Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to the state of Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The term was originally coined in the 1960s by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the then-head of state, to describe the country’s diverse and often fragmented communist-led dissidents. The regime’s rule was marked by one of the most extreme and violent societal restructurings of the 20th century. In their pursuit of a radical agrarian utopia, the Khmer Rouge leadership evacuated urban centers, abolished currency, private property, and religion, and forced the entire population into rural labor communes. This brutal social experiment resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people, approximately a quarter of Cambodia’s population at the time, through a combination of forced labor, malnutrition, disease, and mass executions. The period under their control is now widely recognized a...