In the Shadows of Utopia: The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Nightmare

Time Period Covered: 1971 – 1973
How do you get out of a war without losing it?
What did Nixon’s opening to China have to do with Vietnam?
And how much of “peace” in 1972 was about diplomacy, and how much was about the election?
In this episode, Lachlan examines the pivotal year of 1972. North Vietnam launches the Spring Offensive, the largest conventional campaign of the war, while American air power returns on a massive scale. At the same time, Nixon travels to Beijing and Moscow, reshaping the Cold War balance and strengthening his position at home.
Behind the scenes, Henry Kissinger conducts secret negotiations in Paris. The Oval Office tapes reveal a colder logic: South Vietnam may not survive indefinitely, but if it lasts long enough, the United States can leave on its own terms. Cambodia, meanwhile, remains entangled in bombing, secrecy, and executive overreach, part of the same governing culture that produces Watergate.
By January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords are signed. American prisoners are coming home. Nixon has won a landslide re-election on promises of peace.
But the settlement leaves North Vietnamese troops in the South, freezes the battlefield in place, and offers no real solution for Cambodia.
The war, in other words, is ending. Just not for everyone.
Sources:
Short Mao: The Man Who Built China
Hastings Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy
Miller The Vietnam War: A Documentary Reader
Various Recordings: Nixon Whitehouse 1971-2
Shawcross Sideshow

In this extended interview, I’m joined by historian Matt Galway, author of Global Maoism, to unpack the intellectual, ideological, and historical foundations of Maoism and Cambodian communism.
We begin with Galway’s academic background and how the Khmer Rouge became a central focus of his research, before moving into core Marxist concepts such as dialectics, contradiction, and why communists historically understood Marxism as a science rather than a belief system.
From there, we turn to the Cambodian students in Paris, particularly Hou Yuon, examining the seriousness of their Marxist education, their intellectual commitments, and the long-term consequences of their ideological formation. We explore the “Three Ghosts,” the growing divide between intellectuals and the Khmer Rouge leadership, and how revolutionary paranoia hardened into purges.
The conversation then widens to Maoism itself: the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Maoism’s distinctive features compared to orthodox Marxism-Leninism, and how Maoism evolved into a flexible, exportable revolutionary model. We conclude by discussing communism as a quasi-religious system, touching on Pol Pot, Buddhism, and how revolutionary ideology functioned in Democratic Kampuchea.

Check out my visit to M13 at YouTube or https://www.patreon.com/

Time Period Covered: 1971 - 1972

Why would someone join the Khmer Rouge?

How would people view the parts of the country that were now being run by the communists?

What was M13 and why is it so important?

In this episode, Lachlan returns to discuss one of the most invaluable insights into the proto-type regime of Democratic Kampuchea and the countryside control of the Khmer Rouge. Ith Sarin's Regrets for the Khmer Soul, a detailed account of life under the communists for nine months which wasn't as damning as some might think.

This is in sharp contrast to another memoir of life under the regime recalled from this very same time period, the account of Francois Bizot's The Gate, in which he explains his time imprisoned at M13, the jungle-based prototype of Tuol Sleng.

Woven through these two sides of the story is the evolution of the Khmer Rouge into a group taking over the functions of running a state, and employing the blueprint of revolution they had decided upon on the Cambodian population they controlled -- which numbered in the millions.

Sources:

David Chandler The Tragedy of Cambodian History
Philip Short Pol Pot
Ith Sarin Regrets for the Khmer Soul (available at https://www.mekongriverpress.com/)
Francois Bizot The Gate
ECCC Testimony Kang Gek Iev (Duch)
Henri Locard Jungle Heart of the Khmer Rouge
Norodom Sihanouk My War with the CIA
Ben Kiernan How Pol Pot Came to Power
Sophal Ear The Khmer Rouge Cannon (Phd Thesis)
Ian Harris Buddhism Under Pol Pot
Alex Hinton Why Did They Kill?

This episode is a follow-up to the two-hour discussion I had with historian Henri Locard. The video of that full conversation is available for free on Patreon right here (or just go to https://www.patreon.com/shadowsofutopia) - no sign up required.

Henri Locard is a prominent scholar of the Khmer Rouge, he testified as an expert witness at the ECCC, and has written extensively on the subject. Most notably Pol Pot's Little Red Book, a collection of the slogans used by the Khmer Rouge, and most recently, Jungle Heart of the Khmer Rouge, a biography of Phi Phuon, Pol Pot's Jarai bodyguard. He also has an upcoming book about the extent of the Khmer Rouge prison system that he is looking to find a publisher for.

Unlike last time, in our 'discussion', the focus is tighter. I ask Henri four main questions, particularly the ones that we hadn't got to last time, and while he still drifts a little in his answers (as he does), this is a more concentrated exchange that digs deep into how he sees Cambodia’s past and present.

We talk about the meaning of the “Super Great Leap Forward,” the myths of the so-called “hydraulic city” and how they shaped Khmer Rouge policy, the true extent of the regime’s prison system (which Henri argues was more than three times what the ECCC has documented), and finally, what he believes is the single best book written about the Khmer Rouge.

Henri has a habit of challenging accepted ideas about Cambodian history, but not in the revisionist way of minimizing the regime’s crimes. He re-examines long-held assumptions, particularly about just how widespread the brutality of the Khmer Rouge was. What makes his perspective powerful is his deep, lived connection to the country, and his long study of how the Khmer Rouge prison network worked. 

And as you’ll hear, the conversation begins in one place, loops back around, and then veers in an unexpected direction by the end.

You've seen The Killing Fields, you probably know that Haing Ngor, who played Dith Pran in the film won an oscar. You might also know that he was murdered in Los Angeles. But the version of that story you've known for years... isn't true.

Patricia Nunan, or MP, is a veteran journalist who has worked for a variety of well regarded institutions. She is now tackling the murder of Haing Ngo - completely challenging the narrative that I had assumed was completely sorted since the late 90's.

I urge you to subsribe to Who Killed Haing Ngor - 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1tKU5RgGYYrw71iGj7Q9s4

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/who-killed-haing-ngor/id1674928262

Website: https://www.whokilledhaingngor.com/

Instagram: who_killed_haing_ngor