ABSTRACT
Throughout most rural areas of Cambodia in the late 1950s, preconditions for revolutionary action were difficult to discern.1 Sihanouk’s crusade for independence had obviated, in the minds of many Khmer, the need for revolution. Forrest Colburn notes that often, many “ordinary” or rank-and-file members of revolutions fight not for something, but rather against something.2 In Cambodia, many Khmer were not fighting for a particular ideology, rather, their revolution was anti-colonial, and hence against colonial domination. Most were decidedly not fighting for communism. Consequently, as David Chandler explains, most Cambodians “were reluctant to become involved in rebellious politics after Cambodia’s independence had been won.”3 Moreover, the individualism, conservatism, Buddhist ethics, and the fact that nearly all of the Cambodian peasantry actually owned their land made them unlikely candidates for Communist recruitment.4
