Pol Pot

=== Establishing the new government: 1975 ===
[[File:2016 Phnom Penh, Pałac Królewski, Srebrna Pagoda (02).jpg|thumb|right|Pol Pot's government held its early meetings in the Silver Pagoda, which later served as Pol Pot's home]]

On 20 April 1975, three days after Phnom Penh fell, Pol Pot secretly arrived in the abandoned city.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=286}} Along with other Khmer Rouge leaders, he based himself in the railway station, which was easy to defend.{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=109|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2p=286}} In early May, they moved their headquarters to the former Finance Ministry building.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=286}} The party leadership soon held a meeting at the [[Silver Pagoda, Phnom Penh|Silver Pagoda]], where they agreed that raising agricultural production should be their government's top priority.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=288}} Pol Pot declared that "agriculture is key both to nation-building and to national defence";{{sfn|Short|2004|p=288}} he believed that unless Cambodia could develop swiftly then it would be vulnerable to Vietnamese domination, as it had been in the past.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=293}} Their goal was to reach 70 to 80% farm mechanisation in five to ten years, and a modern industrial base in fifteen to twenty years.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=288}} As part of this project, Pol Pot saw it as imperative that they develop means of ensuring that the farming population worked harder than before.{{sfn|Short|2004|pp=294–95}}

The Khmer Rouge wanted to establish Cambodia as a self-sufficient state. They did not reject foreign assistance altogether, although they regarded it as pernicious.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=289}} While China supplied them with substantial food aid, this was not publicly acknowledged.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=289}} Shortly after the taking of Phnom Penh, Ieng Sary travelled to Beijing, negotiating the provision of 13,300 tons of Chinese weaponry to Cambodia.{{sfn|Ciorciari|2014|pp=218–19}} At the National Congress meeting in April, the Khmer Rouge declared that it would not permit any foreign military bases on Cambodian soil, a threat to Vietnam, which still had 20,000 troops in Cambodia.{{sfn|Ciorciari|2014|p=218}} To quell tensions arising from recent territorial clashes with Vietnamese soldiers over the disputed [[Wai Island]], Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, and Ieng Sary travelled secretly to Hanoi in May, where they proposed a Friendship Treaty between the two countries. In the short term, this successfully eased tensions.{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=110|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2pp=296–98}} After Hanoi, Pol Pot proceeded to Beijing, again in secret. There he met with Mao and then Deng.{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=110|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2pp=298–301}} Although communication with Mao was hindered by the reliance on translators, Mao warned the younger Cambodian against uncritically imitating the path to socialism pursued by China or any other country, and advised him to avoid repeating the drastic measures that the Khmer Rouge had imposed before.{{sfn|Short|2004|pp=299–300}} In China, Pol Pot also received medical treatment for his [[malaria]] and gastric ailments.{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=111|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2p=303}} Pol Pot then travelled to North Korea, meeting with [[Kim Il Sung]].{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=111|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2p=303}} In mid-July he returned to Cambodia,{{sfn|Short|2004|p=303}} and spent August touring the South-Western and Eastern Zones.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=305}}

{{Quote box
| quote =  You have a lot of experience. It's better than ours. We don't have the right to criticise you{{nbsp}}... Basically you are right. Have you made mistakes or not? I don't know. Certainly you have. So rectify yourselves; do ''rectification''!{{nbsp}}... The road is tortuous.
| source=— Mao's advice to Pol Pot, 1975{{sfn|Short|2004|p=299}}
| align = left
| width = 25em
}}

In May, Pol Pot adopted the Silver Pagoda as his main residence.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=297}} He then relocated to the city's tallest structure, the 1960s-built Bank Buildings, which became known as "K1".{{sfn|Short|2004|p=312}} Several other senior government figures—Nuon Chea, Sary, and Vorn Vet—also lived there.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=312}} Pol Pot's wife, whose schizophrenia had worsened, was sent to live in a house in [[Boeung Keng Kâng]].{{sfn|Short|2004|p=312}} Later in 1975, Pol Pot also took Ponnary's old family home in the rue Docteur Hahn as a residence, and subsequently also took a villa in the south of the city for his own.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=312}} To give his government a greater appearance of legitimacy, Pol Pot organised a parliamentary election, although there was only one candidate in every constituency except in Phnom Penh.{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=116|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2pp=343–44}} The parliament then met for only three hours.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=344}}

Although Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge remained the ''de facto'' government, initially the formal government was the [[GRUNK]] coalition, although its nominal head, [[Penn Nouth]], remained in Beijing.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=304}} Throughout 1975, the Communist Party's control over Cambodia was kept secret.{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=113|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2p=322}} At a special National Congress meeting from 25 to 27 April, the Khmer Rouge agreed to make Sihanouk the nominal [[head of state]],{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=113|2a1=Ciorciari|2y=2014|2p=218}} a status he retained throughout 1975.{{sfn|Chandler|1992|p=111}} Sihanouk had been dividing his time between Beijing and Pyongyang but in September was allowed to return to Cambodia.{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=111|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2pp=329–30}} Pol Pot was aware that if left abroad, Sihanouk could become a rallying point for opposition and thus was better brought into the Khmer government itself; he also hoped to take advantage of Sihanouk's stature in the [[Non-Aligned Movement]].{{sfn|Short|2004|p=329}} Once home, Sihanouk settled into his palace and was well treated.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=330}} Sihanouk was allowed to travel abroad, in October addressing the UN General Assembly to promote the new Cambodian government and in November embarking on an international tour.{{sfn|Short|2004|pp=330–31}}

The Khmer Rouge's military forces remained divided into differing zones and at a July military parade Pol Pot announced the formal integration of all troops into a national Revolutionary Army, to be headed by [[Son Sen]].{{sfn|Short|2004|p=304}} Although a new Cambodian currency had been printed in China during the civil war, the Khmer Rouge decided not to introduce it. At the Central Committee Plenum held in Phnom Penh in September, they agreed that currency would lead to corruption and undermine their efforts to establish a socialist society.{{sfnm|1a1=Short|1y=2004|1pp=306–08|2a1=Ciorciari|2y=2014|2pp=219–20}} Thus, there were no wages in Democratic Kampuchea.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=291}} The population were expected to do whatever the Khmer Rouge commanded of them, without pay. If they refused, they faced punishment, sometimes execution.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=291}} For this reason, Short characterised Pol Pot's Cambodia as a "slave state", with its people effectively forced into [[slavery]] by working without pay.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=291}} At the September Plenum, Pol Pot announced that all farmers were expected to meet a quota of three tons of paddy, or unmilled rice, per hectare, an increase on what was previously the average yield.{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|!p=122|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2p=306}} There he also announced that manufacturing should focus on the production of basic agricultural machinery and light industrial goods such as bicycles.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=308}}

==== Rural reform ====
From 1975 onward, all of those Cambodians who were living in rural co-operatives, meaning the vast majority of Cambodia's population, were reclassified as members of one of three groups: the full-rights members, the candidates, and the depositees.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=292}} The full-rights members, most of whom were poor or lower-middle peasants, were entitled to full rations, and able to hold political posts in the co-operatives and join both the army and the Communist Party.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=292}} Candidates could still hold low-level administrative positions.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=292}} The application of this tripartite system was uneven and it was introduced to different areas at different times.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=292}} On the ground, the basic societal division remained between the "base" people and the "new" people.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=292}} It was never Pol Pot and the party's intention to exterminate all "new" people although the latter were usually treated harshly and this led some commentators to believe extermination was the government's desire.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=292}} Pol Pot instead wanted to double or triple the country's population, hoping it could reach between 15 and 20 million within a decade.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=321}}

Within the village co-operatives, Khmer Rouge militia regularly killed those Cambodians who they deemed to be "bad elements".{{sfn|Short|2004|p=322}} A common statement used by the Khmer Rouge to those they executed was that "to keep you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss."{{sfnm|1a1=Chandler|1y=1992|1p=123|2a1=Short|2y=2004|2p=322}} Those killed were often buried by the fields, to act as fertiliser.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=322}} During the first year of Khmer Rouge rule, most areas of the country were able to stave off starvation despite significant population increases caused by the evacuation of the cities. There were exceptions, such as parts of the North-West Zone and western areas of [[Kampong Chhnang Province|Kompong Chhnang]], where starvation did occur in 1975.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=319}}

The new Standing Committee decreed that the population would work ten day weeks with one day off from labor; a system modelled on that used after the French Revolution.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=321}} Measures were taken to indoctrinate those living in the co-operatives, with set phrases about hard work and loving Cambodia being widely employed, for instance broadcast via loudspeakers or on the radio.{{sfn|Short|2004|pp=323–24}} [[Neologism]]s were introduced and everyday vocabulary was altered to encourage a more collectivist mentality; Cambodians were encouraged to talk about themselves in the plural "we" rather than the singular "I".{{sfn|Short|2004|pp=324–25}} While working in the fields, people were typically segregated by sex.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=326}} Sport was prohibited.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=326}} The only reading material that the population were permitted to read was that produced by the government, most notably the newspaper ''Padevat'' ("Revolution").{{sfn|Short|2004|p=326}} Restrictions were placed on movement, with people permitted to travel only with the permission of the local Khmer Rouge authorities.{{sfn|Short|2004|p=333}}