18 For Pol Pot’s two eulogies to Mao on September 18, see FBIS, Daily Reports, September 20, 1976. The writings of Mao mentioned by Pol Pot were “Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society” (1926); “Problems of Strategy in the Chinese Revolution” (1936); “On Protracted War” (1938); “On Contradiction” (1937); “On Practice” (1937); “On New Democracy” (1940); “On Chinese Revolutionary Culture, Literature and Art” (1942?); “On Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” (1957); and “On Class Struggle.” See John Bryan Starr and Nancy Anne Dyer, Post-Liberation Works of Mao Zedong: A Bibliography and an Index (Berkeley, Calif, 1976). I have been unable to identify “On Class Struggle.” Mao’s “statement of 20 June 1970 supporting the Cambodian people” mentioned by Pol Pot is probably the statement issued by Mao on May 20, 1975. I am grateful to Serge Thion for providing this reference.

19 On the September 1976 crisis, see Ben Kiernan, “’Introduction‘ to Document 5,” in Chandler, Kiernan, and Boua, eds. and trans., Pol Pot Plans the Future, pp. 164ff; Becker, When the War Was Over, pp. 278-279; and David Chandler, “Revising the Past in Democratic Kampuchea: When Was the Birthday of the Party?” Pacific Affairs (Summer 1983): 283-300.

20 See Chandler, “Revising the Past”; FBIS, Daily Reports, October 31, 1978, a report from a defecting cadre broadcast over Vietnamese radio, recalled an order from the Central Committee in September 1976 decreeing the “1960” birthday of the party: ”Anyone who joined the Party prior to that date should not consider himself a Party member.“

21 See Robert Conquest, The Great Terror (New York, 1953), pp. 151ff.; and Tucker, Stalin: The Years in Power, pp. 441-478. Not all those executed were party members, but the damage suffered by the party can be inferred from the fact that its membership in 1975, before S-21 went into operation, was estimated to be only fourteen thousand men and women (Carney, ”Organization of Power,“ p. 95).

22 For a detailed study of the S-21 archive, see Chandler, Voices from S-21. The best short introduction to S-21 is still one of the earliest: Anthony Barnett, Chanthou Boua, and Ben Kiernan, ”Bureaucracy of Death,“ New Statesman, May 2, 1980, pp. 668-676. See also Becker, When the War Was Over, pp. 271-298; Vickery, Cambodia, 1975—1982, pp. 151-152; Ing Pech, ”Tuol Sleng,“ L’évènement du jeudi, December 6-12, 1990, p. 318; and Steve Heder, ”Khmer Rouge Opposition to Pol Pot: Pro-Chinese or Pro-Vietnamese?“ (unpublished seminar paper, 1990). The following discussion, like Voices from S-21, draws on these sources, on conversations with Heder, and on S-21 documents kindly supplied by David Hawk in 1986-1987. For confession texts and related materials, I am grateful to Anthony Barnett, Timothy Carney, May Ebihara, Kate Frieson, Ben Kiernan, Judy Ledgerwood, and Michael Vickery. I am also grateful to the archival staff of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the staff of the Documentation Center-Cambodia in Phnom Penh for their help on my frequent visits to their respective archives.