1. The Khmer Rouge have become synonymous with the terror of ‘communism’. Regardless of the context in which someone today makes the case for a different society, Pol Pot and his alleged ‘stone-age communism’ is always invoked as a counter-‘argument’, along with the KGB and the Berlin Wall, Stalin and the Gulag, all of which supposedly show what happens if people attempt to change society radically. ‘Democratic Kampuchea’1 seems to be made for this purpose: a group of left-wing students in Paris encounter what passes at the time for Marxism; they later join the Communist Party, return to their home country, go underground after some attempts at political reforms, come to power through a guerilla army, and then set up a regime of terror. All city-dwellers are driven out of town to the country, first money then private property is abolished; the population is obliged duty to dress uniformly and to build up ‘people’s communes’ to live, work and eat in common. Bourgeois common sense has always pictured communism like this, hence the outrage is great and there is little interest in finding out why the Khmer Rouge did what they did.
1，红色高棉被等同为“共产主义”的恐怖政权。无论今天的任何人在不同的社会中研究这一案例的环境如何，波尔布特和他所谓的“石器时代共产主义”总是被当成一种反驳“论据”，和克格勃与柏林墙，斯大林和古拉格这些一起证明如果人民试图激进的改变这个世界会发生什么。“民主柬埔寨”看起来是因为这一目的被制造出来的：一群巴黎的左翼学生受到了马克思主义的影响；然后他们加入了共产党，回到他们的祖国，在试图进行政治改变之后转入地下，通过游击队夺取权力，然后建立了一个恐怖政权。所有城市居民都被赶去农村，金钱和私有财产都被废除；人民被强迫穿上制服然后在“人民公社”里生活，在一起工作和吃饭。资产阶级的“常识”总是如此形容共产主义，因此共产主义制造出了大量暴行，而他们并没有兴趣去查证为什么红色高棉这么做，而红色高棉到底做了些什么。
2. To avoid any misunderstanding: there is no doubt about the fact that the Communist Party of Kampuchea killed millions of people through shootings and mass executions with pick axe and baton, through torture and the famines they brought about. It is clear as well that the Khmer Rouge forcibly imposed life in communes which has nothing to do with a ‘free association of free producers’, but closely resembles a work camp with uniform clothing, malnutrition, and everyone spying on and coercing everyone else. It is just about the opposite of what you would want for your own future.
2，以免误解：柬埔寨共产党通过射杀和用斧头和木棍大规模屠杀几百万人，带来了酷刑和饥荒，这些事实是毫无疑问的。但这一点也很明确：红色高棉强迫人民生活在公社中，这和“自由生产者的自由联合”一点关系都没有，而更接近于一个工作营地，人民被迫穿上制服，营养不良，每个人监视和强迫其他人。这和你想要的未来刚好相反。
3. Therefore it is of more than academic interest to explain why the Khmer Rouge established such a regime. To do this, it is necessary to examine factually the conditions under which Pol Pot and his henchmen acted, what their aims and means, their self-understanding and fears were, who their real or imaginary opponents and allies were. A few problems arise with this. The Khmer Rouge only left a few written documents; much of the available information only exists in the memory of refugees or comes from radio reports wiretapped and translated by the US secret service, and from a few documents translated from Khmer into French, sometimes from French into English, and in the worst cases into German afterwards. They were translated by avowed opponents of the Khmer Rouge, who mostly had completely wrong theories about the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and who read and translated the documents from this standpoint. The Vietnamese and Chinese archives are not accessible either; allies and opponents remain taciturn – and they certainly know why. In subsequent court proceedings Khmer Rouge cadres have simply lied (“all were Vietnamese agents”), and their testimony is probably influenced by their interest in acquittal or lenient sentencing. This fundamental and critical assessment of sources means some caution is needed with regard to the exact wording, and that biased readings as well as mistakes and inaccuracies in the translations must be taken into consideration as possible origins of contradictions.
3，因此解释为什么红色高棉建立了这样一个政权并不只是出于学术兴趣。为了做到这点，检查波尔布特和他的马仔们面临的局势，他们的目标和意义，他们的自我理解和恐惧，他们真正的或者想象出来的敌人和盟友是谁这些事实就很有必要了。出现了几个问题。红色高棉只留下了几份写下的文件；许多可用的信息只存在于难民们的记忆中或被美国秘密机构窃听和翻译的广播报告，和几份从高棉语翻译成法语的文档，有时又从法语被翻译为英语，最糟糕的是被翻译成德语。这些文档是被公开宣布反对红色高棉的人翻译的，这些人绝大部分对柬埔寨共产党（CPK）的理论是完全理解错误的，而他们也从这一点出发去阅读和翻译这些文档。而越南和中国的档案是无法被取得的；盟友和敌人都保持沉默——而他们很清楚为什么。在随后的法庭上红色高棉的管理层直接撒谎（“所有人都是越南间谍”），而他们的证词也许被想要得到豁免或宽容的欲望所影响了。这一基本的对资料来源的批判评价意味着在引用资料时需要谨慎，而那些有错误的文件，例如翻译中的不准确和错误，必须被考虑到可能与实际相反。
4. For a better understanding of the Khmer Rouge’s 1975 victory, a short synopsis of Cambodian history may be helpful. After the Second World War Marxist-Leninist guerilla troops inflicted crushing defeats on the French colonial power. Together with Vietnam and Laos, Cambodia – under a king installed by the French – became independent. King Sihanouk determined Cambodian politics from 1953 to 1970, including a brief period when he renounced the throne. His politics were referred to as ‘Buddhist Socialism’, and this link between the idea of some kind of communal economy and a religious ideal based on abstinence and frugality already hints at its character: this ‘people’s socialism’2 had nothing to do with the people’s well-being or even partial fulfilment of their needs. More than 90 per cent of the population worked in agriculture, which, aside from a tribute portion reserved for the king was focused on subsistence. Living conditions were meagre, with bad harvests frequently leading to famine. Artificial fertilizers hardly existed, technical devices were rarely applied. Industrial production was mainly pushed by foreign aid and was oriented towards exports; foreign trade was marginal and under state control, the banks were completely in the hands of the state. Foreign policy was oriented towards friendly relations with France, Japan, the USSR and China and sought to profit from the Cold War and the Sino-Soviet disputes, in order to achieve as much independence as possible by remaining neutral. The Sihanouk regime even tried to keep out of the Vietnam War, but it did tolerate that the communist Vietcong crossed Cambodian territory to supply their comrades in South Vietnam.
4，为了更好的理解红色高棉在1975年取得的胜利，一个简短的柬埔寨历史概要会有帮助。在二战之后，马克思——列宁主义游击队造成了法国殖民统治的瓦解。和越南与老挝一起，柬埔寨——在一个法国扶植的国王下——独立了。西哈努克国王在1953至1970年间决定了柬埔寨政治，包括一个他走下王位的短暂时期。他的政策被称为“佛教共产主义”，这将一些公共经济和基于节制和节俭的宗教理想联系起来，而这一切击中了实质：这一“人民的社会主义”并没有给人民提供更好的生活，甚至没有部分得满足他们的需求。超过90%的人口是农民，他们向国王提供贡品，然后集中精力维持生存。生活条件非常简陋，收成不好经常会导致饥荒。人工肥料几乎不存在，科技设备几乎没有被采用。工业生产主要由外国援助推动，是出口导向的。对外贸易是边缘化的和被政府控制的，银行完全被政府掌控。外交政策是维持与法国，日本，苏联和中国的有好关系，并努力从冷战和反苏纠纷中获利，这是为了尽可能实现独立和维持中立。西哈努克政权甚至试图不参与越战，不过它默许了越共通过柬埔寨领土去给他们在南越的战友们提供支援。
5. The Khmer Rouge cadres often were students who had been sent to university in Paris by the Sihanouk regime in the 1950s and who came into contact with the Communist Party there – not quite the regime’s intention. Just like the few remaining cadres of the Communist Party of Indochina, these students were above all fervent patriots, but quite dissatisfied with their nation’s social, economic and political conditions and dependencies. They differed from ordinary patriots in that they had come into contact with ‘Marxism’. For most of them, this meant that history was the history of class struggles, that the capitalists – evil! – must objectively meet their end, and the workers – good! – would take over the whole thing sooner or later through the Communist Party. The subsequent Khmer Rouge – and many other intellectuals from recently or soon-to-be independent countries – do not seem to have learned more from Marx’s work than the hint that classes and class struggles existed in their countries as well. But even with this not particularly deep insight they could have gotten somewhere – for example they could have assumed, following Rosa Luxemburg, that nationalism was only “an expression of the aspiring indigenous bourgeoisie aiming at their own exploitation of the country for their own profit”2 Instead, the young dissatisfied nationalists did not even calm themselves down with Lenin’s thesis that every anti-imperialism was objectively and ultimately progressive because it weakened the system as a whole.3 In exact opposition to Lenin’s instrumental assessment (ideology of national liberation is good for socialism), they discovered in socialism the fulfilment of all the true patriots’ hopes, and set out to find out whether their home country’s social classes might be useful for the nation’s prosperity, or if those classes would rather do business with evil capitalist states. As radical idealists of their national state, they were ready at any time to regard every ‘true patriot’ as their ally; hence it is no surprise that at the beginning of the 60s three communists briefly became royal ministers. This might have worked out, not just because the Khmer Rouge took pride in the old Khmer Culture of Angkor Wat in a manner quite alien to class struggle, but also because they agreed with the Sihanouk regime that foreign countries were exploiting Cambodia, and that a great deal of national independence would be good. Everything bad and evil in Cambodia’s history had come from outside, and even neighbouring Vietnam and Thailand had tried to enslave the great Khmer people in the distant past4 .Nonetheless the alliance did not work out. Those who discover different class interests within the people’s national unity, or even suspect that the underclasses have some reason to oppose the insults delivered from above, are suspect in the eyes of the true patriot, appearing not as ‘patriots’ at all but as ‘insurgents’. Consequently the Cambodian communists were persecuted in the early and mid-1960s, with their cadres and alleged followers tortured and murdered. The CPK had to withdraw to the very poor mountain regions far from Pnomh Penh. They could not set their hopes on help from their Soviet, Chinese or Vietnamese comrades, all of whom were quite grateful to Sihanouk for not stabbing their backs in the Vietnam War and did not want to offend him by supporting a communist guerilla group against him. This strengthened the CPK’s conviction that nothing good could be expected from foreign countries, no matter whether they were capitalist or socialist. The people recruited by the CPK in this region were usually desperate, angry and undernourished, and generally had nothing much to lose.5
5，红色高棉的管理层经常是被西哈努克政权送到巴黎的大学的学生们，他们在那里联系上了共产党——这并不是西哈努克政权的意图。就像其他几个印度支那共产党的管理层一样，这些学生都是充满热情的爱国者们，但是他们对他们的国家的社会，经济和政治局势以及对外界的依赖非常不满。他们和普通的爱国者不同的地方在于他们接触了“马克思主义”。对于他们中的绝大多数人来说，这意味着历史是阶级斗争的历史，资本家们——邪恶！——必须客观的面对他们的终结，而工人们——好人！——会通过共产党或早或晚的得到一切。在接下来的红色高棉——以及很多最近或很快就会独立的国家中的思想家们——看起来并没有从马克思的工作中学到更多东西，除了阶级和阶级斗争也在他们国家中存在这一点。但即便只有这一并不深入的认识，他们也可以学到其他东西——例如假设他们可以追随罗莎卢森堡，国族主义只是“一种崛起的本土资产阶级为了实现为了自己的利益开发自己的国家而进行的表达而已”。相反的是，这些年轻的不满的国族主义者甚至没能从列宁的理论“每个反帝国主义行动都是客观上非常进步的，因为这削弱了整个系统”中冷静下来。和列宁的工具评价（民族解放思想有利于社会主义）相反的是，他们发现社会主义填满了所有真正的爱国者们的希望，然后开始思考他们祖国的社会阶级是否对祖国的繁荣有用，或者这些阶级宁可和邪恶的资本主义国家做生意。作为他们的国族国家的极端理想主义者，他们准备将每个“真正的爱国者”当成他们的盟友。因此并不令人惊讶的是在20世纪60年代开始时三个共产主义者成为了皇室任命的部长。这也许指出了一点，不仅因为红色高棉为旧高棉文化中的吴哥窟感到自豪，而这一点表现出他们根本不了解阶级斗争（备注：这群爱国疯子们何止是不了解阶级斗争，他们大概连共产党宣言都没读过。），而且他们和西哈努克政权一样认为外国在剥削柬埔寨，而努力实现国家独立是很好的。任何柬埔寨历史上坏的和邪恶的东西都是来自外国，甚至相邻的越南和泰国也试图在过去奴役伟大的柬埔寨人民。（备注：红色高棉可真是些热情的爱国者啊，他们可真像那些认为中国传统文化就是好就是好，一切坏事都是因为外国干涉中国内政造成的中国爱国者们，也很像那些要让美国再次伟大的美国爱国者们。）尽管如此，这一联盟并没有起作用。那些在人民的国家团结内部发现不同的阶级利益的人，或那些甚至怀疑下层阶级是否有理由反对上层的压迫的人，他们以真正的爱国者之眼进行探查，表现得一点也不像“爱国者”而更像“叛乱者”。在1960s的早期和中期，柬埔寨共产主义者们被频繁迫害，他们的管理层和号称的追随者被酷刑虐待和谋杀。红色高棉被迫逃向远离金边的穷困山区。他们无法寄希望于得到苏联，中国或越南战友们的帮助，因为这些势力都很感激西哈努克在越战中没有背后袭击，更不想因为支持一个共产主义游击队而冒犯他。这增强了柬埔寨共产党的这一信念：不能期待外国带来任何好事，无论那些外国人是资本主义者还是社会主义者。那些被柬埔寨共产党招募的这一地区的人通常是绝望，愤怒和营养不良的，没有什么可以失去了。
6. When the US decided to bombard Cambodian territory as well – one of the Nixon administration’s many secret operations – the Sihanouk regime broke off all relations with the US and intensified the persecution of the Khmer Rouge, who were becoming increasingly popular after long years of irrelevance. Some right-wing military men who were worried about a communist takeover did not regard the regime strategy as coherent, and staged a coup d’état in 1970, while the King was on a state visit to the USSR. All of a sudden, Cambodia had become a republic under the leadership of General Lon Nol. This ‘republican’ regime collaborated closely with the US, allowing the bombardment of Cambodian territory and even asking for military help in fighting the communist guerillas. The guerillas’ support and success grew with the increasing ruthlessness of the war against the population and the large number of deaths caused by US bombing (between 200,000 and 700,000: the number can no longer be verified6 In this situation King Sihanouk was persuaded by China to take over the leadership of ‘Democratic Kampuchea’, with the Khmer Rouge as its main pillar. The equally corrupt, inefficient and brutal regime of Lon Nol had no chance against this strange coalition, especially as the US decided in the mid-1970s that it no longer needed to demonstrate its power in Indochina, leading it to abandon the South Vietnamese and Cambodian regimes. In Vietnam this led to the victory of the Communist Party. In Cambodia the victorious Khmer Rouge paraded into Pnomh Penh on April 18, 1975.
6，当美国决定轰炸柬埔寨地区时——尼克松主导的许多秘密行动中的一个——西哈努克政权和美国断绝所有关系，并增强了对红色高棉的迫害，因为红色高棉在长期的忽视之后变得被越来越多的人民欢迎。一些担心共产主义夺权的右翼军人并不认为政权策略有效，然后他们于1970年在国王对苏联进行外交访问时发动了政变。突然之间，柬埔寨变成了郎诺将军领导的共和国。这一“共和的”政权和美国进行亲密合作，允许轰炸柬埔寨，甚至要求对与共产主义游击队作战提供军事帮助。在无情的战争导致的大量由美国轰炸（死亡人数在20万-70万之间，无法进行进一步确认）造成的死亡的推动下，红色高棉的游击队得到了支持和成功，同时西哈努克国王也被中国说服将政权交给“民主柬埔寨”，红色高棉是“民主柬埔寨”的支柱。郎诺的腐败低效残暴的政权无法与这一奇怪的联盟作战，特别是在美国于1970s中期决定不再需要在印度支那展示力量，抛弃了南越和柬埔寨政权。在越南共产党取得了胜利。在1975年4月18日，柬埔寨的红色高棉攻占了金边。（备注：1960年联合国试图停止南越和北越之间的战争，组织了联合大选，结果北越的胡志明赢得大选，而越南人民也认可越共的一些主张，结果南越势力和美国政府拒绝承认大选结果，执意继续战争，最终越战以南越和美国政府的失败告终。而从这一段可以看出，红色高棉是在郎诺政权的腐败残暴和美国政府的轰炸以及西哈努克的支持下才得以做大的，如果没有郎诺推翻西哈努克，如果美国政府不轰炸柬埔寨平民，那么红色高棉根本就没戏唱，最终只会被彻底镇压。）
7. The first official act of the new rulers – initially calling themselves ‘Angkar’ (meaning something like ‘organisation’) – was to announce to all inhabitants via loudspeaker that they had 48 hours to clear Pnomh Penh. The capital’s population had grown from 600.000 to two million during the war.7 , ncluding many refugees, injured and maimed people. Now the new rulers told the inhabitants that bombardment by the US Air Force was imminent, and that the evacuation would only last a week8 From kindergarten to intensive care unit, all townspeople – in other towns it was about the same – had to set off on foot and were distributed to the rural communities. Insofar, that is, as they survived the marches lasting days or weeks, during which they had little food and were exposed to beatings, rapes and executions.Pol Pot claimed in 1978 that there had been no clear plan: the evacuation of the towns had arisen from the situation. This is unlikely, because the whole operation was meticulously prepared, at least with regard to the eviction of the population, and the Khmer Rouge had proceeded similarly in towns they had previously conquered. Pol Pot has cited the economic necessities of feeding the population and using it in production as a reason for the eviction. But according to what is known today, this was a pretext.9 The second aspect he mentions is the danger of a revolt inspired by US imperialism.10 Ieng Sary, one of the Khmer Rouge’s leading representatives, said the towns had been a danger to the revolutionary troops’ fighting strength because of money, alcohol and prostitution.11 A further gloomy picture of the whole operation is drawn by discussion minutes from the time before the takeover, if these are authentic. “The question of urban and rural population as opposites does not exist, because all towns are of foreign origin, inhabited by foreigners […] so the townspeople have emerged from the miscegenation with these foreigners; they are not of pure Khmer origin and can therefore be eliminated without any political or psychological difficulties.”12 Whether or not the source is real – this matches the Khmer Rouge’s actual approach.
7，这些新统治者的第一个官方行动——他们一开始称呼自己为‘Angkar’（意思是“组织”）——是发言人通知所有居民，他们有48小时时间撤出金边。在战争时期这个首都的人口从60万增长到两百万，包括很多难民，受伤的和残疾人。现在新统治者们告诉居民美国空军的轰炸即将到来，而车里只会持续一周。从幼儿园到重症监护室，所有市民——在其他城市也一样——不得不徒步出发然后被分散到农村社区。这意味着他们必须持续行军几天或几周，几乎没有食物，并且暴露在殴打，强奸和处决中。波尔布特在1978年宣称他们并没有清晰的计划：城镇撤离是由当时的局势所决定的。这不像真的，因为整个行动都是精心准备过的，至少红色高棉在他们之前征服的城市里进行了类似的人口驱逐。波尔布特引用了喂饱人民的经济需要和使用人民生产作为驱逐的理由。但根据我们今天所知道的，这是一种托词。他提到的第二个因素是城市有被美帝国主义鼓动暴动的危险。英沙里，其中一个红色高棉的代表领导者，说城市对于革命军队的战斗力会造成威胁，因为城市里有金钱，酒精和色情。关于整个行动的灰暗前景在夺权之前就已经在讨论中出现了，如果这些是真的。“关于城市和农村人口敌对的问题是不存在的，因为所有的城市都是外国领地，由外国人居住，所以城市里的人和外国人杂交了；他们不是纯种柬埔寨人，所以终结他们没有任何政治或心理上的困难。”无论来源是否是真实的——这很符合红色高棉的实际行动。（备注：红色高棉简直是爱国爱到极致了啊，爱到所有外国人和被外国人污染的柬埔寨人都要屠杀。）
8. The brutal relocation of the urban population by the Khmer Rouge is often interpreted as an attempt to build ‘peasant communism’13 ‘an agrarian communist utopia’14 or ‘stone-age communism’15 or as the obsessive romantic illusion of ‘turning back the clock to something pure and authentic’16 . The often-quoted slogan “If we have rice, we can have everything”17 seems to mean exactly this: a narrow-minded limitation to agricultural production, and most of all to the product the Cambodian population’s life depended on (and still does), resulting in the strategy of emptying the towns and relocating everybody to the rural areas.
8，红色高棉的暴力迁移城市人口的行动经常被形容为一种建立“农民共产主义”“农业共产主义乌托邦”或“石器时代共产主义”或一种关于“回到纯洁和真实的过去”的浪漫幻想的强迫症的企图。被经常引用的口号“如果我们有大米，我们就能拥有一切”看起来意味着这些：对农业生产的思维狭窄的限制，绝大部分柬埔寨人民依赖大米生产（而至今还是如此），导致了腾空城市和把所有人迁移到农村的行动。
9. But was it really the reactionary utopia of a peasant ‘communism’? It may help to hear the rest of the quotation: “If we have rice, we have everything; our people can eat their fill and we can export it for hard currency. […] The more we export, the better we can afford to buy equipment, machines, and other instruments necessary for building our industry […] and for rapidly changing our agriculture.”18 This leaves us with ‘stone age communism’ in search of foreign exchange. And did it really sound like a peasant state when Pol Pot explained in 1977: “We take agriculture as the basic factor and use the fruits of agriculture systematically to build industry […]. We also intend to transform the backward agricultural Cambodia rapidly into an industrialized Cambodia by firmly adhering to the fundamental principles of independence, sovereignty and self-reliance”19
9，但是这真的是反映了农民“共产主义”的乌托邦吗？看一下摘录的其他部分是有帮助的：“如果我们有了大米，我们就有了一切；我们的人民可以吃饱，而我们可以出口大米以换取硬通货。我们出口的越多，我们就能购买更多设备，机器，和其他建立我们的工厂的必须的部件，和迅速改变我们的农业。”这告诉我们“石器时代共产主义”是为了进行对外交易。当波尔布特在1977年这么解释：“我们将农业当成基础产业，用农业的成果系统性的建立工业。我们也寻求将落后的农业柬埔寨迅速转变为工业柬埔寨，秉承我们的独立，主权和自给自足的基本原则”，这听起来真的像是农民政权吗？（备注：这听取来当然不像农民政权，而更像公司国家，红色高棉把柬埔寨当成公司经营了。当然，事实证明他们非常傻逼。）
10. The ten-year plan introduced in 1976 speaks exactly the same language. The CPK assumed that Cambodia could not hope for disinterested help from anywhere (and it was right there, for a change), that it had no natural resources and that its industry was no good. But it did have a successful party and a hard-working population, so that it should be able to improve rice cultivation considerably. And being proud nationalists, they focused on the good aspects. The party decided to build up socialism by intensifying and extending rice cultivation in order to buy industrial facilities with the returns from exports. It was planned to reach a yield of three tonnes of rice per hectare by installing irrigation plants throughout the country. It was supposed to be the task of the whole population to build these irrigation plants and to cultivate rice. Anyone who did not want to participate or was unable to do so did not belong to the Cambodian people. In ‘Democratic Kampuchea’, this was usually a death sentence.
10，1976年的十年计划说了同样的话。柬埔寨共产党假设柬埔寨无法希望于得到任何地方的帮助（但就在这里，为了改变），柬埔寨没有自然资源，也没有工业。但柬埔寨有一个成功的党和一群努力工作的人民，所以应该能考虑提升大米耕作。作为自豪的国族主义者，他们聚焦于好的因素。党决定通过加强和扩展大米耕种建设社会主义，为了购买工业设施作为出口回报。他们计划通过在全国安装灌溉工厂以达到每公顷三吨大米的产量。建设灌溉工厂和种植大米被当成所有人民的任务。任何不想参与或无力这么做的人不属于柬埔寨人民。在“民主柬埔寨”，这通常意味着死刑。
11. Let’s talk about rice. Rice is no aquatic plant. But many varieties of rice grow better (also in regard to pests and weeds) if the fields are flooded. Rice can be grown in dry, mountainous regions as well, but this method is clearly less productive. The yields of many varieties can be enhanced by repeatedly flooding and draining the fields20 An elaborate system of canals, dams, water inflow and drainage is necessary to do so. The productivity of rice cultivation in Cambodia was relatively low in 1975: in 1970 – before the carpet bombing and the extension of the civil war – the average yield was one tonne per hectare; by comparison, the average was 7.6 tonnes per hectare in Australia and 3.3 tonnes per hectare in the USSR21he four-year plan of the second half of 1976 envisaged a yield of three tonnes per hectare on normal rice fields, six to seven tonnes on some particularly fertile fields22
11，让我们谈谈大米。大米并不是水生植物。但是许多种类的大米在产量被淹没的土地上长得更好（害虫和杂草也长得更好）。大米也能生长在干燥的山地，但很显然产量会下降。重复性的淹没和灌溉可以增强土地。要做到这些，一个由水渠，水坝，水流和排水渠组成的精密系统是必须的。在1975年，柬埔寨的大米产量很低：在1970年——在地毯式轰炸和内战扩张之前——平均产量为一公顷每吨；作为对比，在澳大利亚平均产量为7.6公顷每吨，在苏联平均产量为3.3公顷每吨。1976年的第二个半年的四年计划中设想在一般田地上增产到每公顷三吨，在一些特别肥沃的田地上增产到六到七公顷每吨。
12. The plan to treble agricultural yields within four years in a country destroyed by war might be called ‘bold’ – and with regard to a planned economy, ‘bold’ means ‘probably will not happen’ – but the method can only be called ‘foolish’. It might be doubted that it is a good idea to let nurses, teachers, pharmacists and taxi drivers dig mud and sow rice, although in times of need obtaining help from untrained people for urgent tasks can be a reasonable strategy. It is downright wretched and inhumane, however, to drive people out of their homes, segregate them according to gender and force them to work under murderous conditions. In addition, it was extremely counterproductive. What should we call those who, on top of all this, feed their workforce nothing but watery rice soup – or worse, rice glume soup – sometimes only once a day, while simultaneously fighting the private cultivation of spinach, cabbage and tomatoes in order to ‘combat capitalist tendencies’, while cadres and soldiers are provided with considerable rations23 , and while “thousands of tonnes of rice” are exported in order “to accumulate capital for national defence and reconstruction” (Pol Pot 1977)24 what should we call them? Assholes? Shit-bags? Villains? What they certainly can be called is nationalists.25
12，在四年内计划在一个被战争损坏的国家内将农业产量翻三倍，这也许被称作“冒失”——在计划经济下，“冒失”意味着“也许不会发生”——但这种模式只能被称作“愚蠢”。让护士，教师，药剂师和出租车司机们都去挖泥和种大米被怀疑是否是一个好主意，虽然在紧急情况下要求没有经过训练的人提供帮助是一个有道理的策略。然而，将人民赶出他们的家园，根据性别强行分开他们，强迫他们工作在危险的环境下，这是彻头彻尾的凄惨的和反人类的。还有一点，这是非常适得其反的。我们应该把这些只提供给劳动力水占多数的米粥——或者更糟糕的，没有米的粥——有时一天只有一次，同时为了“与资本主义趋势作战”与私自的种植菠菜，白菜和番茄作战，同时管理者和士兵们被提供足够的供应，同时“几千吨大米”为了“积累国防和重建资本”而被出口（波尔布特1977）的那些人叫做什么？我们应该把他们叫做什么？混蛋？狗屎？恶棍？他们真正的名字是国族主义者。
13. Because they did not stop at reducing everything in the world to the question of ‘Khmer or non-Khmer’ as defined by the Khmer Rouge, which in itself had the bitter consequence that everyone they did not like was deprived of citizenship and thus placed in perpetual danger of death. Additionally, whether out of patriotic pride or fear of foreign interference, they managed to throw all foreign aid organizations out of the country, despite a growing food shortage and a medical state of emergency. They proudly congratulated themselves on how they did everything differently from the Vietnamese, Chinese, North Korean or Soviet Communists, and thus they thought it beneath them to ask the state-socialist countries for help, even where it was simply a question of the survival of the people who had suddenly ended up under their rule. As the history of capitalist nation states proves, you do not need to have studied Stalin in depth in order to treat people so brutally and carelessly as mere material for state plans: all that is needed is the simple idea that the nation is more important than the individual. Thus the Khmer Rouge were nationalists first and foremost.
13，因为他们从来没有停止把这世界上的一切都以红色高棉定义的“高棉或不是高棉”这一问题评判，这一点造成了惨痛的后果：每个不喜欢被剥夺公民权的人都会因此陷入永远的死亡危险中。以及，或许是出于爱国者的骄傲，或许是处于对外国干涉的恐惧，他们成功的把所有外国援助组织都赶出了柬埔寨，尽管食物短缺越来越严重，药物短缺也进入了紧急状态。他们很自豪的庆祝他们所做的每件事都和越南人，中国人，北韩或苏联共产党员不同，因此他们把这些国家看得在他们下面，询问这些国家社会主义国家是否需要帮助，即使在他们统治下人民突然变得无法生存了。就像资本主义民族国家的历史所证明的那样，你不需要深入学习斯大林以变得残忍和不在乎人民，将人民当成国家计划中的材料；你只需要一个简单的观点：国家比个人更重要。因此红色高棉是根本上的国族主义者。（备注：红色高棉证明了傻逼爱国者如果成了独裁者，除了灾难和悲剧之外其他什么都制造不出来，小粉红也一样。）
14. And they were also idiots. A system of dams and canals requires at least some knowledge of how such canals are to be dug, how dams are made to last, and how to ensure that the water flows only – and we mean only – when it is intended to flow, to name just a few. It would also be a good idea if the canals were not so deep that the water had to be pumped laboriously onto the fields, and it might also help if the dams were able to survive heavy rain, for example. You guessed it: the majority of the new or rebuilt irrigation systems were a complete failure, in part ineffective and in part pointless. Some broke under the first rain, burying rice fields and sometimes also villages under mudslides26 After three years of massive failures, which caused rice production to decline drastically in certain areas, some of the irrigation systems eventually worked, thanks more likely to trial and error – and the productivity of undernourished, exhausted, traumatised and desperate people forced to work under conditions entirely unlike anything they knew – than to systematic theoretical thinking. But even this ‘success’ was nowhere near what the Khmer Rouge had planned for.
14，他们也是蠢货。一个由水坝和水渠组成的系统要求至少拥有关于这些水渠如何挖掘，水坝长度多少，如何保证水流只流向——我们的意思是只——它应当流向的地方的知识，这只是其中几个知识。如果水渠不足够深，水流必须被水泵喷入田地，思考一下水坝是否能在大雨中幸存也是很有帮助的，作为一个例子。你能猜到的：大多数新的或重建的灌溉系统完全失败了，部分无效部分没有指向。一些在第一场雨之后破了，掩埋了大米田，有时村庄都被泥土掩埋了。在三年的大规模失败之后，在一些地区造成了大米产量的大幅降低，一些灌溉系统勉强能工作，但更像是试验和错误——以及营养不良的，筋疲力尽的，受伤的和绝望的人民被强迫在和任何他们知道的都不一样的环境中工作——没有系统性的理论思考。但即使这一“成功”也完全不是红色高棉所计划的。
15. Khieu Samphan, the head of state of ‘Democratic Kampuchea’ from 1977, apparently declared: “Those who think politically, who have understood the regime, can do everything, technology comes later … we do not need engineers in order to plant rice or corn or to rear pigs”27 This Maoistically-inspired thought is first and foremost utter stupidity: Leaving aside what the Khmer Rouge meant with “politically” exactly, it surely helps to have intelligent political thoughts when developing, testing and applying technology, because it is a political aim one wants to realise using technology.28 But technology itself is also by no means properly understood this way. And it’s especially important, when dealing with something in such direct involvement with nature as agriculture, to have proper knowledge about nature and how and with what consequences it is influenced by man.
15，Khieu Samphan，1977年的“民主柬埔寨”政府头目，宣称：“那些有政治头脑的，理解政府的，可以做到一切，科技之后再说…..我们不需要工程师去种植大米或玉米或喂猪”。这种毛教鼓动的思维从根本上来说是绝对愚蠢的：先不管红色高棉所说的“政治”是什么，有智慧的政治思维在发展，测试和运用技术时是非常有帮助的，因为实现对技术的使用是政治目标。但是技术自身并不意味着会被恰当理解。特别重要的是，当对付一些会直接影响自然的东西，例如农业时，需要有合适的关于自然的知识，以及人类影响会造成什么后果。
16. And just to avoid any misunderstanding: of course it is good and correct to realise that existing circumstances can be changed and that often the people who suffer from such circumstances lack the imagination to think of alternatives. However, it’s doubtful whether you really need courage to dream in order to gain the strength for a fight: thus far our dreams have helped neither to organise our summer camps nor to design our website. But it is important to recognise the need for action against resignation to the given world, and to understand that some necessary changes and improvements will demand collective force. That means having to persuade some people, because even those who criticise something can be blinded by the power of existing relations.This is roughly the reasonable essence of anarchist sayings such as “be realistic, attempt the impossible”. When anarchists and Maoists insist that politically they want something that does not currently exist, and that without the will to change nothing will change, they are initially right with this fairly banal insight. And they come across as much more likeable than the Stalinists who every time they fuck something up have the good excuse that it was ‘historically necessary’ in this and no other way. You could even argue for the Maoists and the CPK that without a certain stubborn attachment to their own political programme, regardless of the concrete chances of its realisation, they would have never been in a position to change anything. But this argument against a dull and affirmative realism – against a perspective which cannot imagine anything different because it does not want to do so – is completely different from an idealism that declares reality to be negligible and replaces analysis with some more or less encouraging slogans, more suited to a church meeting (belief moves mountains) than to the construction of a real, beautiful planned economy. The development of productive forces is no child’s game; a plan without a safety net is bullshit, and utopian thinking does indeed lead to catastrophe if it fails to address the conditions of realisation. And that is what happened, in addition to the directly intended brutalities, in ‘Democratic Kampuchea’.
16，为了避免误解：当然，认为现有环境是可以改变和受这一环境所害的人缺乏想像其他选择的能力的想法是很好和正确的。然而，你是否真的需要用梦想进行鼓励以获得战斗的力量，这一点是令人怀疑的：因为我们的梦想并不是组织我们的夏令营或设计我们的网页。但是意识到反对顺从被给予的世界是很重要的，以及理解一些必要的改变和改进会需要集中的力量。这意味着不得不说服一些人，因为即使那些不认可一些东西的人也能被存在的关系的力量所绑定。这大致是对无政府主义者说的“变得实际，尝试不可能”的说的通的解释。当无政府主义者和毛主义者坚持想要现在不存在的政治上的东西时，如果没有改变的意志那么什么也不会改变，他们是正确的，同时他们的见解相当平庸。他们更像斯大林主义者一样，每次他们把事情搞砸的时候都有很好的借口说这是“历史必然”，没有其他可能。你当然可以争辩说如果毛主义者们和柬埔寨共产党如果没有固执的坚持他们的政治计划，不管实际情况如何，他们就无法坐在这个能改变任何事情的位置上。但是这一辩解和这样一个平淡和肯定的事实——反对一种认为无法想象任何不一样的东西因为它们不想这么做的远景——完全不同于一种宣布真实是微不足道的，将分析替换成鼓舞人心的标语的理想主义，这更适合放在教堂会议上（信念移走高山）而不是建设一个真实的，美丽的计划经济。发展生产力量不是儿戏；一个没有安全网的计划是狗屎，而乌托邦设想如果不考虑现实状况就会走向灾难。而这就是在“民主柬埔寨”发生的，直接导向了暴行。（备注：这一段是对那些认为信念移走高山的信徒们的很好的批评，当然，毛主义本身就是一种一神教。）
17. here must have been reasons for these obvious problems with ‘socialist development’, and the Khmer Rouge were quick to start looking for them. It could not be the party, of course – they had the right line – and the Khmer people, whose good characteristics a Cambodian patriot could not call into question, were also excluded from guilt. Thus traitors and saboteurs were clearly active just about everywhere. As a matter of principle, suspicion was directed against the Vietnamese and Chinese minorities who in the old society had mostly been artisans and merchants29 , and also against the Muslim minority, who in the eyes of the CPK did not belong to the traditional Khmer rice-farming people because of their belief and their trade (fishing). City dwellers were of course suspected to have been privileged under the old regime or even to have fled from Khmer Rouge troops. Generally, the Khmer Rouge distinguished between the ‘old people’ who had survived under their reign for a while and were thus more trustworthy, and the ‘new people’ who had only recently ended up under their control. And ultimately some saboteurs and traitors must have hidden within the CPK, as otherwise they could not have proceeded with their disgraceful work without Angkar noticing them.Initially, the Khmer Rouge mostly killed adherents of the old regime, soldiers of the Lon Nol troops, urban intellectuals and then people who had returned from exile, wrongly assuming that the war was over and that they could help to develop Democratic Kampuchea. But the Khmer Rouge soon started also to torture and kill people from their own ranks and to suspect everyone of being a spy.30 The terror was extended to the countryside – a terror against everyone who did not fulfil the required workload, who stole from the harvest or from food remnants out of hunger, or who dared secretly to slaughter an animal.The sick, the old, the weak, the injured, the handicapped etc. were, as useless eaters, at best left to their own devices and thus often subject to death from starvation, or they were simply killed. Those who joked about Angkar, criticised a measure or showed themselves to be ‘enemies’ of the regime in some other way rarely survived. But even if someone’s plough broke down, or if their buffalo didn’t obey or if they dared to have sexual relations without permission, they faced public humiliation at best, often more rigid forms of punishment and sometimes even death. It is estimated that Cambodia had about 7.4 million inhabitants in 1975. In 1979 there were about 5.8 million.31
17，在这些“社会主义发展”中存在的这些显而易见的问题必须是有原因的，而红色高棉很快开始寻找原因。当然，不可能是因为党——他们有正确的底线——也不可能是高棉人民，柬埔寨的爱国者们眼中的好人不可能有问题，也不会犯罪。因此叛徒和破坏者在每个地方活动。作为一个原则，对越南和中国的少数群体的怀疑开始增长（他们在旧社会最多的是成为艺术家和商人），穆斯林少数群体也值得怀疑，在柬埔寨共产党看来他们因为信仰和交易（捕鱼）而不属于传统高棉种大米的人。城市居民当然也被怀疑在旧政权中有特权或者甚至逃离红色高棉军队。通常来说，红色高棉区分了那些在他们的控制区生存了一段时间的“旧人”是更可信的，而那些“新人”最近才被他们控制。最终，一些破坏者和叛徒们一定藏在柬埔寨共产党中，否则他们不会在Angkar没有注意到的情况下推进他们肮脏的工作。一开始，红色高棉屠杀了绝大部分旧政权的成员，郎诺军队的士兵，城市知识分子和从外国回来的错误的假设了战争已经结束而他们可以回来帮助发展民主柬埔寨的人。但是红色高棉很快开始折磨和杀戮他们内部的人，怀疑每个人都是间谍。恐怖蔓延到了乡村——一种对于任何没有完成他们被要求完成的工作的人，因为饥饿偷了收获的食物或粮仓中的食物的人，任何敢于偷偷屠杀一只动物的人的恐怖。病人，老人，虚弱的人，受伤的人，残疾人，等等，都是没用的吃货，最好把他们丢下然后死于饥荒，或者他们就是简单的被杀了。那些开Angkar的玩笑的，在任何程度上进行批评的，或表现出他们自己是政权的“敌人”的几乎无法生存。但是甚至某人的犁破损了，或者他们的水牛不遵从他们的命令，或他们敢在没有许可的情况下发生性行为，最好的情况下他们面临公开羞辱，经常面临更严格的惩罚，有时是死亡。估计在1975年柬埔寨有740万居民，在1979年只有大约580万居民。（备注：红色高棉是标准爱国者，每个人都不爱国除了他们自己，每个人都是间谍除了他们自己。此外，红色高棉也是丛林哲学的信奉者，弱者必须死，是吧？当然，红色高棉也是标准的反福利人士，也很符合“自发秩序”逻辑，如果不是因为自称柬埔寨共产党以及名声实在是太臭了，我相信哈耶克一定会为红色高棉说几句好话的。）
18. After various border violations by Kampuchea’s army and a fierce reciprocal propaganda war, Vietnamese troops marched into Cambodia at the end of 1978 and in less than three weeks managed to drive out the Khmer Rouge. After that Pol Pot and his comrades (still internationally recognised as the ‘legitimate government’ of Cambodia) ruled over refugee camps in Thailand and some hard-to-reach camps in the border regions of Cambodia. There the Khmer Rouge’s terror continued. The largest part of Cambodia was now under Vietnamese control, and here the ‘People’s Republic of Cambodia’ was founded. Now the Khmer Rouge were fighting a guerilla war against Vietnamese troops and against the new Cambodian army. The USA and European countries supported the Khmer Rouge in its fight against an ally of the USSR.
18，在柬埔寨军队多次越过边境以及激烈的相互之间的宣传战争后，越南军队在1978年末进入柬埔寨，在三周不到的时间内赶走了红色高棉。在此之后波尔布特和他的战友们（还是被国际上认为是柬埔寨的“合法政府”）在泰国的难民营里和一些柬埔寨边界上的难以到达的营地里建立了统治。在那里红色高棉的恐怖持续着。柬埔寨最大的部分被越南控制，“柬埔寨人民共和国”被建立。现在红色高棉与越南军队和新柬埔寨军队展开了游击战。美国和欧洲国家支持红色高棉作为与苏联对战的盟友。
19. How can the terror and mass murder be explained? The contradiction between the atrocities and the supposed gentle and friendly national character of the Cambodians is often emphasised. Behind this particular racist-idiotic national caricature, various kitchen psychologists discover another ‘reason’: the dark side of the Khmer ‘national soul’. Even sworn anti-communists, for whom Hegel and Marx are to be held directly responsible for the Killing Fields, will not do without national character as an explanatory pattern: in the case of Camobdia it is the “tradition of cruelty which slumbers behind the Buddha’s gentle face”. The supposed explanation lies in the beautiful Khmer word kum, as best defined by a ‘native’: “a Cambodian word for a particular Cambodian revenge mentality – more specifically, an ongoing grudge which eventually leads to an act of revenge whose damage is far greater than the original injury […] it is an infection that spreads in our (national soul)”.32 We see. In the light of this infection of the national soul, it seems strange that former adherents and enemies of the Khmer Rouge work together in the highest ranks of the new Cambodian kingdom. Perhaps the kum is taking a little break? Even assuming that such socially anchored and accepted mentalities were widespread across the country, the question of the origin of the undeniably real grudge remains.
19，这种恐怖和大屠杀如何解释呢？暴行和与之相反的被期待的绅士和友善的柬埔寨人的国家印象经常被强调。在这种特别种族主义——愚蠢的国家画像下面，许多厨房心理学家发现了另一个“原因”：高棉人“民族灵魂”的阴暗面。即使那些忠实的反共产主义者，对于他们来说黑格尔和马克思也对屠杀负有直接责任，也把国家印象当成可解释的模式：在柬埔寨的案例中是“在佛教的绅士脸面下的是沉睡的残忍传统”。被期待的解释基于美丽的高棉词kum，意思是“本土”：“一个柬埔寨的词汇，为了柬埔寨人的复仇心态服务——更特别的是，一种持续的憎恨导向了复仇，而复仇的结果是损伤比原先的伤口严重得多”。我们看到了。在民族灵魂感染的光照下，很奇怪红色高棉曾经的追随者和敌人在新柬埔寨王国中一起在最高机关内工作。也许kum正在休息？即使假设这样的社会存在和接受了这种心理在国家中扩散，关于这种无可否认的真实的残忍的起源的问题依旧存在。
20. Among other reasons, the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror was presumably so brutal because the political-economic conflict between poor peasants and the urban middle classes – a leftover from colonial politics, administered latterly by the respective local elites – was fought out violently. (The same kind of conflict has led to all sorts of bloody carnage in Thailand recently.) This conflict was waged because the Khmer Rouge placed themselves at the head of a peasant guerilla campaign in a destabilised country and were able to win in a power vacuum created by imperialism. Thus one side was utterly inferior and for once it was the side that had previously always been slightly more successful at pushing its interests. And the conflict was waged so bloodily because the hate against the city people proved to be quite a good ideology for mobilising around the strategy of concentration on agriculture above all in the building of an independent Kampuchea. On top of that it fit the fascist33 ‘cleansing fantasies’ of these red-lacquered Khmer nationalists.
20，在其他原因中，红色高棉的恐怖如此参保是因为穷苦农民和城市中产阶级之间的政治经济冲突——殖民政策的遗留问题，被代表性的当地精英所管理——就暴力的反抗了。（相同类型的冲突导致了最近在泰国发生的大屠杀。）这一冲突被发动是因为红色高棉将他们自己放在一个位置上：一个农民游击组织，在一个不稳定的国家中，能够战胜被帝国主义创造出来的力量真空。因此一边完全劣等，而另一边曾经总是更成功的推动获取利益。被发动的这一冲突如此血腥，是因为对城市人民的憎恨证明是一个非常好的集中精力将农业放在独立柬埔寨的其他建筑之上的策略的意识形态。在最顶端的这些被染红的柬埔寨国族主义者符合法西斯的“清洁幻想”。
21. So what kind of people were these Khmer Rouge then? Of course it would be easiest to portray them as insane criminals, whose theory was a “morbid conglomerate of utopian ideas …which were not at all based on the insights of Marxist theories”34 ; this at least is how those in the GDR rejected any relation between Marxist-Leninism and the Khmer Rouge. But that is clearly insufficient. It is often said that the Khmer Rouge were ‘ultra-Maoists35, cultivating a ‘radical Maoism36 , with politics inspired by the ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the cultural revolution37 . That’s not supportable: the Great Leap Forward was meant to build communism in three years, whereas the 4-year-plan of the Khmer Rouge was meant to produce an export surplus for buying weapons and industrial plant. Bombing ‘headquarters’ regularly in order to terrify the party’s own bureaucracy was not Angkar’s thing.The Khmer Rouge even explicitly rejected the Maoist theory of an initially necessary pact with the national bourgeoisie: “There is no national bourgeoisie in Cambodia, all bourgeois are foreigners.”38 . The close alliance with China, which was already well on its way to a ‘socialist market economy’ at the time of the Khmer Rouge, was not so much based on what little ideological ground they shared but mostly on their common enemy: the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which was well-known to be an ally of the USSR. The Khmer Rouge also took on little in terms of ideology from its other ally North Korea. They neither had a sun-like leader (the Cambodians only found out in 1977 that Pol Pot was their big guy, some claim it was even later than that), nor did they fall for the idiotic North Korean idea of developing an independent state ideology (Juche) whose main content is that the people’s unity is better than class struggle. That was how North Korea ‘further developed’ Marxism-Leninism ‘dialectically’. No doubt the Khmer Rouge were proud of starting on a daring path to building socialism, a path which was previously unknown and untried and was genuinely Kampuchean. But in many ways, despite all their Khmer national pride, they were very orthodox Marxists-Leninists.
21，所以红色高棉是一群怎样的人呢？当然，最简单的方法是把他们当成疯狂的罪犯，他们的理论是“乌托邦思想的病态集合…..并不是所有的思想都基于马克思的理论”；这至少为那些民主德国人切断马克思——列宁主义和红色高棉的联系提供了依据。但这很显然没有效果。常见的说法是红色高棉是“极端毛主义者，追随一种”极端的毛主义，被“大跃进”和文化大革命政策所鼓舞””。这并没有支持证据：大跃进是为了在三年内建立共产主义，而红色高棉的4年计划是为了产生出口剩余以购买武器和工业设备。至于经常性轰炸“总部”以恐吓党内官僚（备注：这是指文革。）Angkar并没有做。红色高棉甚至在一开始就拒绝了毛主义理论关于民族资产阶级的关键部分：“在柬埔寨没有民族资产阶级。所有资产阶级都是外国人。”他们紧密联系的中国盟友，在红色高棉时期已经在“社会主义市场经济”的道路上了，中国和他们联盟并不是基于共享的意识形态，而是因为他们共同的敌人：越南社会主义共和国，众所周知是苏联的盟友。红色高棉和北韩的意识形态也没有相似之处。他们既没有一个像太阳一样的领袖（柬埔寨人在1977年才发现波尔布特是他们的头目，一些人声称他们发现得更晚），也没有采用北韩的愚蠢的发展一个独立国家意识形态（主体思想）的主意，主体思想的主要内容是人民团结比阶级斗争更重要。这是北韩如何“辩证的”“长远发展了”马克思——列宁主义。当然关于红色高棉非常自豪于开始了一条建立社会主义的道路这点没什么一问，一条在之前不被知道和没有尝试过的伟大的柬埔寨的道路。但是在很多方面，除了他们所有那些高棉民族自豪感外，他们是非常正统的马克思——列宁主义者。
22. But did Pol Pot not attempt “up to the last consequence” to “introduce communism immediately and completely without the long transition period proper to the tenets of orthodox Marxism-Leninism”?39 Did the Khmer Rouge want to “build …a communist society after the revolution and simply skip the socialism stage”40 an approach which would raise some questions? Was it a matter of ‘war communism’?41And did the Khmer Rouge promise to build a ‘thriving communist future’ with their 4-year-plan?42 Even if Angkar never officially invoked Marxism-Leninism43 their theoretical documents show them as especially thickheaded-nationalist and paranoid Marxists-Leninists. The documents talk of “socialism”, not communism, all the way through44 , and the policies were about agricultural surplus and foreign currency income – however nuts the strategy to achieve this might have been and however unreal the other assumptions were (e.g. a constant rice price on the world market).
22，但是波尔布特的确没有试图“不惜一切代价”以“将共产主义即时和完全的介绍过来，没有正统马克思——列宁主义教条中说的长期的转变时期”？红色高棉是想要“在革命之后建立…一个共产主义社会，简单的跳过社会主义阶段”并且围绕这一点提出一些问题吗？这是一种“战时共产主义”吗？红色高棉承诺用4年计划建立一个“丰富的共产主义未来”？即使 Angkar从来没有官方的引用马克思——列宁主义，他们的理论文件显示他们是榆木脑袋的国族主义者和偏执的马克思——列宁主义者。文件从头到尾都在说“社会主义”，而不是共产主义，而他们的政策是关于农业剩余和外国货币收入的——然而他们的策略非常白痴，建立在不真实的假设上（例如，世界市场上的一个稳定的大米价格）。（备注：红色高棉的主张和作为对不上马克思的理论也对不上列宁的理论，更和社会主义扯不上关系，看起来他们在听说了社会主义之后就想当然的自创了一种“柬埔寨特色社会主义”，而实际内容则是国族主义，屠杀一切外国人，国家比人民更重要。）
23. Incidentally, this should not lead us to the converse fallacy that the Khmer Rouge’s reign had been some kind of ‘state capitalism’. The Khmer Rouge did indeed relate to the world market with their aims and would have loved to transform Cambodia into an agricultural supplier for international capitalism. But they never got that far. And unlike in the USSR they did not even try to turn wage, price and profit into factors of planning. Instead of trying to plan in terms of money, which would not have meant bad capitalism but a badly planned economy, it was rice that had to be delivered in Kampuchea. A ‘domestic market’, whether of a capitalist or state socialist kind, did not exist; the money of ‘democratic Kampuchea’, which had already been printed, was not introduced as currency.
23，注意一下，我们不该被引向相反的错误中去，认为红色高棉是一种“国家资本主义”。红色高棉的确在他们的目标中和世界市场发生联系，并想要将柬埔寨转变成国际资本主义中的农业供应者。但是他们从没有走得这么远。与苏联不同的是，他们甚至没有尝试将工资，价格和利润这些元素加入计划中。与试图计划金钱，这不意味着坏资本主义而意味着坏计划经济不同的是，大米是必须带给柬埔寨的。一个“典型的市场”，无论是资本主义的还是国家社会主义的，都不存在；“民主柬埔寨”的金钱，虽然已经被印出，但并没有被作为货币使用。（备注：红色高棉建立的不是社会主义，也不是资本主义，而是奴隶制大米种植园。）
24. For a long time the left refused to believe that ‘democratic Kampuchea’ was ruled by such an evil regime. There were reasons for this: “falsifications and intentional lies, subsequently proved to be false, made it hard to believe the few sources available.” For example a French doctor’s report from April 30, 1975 on various atrocities that definitely did not take place, supposed that witness reports supplied in exchange for dollars at the Thai border by people who had not been in Cambodia at the time in question, staged photographs produced by the Thai secret police to influence elections, or the most famous photograph, which circulated worldwide with the caption “A Khmer Rouge shops with a pistol on the day of liberation”: in fact he was asking looters to stop immediately.45 With this in mind, the attitude of the West European and North American Left may have been unpleasant but it was not incomprehensible. Given the complete closing-off of Kampuchea, the only available information came from opponents of the Khmer Rouge, and for the most part it was not exactly reliable. All this is alarming, but one minority definitely to be disregarded is the element of the Left that continued to hold onto the Khmer Rouge until much later. Of course, one thing most morally outraged anti-communists prefer to suppress is that after the expulsion by the Vietnamese Army it was the free West that financed the Khmer Rouge murder gangs and gave them military support, allowing them to continue their slaughter in the border regions edging on Thailand. “You can’t be squeamish about auxiliary forces”. The West in its fight against the USSR and Vietnam took the words of old-school conservative Franz-Josef Strauss truly to heart, and even the Khmer Rouge, after their fall, were welcome.
24，在很长一段时间内，左派们都拒绝相信“民主柬埔寨”是被这样邪恶的政权统治着。原因有以下这些：“伪造和故意的谎言，后来被证明是假的，很难相信只有少数几个信息源。”例如一个法国医生在1975年4月30日的报告，这时许多暴行还没有发生，虚构了目击者报告说物资在泰国边界被兑换成金钱，但问题是这人当时并不在柬埔寨，被泰国秘密警察提供的以影响选举的照片，或者最著名的一张照片，在世界范围内流传，标题为“解放日红色高棉在商店持枪”：事实上他在要求抢劫者立刻停止。有这些在头脑中，西欧和北美的左派们也许不高兴，但并不令人费解。由于柬埔寨的完全封闭，唯一可用的信息来自红色高棉的反对者，这并不完全可靠。这一切都是令人警醒的，但是忽视少数是左派持续不批评红色高棉的原因之一。当然，一个使得绝大多数道德上愤怒的反共产主义者选择隐瞒的事实是在被越南军队驱逐后是自由的西方资助了红色高棉谋杀黑帮，还给了他们军事支持，允许他们继续在泰国边境地区继续他们的屠杀。“你不能在辅助力量上过于谨慎”。和苏联以及越南作战的西方非常赞同旧时代的保守主义者Franz-Josef Strauss的这句名言，即使是红色高棉，在他们失败之后，也是受欢迎的。（备注：中国和美国都在红色高棉被推翻后资助了红色高棉，为了对抗越南。而前面也提到了，美国政府抛弃了郎诺政权，导致柬埔寨彻底被红色高棉占领。而红色高棉的做大又和美国政府对柬埔寨的轰炸以及郎诺发动政变赶走西哈努克直接相关。自称自由民主灯塔的美国政府轰炸柬埔寨，抛弃郎诺政权，又在红色高棉失败之后继续支持红色高棉屠杀人民；而自称共产主义的越南共产党政权却为了给被红色高棉屠杀的越南人报仇而直接出兵推翻红色高棉政权，呵呵，不知右派们该如何接受这一事实呢？）