Customer Reviews

Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I approach this review with a background of five years of volunteer work in Cambodia (1995-2000) and marriage into a Khmer family. This is the best book I have yet read on the entire history of the Khmer Rouge years. It is more (fortunately) than a biography of Pol Pot -- it is just as much a history of Cambodia and and examination of its peoples' character, and shorter biographies of other prominent Khmer figures, especially King Sihanouk. The author scrupulously avoids the oversimplifications and falso moralizing of most books about Cambodia -- the ones that say either (1) the Khmer Rouge were entirely America's fault, (2) entirely Nixon's fault, or (3) entirely Kissinger's fault -- choose one. He carefully explores, among other things, American policy toward and conduct in Cambodia in the period leading up to 1975 in a thorough and neutral manner, with interesting suggestions on the significance of this and many other topics. In addition, the author's style is fluid and transparent, and he has done his homework. This is the best book about Cambodia I have ever read, and I have read all the ones I have been able to lay my hands on. Buy it even if you think you have no interest in the subject, or know it too well already -- you will be pleasantly surprised and will enjoy the book immensely.

Philip Short refers to his book on Mao in his preface to "Pol Pot:Anatomy to a Massacre" and, while acknowledging Mao's extraordinary beastliness (the man was probably responsible for over 50 million deaths) he highlights Mao's pretentions to greatness not unlike Napoleon's or Alexander's. That is not the case with Pol Pot. He did not fight an honorable war against a brutal invader, like Mao did with the Japanese. Instead, he led to his Cambodia's occupation by the hated Vietnamese, who had been his paymasters for a long time. Pol Pot did not succeed in brutally modernizing his country's industry, like Stalin in the Soviet Union or Mao in China. Instead, he pulled it right back into the stone age. Like his worst predecessors in genocide, he never learned from his mistakes. Instead, he kept his habit of ordering executions, a habit which eventually led to his imprisonment by his surviving henchmen (who feared for their lives) and some sort of trial. And his corpse was not preserved like Mao's or Lenin's. Instead, it was burnt with old tires and mattresses.

Short's book would have been very short (and uninteresting) indeed if he had confined himself to Pol Pot. Instead, he wrote a veritable tableau of Cambodian history from WWII to our days. 1950s Cambodia comes across as a Ruritarian kingdom ruled by the beguiling Norodom Sihanouk. Sihanouk is one of history's true survivors (the man is still around!). One would need to look to Mitterrand or Fidel Castro for equivalent types who were able to survive and even thrive in impossible conditions, turning their alliances as they saw fit with no sense of shame. Sihanouk is in a fact a much more attractive character than Pol Pot, who is opaque, a mere cypher in some ways.

Saloth Sar, who would later become Pol Pot, came from what might be regarded as the upper middle class (his sister was a concubine to a Cambodian king- not Norodom), although his family wasn't rich. He was a mediocre student, and in many ways he would be a mediocrity all his life. His strength was his inscrutability. He kept a constant Buddha-like smile, and he never lifted his voice even when ordering the execution of close associates. The Cambodian Communist Party (later known as the Khmer Rouges) was fostered by Vietnamese logistical support, although Pol Pot's career was a long attempt to break free of the control of this "fraternal" party. The Communists' goals were fostered by the incompetent intervention of greater powers, some colonial, like France, some regional like Thailand and Vietnam, some global, like the US, the Soviet Union and China. Virtually all of them (most without realizing it) did their utmost to help Pol Pot reach power and wreck Cambodia. Particularly obtuse was American intervention in helping strongman Lon Nol in overthrowing Sihanouk. This threw the mercurial Sihanouk into Chinese hands and then turned him into Pol Pot's associate, helping to legitimize Khmer Rouge presence among royalist and superstitious peasants.

Short writes that Pol Pot's brutality was purely Cambodian (which should be annoying to all armchair Buddhists in the US and Europe) and that his actions were not caused in any meaningful way by the American intervention. Be that as it may, it is hard to image Cambodia falling to Pol Pot's disorganized hordes if Sihanouk had remained in power. Short also writes that the Khmer's millennial dictatorship, which was much more extreme than anything seem previously, except perhaps the Paris commune in 1870-1871 or Münster under Jan van Leiden in 1535, was also quite chaotic. Brutality was entirely random and without reason or rhyme. For all Pol Pot's paranoia and total disregard for human niceties, he was unable to turn the Khmer Rouge into a unified iron-clad party, like Stalin did with the Soviets. Even after his brutal purges, the party presence was highly regional. Also, the Khmer's racial policies against the Cham (muslim Cambodians) and the Vietnamese were worthy of Milosevic or Saddam Hussein. Pol Pot truly married the worst in both communist and nazi rules.

Pol Pot's life was unmarred by honor or greatness. Short brings to life the extraordinary circumstances that allowed this ordinary man to unleash the hounds of hell among his countrymen. I only regret that he wasn't tried like a war criminal and hanged from the tallest steeple in Angkor Vat. And some of his associates (like Hun Sen) are still in power.

Of course, this isn't just an account of Pol Pot the person, it necessarily has to be an overview of the dreadful Khmer Rouge. It is, in fact, a very gripping read. 450 pages in couple of days. But the author's conclusions are very disturbing.

THere are several questions that ANY book on Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge must answer, and Short does answer them, but not straightforwardly. Let's take a look at some examples of such questions, and Short's answeres:

1.Why did Khmer Rouge take everything to extreme?

a. Because Khmeres traditionally tend to take everything to extremes.
b. KR leaders were fans of utopian socialists when they studied in Paris, and were trained by head-strong idealist (but really unpractical and incompetent in real life) students in paris. They just caried it out simplistically.
b. Khmeres are notoriously lazy, and they wouldn't work unless they are forced.

2. Why did KR kill so much?

a. Oh, that was not their intention. They just wanted to extract confessions, or to apply strict morale in the party. Everyone just happened to die.
b. Because Khmere tradition holds that people never change, any attempts of re-education was never seriously considered.
c. KR soldiers were completely uncivilized peasants, and they can't handle complicated stuff. Killing is clear and easy. So they did.

3. Why didn't people revolt to such atrocity?

a. It was Khmere Bhuddist tradition to accept desitiny and authority and fate.
b. Khmers didn't have much of a community in the first place, so there were no serious effort
c. Every single power in Cambodia was extremely atrocious, including the ancient Angkor, Sihanouk, Vietnamese, etc. So they were used to it.

You see the problem; Short attributes almost everything to the national tendency or cultural tract of Khmer people. In the epilogue, Short says that you shouldn't make such simplistic connections. But, that's exactly what he does throughout the book. In the opening, he cites an example of a very sophisticated and westernized Cambodian Women. She found out that her husband (high ranking official) had a lover, so she got her caught and poured huge amount of acid on her, quietly enjoying the view. Short says, this mentality, where even a decent amount of western education can't tame the cruel and horrible hatred burning behind, is the key to understanding Khmer Rouge atrocity. After reading, I wasn't quite sure how this relates, but Short's message is clear; it's in their blood.

I do have some sympathy with this view, or at least the lure of such an argument. If you did any business in Cambodia, it'll make you want to scream every day. But I think Short yields too easily to that temptation. I also agree with the Washington Post review above. The book often reads like an apology for Pol Pot, which is disturbing.

However, as mentioned, it's a gripping read, and a very good overview of the Cambodian situation in 1960-1990. The whole thing was so byzantine, it was hard to understand who was sleeping with whom. This book does put you in proper perspective (and it tells you that basically everyone was sleeping with everyone at one time or another). Simplistic views that blame a single bad guy (like the US bombardent was THE cause, or Vietnam was cruel, or this and that) will be thoroughly discredited. It's a depressing read, also. Cambodia was always used as a pawn of international po,itics. China, USA, Vietnam, France, and Sihanouk, all lended hands to Khmer Rouge in a direct manner Sihanouk today pretends that he was innocent; No. His incompetent bloody rule sowed the seeds for many of the things to come. I don't know what anyone at any stage could have done to stop any of this.

But the most frightning part is the lack of depth in Khmere Rouge actions. None of the KR leaders had any practical work experience, much less any ability to plan military operations, build infrastructure, or run a country. As a result, the whole regime simply moves to the most simplistic solution that you could ever devise. For that amount of killing, you'd expect some deep but twisted ideals or conspiracy theories. There aren't any. The whole thing is like a high school play, and its scary.

It may be impossible to explain why Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge government caused the deaths of more than one million -- possibly two million --Cambodians during their 4 year rule (1975-1979) The author, Philip Short, made an effort to do so in this book. I didn't find his theory -- that the mass-murder was consistent with Khmer culture and history -- very persuasive, but I don't have a better one to offer in its place. Perhaps, insane outbreaks are hot-wired in the human psyche to occur now and then -- in the same way that lemmings commit mass suicide by running over cliffs. The Khmer Rouge was a movement that ran amok.

"Pol Pot" is a thorough, readable, and well-researched account of Cambodian politics from about 1950 until the death of Pol Pot in 1998. The writer avoids polemics and gave me a sense of confidence that he is presenting the ghastly story of Pol Pot and Cambodia as objectively as possible. Short's account may be too dispassionate for many people as he focuses on Khmer Rouge philosophies and programs, rather than recounting endless atrocity stories. Those stories are readily available elsewhere. In this book, I appreciated the author's search for the root causes of the Khmer Rouge's inhumanity.

The most interesting part of the book to me was the fall of Phnom Penh in April 1975 and the subsequent forced evacuation of that city and other Cambodian cities by the Khmer Rouge. Short has a detailed account of that event, the philosphy behind it and the human consequences.

Pol Pot himself seems an unremarkable person. It is fitting that after he died his body was burned on a funeral pyre comprised of old tires and broken furniture. Evil is banal.

Smallchief

I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to get beyond simplistic explanations of the Cambodian genocide. This book delves into the many nuances that complicate the story. It demonstrates that many parties share blame for the coming to power of the KR, and puts the events together clearly.

What's even more interesting is that he connects many of the events to Cambodian culture and Buddhism. He does so in ways that are both accurate and not exactly politically correct. But it's there that the author seems to go a little too far out into left field. His claim that the KR obsession with eradicating the concept of private property is just Buddhist detachment in communist garb is absurd. Jesus taught people to store up heavenly treasures instead of earthly treasures, but I don't think anyone would claim that that inspired East European communists.

Nor would anyone say that East European communists were inspired by the biblical Garden of Eden. Yet Mr. Short talks about the Cambodian story about a perfect time when people had all the rice they wanted without working for it, but lost it all because of their greed. Somehow, he thinks this story contributed to KR ideology. That is as silly as claiming that the Garden of Eden story led to Communist in Christian lands. Even more bizarre was his point that many of the KR atrocities are engraved in depictions of Hell at Angkor Wat. So what's the point? Most religions have some sort of Hell, and it's usually a nasty place. It tells a lot about a people's fears and view of what constitutes bad behavior, but not what it aspires to. That depictions of Hell demonstrate that Cambodians are naturally violent (which he seems to imply) is a ridiculous conclusion. I suppose the Christian depiction of Hell as a lake of fire inspired the Nazi crematoriums? An earlier reviewer said that the book would annoy "Armchair Buddhists." I'm not a Buddhist myself, but I can see how Buddhists would be legitimately annoyed at seeing their religion portrayed as nothing more than a blueprint for the Khmer Rouge.

Nonetheless, Mr. Short does give insight into Khmer culture that might be considered politically incorrect but are still valuable in understanding the situation. Cambodian culture has often been romanticized, but it does have a darker side.

I see I've written quite a bit about what I didn't like. All and all it's a great book. The bizarre suggestions that portray the KR as Buddhists dressed in communist garb are the exception, not the rule. I highly recommend it, and I would disagree with an earlier reviewer who said that it was not suitable for someone who hadn't already familiar with the Khmer Rouge. It's very clear portrayal of events, personalities and it's deep analysis make it one of the best book out there on the subject.

As other reviewers have pointed out, this is as much a cultural history of the men who founded the Khemer Rouge and an account of the tragic last half century of Cambodian history as much as it is a biography of Pol Pot. Saloth Sar himself (Pol Pot a nom de guerre) passes through this book like a kind of mysterious cloud, only occassionally taking on real form. He was the son of a provincial farmer and a member of the first, very small number of Cambodians to enter the French education system during the golden age of French colonial rule. He ended up in Paris, a mediocre student drawn to the leftist Marxist Circle that dreamt of bringing social justice to Cambodia, a country ruled by feudal landlords and an exceedingly corrupt and vain royal family. This small band of wanna-be rebels probably wouldn't have amounted to much if it hadn't been for the revolution and war in neighboring Vietnam. And if it hadn't been for the corrupt rule of Prince Sihanouk, who haunts nearly every chapter of this book: from the 1950s, when he tried to crush the small band of Cambodian Marxists while at the same time allowing the Viet Cong to use his territory as a base to wage war against the Americans in South Vietnam; to the mid 1970s, when he allies himself with the Khemer Rouge in their war against right wing Lon Nol government. The chaos of the Vietnam War creates the conditions which allow the Khemer Rouge to prosper. But Short makes it clear that it isn't the horrific violence of that war (and the American bombing) that created the horror of the Khemer Rouge state. No. He locates Pol Pot's uniquely violent and cult-like pseudo-Marxist political program in specifically Cambodian cultural causes, most signifcantly a deep inferiority complex vis-a-vis Vietnam and other powerful neighbors. He finds concepts of Cambodian Buddhism of spiritual purity behind Pot's idea that Communist Party's bold and violent leadership (including the decision to empty Cambodia's cities) could lead to the creation of a utopic socialist state in just a few years. Instead, Pot creates what Short calls the first "slave state" of the modern era: millions are forced (at the point of a gun) to work for no wages in projects meant to bring about rebirth of Cambodia's imperial glory. It all comes crashing down after just three years in power, in part because of a central defect in Pot's personality that infects all those around him: an obession with secrecy and "traitors" that leads him to kill tens of thousands of his own soldiers and members of his own party. (And when the Khemer Rouge purged and executed a high-ranking leader of their party, all the party-members family members were often killed too). Almost to the very end, Pot rules over his followers with a strange mix of charm (in his early years after his return to Cambodia, he was a much loved high-school teacher of French literature) and chilling detachment. This compelling book sheds light on one of the cruelest chapters of a violent century.

Having travelled throughout Cambodia this past fall I visited many sites that involved Pol Pot from the Killing Fields, S-21, etc. I found it interesting to learn more about this man and what made him seem so sane to many even though he was so insane as well as inhumane. This book is very very detailed, and not a short read. It is very difficult to follow due to the Khmer names and some words, however stick with it and you will be rewarded with an indepth look at how this man became what he was. I would recommend this to anyone interested in SE Asia history since it deals with so much that occured in this region at many different periods of time.

This book is a heavily researched exploration of Cambodian political history and the factors that led to the seizure of power by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Unfortunately, little pyschological insight is offered as to how Pol Pot (then known as Saloth Sar) turns into a brutal dictator. Instead he is shown to be a rather carefree student who becomes involved in communist activism in Paris mainly because that's what his more serious and intellectual Cambodian friends are doing. In fact, Short never sufficiently demonstrates how this apparently mediocre individual manages to rise to the top of the Khmer Rouge, much less how he becomes one of the monsters of history.

Short does only slightly better in his sociological explanations for the Khmer Rouge and their bizarre ideas. Instead he offers simplistic comments about the weaknesses of traditional Khmer culture and Buddhism. Cultural and religious influences played a part. But obviously it is not the entire answer. Just as German culture and Christianity can't be solely blamed for the rise of the Nazis.

The reader should also be warned that the majority of this book deals with Cambodian political history preceding the Khmer Rouge's takeover. While I definitely believe that providing historical context is essential. Short spends way too much time on the intrigues of King Sihanouk and his royal court, along with the political machinations of various less well known Khmer Rouge officials, than most readers will be interested in. Surprisingly, little space is devoted to the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. Perhaps this is because Short's research includes many interviews with former Khmer Rouge officials but none with the victims. Therefore, Short provides a somewhat apologist analysis which refuses to refer to what the Khmer Rouge did as genocide.

For readers extremely interested in Cambodian political history this book does offer a lot of factual information. But those seeking thoughtful insight on Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge should look elsewhere.

Philip Short's "Pol Pot" is a fascinating and very well written account not only of the Cambodian mass murderer, but of the politics and society of Cambodia in the second half of the twentieth century. This review cannot hope to do justice to the grand tale that Short offers - but I will try to touch the main points, and give the reader a feel for the direction of the argument.

Pol Pot was born as Saloth Sar to an upper class family in the village of Prek Sbauv in French Occupied Cambodia circa 1925. He moved to the Cambodian Capital, Phnon Penh, in the mid 1930s. He has lived through, but took little part, the eventful effects of the Second World War and the early struggles for Cambodian independence. In 1949, Pol won a scholarship to study in Paris. It was there that the he and his friends discovered Marxism.

The first Communist presence in Cambodia was set up by Vietnamese Communists in order to secure the Cambodian smuggling routes, through which weapons poured from Thailand into southern Vietnam during the Vietnamese war against the French occupiers. The beginning was not auspicious. Mao's version of Marx's ideology, which has spread easily through China as through the also Confucian Vietnam, was not an easy sell to the Buddhist Cambodians, and the hated Vietnamese, ancient enemies, were not ideal messengers.

The Vietnamese leadership thus made effort to involve Cambodians in the movement, if mostly as figureheads, and to water down the Marxist elements of the movement, emphasizing its anti-Colonial efforts. The anti-Colonialism of the Communist camp was its greatest appeal, as Communists from Stalin down endorsed Vietnamese and Cambodian Independence. As one of Pol's friends put it "The Communists were our best friends. They... supported us. They opposed Colonialism ... Everyone else was against us" (p. 59).

In Paris, Pol became acquainted - and enamored - with the megalomaniac and ruthless ideology of Josef Stalin. But his knowledge of Marxism, and that of his colleagues, would always be superficial, a veneer of European theory covering a depth of Cambodian Buddhist traditions. In 1951, He joined a semi-secret group of Paris-based Marxist Cambodians - the Cercle Marxiste. The Cercle would stand behind much of the Communist political entities of the next quarter century, coming to the front catastrophically during the Khmer Rouge era.

As a Cercle operative, Pol returned to Cambodia in 1953. The country was in a state of war between The French backed Monarch, Norodom Sihanhouk, and the various opposition forces, Marxist and semi-Democratic, Vietnamese backed and home-grown. Pol took a minor part in the action. By 1955 the war ended, and the independent Cambodia became an authoritarian state, led by Sihanhouk, now styling himself Prime Minister. Sihanhouk reached an understanding with the Vietnamese Communists, giving him a free hand to persecute their Cambodian comrades.

Their interests now divergent, the Cambodian Communists started to pursue their own agenda, with the Cercle members, who were independent of the Vietnamese and better educated than most Khmer Marxists, taking the lead. Government persecution dwindled the ranks of the Communists, and after their leader was murdered in 1962, the leadership passed to Pol Pot. Ignoring the Vietnamese opposition, Pol and his comrades were dedicated to violent struggle against the Sihanhouk regime. Buoyed by public opposition to the government's tyrannical tactics, they launched their Campaign in 1968.

The fortunes of the rebellion increased dramatically after a coup d'état disposed of Sihanhouk, and a new right wing government was formed. The coup united its enemies, and the former Monarch, Pol's communists and the Vietnamese became strange bedfellows in the war against the government, which was backed by America's aggressive (and arguably counter-productive) bombing campaigns. Slowly, the Khmer Rouge won ground.
With Victory, came the revolution.

The beginning, a radical redistribution of land, was actually popular among the Cambodian poor. But the Revolution's radicalism grew. Collectivized agriculture, confiscation of private property, stomping out individualism, and persecution of intellectuals and minorities became the norm. When the Capital, Phnon Penh, fell into rebel hands, the Khmer Rouge took an "extremely marvelous, extremely wonderful, prodigious leap" (p. 8). Cambodia would be turned into a Utopia. Its people re-educated and instilled with a Proletarian mentality.

Phnom Penh's two and a half million citizens were forced to evacuate the city, and other cities throughout Cambodia. The atrocities, of every imaginable kind, followed. Short's most matter-of-fact descriptions are memorable and horrifying:

"New guidelines were also issued to harmonize the evacuation procedures in different parts of the city. No Longer could people choose for themselves which road to take. Those in the north went north, up Highway 5, even if their home village lay in quite different directions... the entreaties of husbands and wives or parents and children who happened to find themselves in different parts of the city were ignored; they went the same way as everyone else in their sector. Searches were stepped up for those trying to stay behind. The old and bedridden were simply killed.
"Similar scenes, with local variations, occurred all over Cambodia".

Ultimately, What Pol and his colleagues created was "a slave state, the first in modern times... the inhabitants of Pol's Cambodia were deprived of all control over their own destinies - unable to decide what to eat, when to sleep, where to live of even whom to marry"(p.291).

The Pol regime reused tropes of Stalinistic horror, and its policies were utterly Orwellian, including the sanitization of language, the rewriting of history, and of massive surges of imaginary enemies. Yet the Khmer Rouge leadership itself was hypocritical and hedonistic, enjoying fine food, intimacy and luxury as it imposed upon its people hardship, sexual repression and annihilation of individualism.

Pol's paranoid regime led to wide spread massacres of Cambodians, but also to worsening tensions with Vietnam. Cambodia's stronger neighbor finally put an end to the Khmer Rouge regime in 1978. The aftermath was a highly complex mess, as various foreign and local players wrestled for control over the country. As a resistance movement and sometime political party, the Khmer Rouge lingered on for close to 2 more decades, while shedding its Communist ideology if not its ruthless instincts. Pol's death in 1998 - peacefully, at home, with his wife and daughter - marks an end to the political entity, but sadly not to the trials of Cambodia, which is still a poor, corrupt nation ill ruled by an authoritarian political class.

Short's fantastic book is an ideal introduction to the sad history of Cambodia in the second half of the twentieth century. It is especially welcome as its focus is squarely on the local events and personalities - the Cambodian affair is seen in an Asian context, and not primarily from the viewpoint of Westerners. I highly recommend it.

I read this book knowing virtually nothing of Pol Pot or the history of the Cambodian revolutionary movement. Having read the book I feel it works far better as a history of modern Cambodia and the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge than it does as a biography of Pol Pot, hence my rating. My expectations of Short's work are high having greatly enjoyed his biography of Mao which is overflowing with the kind of personal detail and insight that is absent from this work. I would speculate that this may have something to do with the availability of source material and perhaps with the cultural issues around the definition of truth in Cambodian culture which Short alludes to in the book.

Despite this I came away far more knowledgeable than I arrived and Short is an excellent writer with a knack for making his material easily digestible.

Good history, but only an average biography.