Pol Pot's Little Red Book: The Sayings of Angkar

On 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in Phnom Penh. In the three years, eight months, and twenty day of their government, they made a tabula rasa of Cambodian society and culture, forcing the people to evacuate the cities and move to the countryside. They instituted a total collectivism based on the doctrine of "Pol Pot-ism," the Cambodian version of fundamentalist Maoism.

Assembled in this collection are the sayings that made up a "newspeak" uttered by the mouths of the Khmer Rouge cadres: slogans, maxims, advice, instructions, watchwords, orders, warnings, and threats. All were spoken in the name of the ominous Angkar, that faceless and lawless "Organization," in order to indoctrinate, control, and terrorize the populace.

These sayings have been collected from the memories of survivors throughout Cambodia between 1991 and 1995. They form the macabre, bare-bones skeleton on which hung the Khmer Rouge ideology that was thrust upon the Cambodian people.

This handbook of slogans, interspersed with historical commentary and contextual analysis, describes the Khmer Rouge regime and exposes the horrific foundation upon which it constructed its reign of terror.