In Tandem with the Movement to Grow Rice – Khmer Rouge, 6/1976

Republished from the official publication of Angkar The Revolutionary Flag

The strategic mission for this year is to achieve three tons per hectare in rice farming. In order to advance
toward achieving the strategy of three tons per hectare during this rainy season, we must first have sufficient
manpower to go on the offensive. Therefore, we must sort out the livelihood of the people to the maximum
extent during this transitional period. If we cannot resolve the people’s livelihood during June, July, August,
September, and October, this will have a major impact on our combat forces. We will lack the manpower
needed to go on the offensive. This is the problem we face. The Party determined many months ago that,
in order to sort out the livelihood of the people, we must attack tactically — that is, go on the offensive with
early-season rice, mid-season rice, corn, beans, potatoes, and various vegetables. We must launch a strong
offensive to plant various secondary crops and vegetables densely everywhere. We must make this tactical
attack in order to achieve a tactical victory during this transitional rainy season. We must attack repeatedly in
every form, attack non-stop, and attack on both large and small scales. The Party’s slogan is: Plant, plant,
plant; plant everywhere, plant densely, plant until no land is left idle. Male youths, plant; female youths, plant;
the elderly and children, plant; both the able-bodied and the weak, plant; plant collectively; plant individually;
plant in the farm fields; plant one or two clumps around the houses and around the worksites… and so on.
When we plant in this manner, we can fully resolve the situation during this transitional period. We can truly
achieve this strategy in 1976. We must push the movement to plant secondary crops and vegetables more
densely everywhere throughout the base areas. In general, our people, our youth, and our cadres grasp the
Party’s strategy and tactics for increasing production and implement them well and correctly, following the
direction of the Party. Therefore, in many locations, in tandem with the mighty offensives to plow, harrow, and
transplant the rainy-season rice crop, there are also non-stop and lively movements to plant secondary crops
and vegetables of all varieties. This is different from previous years.

These efforts serve both the forward battlefield and make our villages and cooperatives show a fresh and vibrant
new appearance. Crops surround the houses. Crops surround the rice paddies. There are crops along the banks
of the feeder canals. There is planting everywhere. Thus, there are both large- and small-scale attacks to implement
the Party’s combat line in a lively manner, according to the local conditions of soil, water, and manpower. Everything
is being used; nothing is left idle. The allocation and use of manpower is highly effective. A very remarkable and
exciting aspect is the change occurring in a number of upland areas. Originally, they were dried out and shriveled
up in both the rainy and dry seasons. Now, there are large canals tens of kilometers long — in some places 40
kilometers, in others 60 kilometers. The canals are filled with water. The areas surrounding the canals are fresh
and lively with activity, much like riverbank areas. The change is enormous. The people are happy and radiant,
and they fight even more vigorously. In tandem with this, there are some locations that have not yet firmly grasped
the Party’s strategy and tactics for increasing production and have not yet implemented the line well. The movement
to increase production is strong, but the implementation of the combat line is not yet lively. For example, in some
locations there is island land, riverbank land, and fertile land that used to be abundant in vegetables, but not this
year. This is because all the manpower has gone to the front. The elderly are gone; the young are gone, tied up
at the front. As a result, the rear has no manpower and the land has been abandoned and left empty. This is not
because of the soil. It is the result of the leadership’s ineffective and inappropriate management of manpower. We
must allocate and use manpower more appropriately and more effectively — deciding which forces should go to
the front and which forces should remain in the rear to plant secondary crops and vegetables.

Therefore, any location that already has a lively movement to grow secondary crops and vegetables must push
the movement further and make it ten to twenty times stronger. Any location where the movement to plant secon
-dary crops and vegetables is still weak must draw experience from and study the locations where the movement
is boiling. We simply plant without impacting the manpower needed for the front. The forces of the elderly and
children can plant. Plant corn, plant potatoes, plant vegetables, plant gourds, plant pumpkins. Plant everything.
Plant a lot. Turn every location into a garden. In addition, in the forward battlefield, seize the opportunity to plant.
Each person can plant two, three, four, or five clumps. Plant rice on the low ground. Plant vegetables on the high
ground. Plant along the banks of the feeder canals. Plant along the paddy dikes. If we plant in this way, we will
not lack food supplies or vegetables. We will have full mastery during this transitional rainy season and we will
have the manpower to go on the offensive to achieve three tons per hectare. Push the movement to increase
production at every office and every ministry to make it busier and mightier. In the offices, ministries, and factories,
our good cadres and our youth have seized the opportunity to increase production by growing rice and planting
vegetables to support themselves. Some offices are totally self-sufficient in vegetables and 60–70 percent self-
sufficient in rice. Their struggle to fulfill their core missions is also strong, and the effort to increase production for
self-support is busy and active. Thus, the atmosphere in the offices and ministries is one that is connected to labor,
connected to the base areas, and connected to the cooperatives. It is an atmosphere of socialist revolution and
the building of socialism. However, many other offices and ministries are still weak in increasing production. They
still completely or almost completely rely upon the Organization and the State.

Not only do they rely on the State for clothing, rice, salt, fermented fish, fish, and meat, they even rely on the
State for vegetables. This is a great burden on the base areas, on the people, and on our cooperatives. They
live and work cut off from the base areas and cut off from the people. When they have free time and rest from
work, sometimes they play badminton, play ping-pong, or sit in circles talking uselessly. Through this, capitalist
and mandarin views and attitudes gradually penetrate into the offices and ministries. On this point, we must take
notice and quickly reform. When you have free time from work, when you rest from work, do not remain idle.
It is imperative to seize the opportunity to increase production — carrying water to irrigate the crops and caring
for them. In comparison with the struggle to increase production by our people in the base areas, our offices
and ministries are very far behind the people. They are even behind the new people from Phnom Penh. How
about our people? Our people are proletarian. Therefore, our people constantly struggle to survive. And how
about the offices and ministries? Even though they have no salaries, they have food and clothing rations. Whe
-ther they work or not, they receive sufficient rations. They have resources. These resources are taken from the
base areas and from the people. Therefore, if we are not vigilant, mandarin and capitalist attitudes will gradually
strengthen and expand in the offices and ministries, and they will change in nature toward capitalization. We
must recognize this clearly so that we can study and learn from the people in order to constantly increase
production more vigorously. In tandem with this, we must strive to conserve more — conserve rice, conserve
salt, conserve clothing, and so on. Conserve and increase production in order to fuse our offices and ministries
with the base areas and with the cooperatives. Thus, our offices and ministries increase production not only to
serve immediate objectives and improve their own livelihood, but also to carry out socialist revolution, eradicate
mandarin attitudes, eradicate capitalist attitudes, and build the stance of socialist revolution and the collective
stance by staying close to the people, close to the base areas, and close to the cooperatives. We must foster
habits of loving labor and contribute toward building socialism.

Push the movement to increase production in the Revolutionary Army to make a contribution to building the
country. The core missions, the primary missions of the Revolutionary Army, are to defend the country and
defend domestic security. In tandem with this, our Revolutionary Army must join in building the country within
the framework of socialist revolution and the building of socialism. Up until today, our Revolutionary Army
has actively and unconditionally joined in the work of building the country. Our male and female combatants
and our cadres have an aggressive spirit and strive to work the rice fields and make fertilizer. They are pleased
with the movements to work the rice fields and produce fertilizer, and these movements have mighty momentum.
Our Revolutionary Army must push these movements further, including the rice farming movement, the ferti
-lizer production movement, and the movement to plant various secondary crops and vegetables of every
variety — in particular, within the mighty movement to double rice farming. The majority of the Revolutionary
Army forces are youth forces and special forces that are far stronger than the forces in the countryside.
Therefore, these forces have a far greater capability to launch offensives to increase production than our
people in the base areas. In particular, units deployed in the interior of the country have the best qualifications
because they are not directly and routinely busy on the battlefield like the units along the border or the coast.
Therefore, the Revolutionary Army troops deployed in the interior of the country must supply themselves 100
percent with the equal ration of 13 bushels for both males and females. In tandem with this, they must also
produce some annual reserves — at least 20 percent of their requirements — to be held in readiness in case
of need so that this additional portion can fulfill extra requirements. In addition, they must supply the State
for building the country.

Therefore, our Revolutionary Army works the rice fields not just to get by on their own; they must produce large
harvests. This view and stance on rice farming must be strengthened, expanded, and made mighty. Previously,
the Revolutionary Army were the scattered children and grandchildren of the peasants. But now they have become
the revolutionary troops of the Party and the workers of the Party — highly organized and scientific. During war,
they fight and defeat the enemy. When the time comes to increase production, they are also mighty. Someday
there will be another war, and our Revolutionary Army will have to go to war to defend the country. The Revo-
lutionary Army will hand over the rice-farming land and the cultivated land to the people and to the cooperatives.
Therefore, our Revolutionary Army grows all this rice and all these crops to build the country, to wage socialist
revolution, and to build socialism — not for the sake of its own private ownership or collective ownership. This
stance must be constantly fostered by our Revolutionary Army so that it can make a mighty contribution toward
building the country and defending the country within the framework of socialist revolution and the building of
socialism. In summary, our peasants in the cooperatives throughout the country, our cadres and youths, every
ministry, every office, our workers in every factory, and every unit of our Revolutionary Army have the mission of
going on the offensive to achieve the Party’s strategic goal for this year: achieving three tons per hectare. Everyone
has the mission to join forces to sort out the livelihood of the people during this transitional period. The Party has
clearly set the correct strategic line and tactical line. These lines are gradually showing results everywhere in the
form of paddy dike systems, feeder canals, rice fields, seedlings for transplanting, and crop gardens. Obstacles and
difficulties still exist, but the obstacles are not major ones. The issue is that all of us must go on the offensive more
strongly and more effectively in order to win — to win tactically and to move toward winning strategically. We must
launch repeated offensives to plant in every form, to plant non-stop. We just keep on planting. When we plant like
this, we truly will be able to sort things out during this transitional period. When we have sorted out this transitional
period, we truly and absolutely will be able to achieve the strategy of three tons per hectare in 1976.Our slogan
is: “Young and old, males and females — plant, plant, plant. Plant until not one cluster of land remains idle.”