How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 1930-1975

The secondary title of the first edition of this book was A History of Communism in Kampuchea, 1930-1975. This is perhaps a more accurate description of the nature of this book. Kiernan presents a careful reconstruction primarily of the politics of leftist-communist movements in Cambodia, focusing in the later part of the book on how Pol Pot and his associates came to dominate the Cambodian Communist Party. This is not really a history of the Cambodian independence movement and while a very valuable book for understanding the events leading up to the Khmer Rouge accession to power, is not really a narrative/analysis of that phenomenon. Kiernan undertook the difficult task of reconstructing the internal politics of the Cambodian Communist movement and placing this in the context of leftist/nationalist movements in Cambodia from 1930 to the Khmer Rouge victory. In many ways, this is the story of how circumstances and the ruthless efforts of a small group of determined ideologues, mainly though not exclusively of relatively privileged background, conspired to allow this clique to dominate what was originally a relatively broad based nationalist/revolutionary movement. Because of scanty documentation and the deliberate efforts of the Khmer Rouge to obscure their history, this is quite a difficult undertaking which Kiernan carries off well. Kiernan covers the history of nationalist and leftist movements in Cambodia, the emergence of the Cambodian Communist movement, the internal struggles within the party between Vietnamese influenced communists and the Pol Pot group, and how the events of the civil wars of the 60s and early 70s allowed Pol Pot's group to dominate. Kiernan is not, unfortunately, a gifted writer. His method is primarily to present a narrative with primary reliance of provision of much of the primary data. This can lead to a losing sight of the forest for the trees effect. He also does not produce much formal analysis, tending to make his interpretations implicitly. In some ways, the best piece of structural analysis in the book is the brief overview in the Introduction. All of that said, there are quite a few compelling aspects to the book. There are multiple, often cruel ironies. In the second half of the 50s, Sihanouk, in an effort to divide the left, actually provided patronage for the urbanized intellectual leftists like Pol Pot who later became the most bitter opponents of his regime. Kiernan shows that the virulent nationalism of the Khmer Rouge in some ways had more in common with the bizarre nationalism of the corrupt and incompetent American client Lon Nol than with their Vietnamese-influenced competitors. The Nixon administration's bombing campaign in 1973 probably saved the Lon Nol regime but also allowed Pol Pot's group to consolidate their grip on power. Khmer Rouge success in 1973 would probably have resulted in a less brutal regime. This is an important book, though not easy to read.

This is THE book on the history of Cambodia in that era and the Khmer Rouge. There are very few Western scholars who know the Khmer language and are therefore able to do serious research. Ben Kiernan is one of those few. His book is well documented, an excellent introduction with many suggestions for further reading.