Pol Pot (right) with Chinese opera troupe, the dancers in Cambodian attire, Beijing, October 1977.

The next few pages of the speech, like those that dealt with industry in the Four Year Plan, were marked by triumphant wishful thinking. Several industries listed as “newly established” were ones from the Sihanouk era refurbished with Chinese and North Korean money and technicians. Those concerned with industry must have felt relieved to hear Pol Pot praising these developments. Over the next two months, however, the directors of factories and the minister of industry and his superior, Vorn Vet, were purged. Presumably these officials had missed the change in tune from an agriculturally based “Great Leap” to one based on industry and were blamed for the failure of Cambodia’s factories to perform by international standards. Pol Pot closed his speech by cheering the party’s anniversary. He promised his listeners “many new developments” over the next few years, adding that “friendly countries” would contribute to Cambodia’s security.33

The speech was Pol Pot’s explanation for the successes of his regime. The war with Vietnam was mentioned in terms of Cambodia’s inevitable victory. Vietnam, Pol Pot said, had failed to learn the lessons of history, as taught by “Napoleon, Hitler and the American imperialists”—who had gone down to ignominious defeat. The audience probably believed him or vigorously pretended that they did. Many of them owed their empowerment to him. Perhaps, like Lon Nol, Pol Pot felt himself invulnerable. Perhaps, like Sihanouk, he was gambling that something (Chinese “volunteers”? the collapse of Vietnam?) would turn up. In any event, he was out of touch and concealing or blanking out a good deal of what he knew. As he spoke, his own troops were driving hundreds of thousands of people out of the eastern zone and hundreds of eastern zone cadre were being interrogated and executed at S-21. Cambodian troops in the east and southwest were being pounded by Vietnamese fighter bombers. Some territory in the east had already been taken by the Vietnamese. The young uneducated Cambodians entrusted with Chinese military equipment were being trained to use it at a breakneck pace. Many of them—tank drivers, pilots, mortar operators—died from injuries suffered in accidents. In early November, Pol Pot asked a Chinese delegation for “volunteers.” The Chinese counseled self-reliance and increased their material assistance. Pol Pot’s regime had three months to go.34

Pol Pot on Display

During the second half of 1978, Brother Number One gave several interviews to foreign visitors. Most of these were published and rebroadcast over Radio Phnom Penh. Some were translated into French and English at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Predictably, the interviews display Pol Pot as a benign patron presiding over a united front. On two occasions, however, in the closing days of his government, he gave interviews to outsiders hostile to the regime. One was to a pair of American journalists in late December; the other was to Prince Sihanouk at the beginning of 1979.