Abstract
The socialist revolution in Kampuchea (formerly known as Cambodia) is one of the most significant in world history. It issued from a society which was not highly developed in economic terms and from a region where major imperialist powers have fought for decades to force local peoples to support the costs of their international economic and security strategies. It is because Kampuchea is a small and backward country composed mostly of peasants that its revolution must be viewed as an important lesson especially in other small states or backwater regions of the world.1 Moreover, the victory of the Kampuchean revolutionaries took place in spite of opposition from and without much support from other socialist states. That the revolutionaries now radically reject, in favour of an independent socialism, association with any capitalist or socialist powers who would dominate them is proof of the impossibility of obtaining international socialist unity in the manner envisaged by Karl Marx. For societies lacking a substantial working class, the ideals and requirements of proletarian revolution and internationalism are at their best unobtainable; at their worst, they promote social imperialism or enduring inequalities within the socialist movement. The history of the Kampuchean revolution and the experiences of the Communist Party of Kampuchea bear witness to these realities and suggest an alternative Marxist strategy.
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© 1981 Bogdan Szajkowski
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Summers, L.J. (1981). Democratic Kampuchea. In: Szajkowski, B. (eds) Marxist Governments. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16566-7_7
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