstone of the Cambodian revolution and economy.
As Pol Pot commented in an epic speech on 27 September 1977: "We take
agriculture as the basic factor and use the fruits of agriculture to systemat-
ically build industry in order to advance toward rapidly transforming a
Cambodia marked by a backward agriculture into a Cambodia marked by
a modernized agriculture."24 The emphasis on agriculture correlated with
the valorization of worker-peasants and thus supported the Khmer Rouge
agenda for social change at the national level. The development of indige-
nous economic potential was additionally seen as a way to achieve Cambodia's
independence from exploitative international structures. Khieu Samphan,
a ranking Khmer Rouge cadre who has been described as the regime's "chief
ideologue,"25 had argued as early as his 1959 University of Paris doctoral dis-
sertation that integration in the world capitalist system was the "root cause
of underdevelopment ofthe [Cambodian] economy."26 While in a series of
interlocking dependency relationships with foreign capitalist powers, Khieu
Samphan wrote, Cambodia's
local industrialcomponents are more thoroughly integratedinto a foreign whole

rather than a national whole. Local businesses are welded to industries in
advanced capitalist countries and totally ignore the rest of the national econo-
211976document ascribed to Pol Pot, cited by Chandler, BrotherNumber One, 174.

2221July 1975 Khmer Rouge radio broadcast, cited by KarlJackson, "The Ideology of
Total Revolution," in Cambodia1915-1918: Rendezvouswith Death, 55.
23Forthe text and a discussion of "The Party's Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All
Fields," see David Chandler, Ben Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua, PolPotPlans the Future:Con-
fidential LeadershipDocumentsfrom DemocraticKampuchea,1916-1911 (New Haven, 1988),
36-119.
24Citedby Charles Twining, "The Economy," in Cambodia1915-1918: Rendezvouswith
Death, 110. Quinn ("The Origins and Development," 20) calls this speech, given on the 17th
anniversary of the founding of the Cambodian Communist Party, the "single most impor?
tant and revealing speech by any Khmer Rouge leader."
25Jackson,"The Ideology of Total Revolution," 42.
26KhieuSamphan's Ph.D. dissertation ("L'Economie du Cambodge et ses Problemes
d'Industrialisation"[University of Paris, 1959]) was translated by Laura Summers and pub?
lished as Khieu Samphan, Cambodia'sEconomyand IndustrialDevelopment(Ithaca, 1979).
my: the cigarettefactoriesprocessforeign tobacco,soap factoriesuse foreign copra

[for instance], and no attention is paid to "indigenous"tobacco and copra. Thus
elements of industrial development issuing from international integration of
the economy are usually conceived as extensions of the industries of advanced
capitalist countries, while at the same time [local] agriculture vegetates under
the weight of a profoundly precapitalist structure.27
While Khieu Samphan's dissertation is far from a revolutionary traet, its advo-
cacy of Cambodia's indigenous economic development as a means of alter-
ing the country's peripheral and exploited status in the world capitalist
system has considerable resonance in Democratic Kampuchea's policies of
self-reliance and international isolationism.28
Unfortunately for the Cambodian people, Khmer Rouge develop?
ment plans were almost total failures. As refugee accounts attest, antici-
pated agricultural yields were not realized, industrialization did not occur,
and international self-sufficiency was achieved only briefly and only at the
cost of mass starvation.29 Indeed, many Cambodians characterize the 7 Jan-
uary 1979 Vietnamese invasion, which ended Democratic Kampuchea, as
a "liberation" from the Khmer Rouge.30 Nevertheless, it is clear that dur?
ing his tenure in power Pol Pot intended to accomplish more than the
destruction of the old society. No matter now reprehensible we may find
his methods and objectives, it is important to realize that Pol Pot's vision
for Cambodia also included the construction of a new society. Education
under the Khmer Rouge was integrated with, and can provide a case study
of, this cycle of destruction and construction.
Educational Destruction and Construction
In 1969, before the Khmer Rouge insurgency began to have a signif?

icant impact, Cambodia's educational system comprised 5,275 primary
schools, 146 secondary schools, and 9 institutes of higher education.31 This
educational infrastructure was the result of a massive school expansion pro-
27KhieuSamphan, Cambodia'sEconomyand IndustrialDevelopment,29.

28InExplainingCambodia:A ReviewEssay(Canberra, 1994), Serge Thion criticizes the
tendency by scholars to connect Khieu Samphan's dissertation with Khmer Rouge policies,
claiming that no reference is made to the dissertation in surviving Democratic Kampuchean
documents. In spite of Thion's citation analysis, it seem entirely reasonable to me to interpret
the Khmer Rouge's isolationism and dedication to self-sufficiency within the context of Khieu
Samphan's concern about the hegemonic dynamics of the world capitalist system.
29Seenote 4.
i07January 1979, "LiberationDay," was celebrated as a national holiday in the People's
Republic of Kampuchea (1979-1989) and the State of Cambodia (1989-1993).
3,See, respectively, Donald Whitaker, Area Handbookfor the KhmerRepublic(Cambo?
dia) (Washington, 1973), 114; B. Duvieusart and R. Ughetto, RepubliqueKhmere:Projectde
Restructurationdu Systemed'Education(Paris, 1973), 19; Kenneth Watts, Charles Draper, David
Elder,John Harrison, Yoichi Higaki, andJean-Claude Salle, Kampuchea NeedsAssessmentStudy
(Phnom Penh, 1989), 152-153.
ject engineered by head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk in the 1950s

and 1960s. Sihanouk was a nationalist dedicated to achieving and maintain-
ing Cambodia's independence from France, the former colonial power.
Because of Sihanouk's educational project, greater numbers of students were
able to enter school, receive training, and gain skills necessary to assume
economic, political, and technical posts, many of which had been held by French
nationals.32 For Sihanouk, then, education was geared toward professional prepa?
ration and was an important step away from neocolonial dependency.33
When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, education as it had
been known under Sihanouk and his successor Lon Nol ceased at all levels
and in all locales.34 There is some indication that the closure of schools was
the result of a specific decision taken by the Khmer Rouge at a conference
held in Phnom Penh from 20 to 25 May 1975. According to Ben Kiernan,
this conference represented the first attempt by the Khmer Rouge to imple-
ment their social agenda at the national level. Many policies typically asso-
ciated with Democratic Kampuchea were approved at this conference,
including the evacuation of cities, the abolition of markets and money, and
the collectivization of agriculture. In their conversations with Kiernan in the
1980s and 1990s, several conference participants remembered discussing the
closure of schools.35
In Democratic Kampuchea, closing schools meant well more than
chaining the doors of educational facilities and suspending classes. In their
efforts to "do away with all vestiges ofthe past,"36 the Khmer Rouge destroyed
90 percent of all school buildings, emptied libraries and burned their con-
tents, and smashed nearly all school laboratory equipment.37 The few edu-
"JacquesNepote, "Education et Developpement dans le Cambodge Moderne," Mon-

desen Developpement28 (1979): 767-792; Whitaker, Area Handbookforthe KhmerRepublic.
3?Fora more detailed discussion of education in the 1950s and 1960s, see Thomas
Clayton, Educationand Language-in-Education in Relationto ExternalInterventionin Cambodia,
1620-1989 (Ann Arbor, University Microfilms International, 1995).
34Infact, schools were closed as early as 1971 in territory which the Khmer Rouge had
"liberated"from government forces. See Kenneth Quinn, "PoliticalChange in Wartime: The
Khmer Krahom Revolution in Southern Cambodia,"Naval War CollegeReview(Spring, 1976):
3-31. For other discussions of pre-1975 Khmer Rouge policies in liberated territory, see Ith
Sarin,"Nine Months with the Maquis,"and "Lifein the Bureausofthe Khmer Rouge,"in Com?
munist Party Powerin Kampuchea(Cambodia):Documentsand Discussion,ed. Timothy Carney
(Ithaca, 1976), 34-55; Serge Thion, "Cambodia 1972: Within the Khmer Rouge," in Watch-
ing Cambodia(Bangkok, 1993), 1-19.
3SKiernan,The Pol Pot Regime.For a discussion, see Ayres, "Pol Pot and the Khmer
Rouge."
36PolPot's remarks to visiting Yugoslavian journalists in March 1978, cited by Mysli?
wiec, Punishingthe Poor,1.
37Onthe destruction of school buildings, see Norbert Hirschhorn, Lyndon Haviland,
andJoseph Salvo, CriticalNeedsAssessmentin Cambodia:TheHumanitarianIssues(Washington,
1991); Ek Sam Ol, "The Situation of Higher and Technical Education";CambodianMinistry
of Education, Education: State of Cambodia (Phnom Penh, 1990). On bookburning, see John
Barronand Anthony Paul, PeacewithHorror(London, 1977);my interviewwith Seng Lim Neou,
cational facilities which were not demolished were refitted for other pur-
poses. As Phnom Penh itself was remade into a Democratic Kampuchea
administrative center for perhaps 50,000 party members, cadres, and sup?
port staff, the Royal University was turned into a farm.38 The Khmer-Sovi-
et Friendship Higher Technical Institute in Phnom Penh, a 1964 gift from
the Soviet Union,39 was turned into the Khmer Rouge's Central Political
School40; this school also served as a prison for Cambodians returning from
abroad after the communist victory, many of whom were ultimately killed.41
The infamous Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh in which tens of thousands
of Cambodians were tortured and killed in Khmer Rouge purges was for?
merly a high school.42
Educators and potential educators were intentionally targeted by the
Khmer Rouge. Scholars suggest several reasons for the systematic elimina-
tion of students, teachers, and professors. Perhaps most simply, these indi-
viduals were products of feudal-capitalist institutions and were thus seen as
barriers to progress in the new Cambodia. As Quinn comments, by "elimi-
nating the intellectual class, the Khmer communists were apparently hop-
ing to ensure that the direction ofthe new social order would be irreversible."43
Chandler suggests further that students, teachers, and professors were killed
because they, as beneficiaries of the previous social order, were generally
hostile to the changes sought by the Khmer Rouge.44 A punitive explana-
tion was offered by Pol Pot himself in 1977. Echoing Marx, the Khmer
Rouge leader argued that teachers, in the "pay ofthe oppressor classes," had
actively obscured the inequities in the old social system and had, in the pro?
cess, turned worker-peasants away from revolution toward acceptance of
exploitation.45
Whether because of future threats or past sins, Cambodia's students,
teachers, and professors were killed in large numbers in Democratic Kam?
puchea. According to the Ministry of Education ofthe State of Cambodia,
"75% ofthe teaching force, 96% of tertiary students and 67% of all [ele-
Vice Minister of Health, State of Cambodia (Phnom Penh, 15 July 1992). On the destruction
of educational equipment, see my interviews with Chan Nareth, Vice Director, Chamcar
Duang AgriculturalInstitute (Phnom Penh, 23 July 1992); Seng Lim Neou; Om Nhieu Sarak,
Director, Khmer-Soviet Friendship Higher Technical Institute (Phnom Penh, 17June 1992).
38Barronand Paul, Peacewith Horror.
39Myinterview with Om Nhieu Sarak.
'^Timothy Carney, "The Organization of Power," in Cambodia 1975-1978: Ren?
dezvous with Death; Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime.
41Myinterview with Om Nhieu Sarak,Director ofthe Institute in 1992. The Director
described the Institute during the Khmer Rouge regime as a prison, not an educational facility.
42Chandler,BrotherNumber One.
43Quinn,"The Pattern and Scope," 188.
^Chandler, History.
45PolPot's 27 September 1977 speech, cited by Quinn, "The Pattern and Scope," 188.
mentary and secondary] pupils" died in Democratic Kampuchea.46 The

Information Agency ofthe People's Republic of Kampuchea puts the fig-
ure of teachers killed at 80 percent,47 an assessment which underestimates
the 90 percent suggested by Soviet sources.48 The death toll for university
professors was particularly high. According to the University of Phnom
Penh, "out of 1000 academics and intellectuals in the university, only 87 sur-
vived."49 All but one faculty member ofthe Khmer-Soviet Friendship High?
er Technical Institute in Phnom Penh were killed.50
Many scholars terminate their discussions of Khmer Rouge educa?
tion after such recitations of destruction.51 The eradication of education by
the Khmer Rouge is also emphasized by educators in contemporary Cam?
bodia, many of whom related to me in interviews such comments as, "Under
the Khmer Rouge regime, all structure in the field of education was destroyed,"
and "The whole system of education, both infrastructure and human
resources, was totally destroyed during the Pol Pot regime."52 While there
is no question that the Khmer Rouge systematically destroyed Sihanouk's
educational system and, worse, brutally murdered tens of thousands of edu?
cators and potential educators, such treatments do not tell the complete
story of education in Democratic Kampuchea. In fact, Pol Pot construct-
ed a new educational "system," one which was radically different in form
and purpose from Sihanouk's but which, like Sihanouk's, was dedicated to
larger social goals.
^CambodianMinistry of Education, Education:State of Cambodia,4. The State of Cam?

bodia succeeded the People's Republic of Kampucheain 1989. While the leadershipofthe two
governments was essentially the same, the name change signaled the beginning of a move
toward a multi-party political system and a free-market economy.
47InformationAgency ofthe People's Republic of Kampuchea, TheResurrection of Kam?
puchea,1919-1982 (Phnom Penh, 1982), 10.
48Unidentified "Soviet sources," cited by Russell Ross, Cambodia:A CountryStudy
(Washington, 1987), 128.
49Citedby Unesco, Inter-SectoralBasicNeedsAssessmentMissionto Cambodia(Bangkok,
1991), 18.
S0Myinterview with Om Nhieu Sarak.
5'See, for example, David Ablin, Foreign Language Policyin CambodianGovernment:
Questionsof Sovereignty,ManpowerTraining,and DevelopmentAssistance(Phnom Penh, 1991);
Elisabetta Galasso, Educationin Cambodia:Notes and Suggestions(Phnom Penh, 1990); James
Kaminski, "MarxistEducational Theory: Reflections on Cambodia," TheAustralianJournal
of Education29 (no. 1, 1985): 17-35; Ross, Cambodia:A CountryStudy; UNESCO, Inter-
SectoralBasicNeedsAssessmentMission-,UNICEF, Cambodia:The Situationof Womenand Chil?
dren (Phnom Penh, 1989).
"My interviews with, respectively, Iv Thong, Director, Economics Institute (Phnom
Penh, 19 June 1992); Kea Sahan, Undersecretary of State for Education, Kingdom of Cam?
bodia (Phnom Penh, 14July 1994). Michael Vickery {Cambodia:1915-1982) refers to the ten-
dency of scholars and Cambodians to relate only the negate aspects of the Khmer Rouge
regime as the "StandardTotal View." David Ayres ("Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge") applies
this concept specifically to the field of education. Both scholars argue that Democratic Kam?
puchea was characterized by wide regional and temporal variations in terms of violence and
destruction.
Basic Democratic Kampuchea educational policies and objectives

were outlined in the 1976 Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields and
in statements made by Khmer Rouge leaders. According to the Four-Year
Plan, children were supposed to engage in three years of half-time prima-
ry education53; according to Khieu Samphan schooling was to take place in
"factories, cooperatives, and revolutionary establishments."54 Primary edu?
cation appears to have followed this course in at least some districts, but there
was little consistency in educational practice across the country. Students
between the ages of five and nine, ten, or eleven, for instance, were report?
ed in primary education around the country in venues including buffalo
stables and thatched huts. In some places, children attended school one or
two hours per day, in others four hours, and in many, perhaps most, there
was no schooling at all.55
In his remarks on the Four-Year Plan, Pol Pot identified "learnpng]
letters and numbers" as an important goal of primary education.56 As a
means of acquiring this basic literacy and numeracy, those children who
attended schools were reported to have studied some combination of read?
ing, writing, arithmetic, and geography.57 All instruction in primary education,
as well as in the other levels of education discussed below, was offered only
in the Khmer language, as the use of foreign languages was not permit-
ted.58 Pol Pot argued in his remarks on the Four-Year Plan that "we study
in order to serve the goals ofthe revolution," suggesting that the ideology
of radical social change was embedded in the curriculum itself.59 Unfortu-
nately, very little is known about the academic materials used in Demo-
"See Chandler, Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua, Pol Pot Plans the Future.
549April 1976 Khmer Rouge radio broadcast by Khieu Samphan, cited by Ponchaud,
CambodiaYearZero, 122; Vickery, Cambodia,1915-1982, 171.
"For discussions of primary education based on refugee accounts, see Ayres, "Pol Pot
and the Khmer Rouge"; Peter Gyallay-Pap, "Reclaiming a Shattered Past: Education for the
Displaced Khmer in Thailand,"Journal of RefugeeStudies2 (no. 2, 1989): 257-275; Kiernan,
The Pol Pot Regime; Orla Quinlan, "Education Reform in Cambodia" (Master's thesis, Uni?
versity of London, 1992); Stuart-Fox and Ung Bunheang, TheMurderousRevolution-, Vickery,
Cambodia,1915-1982.
56"PreliminaryExplanation Before Reading the [1976 Four-Year] Plan," in Chandler,
Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua, Pol Pot Plans the Future, 159.
"Refugee accounts cited by Roel Burgler, The Eyesofthe Pineapple:RevolutionaryIntel-
lectualsand Terrorin DemocraticKampuchea(Saarbriicken, 1990); Gyallay-Pap, "Reclaiming a
Shattered Past";Quinlan, "Education Reform in Cambodia";Vickery, Cambodia,1915-1982.
58Kiernan,"The Survivalof Cambodia'sEthnic Minorities";Kiernanand Chanthou Boua,
Peasantsand Politics.Curiously, the 1976 Four-YearPlan calls for the organization of "print-
ing in foreign languages, especially English, starting from mid-1977 onwards"("The Party's
Four-YearPlan," 114). As there is ample evidence that bi- or multilingualism was severely dis-
couraged for the Cambodian population at large, it is likely that English language skills were
intended to support the international publication of government statements.
59"PreliminaryExplanation Before Reading the [1976 Four-Year] Plan," in Chandler,
Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua, Pol Pot Plans the Future, 159.
cratic Kampuchean schools; the only surviving examples are a geography text
and an arithmetic text, and these books have not been analyzed.60
In spite ofthe professed focus on educational fundamentals, academic
achievement was very low in primary education, as most children were
reported to have been illiterate when the Khmer Rouge were overthrown
in 1979.61 Part of this academic failure can probably be explained by the
poor quality of teaching in Democratic Kampuchean schools. Though the
ranks ofthe Khmer Rouge included former teachers who had joined the rev?
olution before 1975, most teachers in Democratic Kampuchea were cho-
sen from among the worker-peasant population on the basis of their
"revolutionary attitude"62 and "often [had] minimal education . . . and no
real teaching experience."63
Academic failure may also have been related to the significant atten?
tion given in schools to the singing of revolutionary songs, identified by
the Khmer Rouge as an ideal method of teaching students "good models
. . . of socialist revolution and [for] the building of socialism"64 and thus
integrated with the second main goal of education, that of "cultivating good
political consciousness."65 According to several refugee accounts, students
spent the bulk of school time learning songs which "praised the sacrifices
ofthe revolutionary fighters; exalted the national cause; exhorted ideolog-
ical vigilance; and incited the [listener-singer] to class vengeance."66 In "The
Red Flag," for instance, children were enjoined to continue the revolution
until not a "single reactionary imperialist [was left alive]," and in "The
Beauty of Kampuchea" students were reminded of "Khmer children strug-
gling [for social change] until blood flows out to cover the ground."67
A final goal of Khmer Rouge education was to gain knowledge of
"technology [by means of] work and practice."68 Though again there was great
regional variation, students attended school only in the morning, after
60Personalcommunication with David Ayres (September, 1996). According to Ayres,

these texts are among the archives ofthe Tuol Sleng Documentation Center in Phnom Penh.
61Myinterview with Kea Sahan;Vickery, Cambodia,1915-1982.
62Vickery,Cambodia,1915-1982, 171.
"Burgler, The Eyesofthe Pineapple,82.
""The Party's Four-Year Plan," 113.
65"PreliminaryExplanation Before Reading the [1976 Four-Year] Plan," 160.
^Gyallay-Pap,"Reclaiminga ShatteredPast,"260; also see Ayres,"Pol Pot and the Khmer
Rouge"; Stuart-Fox and Bunheang Ung, The MurderousRevolution.
67Forthe full textsof these and other revolutionarysongs used in DemocraticKampuchean
education, see Chandler, Kiernan, and Muy Hong Lim, Early Phasesof Liberation.
68"PreliminaryExplanation Before Reading the [1976 Four-Year] Plan," 160. Several
scholars argue that Cambodia was following the lead of the People's Republic of China in
terms ofthe integration of work and education (Ayres, "Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge";Jack-
son, "The Ideology of Total Revolution";Kenneth Quinn, "Explainingthe Terror," in Cam?
bodia 1915-1918: Rendezvouswith Death, 215-240). It should be noted, however, that work
played an important role in education throughout the socialist world; see Martin Carnoy and
Joel Samoff, Educationand SocialTransitionin the Third World(Princeton, 1990).
which they performed "work for material production."69 A Democratic

Kampuchea-era aphorism, "the school is the rice paddy [and] the pen is
the hoe,"70 suggests that productive work was synonymous with agricul?
tural work. This linkage of education and manual work represented a con-
scious departure from education during the Sihanouk regime, in which
schools were focused on the civil service rather than rural agricultural devel?
opment. Khieu Samphan criticized Sihanouk's educational system in 1977,
asking rhetorically, "In the old regime, did the school children, college
graduates, and university graduates know anything about the true natural
sciences? Could they tell the difference between an early rice crop and a sixth
month rice crop?" This Khmer Rouge leader went on to praise a system of
conjoined school and manual work and to explain the importance of this link?
age to the development of Democratic Kampuchea:
[Ojur children in the rural areas have ... very useful knowledge.... They had
practdcallymasterednature.They know the differentstrainsof rice like they know
their own pockets. . . . Only this should be called natural science because this
type of knowledge is closely connected with the reality of the nation, with the
ideas of nationalism, production, national construction, and national defense.71
In addition to primary education, the Four-Year Plan called for three-

year courses in general secondary, technical secondary, and technical ter-
tiary education,72 and some such education did exist in Democratic Kampuchea.
An Institute for Scientific Training and Information was in operation in
Phnom Penh from 1976 to 1979, administered by a former university stu?
dent who had joined the revolution in 1970,73 and there was at least one
post-primary agricultural school in the country.74 Medical students received
what one scholar describes as "on-the-job training."75 Almost nothing is
known about these educational programs, except that they gave preference
in admission to students from worker-peasant backgrounds.76 Plans were made
in late 1978 to reorganize and expand post-primary education so that, in Pol
Pot's own words, "in 10 years, students with no previous schooling should
be able to go from illiteracy to graduate engineers through study of only the
important things and plenty of practical work."77 Though these plans never
69"TheParty's Four-Year Plan," 113.

70Citedby Curtis, Cambodia,132.
7118April 1977 Khmer Rouge radio broadcast, cited by Jackson, "The Ideology of
Total Revolution," 74.
72"TheParty's Four-Year Plan."
Cambodia,1915-1982,172; the Instituteis describedby Gyallay-Pap("Reclaim?
73Vickery,
ing a Shattered Past," 260), as a "low-level technical college." Without citing her sources,
Marie Martin {Cambodia)states that there were two technical schools in Phnom Penh.
74Burgler,The Eyesofthe Pineapple.
75Jackson,"The Ideology of Total Revolution," 76.
76Vickery,Cambodia,1915-1982.
77October1978 speech by Pol Pot, cited by Vickery, Cambodia,1915-1982, 173.
came to fruition, the new system of post-primary education was again to have
employed affirmative action policies intended to increase the educational
participation of previously marginalized worker-peasants.78
Beyond education at the national level, some Cambodians may have
received specialized training abroad. A1976 document indicated that around
20 "combatants" were to be sent to China to learn how to make gunpow-
der,79 and in a speech on 27 September 1978 Pol Pot stated that several
Cambodians had gone to China to study petroleum refining.80 Very little
is known about these international educational ventures; in his discussion
of gunpowder training, for instance, Kiernan acknowledges that there is
no evidence that Cambodian combatants were in fact sent to China for this
purpose.81
Finally, in Democratic Kampuchea there existed programs of politi?
cal education for the general population, training for Khmer Rouge cadres
and party members, and at least some reeducation for the bourgeoisie of pre?
vious regimes. In the cooperatives, political education meetings were held
frequently, sometimes as often as every day and sometimes on the final day
of Democratic Kampuchea's 10-day work week.82 In these meetings, Khmer
Rouge cadres sought to improve the production and morale of worker-
peasants, urging people "to be self-reliant, to work harder, [and] to be hum-
ble."83 At least upon occasion, such admonitions were integrated with
revolutionary class analyses and critiques. A Cambodian refugee recon-
78Vickery,Cambodia,1915-1982.
79"30March 1976 Decisions ofthe Central Committee on a Variety of Questions," in
Chandler, Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua, Pol Pot Plans the Future, 6.
80Citedby Burgler, The Eyesofthe Pineapple,83.
81Footnoteto the translation of "30 March 1976 Decisions ofthe Central Committee
on a Variety of Questions," in Chandler,Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua, Pol PotPlanstheFuture.
Indeed, it is difficult to understand why a regime as dedicated to self-sufflciency and inde-
pendence as the Khmer Rouge would send students overseas.Though they did maintain diplo-
matic relations with China and North Korea and did accept assistance from these countries
(see Kiernan, ThePol Pot Regime-,Chandler, BrotherNumberOne;Stephen Heder, "The Kam?
puchean-Vietnamese Conflict," in The Third IndochinaConflict,ed. David Elliott [Boulder,
1981]: 21-67), the Khmer Rouge perceived all forms of international aid as threatening to
Cambodian sovereignty. In his dissertation, for instance, Khieu Samphan had argued that
international assistance, including educational assistance, had the effect of drawing recipient
countries into the economic spheres of influence of donor countries (Khieu Samphan, Cam?
bodia'sEconomyand IndustrialDevelopment).Khmer Rouge planners similarlycautioned against
internationalaid in the Four-YearPlan, statingthat "withoutfail"such assistancewould be accom-
panied by the imposition of "political conditions" ("The Party's Four-Year Plan," 47). It may
be that the Khmer Rouge, forced to choose between independent nondevelopment and devel?
opment with the possibility of externalconditions, were willing to gamble with their sovereign?
ty in order to gain certain technical knowledge, including that related to gunpowder and
petroleum production.
82Fordiscussions, see Burgler, The Eyesofthe Pineapple;Kiljunen, Kampuchea.
83Accountgiven by Cambodian refugee Peang Sophi, cited by Chandler, Kiernan, and
Muy Hong Lim, Early Phasesof Liberation,11.
structed one such presentation from memory after escaping from Demo?
cratic Kampuchea. "In the old days," the refugee remembered a Khmer
Rouge cadre saying,
the big people told us we had independence. What kind of independence was
that?What had we built? Well, they build an Independence Monument. Where
did they build it? They built it in the capital. Who saw the thing? The big peo?
ple's children. Did country people see it? No they didn't; they only saw pho-
tos. The big people's children went in and out [of Cambodia], going to this
country, that country, and they came back, to control our kind of people. And
now what do we do in contrast?We don't build Independence Monuments like
that. Instead, by lifting up embankments, digging irrigation canals, and so on,
the children of Cambodia can see [that] they build their own independence.84
According to Khmer Rouge radio, such attention to previous social inequities

was intended "to awaken the [worker-peasants'] political consciousness and
thus give them the strength to perform their tasks."85
Democratic Kampuchea emphasized training for cadres and party
members. These individuals are reported to have undergone "continuing
ideological and practical training"86 both at the Central Political School
and in schools attached to each ministry in Phnom Penh. Practical train?
ing focused on such topics as plans for "raising dikes and dams and steps [for
increasing agricultural production to] three tons of rice per hectare."87 Ide?
ological education appears to have promoted the Cambodian revolution as
unique and uninhibited by other revolutionary models. According to the French
wife of a Khmer Rouge official, party members were told that Democrat?
ic Kampuchea "surpasses Lenin and goes further than Mao."88 In an appar?
ent reference to the ideological split between the Soviet Union and the
People's Republic of China concerning the necessity of industrialization
for the socialist revolution, party members and cadres were taught that the
"Cambodian revolution ... settles the eternal contradiction between town
84PeangSophi, cited by Chandler, Kiernan, and Muy Hong Lim, EarlyPhasesof Liber?
ation, 11; emphases in the original.
852June 1976 Khmer Rouge radio broadcast cited by Ponchaud, CambodiaYearZero,
99. Political meetings were referred to as "miting," a loan word from the Vietnamese "mit-
tinh" (Chandler, Kiernan, and Muy Hong Lim, EarlyPhasesof Liberation).Chandler, Kiernan,
and Muy Hong Lim comment that such borrowing was "[i]ronic...for a regime that ha[d] so
ruthlesslyprunedforeign words from its vocabulary"{EarlyPhasesofLiberation,10). Highlightdng
the significance of the changes that the Khmer Rouge sought for Cambodian society, lin-
guistically and otherwise, Ponchaud (Cambodia Year Zero) explains that the use of words
such as "miting" and "fasciste" was made necessary because there were no equivalents in
Khmer for these concepts.
86Carney,"The Organization of Power," 87.
87Carney,"The Organization of Power," 87.
88LawrencePicq, BeyondtheHorizon:Five Yearswith theKhmerRouge(New York, 1989),
37. Lawrence Picq was the only Westerner to live through the Khmer Rouge regime.
and country,"89 though it is unclear how Democratic Kampuchea's unequiv-

ocal agricultural emphasis was perceived by Khmer Rouge leaders to resolve
this ideological debate.
Reeducation took place in camps organized according to the pre-
1975 professions ofthe students. For the most part, life in these separate
camps for former "soldiers, non-commissioned officers, monks, intellec-
tuals and civil servants" involved hard physical labor in the flelds by day
and criticism, self-criticism, interrogation, and confession writing by night.90
The Khmer Rouge argued that through work the former bourgeoisie would
learn about and gain appreciation for the new social order directly from
the supposed protagonists of the revolution, the worker-peasants. Khmer
Rouge radio, for instance, stated that the former bourgeoisie "have recon-
ciled themselves to humbly learn from and emulate the workers and peas-
ants. [They] have become increasingly aware that only this collective
productive labor can restore their faith in themselves, return their love and
affection for the fatherland, nation and people, workers and peasants, as
well as give them back a sense of judgment."91 At least some formal educa?
tion was also provided within the context of reeducation. Returnees from
abroad, for instance, underwent 20-day political education courses at the Cen?
tral Political School in Phnom Penh, during which time they were taught
the history of the communist struggle in Cambodia and were oriented to
Khmer Rouge economic and foreign policies.92
It is difficult to assess the extent and effect of reeducation in Demo?
cratic Kampuchea. While some scholars seem convinced that reeducation
was rather widespread and was fundamentally benevolent,93 others argue
that the minority of soldiers, intellectuals, and other bourgeoisie who were
not killed immediately were sent to reeducation camps which "resembled
death camps rather than institutions in which hard labor and intensive study
might hold the prospect of enlightenment and eventual reintegration into
Cambodian society."94 The extremely high death rate for students, teach?
ers, and professors, mentioned previously, points decisively toward the lat-
89Picq,Beyondthe Horizon, 37. On the basis of similarities between developments in

Democratic Kampuchea and the Chinese Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution,
Quinn ("The Origins and Development") argues convincingly that the Khmer Rouge were
ideologically indebted to Mao.
^Burgler, The Eyesofthe Pineapple,84.
9129September 1975 Khmer Rouge radio broadcast, cited by Jackson, "The Ideology
of Total Revolution," 76.
92Kiernan,The Pol Pot Regime.
93Burgler,The Eyesofthe Pineapple,84; Vickery, Cambodia,1915-1982.
^Jackson,"The Ideology of Total Revolution," 78.
9SThereis at least some similaritybetween reeducation in Democratic Kampuchea and
that in Vietnam after 1975; see e.g., Tiziano Terziani, Giai Phongl The Fall and Liberationof
Saigon (New York, 1976).
Building the New Cambodia
Construction metaphors abound in Khmer Rouge discussions of social

change after 1975. The Four-Year Plan, for instance, was intended to "build
socialism in all fields," and agricultural work was identified by the political
education teacher cited above as the way to "build independence."96 Echo-
ing this metaphorical tradition, Roel Burgler comments that education in
Democratic Kampuchea was designed to "construct" a new generation of
Cambodians.97 As this scholar correctly points out, education not only exist-
ed during the Khmer Rouge regime, but served an important purpose.
While Khmer Rouge education was clearly less extensive than that in place
during the Sihanouk regime, at least some children and young adults attend?
ed primary and secondary schools in Democratic Kampuchea, and politi?
cal education courses were offered in a variety of venues for the majority of
older Cambodians.
This educational enterprise was closely integrated with the grand
cycle of social change initiated by the Khmer Rouge in 1975. By destroy-
ing Sihanouk's educational system, the Khmer Rouge broke an institution
supportive of a social order seen as inequitable, exploitative, and atavistic.
The completeness with which the Khmer Rouge destroyed Sihanouk's edu?
cational system suggests both the threat they perceived that system to pose
for their revolution and, more generally, the power they recognized in edu?
cation as a social force. Lest we forget what this calculated effort to alter Cam?
bodian society meant in human terms, Cambodia's vice minister for education
recently reminded an international audience that the Khmer Rouge destroyed
not only buildings, books, and equipment, but also the "national intellec?
tual resources [which were] the country's most invaluable capital."98
In constructing the Democratic Kampuchean educational system, the
Khmer Rouge sought to harness the power of education to their agenda of
nominally egalitarian, self-reliant, agrarian socialism. New affirmative action
policies brought previously disadvantaged children and young adults into
schools where they and others were exposed to a curriculum oriented heav-
ily toward revolutionary socialist ideology. Though it might be possible to
argue that foreign languages were banned in education so as not to disad-
vantage children without prior exposure to them, the insistence on self-
reliance in Democratic Kampuchea suggests that the new language policy
was restrictive rather than emancipatory, intended to forestall for Cambo-
96Forother examples, see quotes from Khmer Rouge documents in this article; Khmer
Rouge documentscollected by Chandler,Kiernan,and ChanthouBoua in PolPotPlanstheFuture;
and Khmer Rouge radio broadcasts, a number of which are included in Jackson, "The Ideol?
ogy of Total Revolution," and Ponchaud, CambodiaYearZero.
97Burgler,The Eyesofthe Pineapple,83; Carney, "The Organization of Power," 88.
98EkSam Ol, "The Situation of Higher and Technical Education," 2.
dians contact with people and ideas in other countries and, thus, to isolate
the country more fully from the rest ofthe world. Paradoxically, as in much
of the socialist world, an important new component of education was pro-
ductive work, itself conceived as integral to national development.
As they passed through Democratic Kampuchea's new schools, train?
ing programs, and reeducation camps, Cambodians were indeed influenced,
or molded, or "constructed" for participation in the new Cambodia. While
some may have become genuinely infused with revolutionary spirit, hatred
of class-based oppression, and willingness and ability to work for national
agricultural development and Cambodia's subsequent freedom from inter?
national economic subordination, others may simply have become con-
vinced of the efficacy of adopting such postures. A great many others,
particularly those who had possessed power, status, and knowledge in the
previous regime, apparently proved to be unreeducable or "unconstructible."
Judged by the Khmer Rouge to be unprepared for the exigencies of the
new society, these Cambodians were killed.
Democratic Kampuchea itself expired on 7 January 1979 when, in
response to repeated attacks across the border, the Vietnamese invaded
Cambodia, drove the Khmer Rouge into Thailand, and established the
People's Republic of Kampuchea. Fortunately for the people of Cambodia,
the cycle of destruction and construction set in motion by the Khmer Rouge
in 1975 was halted with the change of regimes. Even before the invasion,
however, another social change cycle was signaled for Cambodia. In their
first international statement, dated 2 December 1978, the Cambodian exiles
who would become the leaders of the People's Republic of Kampuchea
dedicated themselves to "abolishing the reactionary culture of the Pol Pot
clique" and to reestablishing such social institutions as markets, religion, and
personal liberty.99 Hinting toward the important role that education was
to play in the process of social change in the 1980s, Cambodia's new lead?
ers additionally pledged to "liquidate illiteracy, to develop a national edu?
cational system, and to construct establishments of general, higher, and
professional education."100
"Service d'Informationdu FUNSK, Frontd'UnionNationalepourle Salut du Kampuchea

(Zone Liberee du Kampuchea, 1979), 14.
100Serviced'Information du FUNSK, Front d'Union Nationale, 14-15. For a detailed
examination of education and social change in Cambodia in the 1980s, see Clayton, Education
and Language-in-Education.

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History of Education Society

On 17 April 1975, the communist Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom

Thomas Clayton is an assistant professor of English at the University of Kentucky. Research

cultural cooperatives under brutal supervision. Many people suspected of

It is more difficult to understand the motivation of Pol Pot and the

We are building socialism without a model. We do not wish to copy any-

14Chandler,History,209; also see David Chandler, BrotherNumberOne:A PoliticalBiog-

In the new Cambodia, previous class structures were to be overturned, with

local industrialcomponents are more thoroughly integratedinto a foreign whole

211976document ascribed to Pol Pot, cited by Chandler, BrotherNumber One, 174.

my: the cigarettefactoriesprocessforeign tobacco,soap factoriesuse foreign copra

Educational Destruction and Construction

In 1969, before the Khmer Rouge insurgency began to have a signif?

27KhieuSamphan, Cambodia'sEconomyand IndustrialDevelopment,29.

ject engineered by head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk in the 1950s

"JacquesNepote, "Education et Developpement dans le Cambodge Moderne," Mon-

mentary and secondary] pupils" died in Democratic Kampuchea.46 The

^CambodianMinistry of Education, Education:State of Cambodia,4. The State of Cam?

Basic Democratic Kampuchea educational policies and objectives

60Personalcommunication with David Ayres (September, 1996). According to Ayres,

which they performed "work for material production."69 A Democratic

In addition to primary education, the Four-Year Plan called for three-

69"TheParty's Four-Year Plan," 113.

According to Khmer Rouge radio, such attention to previous social inequities

and country,"89 though it is unclear how Democratic Kampuchea's unequiv-

89Picq,Beyondthe Horizon, 37. On the basis of similarities between developments in

Building the New Cambodia

Construction metaphors abound in Khmer Rouge discussions of social

"Service d'Informationdu FUNSK, Frontd'UnionNationalepourle Salut du Kampuchea

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