Pol Pot in Paris and the Khmer Issarak (Part Two): The Students Become Communists

In 1951, on Vietnamese initiative, the Indochinese Communist Party was dissolved and reorganised along national lines. Among its successors was a small, obscure organisation called the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party. It would eventually become the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the party of the Khmer Rouge.

Time Period Covered: 1947 - 1953

How did the First Indochina War become part of the Cold War? When did the Khmer students studying in Paris become communists? What influenced Saloth Sar to become a revolutionary?

This episode explains the way the first 'Vietnam War' began developing into something recognisably part of the Cold War. We also trace the path of the young Pol Pot as his studies in Paris come under the rising influence of communism. Cambodian politics and the return of Son Ngoc Thanh produce a change in the rule of King Sihanouk, and the early developments of what will become the Khmer Rouge's ideology begin taking shape.

Sources
Philip Short Pol Pot: History of a Nightmare
David Chandler The Tragedy of Cambodian History
Milton Osborne Sihanouk
Ben Kiernan How Pol Pot Came to Power
Edward Miller The Vietnam War