Editing Khmer Rouge (section)

=== Autarky ===
[[File:Bullet holes at angkor wat.jpg|thumb|Khmer Rouge bullet holes left at [[Angkor Wat]] temple]]
The Khmer Rouge's economic policy, which was largely based on the plans of [[Khieu Samphan]], focused on the achievement of national self-reliance through an initial phase of [[Collective farming|agricultural collectivism]]. This would then be used as a route to achieve rapid social transformation and industrial and technological development without assistance from foreign powers, a process which the party characterised as a "Super Great Leap Forward".<ref name="Tyner 2012 p116">Tyner, James (2012) ''Genocide and the Geographical Imagination'', Rowman and Littlefield, p. 116.</ref>

The party's General Secretary Pol Pot strongly influenced the propagation of the policy of [[autarky]]. He was reportedly impressed with the self-sufficient manner in which the mountain tribes of Cambodia lived, which the party believed was a form of [[primitive communism]]. Khmer Rouge theory developed the concept that the nation should take "agriculture as the basic factor and use the fruits of agriculture to build industry".<ref name="Jackson 1992" />{{rp|110}} In 1975, Khmer Rouge representatives to China said that Pol Pot's belief was that the collectivisation of agriculture was capable of "[creating] a complete communist society without wasting time on the intermediate steps".<ref name="Fletcher 2009">{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1879785,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221002409/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1879785,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=21 February 2009|title=The Khmer Rouge|last=Fletcher|first=Dan|magazine=Time|date=17 February 2009|access-date=30 July 2019}}</ref> Society was accordingly classified into peasant "base people" ({{lang|km|ប្រជាជនមូលដ្ឋាន}} {{transliteration|km|prâchéachôn mulôdthan}}), who would be the bulwark of the transformation; and urban "new people" ({{lang|km|ប្រជាជនថ្មី}} {{transliteration|km|prâchéachôn thmei}}), who were to be reeducated or liquidated. The focus of the Khmer Rouge leadership on the peasantry as the base of the revolution was according to [[Michael Vickery]] a product of their status as "[[Petite bourgeoisie|petty-bourgeois]] radicals who had been overcome by peasantist [[romanticism]]".<ref name="Vickery 1999">{{cite book|last=Vickery|first=Michael|title=Cambodia 1975–82 2nd edition|publisher=Silkworm Books|year=1999|isbn=978-9747100815}}</ref>{{rp|306}} The opposition of the peasantry and the urban population in Khmer Rouge ideology was heightened by the structure of the Cambodian [[Rural economics|rural economy]], where small farmers and peasants had historically suffered from indebtedness to urban money-lenders rather than suffering from indebtedness to landlords.<ref name="Vickery 1999" />{{rp|284}} The policy of evacuating major towns, as well as providing a reserve of easily exploitable agricultural labour, was likely viewed positively by the Khmer Rouge's peasant supporters as removing the source of their debts.<ref name="Vickery 1999" />{{rp|284}}