Isolation, comparative safety, and self-importance were decisive in the formation of the policies that guided the leaders of the Cambodian Communist party when they came to power. Also decisive were events outside the country. Between 1963 and 1970, the leaders did not have to temper or dilute their ideas with practice, compromise, or competition. Although their belief that they would seize power someday fueled their dedication to the party, this belief did not become a possibility until 1970, when Sihanouk was overthrown. Even then, it took five years of fighting for the Red Khmer (khmer krohom; in French, Khmers rouges)—as Sihanouk had always referred to the movement—to gain control. Their victory in 1975, given their resources and history, was unexpected.1

There were several foreign influences on Saloth Sar in this period. The most important intellectual one was probably the so-called Cultural Revolution in China, which broke out in 1966 and continued under various guises until Mao Zedong’s death ten years later. This mass movement, largely engineered by Mao himself, was intended to accelerate his idées fixes of continuous revolution, class warfare, and the empowerment of the poor. Society was mobilized to destroy many of the institutions the regime itself had created—including, briefly, the Communist party leadership. When the Cultural Revolution spun out of control, Mao redirected it, but many of his other policies remained unaltered until the early 1980s.

Saloth Sar visited China in the early phase of this revolution. He must have been impressed by what he saw. Some of the measures introduced in China at the time—for example, the partial evacuation of cities, “storming attacks” on economic problems, and the abandonment of differential military ranks—were later adopted by the Red Khmer. Chinese-style purges of “class enemies” were also widespread in Democratic Kampuchea, and Cambodia’s economic ambitions were described as the “Great Leap Forward” (maha lout ploh), a phrase borrowed from the extravagant industrialization program launched in China in the 1950s. It is uncertain if Sar ever learned that the Cultural Revolution was a disaster. Similarly, he may never have known that the Great Leap Forward had failed—to say nothing of Stalin’s collectivization program in the 1930s. A key feature of his 1966 visit was his encounter with K‘ang Sheng, a senior Chinese cadre who had often served as the head of Mao’s secret police and who befriended Saloth Sar on this occasion.

At home, Saloth Sar was influenced by the shift of his headquarters from Kompong Cham to the remote forested province of Ratanakiri in the northeast. The move occurred after he had returned from China and was probably done with Vietnamese advice and certainly with Vietnamese approval.