Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge was a radical Maoist-oriented Communist party that ruled Cambodia from 17 April 1975 to 7 January 1979 and was responsible for the death of 2 million Cambodians (estimates vary widely). The Khmer Rouge had its roots in the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party, which was founded in 1951 by Vietnamese-influenced Cambodian radicals, and was renamed as the Workers' Party of Kampuchea (WPK) in 1960, as the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) in 1971, and as the Party of Democratic Kampuchea in 1982. Prince Norodom Sihanouk called this movement les Khmers rouges ("the red Khmers") when they attempted to end his rule in the 1960s.
A number of future leaders of the movement, including Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Thiuounn Mumm, Thiounn Prasith, Hou Yuon, Khieu Samphan, Khieu Thirith, and Khieu Ponnary, were radical young Cambodians who were studying in Paris in the 1950s. Many had joined both Ho Chi Minh's Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and the French Communist Party. Returning to Cambodia, the students made contact with the Communist underground, at that time a group of approximately two thousand members of the Vietnamese-dominated ICP who were fighting the French in what is known as the first Indochinese War (1946–1954).
This is a free page. This page contains 201 words. This
article contains 1,710 words (approx. 6 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Khmer Rouge Access Pass.
