ABSTRACT
Projecting the ideals of reason and democracy to their logical extremes, Karl Marx predicted that one day the masses of humanity would cease meekly to carry out the self-interested dictates of the ruling few, and would seize the levers of economic power and political authority for themselves. Political competition for economic surplus would fade, and along with it the vehicle of that struggle, the state, would "wither" and cease to exist. The political theory must be "creatively extended" to fit the actual circumstances with which the revolutionaries find themselves confronted. In various systems of thought, particularly in most schools of Marxist political philosophy, ideology is seen explicitly as a tool for the waging of political struggle. The active political life-cycle of the Khmer Rouge communist movement can be described as a five-phase progression beginning at gestation and ending with death or at least eclipse.
