CAMBODIA the
The proposal to recognize the GRUNK as the
Cambodian government and expel the Lon
Noi delegation is soon to be discussed in the
United Nations. Britain, Canada, Japan,
Indonesia, and seventeen other countries have put forward a resolution opposing this and calling instead for negotiations between Lon
Nol and the GRUNK. By taking up this proposal - formulated by Lon Nol last July and rejected immediately by the FUNK and the
GRUNK - they aim to maintain the status quo and halt the growing isolation of the
Phnom Penh puppet regime on the interotional arena.
At a time when the imperialist powers are once again trying to postpone the question, it is important to reaffirm the necessity for a solidarity struggle for the recognition of the GRUNK of Cambodia and the Provisional
Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, a struggle in which the Fourth International has always participated. - INPRECOR
November 1974. For the second time, the problem of Cambodia's representation is going to be discussed at the United Nations. The debate is being prepared at a time when a broad offensive by the FUNK has yet to come about, although important fighting is going on, especially around the capital. The past year did not see the final collapse of the puppet regime, which had been expected by many after the cessation of American bombing on August 15, 1973.
Superficially, the situation seems frozen.
Nevertheless, the Cambodian resistance, the last to take its place amid the mass rising of the Indo-
20
FU K sains ground by PIERRE ROUSSET chinese populations in the second Indochinese war, had registered astonishingly rapid and considerable success during the previous four years. First of all, there was the immediate failure of Lon Nol's coup. In spite of the unanimous vote in the Cambodian parliament to remove Sihanouk, and in spite of the quick support the new "republican" regime garnered among numerous circles in the capital (particularly among intellectuals and students), the peasantry rallied broadly to the side of the FUNK after Sihanouk launched his appeal to struggle. Even though the guerrilla units had been very small until that time, in 1970 the FUNK emerged straightaway as a mass movement with a national implantation. In an article in the November 1974 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique Khieu Samphan, vice prime minister of defense of the GRUNK, recalled the main stages of the war that has unfolded since then: *The abandonment of the "Vietnamization" of the ground war, followed by its "Americanization." The battle of Krek in January 1972 marked the end of the direct and deep intervention of the Saigon army* The "Khmerization" of the war ended no more happily. After the defeat of the "Chenia 2" operation, launched by Phnom Penh in December 1971, Lon Nol gave up trying to organize any "counteroffensive," no matter how modest, and definifively lost the initiative. *Given these successive defeats and the general development of the situation in Indochina, Washington tried to bludgeon the FUNK into submission between February and August 1973 through an enormous air assault. The entire U.S. air force in Indochina was thrown into this battle. But the resistance was not broken. On the contrary, it continued to register success, and on August 15, 1973, the Amer-
ican government was compelled to bring the bombing to an end. The dry season, 1973-74 There was no very apparent or spectacular success during the 1973-74 dry season. The Lon Nol regime managed to survive. But that did not prevent Phnom Penh's positions from suffering a continued and important deterioration. On the military level, the two dominant features of this dry season were the virtually complete isolation of the city of Phnom Penh and the other various puppet positions on the one hand and the severe losses, devastating all down the line, suffered by the Lon Nol army. Every year in May the FUNK publishes a report on the military situation in Cambodia. According to the May 1973 report, the Cambodian Peoples Armed Liberation Forces (PALF) already controlled about 80 percent of the country's territory. But Phnom Penh preserved Its road links to the port of Sihanoukville (Kompong Som) and to the provincial capitals of Kompong Chang and Kampong Cham. Highway 5, between the capital and the western city of Battambang, was occasionally open along its entire length. By May 1974 these roads had been cut completely, and apparently definitively. Today, the same is true of the Tonle Sap River, which flows along the same route as Highway 5. Phnom Penh is supplied only by air and by the Mekong River, which links if to Saigon. (Losses suffered by river convoys seem to be rather heavy.) Finally, the province of Battambang, which borders on Thailand and was the only relatively "quiet" province of the country, has seen guerrilla activity grow to a considerable extent. The enclaves held by Lon Nol have progressively clustered closer and closer around Phnom Penh itself. Moreover, the losses suffered by the puppet army have been very heavy. The Peoples Armed Liberation Forces have successively opened "fronts" at the most distant points of the country, thus forcing the Phnom Penh command to rush its elite units hither and yon. These units have been largely decimated, during the first battle of Oudong in March 1974 for example. It is probable that the FUNK has sometimes suffered significant losses as well, during the fighting around the Pochentong airport in January and February 1974, for example. But overall the balance of men and materiel in the Field (including 105mm cannon) seems clearly favorable to the FUNK. Moreover, the puppet army is now experiencing a deep crisis of recruitment and there are many more desertions than previously. But perhaps the most important feature of the past dry season was the deepening of the urban crisis in the cities under Lon Nol's control. Work stoppages (although, it is true, very small ones), unemployment, inflation, misery among the refugees, shortages of basic necessities, the black market, money hoarded by the rich to be converted into foreign currency and sent abroad - these are the trends. Prices have increased twentyfold since 1970 and the buying power of wage earners has declined 90 percent! A family of five in Phnom Penh needs 220 pounds of rice a month. The average wage earner makes only 15, 000-25,000 riels a month. Supposedly, he is entitled to 100 pounds of rice a month at the controlled price of 2, 500 riels. But the real price is 10,000 riels, and it costs about 130 riels a pound to buy the supplementary rice needed, that is, about 15, 000 riels. (The figures come from the weekly Afrique-Asie, No. 67.) In face of this sort of misery, the Cambodian bourgeoisie and generals are enriching themselves through smuggling, control of air transport, and so on. As for the riel, it has been sharply devalued - from 400 riels to 1,200 riels per US dollar. In Phnom Penh, people strip the bark from trees for fuel. The social crisis is stimulating the movement of urban struggle. Lon Nol rapidly lost the confidence he had earlier commanded among the sfudents and intellectuals of the capital. They had hoped for "democracy" and a "republic"; instead they got war and more police . . . and the American intervention. Consequently, the student movement has played the role of transmission belt in the development of urban opposition, in spite of the repression it has suffered. April 27, 1972 (at the law school), March 27, 1973 (at the teachers colleges), and May 26 and June 4, 1974 (at the Yukanthor high school) were the most important dates in the struggle of the student youth in Phnom Penh. In Phnom Penh, unlike in Saigon, the social movements express themselves more directly, while the political or politico-religious opposition remains more diffuse. Along with the student struggles, workers strikes have occurred (the Ministry of Labor was recently partially occupied by workers). There has been motion among all categories (prolonged and successive strikes among professors; demonstrations of war widows, veterans, and invalids in front of the U.S. Embossy demanding payments and pension increases, etc.). The gravity of the economic and social crisis has led the opposition to be willing to confront a very tough repression if need be. If the urban political opposition differs from that of Saigon, it is because conditions in Cambodia (economic backwardness, the French policy of making it a buffer state, the weight of Sihanoukist Bonapartism, etc.) prevented the development of a social base for the formation of heterogeneous currents like the South Vietnamese politico-religious currents. The economic and social crisis has plunged the Lon
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CAMBODIA Nol regime into a continuous political crisis marked by governmental shifts, defection of functionaries to the FUNK, loss of authority, and tendencies toward feudalization of the army. It is a crisis that John Gunter Dean, the all-powerful American ambassador to Phnom Penh, was unable to conjure awayFinally, the American-puppet position has deteriorated on the international plane. A year and a half ago, the Soviet delegation to UNESCO was still voting for seating the Lon Nol delegation instead of that of the GRUNK. Now the Soviet regime is supporting the GRUNK delegates, even if only superficially. The GRUNK was accepted among the Third World at the conferences of Lusaka (September 1970) and Georgetown (August 1972), and at the Algiers conference of the so-called nonaligned countries in August 1973, which received the GRUNK triumphally. At the UN last year, Washington reaped the results of a year of such decisions when the GRUNK was recognized by a vote of 53-50. (Today, the GRUNK is recognized by 61 governments, three of which are not in the UN, and by the Palestine Liberation Organization.) Finally, the overthrow of the Thai military dictatorship in October 1973 had immediate repercussions in Laos and Cambodia, even though the American-Thai axis was not broken. Lon Nal's proposals for negotiations reflect the deterioration of his position. During 1970 and 1971' he asserted his will to defeat "the Vietnamese invasion. " In 1972 he had to recognize the existence of Khmers "on the other side. " On July ó, 1972, for the first time, he proposed negotiations, but only on the condition of a prior "Vietcong and North Vietnamese withdrawal. " On July 9, 1974, that condition was dropped. A new resistance Thus, the relationship of forces during the past year has been neither reversed nor stabilized, despite the "hesitation waltz" appearance of the fighting. Nevertheless, this relationship of forces has not 22 developed with the rapidity that could have been predicted when the American bombing was halted in August 1973. There are a few basic reasons for this. There is one common cause for the (relative) slowness of the revolutionary process in Cambodia and South Vietnam: The commitment of American imperialism. Washington gives just under 52 million a day to Lon Nol. Between 3, 500 and 4,000 U.S. advisers are training the puppet army, according to the FUNK. The American air force based in Thailand has not ceased to supply isolated puppet garrisons (the figure of 700 sorties a month has been cited by U.S. Secretary of Defense Schlesinger), and the GRUNK has denounced bombings by American F-111 planes. The pumped-in American aid is the only thing that is really keeping the puppet regime alive. The military factor certainly has real weight. Up to now, the Peoples Armed Liberation Forces have lacked antiaircraft defenses, and the Lon Nol air force has been able to strike at will wherever PALF troops are concentrated. And Phnom Penh itself is not easily attacked, for the best puppet troops are concentrated there and a broad defense system has been set up. On the other hand, the FUNK has never seriously tried to close the vital Phnom Penh supply line represented by the Mekong River. It seems, however, that the FUNK does have the military resources to do this, at least during the dry season. The unecsiness of the FUNK leaders about a possible massive American intervention if they exert too much pressure is certainly a factor in holding them back. But the situation of the Nixon govemment had vastly narrowed Washington's maneuvering room, tending to make a massive U.S. intervention suicidal. The military factors exist, but to be properly understood they must be placed in a more general context. The American commitment is decisive, but it plays a different role in Cambodia than it does in South Vietnam. In South Vietnam, the problem is created
by factors related to the U.S. escalation - political, economic, and social, as well as military -which through "pacification, " "Vietnamization, " and "forced urbanization" created a parasitic and artificial but no less real and weighty social reality. There has been nothing of the sort in Cambodia. The rapid formation of the FUNK after the 1970 coup prevented a Vietnamese-style operation from being carried out. What is decisive in Cambodia is the extreme newness of the resistance. In Vietnam there has been a virtually uninterrupted thirty-five-year struggle. In Cambodia there was a weak armed struggle between 1945 and 1953, and there were some small guerrilla centers beginning in 1963 and especially after 1967. As an armed mass movement, the Cambodian resistance is only four years old. Cambodia was the last component to come into the Indochinese revolutionary front, because the national and social revolutionary dynamic there was less powerful than in Vietnam. The agrarian crisis played a key role in the development of the Vietnamese resistance. It was infinitely less strong in Cambodia (and in Laos). "Land hunger" did not exist. The landlord system remained based on small-scale property (with the king theoretically holding right of tenure; the large landholdings (apart from plantations) were created only recently and on a localized basis. Exploitation of the peasantry was effected primarily through usury and trade, and not through tenant farming, sharecropping, or proletarianization. Even on the plantations the agricultural proletariat was Vietnamese (and played an important role in the formation of the "Khmer Issarah" front at the end of the second world war). The strategic situation of Cambodia also came into play - In Cambodia, unlike Vietnam, French imperialism did not try to create a colony of exploitation and settlement. Cambodia was instead intended to be a sort of buffer zone between French and British possessions. Unlike Laos (in 1953 and during the air war), Cambodia did not become a decisive field of battle in the Indochinese war until after 1970. That is what permitted the French in 1953 to easily create an "independent" and "neutralist" state, that of Sihanouk. That is what retarded the development of the communist movement in Cambodia and allowed for the formation of a Bonapartist regime, while in Vietnam and Laos the acuteness of the conflict barred such a development. And this also furnishes the context for a better understanding of the crisis of 1970. Sihanouk's Bonapartist regime was in crisis under the weight of its internal contradictions: The capitalist forces in Cambodia wanted to put an end to the nationalizations and to the development of the state sectors; at the same time, peasant revolts had begun to break out in 1967. But the effects of the regional context were decisive. Sihanouk fell at the moment he did because imperialism could no longer tolerate the fact that the "western front" of the Indochina war was not carrying its full share of the war effort. Imperialism had to "harden up" the Vietnam-Cambodia border at any cost. Sihanouk, the Bonapartist, could not openly go over to the American side. So he had to fall. That is, a stronger role was played by external pressure than by the development of social struggles within Cambodia itself during 1970. Sihanouk himself, while he was isolated in the cities, had not lost his prestige in the countryside. Hence the massive response of the peasantry to his appeal of March 23, 1970, and hence the weight of the Sihanoukist component of the resistance at the beginning. Thus, at the outset, the FUNK had a rather different composition from the Vietminh and the NLF. If was more heterogeneous; it did not rest on the same historical bases, on the same traditions of nafional and social struggle, or on the same strength of the CP. It is this lag that has to be made up. But, the role of the militant base and infrastructure of the Cambodian communists before the 1970 coup must not be underestimated. It was only their earlier activity - and the fact that they had foreseen the coup - that allowed for the organization of the FUNK and the launching of the struggle on a grand scale within a relatively brief period. The Cambodian communist movement, whose initial nucleus came from the Indochinese Communist party, regrouped around the Pracheachon at the end of the second world war; it was the least well-known Communist movement of Indochina. It is dangerous to make too rigid analogies. Nevertheless, the tendencies that have developed since the 1970 coup are clear: The "Khmer Rouge" nucleus, which had reactivated its intervention in 1963 and especially in 1967, now occupies a dominant place in the FUNK and the GRUNK. Sihanouk himself shed light on this point when he told Jean Lacouture that the fusion of the various components of the FUNK was surely "going in a revolutionary direction. At the outset, "he said, "the Sihanoukist element was probably preponderant, or at least was the most numerous. But without Sihanouk being present on the field of battle, Sihanoukism certainly lacked the vigor of the left currents. These currents command trained cadres, valiant leaders struggling shoulder to shoulder with the fighters. The synthesis could only be made in this direction. I cannoi complain about it. " (L'Indochine vue de Pékin, Editions du Sevil, p. 124.) In his article in November's Le Monde Diplomatique, Khieu Samphan described a "national union"
23
CAMBODIA without internal conflict or contradiction. He even shamelessly transcended the limits usually imposed on the front by the Stalinist theory of the "bloc of four classes. " The "national bourgeoisie, " Samphan claimed, was not the only force to rally to the FUNK, nor was Sihanouk, the former king. In oddition, he said, besides workers, there were some feudalists and some landed proprietors and even some comprador capitalists (a significant nuance was nevertheless maintained, for the FUNK is supposed to include the national bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie). He was thus preparing for the UN debate. But the reality seems rather less ecumenical. The Cambodian bourgeoisie today is shipping its capital out of the country. About a year ago, tensions appeared between Sihanouk and the leaders of the FUNK inside Cambodia, former members of the Procheachon. This "crisis" was resolved by the dissolution of the "external" GRUNK in Peking and the installation of all the governmental organs in the liberated zones. The leadership of the struggle was taken over by those whò had launched the resistance in 1963 (such as leng Sary) and in 1967 (the three leftist deputies Khieu Samphan, Hou Youn, and Ho Nim, who are today respectively vice prime minister, minister of defense, and commander in chief of the PALF; minister of the interior and of communal reforms and cooperatives; and minister of information in the GRUNK). It is this leadership that is now coming to the fore in the international arena through the trips of Khieu Samohan. Once again, Sihanouk has not refrained from openly pointing out his problems. At the end of January 1973 he told the Nouvel Observateur: "Many times I have asked the leaders of the intemal resistance most energetically for permission to go to the liberated zones. They have refused... I know that while they shield themselves behind the legitimacy and continuity of the Khmer state, of which I am the incarnation, the Khmer Rouge leaders are mainly intent on carrying out the work of the proletarian revolution over all the territory of Cambodia before allowing me to return to the country as a powerless head of state. "Actually, if Sihanouk were to return to Cambodia too soon, a great majority of Khmers, including some who are presently Lon Nol supporters hostile to communism, would not fail to try to make use of him to restabilize a nonsocialist regime. I have told my Khmer Rouge associates that I would absolutely not be prepared to play that role, but it seems to me that while they trust my word of honor, they have some reason to fear certain mass movements that would be prejudicial to the consolidation of their peoples democracy." (Nouvel Observateur, No. 423.) 24
In the countryside, mobilization has been based on the elimination of usury, the generalization of the peasant tradition of "mutual aid, " and the experience of agricultural cooperatives, with the consequent increase of production. In the cities, the workers movement and the popular movements have taken on new dimensions. But four years is not an extremely long period. To a large extent, this can explain the gradual character of the offensives. It would be important to know how far the social process of the Cambodi an revolution has gone, and that appears impossible to find out todayBut if must be noted that while the orientation of the FUNK is clearly toward the combination of military offensives and urban insurrection, and while the strengthening of the social opposition movements in Phnom Penh is undeniable, there has not yet been a real uprising in the cities. The regional framework The need to consolidate the social base of the revolution has thus played a big role in the FUNK's choices of orientation. It will perhaps play a role in relation to the final offensives. But it is certainly not the only factor at work. The development of the solidarity of the Indochinese revolution also has weight, as it does in Laos and South Vietnam. Let us be clear. It is not a question of forgetting the specificity of each of the components of the Indochinese revolution. The distinct "personality" of the Cambodian revolution is especially apparent. The role played by Sihanoukism has no equivalent in the rest of indochina: The Cambodian communist movement has had its own history (let us recall that the guerrilla centers were reconstituted in 1963 and 1967 while Sihanouk still he Id power in Phnom Penh, and some of them were far from the Vietnamese border), and has established a network of international alliances different in important ways from that of the Vietnamese Communists (the break with the Soviet Union has been infinitely deeper and Chinese support has been more unilateral). But the Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese revolutions are integrated into the same Indochinese revolutionary process, whose motive force has historically been located in Vietnam. This combination of objective and subjective solidarity and of different situations and choices within the Indochinese revolutionary front is particularly clear today. The signing of the Paris accords on Vietnam has had profound repercussions in Laos (where analogous accords were signed shortly after) and in Cambodia (in that the August 1973 American bombing halt was also the product of the new regional situation), and in the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam (with the problems of reconstruction). A new phase was thus opened not only in the Vietnamese revolution, but in the Indochinese revolution as well. But the accords also stimulated regional developments that were very different from those that occurred during the American escalation and the military offensive of the revolutionary forces. The distinct orientation that has been adopted until now by the FUNK and the GRUNK is clear: Withdrawal could be negotiated with the Americans, but there could be no negotiations with the puppets of Phnom Penh. Sihanouk made this known immediately after Lon Nol's latest proposal (July 6), when he declared: "We still reject a Pax Americano that would impose on us either a division of our country or a 'government coalition' with traitars, Quislings, or Pierre Lavals, whom it is permissible to shoot but not to meet around a governmental table, or even a negotiation table. " (See the French CP daily L'Humanité, July 11, 1974.) Likewise, a year ago Thiounn Prasith, a GRUNK minister, drew the lessons of the world revolution in these terms: "The Cambodian people, who have learned much from the painful events in Indonesia in 1965 and from the more recent events in Chile, have already made their choice, which is irrevocable. The people will continue their resolute fight, always without compromise. " (L 'Humanité, December 5, 1973.) A choice of orientation is clearly affirmed here that differentiates the path of the Cambodian revolution from that of its neighbors. But solidarity, objective and many times reaffirmed, has perhaps led the leaders of the FUNK to accentuate the gradualist character of their policy. Could this be because they are conscious of the stakes involved in their final victory in Cambodia? The fall of Phnom Penh would accentuate the disequilibrium of the puppet regime in Saigon and would have deep repercussions in Thailand. Consequently, without having greater assurances, they do not want to push themseives to the forefront too far, thus risking a massive new intervention by U.S. imperialism, which might be sufficiently up against the wall to attempt a suicidal gesture. At least, this is one of the major reasons advanced by representatives of the FUNK abroad. This situation is obviously heavy with tension, both on the Indochinese scale and within the FUNK itself. Moreover, this tension could have been at the origin of the crisis in relations between Sihanouk and the internal resistance a year ago. In fact, Sihanouk clearly manifested an impatience to see the end of the struggle in Cambodia and regrefted not having any control over the policy drawn up by the FUNK.
FOR THE INDOCHINESE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION! The constant progressive shift of the relationship of forces in Cambodia in favor of the revolutionaries is taking place in combination with the apparent "slowness" of the processes in operation in the Indochinese revolution today. The factors underlying this combination are the importance of the commitment maintained by U.S. imperialism, the newness of the Cambodian resistance, and the weight of the regional situation. It would be difficult to assign the correct relative importance to each factor. But all these factors are little by little losing their impact. The crisis of the American intervention in Indochina, the joint crisis of the puppet regimes of Phnom Penh and Saigon, and the evolution of the international situation make the prospect of o major new direct American intervention in Cambodia ever less credible. If the GRUNK is awarded the Cambodian seat in the UN debate - not that this is decisive - Washington's difficulties will be increased. According to the FUNK, important progress has been made in the organization of the libcrated zones, while the movements of the population and the soldiers in the puppet zones are intensifying. The exhaustion of Lon Nol's elite military units is said to be extreme. And the entire Indochinese situation is moving toward a turn. When will that turn come? It is still too early to try to make a prediction. But it is hard to see how American imperialism could now reverse the wave in Cambodia. The most favorable conditions for victory of the Indochinese socialist revolution are now in the course of coming together. Although it has not developed into a great offensive, the fighting near Takao, Kompong Speu, Svay Rieng, Phnom Penh itself, and the Mekong has taken on a new dimension, while the political crisis of the Long Boret government is having repercussions and workers strikes are becoming harder. The 1974-75 dry season promises to see a new acceleration in the evolution of the relationship of forces, In Cambodia as in all of Indochina.Di
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WORKERS STRUCCLES
SWEDEN by GOTE KILDEN & TOM GUSTAFSSON January 15, 1970: Sixteen workers on strike for eighteen minutes at Volvo in Gothenburg. The next day 1,500 workers on strike for one hour. A few days later, it is all over: The workers have obtained a wage increase of 2 kronor per hour (approximately USSO.50) and full salaries for eighteen-year-olds and service workers; three times as many people are hired as relief workers on the conveyor belts. April 2, 1974: One thousand workers gather at a trade-union meeting at Volvo in Gothenburg to consider two alternative proposals: A class-struggle demand for an increase of 3 kronor an hour against a line of compromise presented by the union bureaucrats. After a big confrontation, the proposal of the bureaucrats carries; but only because they have rounded up all the old Social Democratic voters af the factory and turned the voting into a vote of confidence. During the more than four years that passed between these two events many of the conditions of the class struggle in Sweden had changed. The strike at Volvo in 1970 was a typical expression of the 1969-70 upturn in the working-class struggle. After a period of dissatisfaction among the rank and file, both the employers and the union bureaucrats were taken by surprise by vehement outbreaks that generally resulted in successful strikes - but with a subsequent return to work without the struggle being followed up through more permanent bodies for continued activity. The part of the working class that was prepared for more protracted and militant activity was very small, and the number of workers capable of taking up oppositional work against the bureaucracy within the unions was even smaller. This explains why the response of the bureaucrats to the growing militancy of the workers was so hard and inflexible. In the same way, the spring 1974 events at Volvo can stand as an example of the imporiant changes that have occurred. A broadened radicalization has given rise to more intense activity by larger 26
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