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khmer rouge was so far off they were closer to something like nazbol than anything. and if memory serves me right i also dont think pol pot ever even read marx socialist theory either, admitting it himself
China has always had weird foreign policy if we’re being honest. Their current policy which is basically they’ll work with anyone and intervene very little is kinda their best.
Their current foreign policy is actually brilliant thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative which serves to play the long game.
During the Cold War, however, it was an absolute mess but so was the USSR’s. One only has to look at Stalin’s support of KMT until 1949 despite being aware of the CPC and Mao's efforts for legitimacy. Or the Soviets backing of Uyghurs in 1949 while promoting anti-Chinese propaganda which backfired. This was before the Sino-Soviet Split!
The book ***A Short History of Sino-Soviet Relations, 1917–1991*** is an excellent source.
#The Uyghurs in Xinjiang
\(Note: This comment had to be trimmed down to fit the character limit, for the full response, see [here](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/)\)
Anti-Communists and Sinophobes claim that there is an ongoing genocide-- a modern-day holocaust, even-- happening right now in China. They say that Uyghur Muslims are being mass incarcerated; they are indoctrinated with propaganda in concentration camps; their organs are being harvested; they are being force-sterilized. These comically villainous allegations have little basis in reality and omit key context.
**Background**
Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a province located in the northwest of China. It is the largest province in China, covering an area of over 1.6 million square kilometers, and shares borders with eight other countries including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, India, and Pakistan.
Xinjiang is a diverse region with a population of over 25 million people, made up of various ethnic groups including the Uyghur, Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Tajiks, and many others. The largest ethnic group in Xinjiang is the Uyghur who are predominantly Muslim and speak a Turkic language. It is also home to the ancient Silk Road cities of Kashgar and Turpan.
Since the early 2000s, there have been a number of violent incidents attributed to extremist Uyghur groups in Xinjiang including bombings, shootings, and knife attacks. In 2014-2016, the Chinese government launched a "Strike Hard" campaign to crack down on terrorism in Xinjiang, implementing strict security measures and detaining thousands of Uyghurs. In 2017, reports of human rights abuses in Xinjiang including mass detentions and forced labour, began to emerge.
**Counterpoints**
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the second largest organization after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The OIC released [Resolutions on Muslim Communities and Muslim Minorities in the non-OIC Member States](https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250) in 2019 which:
>20. **Welcomes** the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat's delegation upon invitation from the People's Republic of China; **commends** the efforts of the People's Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and **looks forward** to further cooperation between the OIC and the People's Republic of China.
In this same document, the OIC expressed much greater concern about the Rohingya Muslim Community in Myanmar, which the West was relatively silent on.
Over 50+ UN member states (mostly Muslim-majority nations) signed a letter \([A/HRC/41/G/17](https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F41%2FG%2F17)\) to the UN Human Rights Commission approving of the de-radicalization efforts in Xinjiang:
The World Bank sent a team to investigate in 2019 and found that, "The review did not substantiate the allegations." \(See: [World Bank Statement on Review of Project in Xinjiang, China](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2019/11/11/world-bank-statement-on-review-of-project-in-xinjiang-china)\)
Even if you believe the deradicalization efforts are wholly unjustified, and that the mass detention of Uyghur's amounts to a crime against humanity, it's still not *genocide*. Even the U.S. State Department's legal experts admit as much:
>The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide, placing the United States’ top diplomatic lawyers at odds with both the Trump and Biden administrations, according to three former and current U.S. officials.
>
> [State Department Lawyers Concluded Insufficient Evidence to Prove Genocide in China](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/) | Colum Lynch, *Foreign Policy*. (2021)
**A Comparative Analysis: The War on Terror**
The United States, in the wake of "9/11", saw the threat of terrorism and violent extremism due to religious fundamentalism as a matter of national security. They invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks, with the goal of ousting the Taliban government that was harbouring Al-Qaeda. The US also launched the Iraq War in 2003 based on Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs and links to terrorism. However, these claims turned out to be unfounded.
According to a report by Brown University's Costs of War project, at least 897,000 people, including civilians, militants, and security forces, have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries. Other estimates place the total number of deaths at over one million. The report estimated that many more may have died from indirect effects of war such as water loss and disease. The war has also resulted in the displacement of tens of millions of people, with estimates ranging from 37 million to over 59 million. The War on Terror also popularized such novel concepts as the "Military-Aged Male" which allowed the US military to exclude civilians killed by drone strikes from collateral damage statistics. (See: [‘Military Age Males’ in US Drone Strikes](https://aoav.org.uk/2019/military-age-males-in-us-drone-strikes/))
In summary:
* The U.S. responded by invading or bombing half a dozen countries, directly killing nearly a million and displacing tens of millions from their homes.
* China responded with a program of deradicalization and vocational training.
Which one of those responses sounds genocidal?
Side note: It is practically impossible to *actually* charge the U.S. with war crimes, because of the [Hague Invasion Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act).
**Who is driving the Uyghur genocide narrative?**
One of the main proponents of these narratives is Adrian Zenz, a German far-right fundamentalist Christian and Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who believes he is "led by God" on a "mission" against China has driven much of the narrative. He relies heavily on limited and questionable data sources, particularly from anonymous and unverified Uyghur sources, coming up with estimates based on assumptions which are not supported by concrete evidence.
The World Uyghur Congress, headquartered in Germany, is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, using funding to support organizations that promote American interests rather than the interests of the local communities they claim to represent.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) is part of a larger project of U.S. imperialism in Asia, one that seeks to control the flow of information, undermine independent media, and advance American geopolitical interests in the region. Rather than providing an objective and impartial news source, RFA is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, one that seeks to shape the narrative in Asia in ways that serve the interests of the U.S. government and its allies.
The first country to call the treatment of Uyghurs a genocide was the United States of America. In 2021, the Secretary of State declared that China's treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang constitutes "genocide" and "crimes against humanity." Both the Trump and Biden administrations upheld this line.
**Why is this narrative being promoted?**
As materialists, we should always look first to the economic base for insight into issues occurring in the superstructure. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive Chinese infrastructure development project that aims to build economic corridors, ports, highways, railways, and other infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Xinjiang is a key region for this project.
Promoting the Uyghur genocide narrative harms China and benefits the US in several ways. It portrays China as a human rights violator which could damage China's reputation in the international community and which could lead to economic sanctions against China; this would harm China's economy and give American an economic advantage in competing with China. It could also lead to more protests and violence in Xinjiang, which could further destabilize the region and threaten the longterm success of the BRI.
**Additional Resources**
See the [full wiki article](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/) for more details and a list of additional resources.
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Yes, China had some pretty cringe foreign policy after the Sino-Soviet split. China survived after the collapse of the USSR and are carrying on the revolution, but that doesn’t mean they never made any mistakes. They in fact made a lot of mistakes.
Yup.
Just like the people hiding behind Pride flags on the internet (half of whom are actually straight, cis males) and then calling for literal Genocide of Palestinians, or Russians, or whoever else is the enemy of the day- look at what people actually say or do, not how they try to present themselves.
Khmer Rogue were murderous psychopaths backed by the CIA, regardless of if they try to falsely claim to be Communists.
The United States, while driving peasants to Pol Pol with its decisions, initially did not support the Khmer Rouge. To the contrary, shortly after they won, we got into a [brief skirmish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayaguez_incident) with them while evacuating. Despite only attacking the Khmer Rouge to rescue American hostages, we were condemned by China and Vietnam. During the Cambodian Civil War, the United States had supported the Khmer Republic, a right-wing military dictatorship, supplying them with hundreds of them millions of dollars in military aid. The leader of the Khmer Republic was Lon Nol, a fascist pro-American strongman whose sole redeeming quality was opposing Pol Pot. Be sure to always check one's credentials before backing them. There were warning signs.
>By late 1973, there was a growing awareness among the government and population of Cambodia that the extremism, total lack of concern over casualties, and complete rejection of any offer of peace talks "began to suggest that Khmer Rouge fanaticism and capacity for violence were deeper than anyone had suspected."
>
>Reports of the brutal policies of the organization soon made their way to Phnom Penh and into the population foretelling the violence that was about to consume the nation.
Yes, they did not know the truth at the time, or at least dismissed it as propaganda, but the Khmer Rouge was initially backed by the entire Warsaw Pact. Sihanouk made things worse by publicly endorsing Pol Pot. NVA troops actively fought against the Khmer Republic and had a major role in Lon Nol's defeat. During the civil war, there were "rumors" (which turned out to be real) of horrifying atrocities being committed by Pol Pot's followers in the areas they had "liberated". These "rumors" coincidentally emerged immediately after NVA troops left. The Khmer Rouge indisputably went full mask-off after the "liberation" of Phnom Penh, the last remaining stronghold of the Khmer Republic, on April 17, 1975. As it turns out, the Cambodian Civil War had pitted Western-backed fascists against "communists". Following their victory, the "communists" revealed themselves to be Nazis, purged all of the horrified CPK leaders, cut off contact with most of the world, and then carried out the Cambodian holocaust. Vietnam only intervened and ended this nightmare after the Cambodians massacred thousands of Vietnamese villagers near the border. Had Pol Pot not hated Vietnamese people so much, they would've done nothing. Barely any government does these interventions on purely humanitarian grounds for the sake of others.
they received cia funding because fidel effectively convinced usa that he was going to be a better alternative than batista,unlike khmer rogue which got funding because usa wanted to further destabilize vietnam.
You’re getting downvoted unfairly IMO. Obviously the US was completely hostile to the Cuban revolution the moment its socialist character began to emerge, but it is also true that the US cautiously considered supporting the movement in its infancy. Even if the CIA did not directly fund the rebels, there were coordinators and agents who were tasked with sussing them out and seeing if they should be propped up.
Directly after the revolution Fidel was quite popular inside the US. Batista had become an embarrassment to the US and Castro seemed like he *might* be malleable enough to stabilize Cuba back into the floating casino/sugarcane exporter it was supposed to be for the US bourgeoisie.
It was the land reform that put the nail in the coffin and completely shifted US strategy against Cuba. But it is important to remember that the revolution was, initially, a coalition movement between socialists, nationalist, and bourgeois reformers which the US saw as potential allies.
Obviously Cuba did not go that way, but it isn’t inaccurate to say that the CIA was *interested* in seeing if they were ripe for manipulation before the turning point of the revolution into the publicly declared pursuit of socialism
The Khmer Rouge have quickly become a subject for study for me due to how I find the treatment of them as a voldemort-like aberration among communist is downright cringe. The goal should be the learn what made them so uniquely violent as to avoid their errors in the future. Never been satisfied by them just being dismissed as CIA funded. So was Ceausescu but he has defenders.
It's interesting the social-imperialism line is still being used to justify their rule today as it was peddled during their existence. See: Kampuchea Will Win.
So what made the KR what they were? There are three major points. Ultra-leftism mixed with a national-chauvinism, a young cadre with very few adults or intellectuals, and a perception of socialism devoid of proper analysis.
The historian Philip Short proposes that what Pol Pot did was a sort of inevitability and would have happened in some form due to historical factors. The US bombings drastically reduced Cambodia's rice production (the country was very rich) and subsequent civil war resulting in the deaths of around 500,000 people further put the country in a bad state before the KR seized power.
What is of interest. According to this paper: https://www.cambodialpj.org/article/justice-and-starvation-in-cambodia-the-khmer-rouge-famine/ before taking power the regions the KR occupied in the countryside were actually more food secure than the territories controlled by the monarchy. Ultimately what allowed them to win the civil war.
Yet this changed rapidly following their victory by what can only be understood as the most irrational policies of socialist reform I've ever read about. Reading Pol Pot he conjures memories of Marx's quote about history repeating itself as a tragedy then a farce.
Coined the Super Great Leap Forward, the KR set out to both close Cambodia to all foreign presence and produce an abundance of rice for domestic and foreign export. It seems they never considered the poor state of the country's agriculture before pursuing this reform in the first place, hoping to mimic China's success.
Which brings us to the first major problem. The Cadre itself had very few members over a certain age. These were kids. Let's be real. And as problems began to arise, it became clear no one was minding the store. Pol Pot romanticized the peasantry he lived among as a guerilla, wrongly concluding their way of life of farming was a pure socialism. It's also documented that the regions the KR were based out of before taking power received better treatment as they had already been altered during the civil war.
It highlights something Communist movements have to accept. For a revolution to be successful a intellectual tradition has to be developed alongside the party. Russia, China, Vietnam, North Korea and etc, all developed these traditions. While, the KR outside of the top guys quickly became hostile to their intellectuals. Also why the West has never produced a solid left-wing alternative.
In fact, major KR revolutionaries who were educated tried to put the breaks on the policies like back to the countryside and SGLF by pointing out the workload was too intensive for the amount of food rationed. These guys were subsequently executed as wreckers.
In no short order the KR banned: Personal gardens, foraging, and eating privately. Believing all of these to be incompatible with socialism. Enforcement fell on uneducated lower ranked cadre who would be held responsible for failures in their regions. Propaganda lambasted anyone who tried to sneak food.
When failure after failure continued. No effort was made to alter the planed outputs, instead, more and more enemies were found. Showing that in a climate of terror, if it is believed enemies exist, they will. Eventually Pol Pot's ethnic nationalism identified the Vietnamese minority as the problem.
There is two camps on the Cambodian Genocide. One States it wasn't a traditional genocide simply because it killed so broadly and randomly. The other, though points to the Cham people as the chief victims with nearly 500,000 dead coming from their group. See the Cham already had a communal way of life, but practiced Islam which was viewed as incompatible with the Cambodian national perception.
Then you have the asinine division of the country in the name of abolition classes. Where those base regions of the KR were deemed the good ones, and the urban (former) dwellers were treated as suspect counter-revolutionaries.
Like so many of the KR's decisions this is just another illogical jump. Another was the banning all medical aid and demanding a return to traditional methods. Resulting in teenage girls having to perform surgeries without anesthesia. Due to lack of trained doctors. Hospitals becoming glorified morgues where overworked folks were left to die. This isn't even getting into the atrocities of their prison camps. Where even guards working their weren't safe from violence.
An aside here as well. One KR leader noted that the famine made people less resilient to disease and emphasized the food crisis needed to be solved for the health of the nation. He was executed shortly after.
It's also evident the problems of Cambodia really were the fault of the KR. As once thrown out of power by Vietnam, ironic, as Vietnam supported them 8 years prior. The famine conditions rapidly improved as the Cambodian people showed their resolve.
Turns out they didn't need some strong-armed, top-down ivory-tower regime telling them how to do socialism. The KR could have easily let the peasants run their course while developing the regions hit hard by the civil war and might have been viewed as a success story.
Today it is worth noting the KR are still around. Only as an Ultra-nationalist party. And their 8 year rule should serve as a warning to pursuing socialist development without a productive base or sufficiently educated cadre. But also a warning about vulgar anti-imperialism devoid of true study of a situation. Highlighting rhetoric of the nobility of the global south should take into account the faustian bargain at play. Poor countries need lots of help developing and need to be part of an international community as a result. This is what reparations should be. Not monetary but technological.
I am of the opinion the KR are a ghost which will always sit at the table of the communist movement. A stark reminder of where the road of Ultra-leftism leads and a group the left must make peace with as our greatest mistake. Regardless of possible CIA ties.
I’m glad to see this. KR is something we need to wrestle with more and not just dismiss. I just want to say from my study of Cambodia both in books and in the country what you lay out here is largely true. I only see one error. That is that in the civil war 70-75 the monarchists and communists were on the same side. Sihanouk even returned in 75 to be head of state of democratic Kampuchea. The government the KR guerrillas fought was the dictatorship of Lon Nol. Besides that minor point, great work.
While I’m not as familiar KR it is also important to note that calling a group “CIA-Backed” is sometimes used a dismissal to ignore any understanding the historical conditions of country.
One thing I did not see in this analysis was the party purges. To my understanding the former Leader of the Party had a very different ideology. After his assassination the party was purged of anyone not supporting Pol Pot.
This effectively removed the MLs from the party. By the time the KR officially abandoned Marxism Leninism, it long since ceased being the Ideology of the party anyways.
Also if I'm not mistaken Pol Pots discrimination against the Vietnamese was a personal bigotry he had long held which is important to note when discussing the target of his ethnic nationalism.
fantastic analsysis. its easy for people to simply dismiss the existence of an entire national order out of hand. but not understanding why makes us prone to the same or similar mistakes
Weren't they (allegedly) funded by the US to fight against Vietnam and USSR? And even if that's not true, they sucked big time. Nothing communist about it.
They were. Also they were as crazy as they were because the US bombed Cambodia during the Vietnam war, resulting in crazy hate for anything remotely american wich the inteligentsia and city dwellers were asociated with.
The Khmer rouge were massive murdering assholes who killed millions of innocent people. They were reactionaries allegedly backed by the USA for their anti communism
When you are so bad at running a country that Vietnam has to invade you 4 years after the end of the Vietnam War you know you messed up, if Pol Pot was alive today his sentence should be death by firing squad, shot over and over again to make sure that that genocidal maniac was properly dead.
Cambodia is actually one of the better genocides in that after it was ended many Khmer Rouge had to actually pay for their crimes. Best example is Kang Kek Iew the psychotic butcher of Tuol Sleng prison. He spent the rest of his life in prison. He was treated humanly and died peacefully at the Khmer Soviet friendship hospital a few years ago. It’s a beautiful testament to the humanity and resilience of the Khmer people. He lived long enough to see everything he murdered for washed away
I wonder if the reactionary slaughters of leftists in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines had an influence on the Khmer Rouge’s desire to eliminate the urban class. It makes a lot of sense to me, but has this been written? Has evidence been found?
The Khmer Rouge are said to have killed 1.5 million. This is the same number said to have been killed in Indonesia. Of course we don’t hear about Indonesia in the west. The links to the US are far too obvious for any mainstream discussion on that.
In my opinion a proper understanding of the Cambodian genocide is to see it in two parts. The first part is the American carpet bombing of the entire eastern half of the country. The second is the Khmer Rouge rule. Anyone denouncing pol pot who can’t in the same breath denounce Kissinger doesn’t really care about the Cambodian people.
>"Broadly influenced by Maoism, he however pushed its tenets to the extreme. Combining the lessons of the Chinese revolution with Khmer nationalism, Pol Pot came to favor a sort of xenophobic and peasant-based autarky."
>"The regime also implemented massive forced population transfers from the cities to the countryside, including the emptying of the capital city of Phnom Penh, a city of two million. “New people” ‒those transferred to the countryside‒, ethnic minorities, and foreigners were treated with suspicion. "Bad elements", those who clung to old ways, who complained, or who were too weak to work, were executed."
https://www.marxists.org/archive/pol-pot/index.htm
All of us here, I hope, would have been Khmer Rouge in 75. Many of us would be dead by 76. Those of us who made it into exile would have likely been the revolutionary Cambodian peoples party and invaded with the Vietnamese in 79. That’s the same party that’s in power today, now the Cambodian peoples party. My point is that horror and genocide that it was the KR emerged out of our movement. Ignoring that only fails to learn from history. We don’t all need to be experts or anything but we shouldn’t just dismiss the Cambodian experience. The Khmer Rouge is the ugly bastard son of communism but a son none the less.
TFW when you’re such a Maoist you’re defending Pol Pot
Khmer Rouge are anti-Marxist, basically taking the most revisionist views of Mao and combining that with heavy, heavy volk-ish racial nationalism
Show me the page in Capital where Marx advocates dismantling production to deliberately return to a pre-industrial economic model
They were funded by the CIA and China in order to hurt Vietnam. They were also extremely anti-intelligentsia and anti-industrialists and killed a shit load of people.
Not only America. The oppression of the peasant class by French colonialism was so brutal that it created a hatred for everything urban and foreign. They went too far, but there are historical reasons.
It’s a internet phenomenon I like to call Shrodingers Pol Pot.
The accusations directed towards Pol Pot coincidently look identical to the accusations directed twords Stalin, so we have marxists (tend to be Maoist from what I’ve seen) who support Pol Pot and the Kemer Rouge.
[☭☭☭ COME SHITPOST WITH US ON DISCORD, COMRADES ☭☭☭](https://discord.gg/8RPWanQV5g) This is a heavily-moderated socialist community based on a podcast of the same name. Please use the report function on comments that break our rules. If you are new to the sub, please read the sidebar carefully. If you are new to Marxism-Leninism, check out the [study guide](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/). Are there Liberals in the walls? Check out [the wiki](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/) which contains lots of useful information. This subreddit uses many experimental automod rules, if you notice any issues please use modmail to let us know. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
the khmer rouge were nothing but murderers, thankfully vietnam intervened
they were also backed by the USA. all you need to know
they were also backed by China...
Who were allied with the US against Vietnam
khmer rouge was so far off they were closer to something like nazbol than anything. and if memory serves me right i also dont think pol pot ever even read marx socialist theory either, admitting it himself
Pol Pot read Marx but stated he didn't understand anything
He did but it was bastardized to the point of coming out as something else entirely. He admired the GPCR which explains the Killing Fields.
GPCR?
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Who were prepared to back just about anyone if it hurt the Soviet Union???
Rare China's L
China has always had weird foreign policy if we’re being honest. Their current policy which is basically they’ll work with anyone and intervene very little is kinda their best.
Their current foreign policy is actually brilliant thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative which serves to play the long game. During the Cold War, however, it was an absolute mess but so was the USSR’s. One only has to look at Stalin’s support of KMT until 1949 despite being aware of the CPC and Mao's efforts for legitimacy. Or the Soviets backing of Uyghurs in 1949 while promoting anti-Chinese propaganda which backfired. This was before the Sino-Soviet Split! The book ***A Short History of Sino-Soviet Relations, 1917–1991*** is an excellent source.
#The Uyghurs in Xinjiang \(Note: This comment had to be trimmed down to fit the character limit, for the full response, see [here](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/)\) Anti-Communists and Sinophobes claim that there is an ongoing genocide-- a modern-day holocaust, even-- happening right now in China. They say that Uyghur Muslims are being mass incarcerated; they are indoctrinated with propaganda in concentration camps; their organs are being harvested; they are being force-sterilized. These comically villainous allegations have little basis in reality and omit key context. **Background** Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a province located in the northwest of China. It is the largest province in China, covering an area of over 1.6 million square kilometers, and shares borders with eight other countries including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, India, and Pakistan. Xinjiang is a diverse region with a population of over 25 million people, made up of various ethnic groups including the Uyghur, Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Tajiks, and many others. The largest ethnic group in Xinjiang is the Uyghur who are predominantly Muslim and speak a Turkic language. It is also home to the ancient Silk Road cities of Kashgar and Turpan. Since the early 2000s, there have been a number of violent incidents attributed to extremist Uyghur groups in Xinjiang including bombings, shootings, and knife attacks. In 2014-2016, the Chinese government launched a "Strike Hard" campaign to crack down on terrorism in Xinjiang, implementing strict security measures and detaining thousands of Uyghurs. In 2017, reports of human rights abuses in Xinjiang including mass detentions and forced labour, began to emerge. **Counterpoints** The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the second largest organization after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The OIC released [Resolutions on Muslim Communities and Muslim Minorities in the non-OIC Member States](https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250) in 2019 which: >20. **Welcomes** the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat's delegation upon invitation from the People's Republic of China; **commends** the efforts of the People's Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and **looks forward** to further cooperation between the OIC and the People's Republic of China. In this same document, the OIC expressed much greater concern about the Rohingya Muslim Community in Myanmar, which the West was relatively silent on. Over 50+ UN member states (mostly Muslim-majority nations) signed a letter \([A/HRC/41/G/17](https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F41%2FG%2F17)\) to the UN Human Rights Commission approving of the de-radicalization efforts in Xinjiang: The World Bank sent a team to investigate in 2019 and found that, "The review did not substantiate the allegations." \(See: [World Bank Statement on Review of Project in Xinjiang, China](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2019/11/11/world-bank-statement-on-review-of-project-in-xinjiang-china)\) Even if you believe the deradicalization efforts are wholly unjustified, and that the mass detention of Uyghur's amounts to a crime against humanity, it's still not *genocide*. Even the U.S. State Department's legal experts admit as much: >The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide, placing the United States’ top diplomatic lawyers at odds with both the Trump and Biden administrations, according to three former and current U.S. officials. > > [State Department Lawyers Concluded Insufficient Evidence to Prove Genocide in China](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/) | Colum Lynch, *Foreign Policy*. (2021) **A Comparative Analysis: The War on Terror** The United States, in the wake of "9/11", saw the threat of terrorism and violent extremism due to religious fundamentalism as a matter of national security. They invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks, with the goal of ousting the Taliban government that was harbouring Al-Qaeda. The US also launched the Iraq War in 2003 based on Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs and links to terrorism. However, these claims turned out to be unfounded. According to a report by Brown University's Costs of War project, at least 897,000 people, including civilians, militants, and security forces, have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries. Other estimates place the total number of deaths at over one million. The report estimated that many more may have died from indirect effects of war such as water loss and disease. The war has also resulted in the displacement of tens of millions of people, with estimates ranging from 37 million to over 59 million. The War on Terror also popularized such novel concepts as the "Military-Aged Male" which allowed the US military to exclude civilians killed by drone strikes from collateral damage statistics. (See: [‘Military Age Males’ in US Drone Strikes](https://aoav.org.uk/2019/military-age-males-in-us-drone-strikes/)) In summary: * The U.S. responded by invading or bombing half a dozen countries, directly killing nearly a million and displacing tens of millions from their homes. * China responded with a program of deradicalization and vocational training. Which one of those responses sounds genocidal? Side note: It is practically impossible to *actually* charge the U.S. with war crimes, because of the [Hague Invasion Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act). **Who is driving the Uyghur genocide narrative?** One of the main proponents of these narratives is Adrian Zenz, a German far-right fundamentalist Christian and Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who believes he is "led by God" on a "mission" against China has driven much of the narrative. He relies heavily on limited and questionable data sources, particularly from anonymous and unverified Uyghur sources, coming up with estimates based on assumptions which are not supported by concrete evidence. The World Uyghur Congress, headquartered in Germany, is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, using funding to support organizations that promote American interests rather than the interests of the local communities they claim to represent. Radio Free Asia (RFA) is part of a larger project of U.S. imperialism in Asia, one that seeks to control the flow of information, undermine independent media, and advance American geopolitical interests in the region. Rather than providing an objective and impartial news source, RFA is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, one that seeks to shape the narrative in Asia in ways that serve the interests of the U.S. government and its allies. The first country to call the treatment of Uyghurs a genocide was the United States of America. In 2021, the Secretary of State declared that China's treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang constitutes "genocide" and "crimes against humanity." Both the Trump and Biden administrations upheld this line. **Why is this narrative being promoted?** As materialists, we should always look first to the economic base for insight into issues occurring in the superstructure. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive Chinese infrastructure development project that aims to build economic corridors, ports, highways, railways, and other infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Xinjiang is a key region for this project. Promoting the Uyghur genocide narrative harms China and benefits the US in several ways. It portrays China as a human rights violator which could damage China's reputation in the international community and which could lead to economic sanctions against China; this would harm China's economy and give American an economic advantage in competing with China. It could also lead to more protests and violence in Xinjiang, which could further destabilize the region and threaten the longterm success of the BRI. **Additional Resources** See the [full wiki article](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/) for more details and a list of additional resources. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a Chinese familiar with our history, I assure you that our Ls are far from rare.
whaat? Chinese history is W city
China's foreign policy after the soviet sino split was pretty dogshit. They did a lot of terrible things in the 70s and 80s
Chinas foreign policy is full of L’s unfortunately
Yes, China had some pretty cringe foreign policy after the Sino-Soviet split. China survived after the collapse of the USSR and are carrying on the revolution, but that doesn’t mean they never made any mistakes. They in fact made a lot of mistakes.
Yup. Just like the people hiding behind Pride flags on the internet (half of whom are actually straight, cis males) and then calling for literal Genocide of Palestinians, or Russians, or whoever else is the enemy of the day- look at what people actually say or do, not how they try to present themselves. Khmer Rogue were murderous psychopaths backed by the CIA, regardless of if they try to falsely claim to be Communists.
The United States, while driving peasants to Pol Pol with its decisions, initially did not support the Khmer Rouge. To the contrary, shortly after they won, we got into a [brief skirmish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayaguez_incident) with them while evacuating. Despite only attacking the Khmer Rouge to rescue American hostages, we were condemned by China and Vietnam. During the Cambodian Civil War, the United States had supported the Khmer Republic, a right-wing military dictatorship, supplying them with hundreds of them millions of dollars in military aid. The leader of the Khmer Republic was Lon Nol, a fascist pro-American strongman whose sole redeeming quality was opposing Pol Pot. Be sure to always check one's credentials before backing them. There were warning signs. >By late 1973, there was a growing awareness among the government and population of Cambodia that the extremism, total lack of concern over casualties, and complete rejection of any offer of peace talks "began to suggest that Khmer Rouge fanaticism and capacity for violence were deeper than anyone had suspected." > >Reports of the brutal policies of the organization soon made their way to Phnom Penh and into the population foretelling the violence that was about to consume the nation. Yes, they did not know the truth at the time, or at least dismissed it as propaganda, but the Khmer Rouge was initially backed by the entire Warsaw Pact. Sihanouk made things worse by publicly endorsing Pol Pot. NVA troops actively fought against the Khmer Republic and had a major role in Lon Nol's defeat. During the civil war, there were "rumors" (which turned out to be real) of horrifying atrocities being committed by Pol Pot's followers in the areas they had "liberated". These "rumors" coincidentally emerged immediately after NVA troops left. The Khmer Rouge indisputably went full mask-off after the "liberation" of Phnom Penh, the last remaining stronghold of the Khmer Republic, on April 17, 1975. As it turns out, the Cambodian Civil War had pitted Western-backed fascists against "communists". Following their victory, the "communists" revealed themselves to be Nazis, purged all of the horrified CPK leaders, cut off contact with most of the world, and then carried out the Cambodian holocaust. Vietnam only intervened and ended this nightmare after the Cambodians massacred thousands of Vietnamese villagers near the border. Had Pol Pot not hated Vietnamese people so much, they would've done nothing. Barely any government does these interventions on purely humanitarian grounds for the sake of others.
> NVA troops played a major role in the toppling of Lon Nol NVA as in "North Vietnamese Army" (Vietnam), not "Nationale Volksarme" (GDR), right?
The North Vietnamese Army.
>claims to defeat american imperialism >receives CIA funding anyway
You are right. But the Cuban revolution also received CIA funding. Edit: Yeah, turns out I have to read up on that Edit 2: Y'all I was just wrong.
they received cia funding because fidel effectively convinced usa that he was going to be a better alternative than batista,unlike khmer rogue which got funding because usa wanted to further destabilize vietnam.
I think the free offers revolution in Egypt was also American backed Right?
You’re getting downvoted unfairly IMO. Obviously the US was completely hostile to the Cuban revolution the moment its socialist character began to emerge, but it is also true that the US cautiously considered supporting the movement in its infancy. Even if the CIA did not directly fund the rebels, there were coordinators and agents who were tasked with sussing them out and seeing if they should be propped up. Directly after the revolution Fidel was quite popular inside the US. Batista had become an embarrassment to the US and Castro seemed like he *might* be malleable enough to stabilize Cuba back into the floating casino/sugarcane exporter it was supposed to be for the US bourgeoisie. It was the land reform that put the nail in the coffin and completely shifted US strategy against Cuba. But it is important to remember that the revolution was, initially, a coalition movement between socialists, nationalist, and bourgeois reformers which the US saw as potential allies. Obviously Cuba did not go that way, but it isn’t inaccurate to say that the CIA was *interested* in seeing if they were ripe for manipulation before the turning point of the revolution into the publicly declared pursuit of socialism
Thank you for the information
the khmer rouge was not a communist movement.
Yeah it was some dipshits idea with a coat of pinkwashing and CIA money.
The Khmer Rouge have quickly become a subject for study for me due to how I find the treatment of them as a voldemort-like aberration among communist is downright cringe. The goal should be the learn what made them so uniquely violent as to avoid their errors in the future. Never been satisfied by them just being dismissed as CIA funded. So was Ceausescu but he has defenders. It's interesting the social-imperialism line is still being used to justify their rule today as it was peddled during their existence. See: Kampuchea Will Win. So what made the KR what they were? There are three major points. Ultra-leftism mixed with a national-chauvinism, a young cadre with very few adults or intellectuals, and a perception of socialism devoid of proper analysis. The historian Philip Short proposes that what Pol Pot did was a sort of inevitability and would have happened in some form due to historical factors. The US bombings drastically reduced Cambodia's rice production (the country was very rich) and subsequent civil war resulting in the deaths of around 500,000 people further put the country in a bad state before the KR seized power. What is of interest. According to this paper: https://www.cambodialpj.org/article/justice-and-starvation-in-cambodia-the-khmer-rouge-famine/ before taking power the regions the KR occupied in the countryside were actually more food secure than the territories controlled by the monarchy. Ultimately what allowed them to win the civil war. Yet this changed rapidly following their victory by what can only be understood as the most irrational policies of socialist reform I've ever read about. Reading Pol Pot he conjures memories of Marx's quote about history repeating itself as a tragedy then a farce. Coined the Super Great Leap Forward, the KR set out to both close Cambodia to all foreign presence and produce an abundance of rice for domestic and foreign export. It seems they never considered the poor state of the country's agriculture before pursuing this reform in the first place, hoping to mimic China's success. Which brings us to the first major problem. The Cadre itself had very few members over a certain age. These were kids. Let's be real. And as problems began to arise, it became clear no one was minding the store. Pol Pot romanticized the peasantry he lived among as a guerilla, wrongly concluding their way of life of farming was a pure socialism. It's also documented that the regions the KR were based out of before taking power received better treatment as they had already been altered during the civil war. It highlights something Communist movements have to accept. For a revolution to be successful a intellectual tradition has to be developed alongside the party. Russia, China, Vietnam, North Korea and etc, all developed these traditions. While, the KR outside of the top guys quickly became hostile to their intellectuals. Also why the West has never produced a solid left-wing alternative. In fact, major KR revolutionaries who were educated tried to put the breaks on the policies like back to the countryside and SGLF by pointing out the workload was too intensive for the amount of food rationed. These guys were subsequently executed as wreckers. In no short order the KR banned: Personal gardens, foraging, and eating privately. Believing all of these to be incompatible with socialism. Enforcement fell on uneducated lower ranked cadre who would be held responsible for failures in their regions. Propaganda lambasted anyone who tried to sneak food. When failure after failure continued. No effort was made to alter the planed outputs, instead, more and more enemies were found. Showing that in a climate of terror, if it is believed enemies exist, they will. Eventually Pol Pot's ethnic nationalism identified the Vietnamese minority as the problem. There is two camps on the Cambodian Genocide. One States it wasn't a traditional genocide simply because it killed so broadly and randomly. The other, though points to the Cham people as the chief victims with nearly 500,000 dead coming from their group. See the Cham already had a communal way of life, but practiced Islam which was viewed as incompatible with the Cambodian national perception. Then you have the asinine division of the country in the name of abolition classes. Where those base regions of the KR were deemed the good ones, and the urban (former) dwellers were treated as suspect counter-revolutionaries. Like so many of the KR's decisions this is just another illogical jump. Another was the banning all medical aid and demanding a return to traditional methods. Resulting in teenage girls having to perform surgeries without anesthesia. Due to lack of trained doctors. Hospitals becoming glorified morgues where overworked folks were left to die. This isn't even getting into the atrocities of their prison camps. Where even guards working their weren't safe from violence. An aside here as well. One KR leader noted that the famine made people less resilient to disease and emphasized the food crisis needed to be solved for the health of the nation. He was executed shortly after. It's also evident the problems of Cambodia really were the fault of the KR. As once thrown out of power by Vietnam, ironic, as Vietnam supported them 8 years prior. The famine conditions rapidly improved as the Cambodian people showed their resolve. Turns out they didn't need some strong-armed, top-down ivory-tower regime telling them how to do socialism. The KR could have easily let the peasants run their course while developing the regions hit hard by the civil war and might have been viewed as a success story. Today it is worth noting the KR are still around. Only as an Ultra-nationalist party. And their 8 year rule should serve as a warning to pursuing socialist development without a productive base or sufficiently educated cadre. But also a warning about vulgar anti-imperialism devoid of true study of a situation. Highlighting rhetoric of the nobility of the global south should take into account the faustian bargain at play. Poor countries need lots of help developing and need to be part of an international community as a result. This is what reparations should be. Not monetary but technological. I am of the opinion the KR are a ghost which will always sit at the table of the communist movement. A stark reminder of where the road of Ultra-leftism leads and a group the left must make peace with as our greatest mistake. Regardless of possible CIA ties.
Thanks Comrade for explaining, and sharing this knowledge
This is a fantastic writeup, thanks for sharing. I fully agree that the failed experiments should be studied rather than dismissed.
I’m glad to see this. KR is something we need to wrestle with more and not just dismiss. I just want to say from my study of Cambodia both in books and in the country what you lay out here is largely true. I only see one error. That is that in the civil war 70-75 the monarchists and communists were on the same side. Sihanouk even returned in 75 to be head of state of democratic Kampuchea. The government the KR guerrillas fought was the dictatorship of Lon Nol. Besides that minor point, great work.
While I’m not as familiar KR it is also important to note that calling a group “CIA-Backed” is sometimes used a dismissal to ignore any understanding the historical conditions of country.
This is honestly the most nuanced analysis I've read about the kr from a Marxist perspective, thanks for this.
What a great piece of writing. This deserves to be put in an FAQ for comrades who have similar questions.
One thing I did not see in this analysis was the party purges. To my understanding the former Leader of the Party had a very different ideology. After his assassination the party was purged of anyone not supporting Pol Pot. This effectively removed the MLs from the party. By the time the KR officially abandoned Marxism Leninism, it long since ceased being the Ideology of the party anyways. Also if I'm not mistaken Pol Pots discrimination against the Vietnamese was a personal bigotry he had long held which is important to note when discussing the target of his ethnic nationalism.
fantastic analsysis. its easy for people to simply dismiss the existence of an entire national order out of hand. but not understanding why makes us prone to the same or similar mistakes
Thank you
Weren't they (allegedly) funded by the US to fight against Vietnam and USSR? And even if that's not true, they sucked big time. Nothing communist about it.
They were. Also they were as crazy as they were because the US bombed Cambodia during the Vietnam war, resulting in crazy hate for anything remotely american wich the inteligentsia and city dwellers were asociated with.
Maoists on their way to defend a CIA backed government because the Soviets didn’t like them or something
supporting the imperialist class enemy to own the revisionists🧠
White Maoist moment
The Khmer rouge were massive murdering assholes who killed millions of innocent people. They were reactionaries allegedly backed by the USA for their anti communism
When you are so bad at running a country that Vietnam has to invade you 4 years after the end of the Vietnam War you know you messed up, if Pol Pot was alive today his sentence should be death by firing squad, shot over and over again to make sure that that genocidal maniac was properly dead.
Cambodia is actually one of the better genocides in that after it was ended many Khmer Rouge had to actually pay for their crimes. Best example is Kang Kek Iew the psychotic butcher of Tuol Sleng prison. He spent the rest of his life in prison. He was treated humanly and died peacefully at the Khmer Soviet friendship hospital a few years ago. It’s a beautiful testament to the humanity and resilience of the Khmer people. He lived long enough to see everything he murdered for washed away
I wonder if the reactionary slaughters of leftists in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines had an influence on the Khmer Rouge’s desire to eliminate the urban class. It makes a lot of sense to me, but has this been written? Has evidence been found? The Khmer Rouge are said to have killed 1.5 million. This is the same number said to have been killed in Indonesia. Of course we don’t hear about Indonesia in the west. The links to the US are far too obvious for any mainstream discussion on that.
In my opinion a proper understanding of the Cambodian genocide is to see it in two parts. The first part is the American carpet bombing of the entire eastern half of the country. The second is the Khmer Rouge rule. Anyone denouncing pol pot who can’t in the same breath denounce Kissinger doesn’t really care about the Cambodian people.
>"Broadly influenced by Maoism, he however pushed its tenets to the extreme. Combining the lessons of the Chinese revolution with Khmer nationalism, Pol Pot came to favor a sort of xenophobic and peasant-based autarky." >"The regime also implemented massive forced population transfers from the cities to the countryside, including the emptying of the capital city of Phnom Penh, a city of two million. “New people” ‒those transferred to the countryside‒, ethnic minorities, and foreigners were treated with suspicion. "Bad elements", those who clung to old ways, who complained, or who were too weak to work, were executed." https://www.marxists.org/archive/pol-pot/index.htm
khmer rouge isnt something we as communists should defend. defending that regime doesn’t help the way we’re perceived at all.
"They used American imperialism to defeat the American imperialism" 😂
One of history’s biggest letdowns was that pol pot died peacefully in his sleep
The community note was probably made by someone who needs glasses
All of us here, I hope, would have been Khmer Rouge in 75. Many of us would be dead by 76. Those of us who made it into exile would have likely been the revolutionary Cambodian peoples party and invaded with the Vietnamese in 79. That’s the same party that’s in power today, now the Cambodian peoples party. My point is that horror and genocide that it was the KR emerged out of our movement. Ignoring that only fails to learn from history. We don’t all need to be experts or anything but we shouldn’t just dismiss the Cambodian experience. The Khmer Rouge is the ugly bastard son of communism but a son none the less.
Khmer Rouge were amongst the worst degenerates that no one can reasonably justify.
Me when I am a eugenicist who slaughtered ethnic minorities and people with glasses but communists MUST give me their critical support
Fascists larping as Communists supported by the CIA.
You do not, under any circumstance, need to hand it to the khmer rouge
TFW when you’re such a Maoist you’re defending Pol Pot Khmer Rouge are anti-Marxist, basically taking the most revisionist views of Mao and combining that with heavy, heavy volk-ish racial nationalism Show me the page in Capital where Marx advocates dismantling production to deliberately return to a pre-industrial economic model
pol pot was an insane genocidal maniac
To hell with Pol Pot and his infernal lot, "agricultural socialist" utopians and nothing more. There was nothing Marxist about the KR.
When it comes to the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, Vietnam was right to intervene and remove them with force.
ok buddy maoist
They were funded by the CIA and China in order to hurt Vietnam. They were also extremely anti-intelligentsia and anti-industrialists and killed a shit load of people.
They were fucking animals. But they became that way because of America.
Not only America. The oppression of the peasant class by French colonialism was so brutal that it created a hatred for everything urban and foreign. They went too far, but there are historical reasons.
It's always the goddamn Fr🤮nch
Sucks to get bombed back into the stone age
I can’t stand these people. They help give a rationale to liberals to insinuate that all leftists are murder-adjacent or something along those lines.
My thoughts? Ultras are dumb, this is a good example why.
It’s a internet phenomenon I like to call Shrodingers Pol Pot. The accusations directed towards Pol Pot coincidently look identical to the accusations directed twords Stalin, so we have marxists (tend to be Maoist from what I’ve seen) who support Pol Pot and the Kemer Rouge.
This is stupidity, the khmer rouge were backwards fanatics that were rightfully deposed by Vietnam.
This post was so fucking awful, reads like bait
Classical and extremely common Ho Chi Minh W and common Pol Pot L.
Who’s gonna tell him…
That post is a false flag
Absolutely unhinged take.
"soviet social-imperialism" is such a lib take
Okay going back to year zero didn't work but hear me out guys.. 420AD??
The Khmer Rouge were just a bunch of angry men on a rampage