In the meantime, the Lon Nol government entered its decline. As hundreds of thousands of refugees flooded into Phnom Penh, services broke down and the fabric of urban life gave way. In the countryside, several districts near the capital were captured, recaptured, and bombarded by the artillery of both sides in what was becoming a full-scale civil war. Communist troops were more disciplined than those of the Khmer Republic, but both sides robbed, molested, and rounded up civilians. Neither side took prisoners. The lightly populated parts of the country were abandoned to the Communists by the end of 1971, as was the heavily populated southwest. In the dwindling territory controlled by the republic, corruption was widespread. Provincial governors and military officers sold food, arms, and medicine to the enemy. Many of Lon Nol’s units padded their payrolls with nonexistent people to capitalize on U.S. aid that provided salaries for the troops. The Communist forces avoided this problem—they were all unpaid.

The United States, for its part, was engrossed with its withdrawal from South Vietnam. Nixon’s policies in Cambodia were intended to delay a Communist victory so that American troops could be withdrawn safely. Lon Nol was the man that Nixon had chosen to perform this job, and he was slow and often outmaneuvered. By the end of 1971, the Americans and their allies were losing in Cambodia, but only Cambodians were being killed. The Cambodian elite, powerless in the cities, had lost any grounds for hope; the rural poor were desperate; the economy was in ruins.13

After the 1971 study session, Saloth Sar created a special administrative zone, south and west of Phnom Penh, made up of sectors 15 and 25. He placed his old companion Sok Thuok (Vorn Vet) in command of the new zone. In his confession seven years later, Vet suggested that Sar wanted to strengthen Red Khmer authority and lessen the power of Vietnamese cadres and Cambodians trained in North Vietnam. One problem he faced was that well-trained indigenous cadre were scarce.

Party schools were established in the area in 1972, and young men and women were recruited locally as combatants and party members. At the same time, many disillusioned teachers, engineers, and students from Phnom Penh drifted into the “liberated zone” and put themselves at the service of the party. Two young teachers, Ith Sarin and Kuong Lumphon, and French sociologist Serge Thion left valuable eyewitness accounts of conditions in the zone in 1972. While on a short visit, Thion was impressed by much of what he was allowed to see. He was well treated and came away convinced that a genuinely new society was being built. The two Cambodians came away with a different impression of the region. After several months of indoctrination, they returned to Phnom Penh distressed by the rigidity and fervor of their Communist colleagues.14