Cambodia’s Political Economy of Violence: Space, Time, and Genocide Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79

Abstract

Between 1975 and 1979, approximately two million Cambodians died from exposure, disease, starvation, and execution under the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), also known as the Khmer Rouge. The standard narrative interprets these murders as the brutal acts of a cadre of radical communist ideologues, bent on establishing a pure, despotic, and autarkic state. Using a Marxist approach to political economy, this paper challenges the standard narrative, finding that these killings were a consequence of the CPK’s attempt to establish a system of state capitalism that exploited workers through the production of increasing surpluses. This analysis reveals the particular and deliberate structural arrangements that made the deaths of millions a justifiable consequence. In so doing, we seek to highlight the broader benefits of a Marxist analysis of political economy in the study of genocide; notably its emphasis on the materiality of violence and its ability to expose the forms of social organization that produce mass violence.