ictly communist country.By 1974, the Khmer Rouge operated as a formal army and millions of refugees fled to escape rural fighting between the Khmer Rouge and the Khmer Republic forces, while farming and most economic activities remained at a standstill. On New Year’s Day, 1975 the Khmer Rouge launched a full attack and after three months of heavy fighting, Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, surrendered. The Khmer Republic was dissolved and the nation was renamed Democratic Kampuchea with Pol Pot as its leader. He took the title of prime minister but ruled as a dictator. All Khmer Rouge soldiers swore to obey his every order, and all who disobeyed the government were put to death. Military and government officials who supported the Khmer Republic were immediately killed.Pol Pot planned to turn Cambodia into a self-sufficient agricultural nation modeled after the old Khmer Empire, in which the peasants worked to produce wealth for the government.All city residents were forced to march into the countryside to work on government farms; leaving factories, schools, and hospitals abandoned. The country was transformed into an immense work camp. Uneducated peasants were called “Old People” and made up most of the DK government, while educated Cambodians who were called “New People” were executed or posed as ignorant farmers in order to survive. People under the DK lived in fear of the angkar (the system). The extreme communalism went as far as to abolish most personal possessions, enforce communal eating, and require that everyone wear black peasant clothing. Public executions were carried out daily, prisons and torture centers were filled, and families were separated on farms. The government eliminated schools, postal services, and forbade the use of money, trade, and modern medicine. The actions of the Democratic Kampuchea were secretive. During the war, peasants who joined the Khmer Rouge army rarely knew any...
