Why Is Pol Pot A Dictator

Pol Pot once said, “Although a million lives have been wasted, our party does not feel sorry.” Pol Pot was the ruthless dictator of Cambodia during the 1970s and was single handedly responsible for millions of deaths and suffering. Pol Pot was considered a dictator because he was the leader of three consecutive parties and governments in Cambodia, and in all of them, he made his own people suffer while trying to make radical changes. His main goals were to completely reshape his country Cambodia, into a communist society based on peasants and agriculture. He wanted to create a new type of Cambodia where the population was made up of entirely workers and peasants, and all evidence of the wealthy classes was removed. Pol Pot wanted an equal society

He was able to gain popular support by promising the lower classes, the largest portion of the population, more power and equality, which are the main characteristics of communism. Pol Pot’s goal was to create a new type of Cambodian man immune from foreign influence (Rainsy). Class was to be based on social and ideological grounds where the former lowest classes of society; the peasants, farmers and workers, made up the entire population. He basically wanted to dismantle all wealthy classes in order to give power to the peasants, even though he would eventually be considered a dictator and control almost all aspects of Cambodian government. By doing this he would create a collectivist agrarian utopia, or a communist society based on agriculture (Tucker). He was able to use the ideas of this ideal society to gain political power and support from the oppressed masses under the former government. He promised the majority of his population what they deserved as human beings, but no one knew how he would carry out this destruction of the wealthy classes. He sought genocidal tactics to force all people into agriculture and to transform his country into the society that he dreamed of (Thayer). With these ideas, Pol Pot was able to receive public support, but he did not yet have the power necessary to enact his

Pol Pot believed that the wealthy had too strong of an influence in Cambodia and his goal was to introduce communist ideals equalling or eradicating the class system. This would have enabled the lower classes to gain power and create a new type of cambodian man (Rainsy). He wanted to base his society of social and ideological grounds and give power to the workers and farmers. With these ideals, Pol Pot believed that the only way for Cambodia to survive was to create a collectivist agricultural utopia, and this was the only way to change the past oppressive government (Tucker). Pol Pot’s ideas themselves were not bad, but the way that he carried them out was the problem. Like in many of the other newly communist republics, the problem is not completely the ideas, it is the person that carries them out. They end up using some incredibly inhumane route to construct their communist society and a large number of people die. There were many ways that Pol Pot could have changed Cambodia into an agricultural society other than Year Zero, but those were the things that show Pol Pot was a true ruthless