Atlas / Organisations / Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
Democratic Kampuchea · 1975–1979 · Cambodia · Communist · Held state power · coding confidence medium
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
Total agrarian communism achieved instantly by emptying cities and abolishing money, markets, schools and family life.
Economic model
Money and private property abolished outright; forced agricultural labour; mass starvation.
Organisation of powers
An anonymous party centre, extermination of educated and minority populations, no institutions whatsoever.
Reading note
Occupies the extreme of five of six axes simultaneously — the outer boundary of the measurable space.
Check a claim about Khmer Rouge. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored −10
Coded at the floor. Money and markets were abolished in fact, not only in doctrine.
- Documented act or statuteCurrency was abolished and the central bank destroyed in 1975.
- Documented act or statuteCities were emptied within days of the takeover and the population placed in agricultural labour.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +03
Coded mildly positive: marriage assigned by the party and religion abolished, within a rigid new hierarchy.
- Documented act or statuteMarriages were arranged in mass ceremonies by cadres; Buddhism was abolished and monks defrocked.
AU · Organisation of power · scored +10
At the ceiling: an anonymous party centre with no institutions of any kind.
- Documented act or statuteThe party's existence was not publicly acknowledged until 1977, two years into its rule.
SC · Scale of decision · scored +10
At the ceiling: total central control executed through zone administrations.
- Documented act or statuteThe country was divided into zones whose leaderships were themselves purged by the centre.
ID · Rule of membership · scored +09
Coded +9: ethnic and class categories determined survival.
- ScholarshipCham Muslim, Vietnamese and Chinese minorities were killed at far higher rates than the general population.
CH · Method and tempo · scored +10
At the ceiling: total transformation attempted in under four years.
- Documented act or statuteYear Zero was declared and the calendar, currency, cities and schooling abolished within weeks of taking power.
Where it came from, and what came after
- takes its doctrine fromMaoism
Its leadership was trained in Paris and in Beijing and applied an accelerated version of the commune model.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
Countries
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.