WEBVTT - Part Two: The Pol Pot Episodes: How A Nice, Quiet Kid Murdered His Country 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:07.440 Also media, Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:13.400 podcast about really our first genocidal bastard who is legitimately 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.240 considered a nice guy, which is a nice write at 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.400 everybody that nice does not mean good. Lots of nice 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:21.520 people who are evil. 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:24.800 That is so I was going to say, Yeah, that's 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:25.680 also a reminder. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:27.600 Of course, you know, you don't have to be an 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:29.640 asshole to be the top of your field. 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:32.760 So no, no, no, you don't have to be an 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:34.320 asshole to be the top of your field. 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:40.519 Yeah, Robert, what I don't say that to me. I'm 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:41.800 still mad about last time. 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:44.239 You're still mad about the fact that I want to 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.400 see what Polepot looks like producing a podcast. But what 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:50.280 if we just put him on sixteenth minute for a week? 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:53.960 No, I would never replace Jamie Loftus. 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.880 Maybe maybe Polepot and Jamie will find out that they're 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.280 like like a Fleetwood Mac deal, like just like perfect, 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.679 perfect musical partners, you know, like just a historic talent match. 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.440 You've you've watched that Spring that that Silver Springs video 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:09.800 one time. 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.199 I've been I've been watching the nineteen ninety seven fans 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.800 Silver Springs million times. I know you have Honestly, what 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.760 if Polepot had been in Fleetwood Mac? You know, could 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.920 that have had Could that have been good? Almost certainly not. 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:24.000 Stephen X would have come out on top, just like 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:24.959 you didn't realize. 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.480 I'm just imagining Polepots sitting down all of Fleetwood Mac 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:30.920 and being like, guys, this is way too toxic. You 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.240 need you need to learn how to have healthier interpersonal boundaries. 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:37.840 I learned that. I learned this one at my time 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:38.600 at the Temple. 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:40.680 Yeah, and let me tell you so one time we 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.040 were shooting twenty thousand people to death and I got 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:44.240 angry at my friend. 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:46.679 That's what it's about. 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.320 It's not what it's about speaking of shooting twenty thousand 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.800 people to death. Our guest Andrew T never did that. 0:01:54.320 --> 0:02:00.360 He didn't. Yeah, probably did. I knew, No, you would know, 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:02.400 you would know, you would know. Yeah. 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.200 For one thing, that's twenty thousand bullets. That's not cheap 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.239 these days, right, like you're talking several months even of 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:12.399 la rent, you know. So yeah, with the tariffsh my god, Yeah, 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:14.240 that cheap Turkish amo is going to be a lot 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.799 more expensive. So you're gonna have to shoot people with 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.440 the homegrown American bullets, which you know anyway, Andrew, how 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:21.120 are you doing today? 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.560 Okay, I'm alive. I'm alive. 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:30.080 Yeah, you're alive. And we're talking about the doge of Indo, China, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:34.120 the Khmer Rouge, which is not as far from the 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:37.080 truth as it would be comforting for it to be. 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:39.520 It's closer to the truth than we want it to be, 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.799 but yeah, by a lot. 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.840 Specifically, we're talking about Salothsar, the man who would become Polepot, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.440 who at this point is living in Paris, and he 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:54.960 is a bon vivant whose purpose in life is to 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.600 have a good time. He's drinking the wine, he's reading 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.600 lots of books, and he's not doing a whole lot 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.000 of radio technician school, which is why he is ostensibly 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.280 in Paris in the first place. He would later recall 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.840 spending all of his spare money on French language books 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:12.960 during this period of time. He is a real hound 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:17.360 to the used bookstore crowd. He shows a particular interest 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.800 in the work of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau is, among 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.200 other things, like that the big idea from Rousseau that 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:26.880 seems to have left the primary mark on Sar's psyche 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:31.200 is this concept of the noble savage, right, this almost 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.840 idealized human that lives close to nature and hasn't been 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.200 polluted by these concepts of modernity. Right. This is a 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:42.600 big idea for Rousseau, obviously influenced by European colonialism in 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.360 the Americas, and it's going to have a big mark 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.000 on Polepot. He's not in the least bit interested in 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.960 the Americas, but there's this idea he starts to get 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:55.400 in his head of idealizing the Khmer peasantry who he 0:03:55.600 --> 0:04:00.600 was technically born into but not really like he born 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:05.000 just above, just above and immediately bounced to go hang 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.400 out with the royal family, right, Right, But he's really 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.080 going to like and this it's not just he's not 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.000 doing this in isolation. They're all reading guys like Rousseau. 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.359 They're all getting involved in knowledgeable of these French thinkers, 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:20.960 and so this would not he would have been having conversations 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.720 about these these concepts with his friends at the time. 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:24.080 Right. 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.520 He Also, one thing I learned in the interview he 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:29.440 did with Nate Thayer later in life, and this is 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:31.560 not in his earlier biographies. They talk a lot. He 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.640 reads Mao, he reads Stalin, we'll talk about that. He's 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.640 also for a period of time really interested in Mahatma Gandhi, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.680 Like he kind of keeps up obsessively with the story 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.120 of Gandhi and the successful fight to decolonize India. Not 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:48.680 a Gandhi figure, po Pot, you could say, but he 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:50.520 is very and it makes sense that he's interested in 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:52.920 it because India is a colonized country that throws off 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.279 the shackles of its colonial oppressor, and that's what he's 0:04:55.320 --> 0:05:00.800 gonna want to do, right, he does reject the Gandhi route, Well, you. 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:04.360 Know it's about that that ends justifying the means, right, 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:06.240 this is where this goes right now. 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.440 And you know, here's the difference. Polepot. I do think 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.760 could have been a pretty good podcaster. Gandhi terrible podcast, 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.200 absolutely dog shit. Could have had a YouTube channel, could 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.400 have been pretty good on YouTube. You know, he's me 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.120 on a Twitch instead of freeing India. He would have 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.719 gotten really successful on Patriot. And then he started guy Yeah, 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.919 a Twitch streamer, Gandhi playing Gears of War but just 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:36.960 refusing to shoot the whole time. Yeah, doing the pacifist 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.480 doing the pacifist run of cyberpunk twenty seventy seven. 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.880 So much funnier than Yeah. 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:47.520 So Poulpot would later say of his time and like 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:49.800 the impact that all this reading had on him. I 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.479 started as a nationalist and then patriot, and then I 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.800 read progressive books. Before that time, I had never read 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.440 The Humanity the French Communist Party newspaper. It scared me, 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.040 but I got used to it because of the student movement. 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.480 So he describes kind of being initially frightened of like 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.240 communism and some of these ideas. And I wonder how 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:09.599 much of that has to do with the fact that 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:15.080 very clearly his family and background is like the enemy 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.719 as often described in like a lot of communist writing, right, Like, 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:23.200 people like him are not who you're messaging to primarily, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.640 right like he is. There's not much of a bourgeoisie 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.480 in Cambodia, but he definitely is part of it, right. 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:33.600 Yeah, he's sort of like that, Yeah, get him and 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:35.760 then melting hi, Yeah, slowly out of the back of 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:36.320 the craft. 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:38.760 Yeah. And he says that like basically just like the 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:40.640 fact that it is so not just among but by 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.600 the way, when we say the student movement, he's not 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.000 just socializing with other Khmer he socializing with a lot 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.520 of young French radicals, right, and so he just kind 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.880 of through immersion gets more comfortable with socialism and than communism. 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.040 But he was also very engaged with the non educational 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.120 opportunities afforded to him, including a free work trip to 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.839 war ravaged Yugoslavia. Now, we actually had two different options 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.480 for a vacation during this first year that he's in France. 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.080 One was a month long backpacking trip in Switzerland, which 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.320 costs seventy dollars in Boy, if I could get that 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:14.800 deal today, I'd be gone the fucking heartbeat. But that 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:16.280 is a lot of money for the time, and he 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:20.040 has no money, right, so he picks a labor trip 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.920 to go help rebuild Yugoslavia, which had just become a thing. 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.560 If you think about Yugoslavia is the Balkans. It's the 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.640 Balkans all being a state that's an independent state for 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.080 basically the first time, and it's like the least governable 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.040 territory on Earth is finally being governed by a guy. 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:40.200 But it's all been blown to fuck by World War Two. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.280 So you can come here for free and will kind 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.160 of feed you, even though we don't have much food, 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:48.200 but it'll be free if you help rebuild, and so 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.960 that's what he does. Right, This was not a political thing. 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:54.040 He doesn't go to Yugoslavia because they're communist. He later wrote, 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:55.760 I didn't have money, so I couldn't do as the 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:57.640 others and go to Geneva or to the sea or 0:07:57.640 --> 0:07:59.760 to the mountains and have a holiday there. A group 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.680 of a poor students went instead to Zagreb. Now this 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.960 is a seminal moment for Salathsar. Tito, who is the 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.360 dictator of Yugoslavia, was a communist who had been who 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.440 had fought as an insurgent against the Nazis. Tito, we'll 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:15.160 talk about him one day. He's one of these guys 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.880 where I can't say he's not a bastard because he's 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.320 a dictator. He does some bad stuff. He's also like 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.000 the best case scenario for a dictator. If you're gonna 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.920 live under a dictator in the twentieth century, you fucking 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:31.000 want it to be Tito. Right. He does know what 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.960 he's doing, which is extremely rare. And he's also legitimately 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.680 like the hardest son of a bitch alive in his day, 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:41.840 Like he fights the Nazis, and then my favorite Tito's 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.880 story because he breaks away from the USSR because Stalin 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.600 obviously wants Yugoslavia to basically be an extension of the USSR, 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:52.199 and Tito is like, yeah, the Balkans have had enough 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:54.960 being other people's property. We're gonna be the bullk you know, 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:56.720 We're going to be our own thing for a while. 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.920 And Stalin keeps sending guys to kill him and find 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.760 Stalin like Tina like sends back. I think it's a 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.160 piece of one of the assassins with a note that's like, 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.160 you can keep sending guys and I'll keep killing them. 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.400 But if you do, I'm gonna send one guy and 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.120 you're not gonna send him back, right, Like he's gonna 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.080 get you right right, Like Tito is legitimately one of 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:21.160 the scariest dudes who ever lived, and also shockingly competent 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.720 at what he does, because like, Yugoslavia collapses immediately after 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.240 his death into a heart into a hideous civil war. Right, 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:31.600 but it's like the only time the Balkans is a unified, 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.600 peaceful thing more or less while Tito's in charge, and 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:36.800 again he has he runs, he has a police state, 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:40.000 he's not a nice man, but you can't help but 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.800 be like, well, shit, that motherfucker knew what he was doing, right, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.480 good at his job. At least he's like he's like 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:47.920 Tom Cruise. Right, I'm not gonna say Tom Cruise is 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.680 a good man, but the son of a bitch loves cinema, right. 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.400 I'm definitely not going to say Tom Cruise is a good. 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:00.520 Man and he cares about COVID policy. Looks, Sophie, beggars 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:01.880 can't be choosers anymore. 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:04.360 I don't like that. 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.600 Man, no, no, no, but he's the Tito of movies. 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:09.200 We can all agree on that. I think that's a 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:09.760 fair way. 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:10.200 To look at him. 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:14.320 Yeah, yeah, this is good. This is good. Historians with me. 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:15.800 He's a Stanis Barathian. 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.600 Yes, yes, Stantus, Yes, these are all Stanus except for 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.280 Stanis again loses. Tito never fucking does. 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:25.760 Right. 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.160 So at this point though, Tito is in charge and 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.280 the Soviet Union really doesn't like that like young kind 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:37.320 of socialist lefty inclined kids in France, because the Communist 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.280 Party still does try to and into a degree, exercises 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.800 a lot of control over these like like national Western 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.560 communist parties and like Paris and stuff. They think that 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.320 Tito was a traitor to the cause, right, and so 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.440 there's like an effort among French socialists to discourage young 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.679 people from volunteering in Yugoslavia. But for whatever reason, Sara 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.240 does not get the memo, or he just doesn't give 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:03.079 a shit, So he goes Salath and a bunch of 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.120 his friends. They go in there. You know, at this point, 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.480 the whole population of Yugoslavia is basically organized into these 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.480 massive labor brigades that are rebuilding the part of the 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:13.719 country that had been ruined in the war, which was 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:19.400 all of the country. It's the least covered theater of 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.080 war in World War Two. The shit that went on 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.640 in the Balkans in World War two is it's nuts 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:30.640 by Eastern Front standards. Like there were like SS guys 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.959 who tried to go to the East because the Balkans 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:38.800 was so fucked up. Like I cannot exaggerate how bad 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:43.840 World War two was for the Balkans. Sar's particular crew 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.480 helped to rebuild a motorway, and the impression he took 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.640 away from the experience was stirring, this powerful sensation of 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.800 being engaged in a great, real time task of building 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:56.280 a modern nation from the ground up using only the 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:00.679 raw human material of its populace. As Polepot years later, 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.480 he was emphatic that he had no political interest in 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:05.960 planning the trip. It was purely for pleasure. But the 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.760 experience left an impact anyway. Short quotes from one of 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.120 his friends at the time, who wrote about the experience 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.000 highlights kind of the impact we can assume this probably 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.120 had on Polepot. Quote everywhere this guy wrote, the People's 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:22.280 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia resembles an enormous work site where factories, roads, 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.439 railways and hydraulic centers are being built. This effort is 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.040 also worthy of praise because strength of all the people 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.960 united around their leaders gives them the chance of gaining 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.280 successive victories, knowing that it is a question of national survival, 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.439 and the post war rebuilding of Yugoslavia has a lot 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.280 of successes, right, And obviously there's more to it than 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.240 just throwing together huge work gangs, and that's kind of 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.720 going to be lost on salath Tsar and his comrades, right, 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:53.120 But this idea of mobilizing a nation to remake a 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.000 country from the ground up, and that's very much what 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.640 That's not accurate to literally what was going on in Yugoslavia, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:00.959 but that's accurate to what they would have been aware 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.680 of as foreigners coming in. That leaves him mark. 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:05.360 And they were at the that were there at the 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.560 forefront of seeing the that is action. 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.560 Yes, Salotsar and his friends, as I said, represented a 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.120 sizable chunk of the entire educated adult Khmer population at 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.040 this point in time. Right. But due to the isolation 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.040 of Cambodia and some of the cultural realities inherent to 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:24.600 having your education conducted entirely in a second language, most 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.000 of these guys arrive in Paris with no real understanding 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:30.360 of Marxism or Communism, and they never get a very 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.720 good way. These guys are not what a Marxist today 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.719 would call super educated Marxists, in that a lot of 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:39.720 them are kind of bored of marx and a lot 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:41.320 of them are like in part because like, I don't 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.880 really get this. This is not this has been translated 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:47.640 several times. Marx is not the communists who speaks to 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.360 them the most, right, and that's not primarily what they're 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.320 going to base. Stalin and Mao are going to be 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.760 the communist writers who have the biggest direct impact on 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:56.280 this crew. 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:56.640 Right. 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.400 So after getting back from Yugoslavia, Sar increasingly falls in 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.280 with his friend Yang Seri and Hip Sari's friends, and 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.280 these guys are better students, They're at more prestigious schools, 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.319 getting more prestigious degrees and like the humanities and stuff. 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.000 Seri introduced Sar to a guy named King Bonsak, who 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.600 was one of the most probably the most senior Khmer 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.040 student in France. He'd been there the longest at twenty five. 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.400 He is the old man of the Cambodian expat community, right, 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.080 and Van Sack was, as a result, one of the 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.080 executive committee members of the student union. So there's like 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.480 this Khmer student union that he is helping to run. 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.480 And the way the organization works is you've got this 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:37.920 central union and then there's a bunch of what are 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.760 called circles, and each circle is a kind of additionally, 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:43.960 at least, there's not really a hierarchy in each circle. 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.720 It's a student discussion group based around a specific topic. 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:48.440 So you might have a circle for the kids who 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.400 are doing radio stuff, or a circle for the kids 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.920 who are into French literature, a circle for the poetry students, right, 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.040 and you kind of like meet at hawk and you 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.520 do you know stuff that way. These are I think 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.160 the best. These are the analog version of how things 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.840 get done today for most young people. Right. Imagine this 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:08.080 is a bunch of different signal loops or discords, right, right, 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.400 that's what these are, except for you have to like 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.440 meet up in person, right, yeah, but that's basically what's 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.440 happening here. So a month or so after meeting, sar 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:21.000 Vansach convened a private gathering to create a new circle 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:25.520 dedicated to discussing Cambodia's future. By this point, the vietnam 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.480 Men were escalating their war for independence against the French, 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:30.760 and there was widespread and interest in what this might 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.560 mean for Cambodians. And also because the Vietmen are communist, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.400 and because Mao has just announced the start of the 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.360 People's Republic, all these guys are being like, shit, you know, 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.880 there might be this co like global communist uprising that 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:44.640 we could be a part of that could like free 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.120 us from the shackles of French domination while still like 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:50.400 being a part of this greater international community. And that 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.800 sounds kind of dope, right, It is. 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.640 So funny to actually hear like the other side of 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:57.320 domino theory. 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.280 Yeah, and it's interesting because the correct like the thing 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.240 about Domino theory that was kind of accurate is that 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.120 other people in other countries in Asia were influenced by 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.480 communism taking off in Vietnam and China, and it made 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.320 them think about the things that were possible. I think 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:15.360 that we're wrong about is that all of these guys, 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.320 as soon as they're in power, wind up primarily hating 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.840 other countries near them, including communist countries. Right, it's how like, 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.960 oh god, obviously communists China and the USS are going 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:26.880 to form a unified block. Oh no, they nearly nuked 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.160 each other. They're literally shooting each other on the border. 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:31.880 China is inviting Nixon over because of how pissed they 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.160 are at the Soviet Union. Right, Like, all of this 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.080 shit is very wrong in that regard. If you knew 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.080 anything about the left, you knew that the left was 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:41.600 never going to get along with each other. 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.400 I mean, that's the whole problem. They know not think 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:48.160 about the left. 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.160 No, so Van sax starts this circle, which is initially 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.880 about like the future of Cambodia and maybe independence and 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.920 they start talking about communism a lot too. Yengsari attends, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.600 as does a number of future influential Khmer politicians, including Salathsar. 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.240 So they're beginning to talk more about communism and again 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.680 mostly focused around Maow and Ho Chi Minh. In January 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.760 of nineteen fifty, China became the first country to recognize 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.480 North Vietnam, which was still a couple of decades away 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.880 from just being Vietnam. The USSR followed, and this prompted 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.360 an equal but opposite reaction from the US and her 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.400 capitalist allies, who then turn recognize Cambodia, Lao, and South 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.560 Vietnam as part of the so called French Union. Maybe 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.720 not the wisest move. Yeah, all these guys want to 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:36.720 be independent, and that seems to be a big part 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.200 of the appeal of communism is getting a pen. Let's 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.080 recognize them as part of France. That'll stop this. Nip 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:43.680 this in the. 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.840 Bud God classic, I guess. 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.600 Yeah. So everyone in the area is increasingly prodded to 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.680 choose sides. Thailand, for example, picks the US right in 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:56.800 art because the US is like, we will leave you guys. 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:02.680 So many fucking guns, so many fucking guns. France controls 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:06.200 the Union for a while, and Vietnamese leaders, as a 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.400 result see a strategic benefit and starting to seed allied 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:13.080 communist movements in these neighboring countries. Right because these places 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.280 are part of the French Union. These Vietnam leaders are like, okay, 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.359 so we should start sending some like CADRA leaders to 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.359 Cambodia and allow maybe with some weapons, and see if 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:26.400 we can start making local communist movements in the imitation 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:28.760 of the Vietman so that they can start their own 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.880 uprisings which will overall help us in our goal and 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.640 just getting the fucking French out of this goddamn right. 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.400 So from the outset of this, you know, the Vietnamese 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.480 communists coming into Cambodia and trying to start their own 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:47.640 communist organizations. It was understood by the Vietnamese that Cambodians 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.360 were incapable of generating their own autonomous communist party as 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.840 Vietnam had. There was no proletariat, right, which is the idea, 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.679 the Marxist idea is that is where a communists like 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.680 movement comes from. Right, everyone is the peasantry basically within 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.200 within Cambodia, and that means there's no base of education 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.520 or convenient way to reach and organize large numbers of 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.000 Khmer in any reasonable timeframe. So a decision has made. 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.679 These are their conclusions, and by the way, they're not 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.720 going to prove broadly accurate. But this is how the 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:24.000 Vietnamese are thinking, and this is a very chauvinistic, paternalistic attitude, 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.360 which is exactly how everyone in Cambodia feels about the Vietnamese. 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.399 They're arrogant, they don't think we're really people, and they 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.880 don't listen to us. And the Vietnamese are like, well, yeah, 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.000 we can't let these people make any decisions, right, So 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:35.520 this is they're not wrong. 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.600 History never changes, it's the important Yeah yeah, oh god. 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.040 People are always the biggest dicks to their neighbors. So 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.320 a decision is made that these Vietnamese leaders are going 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.560 to build communism in Cambodia from the top down, which 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.800 is not how it generally works. The Khmer National United 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:56.480 Front is the result. This organization was patterned off of 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.560 the Vietna, but it had some local characteristics, including an 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.760 embrace of the king, who it argued must be liberated 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:06.440 from French territory, and that doesn't really fit with traditional 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.200 communist ideology, right, the fact that we actually love the king, 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.520 but the king is super fucking popular with the regular 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:17.159 people of Cambodia, right, And so this is one of 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.520 the wiser things. The Vietnamese are like, well, we can't 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:21.560 just like shit talk the king because they will immediately 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:23.560 stop listening to us. We have to do this thing. 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.000 And they're kind of, i think, recognizing a lot of 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:28.680 what people said about the Czar pre revolution and even 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:30.840 Hitler where it's like, well, he must not know about 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.760 all this shitty stuff. His dudes are doing, right, And 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:35.680 so I think the Vietnamese are like, let's just say 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:37.840 the king's really good and the French are the ones 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.280