Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk coined the term Khmer Rouge in the 1960s to describe his country's then heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after his 1970 overthrow. More precisely, he called them Khmers rouges in French, khmaer krahom in Khmer, both meaning "Khmer Reds." In 1975, the Khmer Rouge leadership, secretly headed by Pol Pot, took power, pushed the Prince aside, and established the Democratic Kampuchea regime (DK).

Origins

Cambodian communism first emerged in 1930 as part of a multinational anti-French independence movement, the Indochina Communist Party (ICP), which extended throughout what was then French Indochina. In 1951, the Vietnamese communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, separated the ICP into national branches. In Cambodia, the ICP set up the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP). Its members,...