It took the Communists more than a year to set up a government. The decisions they made during this time were concealed. Fortunately, however, seventeen crucial texts from this period have come to light: the minutes of party standing committee meetings held between October 1975 and June 1976. Only five copies of the minutes were prepared at the time; the file probably covers less than 10 percent of the meetings that took place in those eight months. Even so, the documents offer a revealing glimpse of Cambodia’s tiny governing body and of its modus operandi following the liberation of Phnom Penh.48

Most of the texts were triumphalist in tone. At several points Saloth Sar or one of his colleagues spoke of the incomparability of the Cambodian revolution and expressed the hope that larger nations would learn from its revolutionary experience. A corollary of the triumphalism is the lack of information about the outside world. Sar and his colleagues read no newspapers and absorbed little about foreign events. They nourished themselves on their own documents, conversations, and broadcasts and on material produced by other Communist parties. Because they had achieved a revolutionary victory, the Red Khmer assumed that similar ones would occur elsewhere in the world.

On October 9, 1975, the items on the standing committee’s agenda were the “allocation of tasks and operational matters”; “overall arrangements”; and “the handling of a number of specific tasks.” The party, concealed by the facade of the Revolutionary Organization (the name it had assumed among Cambodians), was still officially hidden behind the National Front, with Sihanouk ostensibly the chief of state. Layers of disguises, revolutionary names, and secret meetings protected Saloth Sar from the judgment of ordinary people. Party members who had been assigned new responsibilities took up their work in secret, disguised by revolutionary names. The complex charade hid the real division of spoils, whereby high-ranking members of the party carved out areas of patronage and control.49

At the October 1975 meeting, eleven men and two women had been assigned protoministerial positions. The “comrade secretary,” Saloth Sar, took charge of the economy and defense; the “comrade deputy secretary,” Nuon Chea, was responsible for party organizational work and education; and Ieng Sary was to handle foreign affairs for the state and the party. Khieu Samphan remained as liaison officer with the National Front—that is, with Sihanouk. He was also given the tasks of “the accountancy and pricing aspects of commerce,” recalling his cabinet post in the 1960s. Koy Thuon took charge of domestic and foreign trade, while Son Sen was in command of security and the military General Staff. Others to receive positions included Vorn Vet, in charge of industry, railways, and fisheries; Soeu Va Si, in charge of the Central Committee’s political office; Non Suon, in charge of the agriculture portfolio; and Chhim Samauk, in charge of the prime minister’s office. Seum Son, later ambassador to North Korea, was responsible for the information section of the Central Committee. Ieng Sary’s wife, Khieu Thirith, received the social welfare portfolio; and Son Sen’s wife, Yun Yat, was in charge of culture, education, and propaganda.50