Half a century ago, Cambodia descended into one of the darkest chapters of the twentieth century. Between 1975 and 1979, the communist Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, tried to rebuild the country from what they called “Year Zero.”

Their vision was a radical Marxist experiment, a classless, self-sufficient peasant utopia that resulted in the loss of nearly two million lives or one-in-five Cambodians. This is considered to be the world's first and only autogenocide, where the perpetrators and the victims belonged to the same ethnic group.

Cities were emptied, money was abolished, families were torn apart, and anyone linked to education, religion, or the old order was marked for death.

This essay revisits that period to understand how the communist regime-controlled truth itself and how the battle over memory continues today. For the Khmer Rouge, revolution did not only mean changing government; it meant rewriting reality from its roots. Every trace of the old Cambodia, its traditions, its language, and even its sense of time, was to be erased.

The regime declared that history began anew, that the nation had been reborn without a past. Words like “family,” “love,” and “freedom” were stripped of meaning or replaced with revolutionary slogans.

Religion, once central to Cambodian identity, was outlawed as superstition. Monks were defrocked, temples turned into prisons or storehouses, and those who prayed risked execution. Education was redefined as indoctrination, its purpose no longer to teach but to mould obedience.

Propaganda became the heartbeat of this new order. It was everywhere, and nowhere. The regime banned books, closed libraries, and silenced radios that did not carry the voice of the party.

Official broadcasts praised the wisdom of Angkar, the all-seeing “Organisation,” and described a utopia that existed only in slogans: “The people are happy,” “Enemies are defeated,” “Angkar is the only family you need.” In re-education sessions, slogans replaced discussion, and every answer had to reflect communist doctrine.

To doubt, even silently, was betrayal. The past was corrupt, the present was pure, and the future belonged only to those who obeyed.

Children, separated from their parents and raised in dormitories, became the regime’s most loyal instruments. They learned revolutionary chants, denounced “traitors,” and were told that informing on adults, even family, was a moral duty. With no newspapers or books, rumour filled the gaps, and truth became a matter of survival. Trusting anyone outside the circle of ideology was dangerous. Even a whisper of doubt could be fatal.

It was not only what the regime said, but what it forbade, that shaped Cambodia’s consciousness. Silence became a way of life. Mourning was banned, and speaking about hunger or grief was unsafe.

Neighbours avoided each other, families spoke in code, or not at all. To remember the world before the revolution was to risk death. The regime called this “consciousness raising.” In reality, it was the manufacture of fear.

When the communist Khmer Rouge fell in 1979, Cambodia faced not just the ruins of its cities but the wreckage of truth itself. Years of propaganda and fear had taught people to stay silent, and even after liberation, many survivors could not speak.

The new Vietnamese-backed government promoted remembrance of Pol Pot’s crimes, building monuments and museums, yet memory remained divided as former perpetrators and victims continued to live side by side.