15 “Tao kunnthoa, theatupit nung tuo neati reboh kampuchea pratheaneathipodei yoeung yang na peel mun, peel poacchubon, nung to teu anakut?” [What are the virtues, qualities, nature, and responsibilities of our Democratic Kampuchea in former times, nowadays, and extending into the future?], typescript, dated December 8, 1976, 38 pages. I am grateful to Tony Jackson for a copy of the Khmer version.

16 Ibid., pp. 29-30.

17 Interrogators’ notebooks from S-21, drawn from study sessions, also denigrate the revolutions in France, Russia, and China—which had all been in one way or another betrayed. See Chandler, Voices from S-21, Chapter Four.

18 Interestingly, the speech dates the birth of Democratic Kampuchea to “over thirty years ago”—that is, to 1955-1956, when Saloth Sar began working for the Communist movement in Phnom Penh.

19 Australia’s presence in the blacklist may reflect Australian efforts in the early 1980s to seek a rapprochement with the government in Phnom Penh. The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok translated the final phrase as “has never violated or abused anybody,” which suggests human rights abuses rather than aggressive international behavior.

20 See Justin Jordens, A 1991 State of Cambodia Political Education Text: Exposition and Analysis (Clayton, Australia, 1993). This text plays down the utopian (or quixotic) views of Cambodia’s uniqueness and emphasizes its links with other countries such as Vietnam.

21 It is tempting to contrast what the audience knew of Pol Pot with his picture of Napoleon, who may have raised faint echoes in their minds of Lon Nol or Sihanouk. Pol Pot had not seized power in a coup; he had never had himself named “emperor”; and he had been defending Cambodia rather than attacking neighbors during his time in power. The humility he displayed in his talk (even as he stood before his audience as the embodiment of Democratic Kampuchea) was proof of the “moral feeling” that Napoleon, Lon Nol, and Sihanouk lacked. Pol Pot’s failure to select less vulnerable, more self-effacing, or more contemporary heroes was probably a device to enhance his own persona.

22 The most detailed descriptions of Pol Pot in the late 1980s and early 1990s and of his effect on listeners are in Roger Normand, “At the Khmer Rouge School: The Teachings of Chairman Pot,” Nation, September 3, 1990; a general picture of the movement emerges from Christophe Peschoux, Euquete sur les “nouveax” khmer rouges: Essai de debroussaillage (Paris, 1992). Peschoux’s penetrating study, based on several months of fieldwork, shows how thoroughly the Red Khmer held to their tactical priorities and how, in private, they did not abjure the possibility of massive human rights abuses should they return to power. For people’s impressions of Pol Pot after 1992, I have drawn on the interviews conducted with former Red Khmer cadre by David Ashley and Nate Thayer.