Pol Pot Part 4: The Killing Fields
Real Dictators
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Cambodia: A Country of Gulags by Pol Pot
After the death of Chairman Mao in September 1976, Anka publicly acknowledges its own Marxist-Leninist ideology for the first time. A few months later, Pol Pot gives a landmark five-hour speech in which he formally presents himself as the head of the Communist Party and leader of the nation. The goal was to create people who would internalize and be socialized into these pure revolutionary ideals. At a certain point, even the most avowedly evil tyrant cannot keep butchering his own people. In December 1978, Elizabeth Becker becomes one of only two Western journalists ever granted an interview with Pol Pot himself.
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