Mass Violence of Communism: Pol Pot’s Cambodia and Mao’s China
Pol Pot’s Cambodia and Mao’s China are known for many things, such as communism, the failure of the economy, and starvation. However, the two countries are most famous for the mass violence that was caused by the party during what could only describe as a desperate attempt to urbanize the period. While the leaders and ideas of the two regimes were quite different, their goals and justification were similar not if same. The goal of modernizing and urbanizing their once rural country with Communism is nothing new. The Soviet Union ones try to modernize its country with The Five-Year Plan, which was a role model for China. The Soviet Union failed in its plan to modernize its country, and so did China and Cambodia. During these processes, violence was caused by China and Cambodia, its justification being that they were doing it hopefully to modernize their country faster and the victims of all the mass violence were going against the Communist ideals and were landowners. Overall, both Cambodia and China achieve nothing, killing Millions, the government perpetrating and manipulating the public to kill, committing what can be only be described as crimes against humanity and mass violence, and left the conclusion that if a Communist Regime takes over a country, great violence and murder inevitable.
Mao’s China, after a bloody conflict with the Nationalists, the Japanese, and then the Nationalists again, the Communist party had finally established itself as the main power of mainland China. As the war tore China apart, the Communist Party quickly try to modernize its country. So, Mao created a new movement called the Great Leap Forward, a copy exactly the same as the 5-year plan by Stalin. Similarly, the Great Leap Forward not only caused starvation and a nice death toll. However, during the Great Leap Forward and after it, there was a string of mass violence in the country. Why all the violence could have been caused due to the failure of the plan, is most likely due to support from the Communist Party and Mao himself. There are many reasons why the party committed mass violence and supported it, it is most likely due to the fear of the government that the public we’ll start another Revolution against the party and the regime. The area where mass violence took a heavy toll is the Cultural Revolution. The movement, first supported and made by Mao, was to make a new and more socialistic and communistic China. Most of the groups made up by the cultural revolution were young adults or teens. They would come in as violence to their teachers, their parents, old political leaders, and more. However, factions forming inside the cultural revolution caused something like a Civil War in China. It had gotten so bad that Mao himself had to stop the Cultural Revolution. While the Great Leap Forward and the cultural revolution were for the greater good of China, they had accomplished exactly nothing but more negative side effects for China. The government then would have Justified the mass violence as a sacrifice or that the victims were against the belief of the Communist Party, the fact Still Remains, that nothing was accomplished due to mass violence. The cost was devastating. Murdering over 15 million people in China. The perpetrators are hard to tell. The violence wasn’t committed by the government or army, but by civilians. However, the government did manipulate the public just starting the mass violence. And the other, according to the idea of normative conformity, follows the majority in the mass violence. So while the main perpetrators with blood on their hands were the civilians of China, the blame has to be on Mao and the Communist Party. Even though killing more than the Holocaust, domestic violence caused in communist China during Mao’s rule was treated as genocide as the most important factor in considering genocide is missing, the intent of killing or wiping out an entire race or faction. To describe the mass violence in China, will most likely be crimes against humanity, war crimes, or simply mass violence.
While the Cambodian mass violence did have fewer casualties than the Chinese, put into perspective, a baseball to all football field, the atrocities and the reason behind Cambodia's mass violence are heavily more gruesome than the Chinese. After long years of destabilization and warfare, finally, a new political entity was formed in Cambodia, Khmer Rouge. Its political affiliation was communism and its role model was China. Cambodia followed the idea of the Great Leap Forward of China, like dominoes (the Soviet Union to China and China to Cambodia). Unsurprisingly, just like its predecessors, USSR and China, Cambodia also failed. During the industrialization effort era of Cambodia, mass violence was committed against its people by the regime. While its first target was the past political and military leaders, soon became minorities and its Urban people. Minorities such as Muslims, Vietnamese, and Chinese. It’s a death toll of about 2 million. While being significantly smaller than the Chinese mass violence, the Cambodian one is specifically special. The Chinese mass violence was done by the public, while it was a government which means you play the public to do so. However, the Cambodian one was orchestrated by the government and was carried out by the military, not the people. Its justification is nothing new. To industrialize Cambodia and target the capitalist, rich landowners, and lazy workers. The situation in Cambodia was so terrible, that the Communists in Vietnam have to even needed the country to stop the violence. The numbers might have not been equal to those of the Soviet Union and China, however, the mass violence being more centralized, makes the Cambodian mass violence much more devastating. From the two million death and then venture rescue from the Vietnamese forces, the Cambodian violence achieved nothing, cost over two million deaths, caused by the government and was carried out by the government, and, while much more different from the Chinese mass violence but still, crimes against humanity, war crimes, or mass violence.
From accessing the cases of the mass violence has caused in Cambodia and China, it literally is said that when a communist regime takes over a country, mass violence is simply inevitable. Why are there more communist countries in the world, all of them had mass violence in their history? For example, other communist countries could be the USSR, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and more. If you assess the other communist countries, they all have a time of mass violence in their history. To have a deeper idea, when a regime takes over, specifically a communist one, there are oppositions, such as capitalists or landowners. To consolidate its power, the regime has to first deal with the opposition. The easiest way to deal with the opposition is to kill. Then you have another problem, the people are starving and are still rural. The regime tries to modernize the country, however, with the idea of Communism, it simply fails. The workers are tired, so they stop working. So the regime has to enforce the workforce to work. Then the workforce is not at the regime for not providing them with proper care. From there, the simplest way to handle this is mass violence. Cambodian government took the opposition and the minorities away, while China was a little bit different as it manipulated its public to do so for them. With proof and idea, it is fact that when a communist regime takes over, mass violence is inevitable.
