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Read more: 1975 to 1979 Khmer Rouge regime Year Zero The Khmer Rouge leadership had concluded that Cambodia's problems were a result of its colonial history. Its solution was to return the country to a primitive self-sufficient agricultural state. This view aligned with Maoist China which provided the Khmer Rouge with aid and advisors. During the four years the Khmer Rouge were in power they:
The Tuol Sleng detention centre in Phnom Penh was previously a school. Khmer Rouge workers in Phnom Penh called it the "place of entering, no leaving". Of the 20,000 people taken there, only six or seven survived. Prisoners' photographs and typed or hand-written confessions show the extreme paranoia of the regime. Tuol Sleng is now a museum memorialising the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime.
Dressed in black The Khmer Rouge always dressed in black. Everyone was forbidden to wear coloured clothes because they were considered decadent. People had to dye their clothes black in liquid made by boiling leaves, and then roll them in the mud. Ideas and beliefs There is a centuries-old Cambodian attitude to life where a person accepts their present situation as something predetermined, and which discourages envy towards others who are better off. The idea of improving the quality of life, being ambitious or being responsible for conditions in society runs against this. The Khmer Rouge rejected this traditional inequality and stood for egalitarianism, where everyone was on one level. In reality however a different sort of inequality existed. The Khmer Rouge favoured the "old people", those who had lived on the land and were uneducated. They despised the "new people", those from the cities contaminated by education and the "western" or American way of life. So in reality, people were still forced to accept their given situation because any attempt to challenge "Angkar" usually met with death. Definitions Communism: The political belief in a classless society - where all people are equal, private ownership has been abolished and the means of production and subsistence belong to the community. Maoism: Former Chinese leader, Mao Tse-Tung's view of communism. This was based on guerrilla warfare and the revolutionary potential of peasants. Egalitarianism: The belief in equality of all people - including political, social and economic equality. Collective: Individuals acting in co-operation. Angkar: Meaning "organisation", the name for the Khmer Rouge leadership.
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