18 See Phandara, Retour à Phnom Penh, pp. 243ff.; Martin, Le mal cambodgien, pp. 191ff.; Jan Myrdal, “Why Is There Famine in Kampuchea?” Indochina Chronicle 77 (February 1981); and author’s interviews with Yem Nolla and Ong Thong Hoeung (May 1988). The returnees, suspected of having caught “the capitalist virus,” were considered foreigners and placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Touch Kamdoeun, a diplomat educated in France, confessed in 1977 that Cambodian students “in France learned to be happy like Europeans, and therefore how to oppress ordinary people.” On schools, see Picq, Au delà du ciel, pp. 124ff. A side effect of the reforms was that “new people” became liable for military conscription (Becker, When the War Was Over, p. 326).

19 See “Seckdei nai no‘, reboh kanak machhim pak kommunis kampuchea ... compu’h neaq kan chrolom” (Guidelines from the Central Committee of the CPK ... toward misled people), typewritten text, dated June 20, 1978. I am grateful to David Hawk for providing me with a copy. See also Picq, Au delà du ciel, p. 166; Vickery, Cambodia, 1975-1982, p. 141; and author’s interview with Heng Sen (June 1989).

20 See “Learning from Important Experiences,” Tung Padevat (May-June 1978): 17-33. I have relied on Stephen Heder’s translation. The raw pragmatism of the passage (that is, the way to make friends is not to kill people) marks the document as authentically Red Khmer.

21 See “Pay Attention to Sweeping Out the Concealed Enemy Boring from Within,” Tung Padevat (July 1978): 5-25; quotation on p. 9 (Stephen Heder’s translation). On p. 24, the speaker (almost certainly Pol Pot) returns to the theme that Vietnam, rather than Cambodia, is surrounded, adding on p. 44: “The Marxist-Leninist parties in North and South America and in France and Italy defend us.... They stand on the side of revolution.... They are excited and happy with our revolution.” It is unclear whether Pol Pot was aware of the marginality of these groups.

22 Unpublished Heder interview, quoted by Burgler, Eyes of the Pineapple, p. 135.

23 Ben Kiernan, The Eastern Zone Massacres (New York, 1986); Fox and Bunheang, Murderous Revolution, pp. 129—153; and Becker, When the War Was Over, pp. 306—308, 320—323. The purges were concentrated in Kratie, Kompong Cham, and Svay Rieng. Heng Samrin, an eastern zone divisional commander, defected to the Vietnamese in May 1978. He became chief of state of Cambodia in 1979.

24 See Chandler, Voices from S-21, Chapter 3; and the confession of Chhay Kim Hor (December 1978). Had Son Sen been genuinely implicated in a plot, it would have been easy for him to disappear, either by being destroyed by the party or by taking refuge elsewhere after 1979. Instead, he held on to military positions under Pol Pot’s exiled government and by mid-1991 was named a member of Cambodia’s Supreme Executive Council, along with Khieu Samphan and representatives from other factions.

25 Tucker, Stalin: The Years in Power, p. 476. See also William A. Joseph, The Critique of Ultra-Leftism in China, 1958—1981 (Stanford, Calif., 1984), p. 214; Zweig, Agrarian Radicalism in China, pp. 24ff.