The Struggle to Eradicate the Stance of Individual
Private Property – The Khmer Rouge, 8/1975

Republished from Angkar’s official publication The Revolutionary Flag

Currently, all together and on the offensive to fulfill the missions of defending the country and building the cou
-ntry to gain victory in leaps, the Party appeals to the cadres, Party members, the Revolutionary Army, and the
revolutionary masses to continue fighting the offensive struggle to eradicate the stance of individual private own
-ership and build and strengthen the stance of collective ownership to be solid and mighty in order to guarantee
fulfillment of the missions of defending and building the country in a victorious leap. In response to the Party’s
appeal, the cadres, Party members, combatants, and revolutionary masses struggle all-out to fight to build the
stance of collective ownership. This is a major virtue. In the past, there were a number of negative phenomena
that have to be paid attention to and must be reformed in a timely manner. Otherwise, it is feared things will not
be in accordance with the Party’s objectives. These negative phenomena occurred after the liberation of the
various cities and Phnom Penh City. A number of cadres, Party members, combatants, and revolutionary
masses had to go perform various missions in the provincial towns and in Phnom Penh. After a while, some
of these comrades brought their wives and children and even their parents and relatives from the rear battle-
field to live with them in their offices. Office work has a framework. Therefore, those people who went there
had no office work to do, but they received daily living rations just like the people who worked in the offices.
In order to settle the atmosphere, those people went to work to increase production, for instance growing some
vegetables around the offices, and they relied upon these offices to act as bases to refashion themselves to
fulfill revolutionary missions. Some lived easily, and no conflicts at all occurred. Some others had no office
work to do or any production work to do. Therefore, conflict occurred. How were these conflicts resolved?
They sent their wives and families to this office or that office according to whomever they knew in order to
rely upon those offices or “teachers” to help educate and refashion their revolutionary stances.

This was similar to the old society entrusting their children and grandchildren to the pagodas. If these neg
-ative phenomena expand further, this will certainly and without fail negatively impact the Party’s work of
building the country. Therefore, let me emphasize: If we want to struggle to eradicate the stance of individ
-ual private ownership and build and strengthen the stance of collective ownership, we must struggle to
temper ourselves in a concrete combat movement. Only in a concrete combat movement can we: Be in
unity with the Party in terms of stances, outlooks, and political, ideological, and organizational lines. Clearly
see for ourselves the mighty power of the people — the peasant masses, the poor peasants, the lower-
middle level peasants — see clearly the stance of collective ownership of the popular masses. Through
this, meaning through items 1 and 2 above, we can see our positive and negative qualities. We will see
our wrong stances and correct stances so that we can eliminate the negative qualities and give impetus
to and whip up the positive qualities. Might our comrades suspect that going down to dig the soil, to plant
bananas, to plant cabbage, to plant morning glory in the offices is not combat in a concrete movement?
Let me tell you that increasing production in the offices is a good thing, but it is just to modify the livelihood
to a certain extent; it is not a combat movement to modify society and build society. So, if that is so, where
do we go to fight to temper ourselves concretely? In the new and current situation, the best locations to go
to fight to temper ourselves concretely are: The cooperatives The various industrial factories of the state
and the state worksites Both of the above locations are combat locations fighting to modify society and
build society. The stances, outlooks, and political, ideological and organizational lines of the Party are
concentrated to concretely implement at these locations. The excellent qualities of the worker-peasant
masses and the poor and lower-middle level peasants are concentrated at these locations. These are the
locations to eliminate individual private ownership and to build and to strengthen collective ownership.

Another Important Step in the Success of the Cooperatives And of Our Revolutionary Movement After the
nation and the people were completely liberated, and in order to implement new missions leaping succe-
sses, the Party decided to expand the cooperatives to broader dimensions than in the past. Before liber-
ation we organized cooperatives in groups with each group having 15–20–30 families in accordance with
the concrete situation and in order to facilitate leadership. But now, in order to give impetus to the production
movement and make it mightier, the Party has decided to organize the cooperatives as village cooperatives,
that is, to take each village, to make it into a unit, and to organize a cooperative. Therefore, organizing
cooperatives in the villages is another important successful political, ideological, and organizational step
of our cooperatives and our revolutionary movement to increase production and sort out the livelihood
of the people. According to the initial experience, the results of organizing village cooperatives are as
follows:1. Politically: Back when the cooperatives were still organized into groups of 10–20–30 families,
the role of the cooperatives in helping to strengthen revolutionary state power in the villages had a narrow
framework. Class struggle was inside a small group framework. The struggle to eliminate pacifist agents
and spies was not broad. Propaganda and reeducation to whip up the mass movement of male and female
combatants in the covert or overt organizations was still in the group framework. Therefore, there was a
lack of the outlook to see the mighty and solid power of the popular masses, the poor peasants and the
lower-middle level peasants. After the cooperatives were reorganized into village cooperatives, the coop
-eratives played an important role in combining forces to strengthen village state power in every sector:
political, economic, military, cultural, and social action.

The collective masses in the cooperatives, in particular the poor peasants and the lower-middle level peasants
who were the members of the cooperatives, consolidated their position as the true masters of the village, the
master of the communes. Leadership in governing revolutionary state power in the villages was no longer
monopolized in the hands of the people’s service committees or the village chairmen. The village cooperatives
also had an important role to play in contributing to building and strengthening revolutionary state power in
the villages. Concrete class struggle is sorting out the various internal conflicts in terms of political, ideological,
and organizational stances inside the village cooperatives. It is centralized and stands firmly on the opinions
of the village cooperative members. It is broad, and causes the understanding of the stance of class struggle
of the cooperatives to be more complete and livelier than it previously was. The poor peasants and the lower
-middle level peasants when broadly assembled see more clearly the mighty force of their class and the role
of their class in increasing production, building the country, and defending the country. Thus, they are even
more strongly proud and they see the bright future of their class as being welded to the future fate of the cou
-ntry and nation. 2. Ideologically: Back when the cooperatives were organized as groups, the collective ideology
was limited to a group. In many cooperatives there was born a narrow group-favoring ideology toward the other
groups. For example, thinking about solving rice seed, rice seedling plants, livestock, plows and harrows, that
was all thought of collectively only in the group framework. When expanded into village cooperatives, collective
ideology rose to a higher level than what had been seen previously. Therefore, collective stances and broad
common stances were built and strengthened and expanded more than they had been previously.

Taking this prospering collective stance, the movements to increase production of the cooperatives, whether
in agriculture, handicrafts, animal husbandry, etc., gained momentum and were at more of a boil, much more
strenuous than before. 3. Organizationally: In terms of organization, the village cooperatives sorted out many
problems more easily than the group organization had. For example: The use of the working forces: Back
when they were organized in groups, many cooperatives were short of labor forces, and this had a negative
impact on increasing production. When organized as villages, the labor force was sorted out. Even though
at times two or three cooperative members were ill and could not do production work, there was no negative
impact on production. When organized as village cooperatives, the forces of the older people who could not
perform labor at times reached four to ten persons, and they were gathered up. The cooperatives could then
assign this force to join together in light work such as making scoop-baskets and weaving small shallow
baskets, etc., appropriate to what the force was able to do. Therefore, the force of older persons was also
able to serve increasing production. The problems of distributing the produce: Back when they were organized
in groups, sometimes these groups had many forces and much land, good land, and they produced much,
so they distributed much. Other adjacent nearby groups had few forces, little land, land that was not good,
and they produced little, so they distributed little. Therefore, the differences were sometimes great. When
organized as village cooperatives instead and all the calculations were made, the distribution of the produce
was not so disparate among the members of the village cooperative. Thus, the problem of internal solidarity
and unity vis-à-vis the problem of distributing produce did not give rise to very many complications. Sorting
out daily living inside the cooperatives: Back when they were organized in groups, any groups with high
potential, with many means, were able to find a lot of fish and meat and vegetables.

Groups that lacked that potential faced shortages in daily life. When organized as village cooperatives
instead, sorting out daily life was easier than it had been before, meaning the families of the cooperative
members could routinely have fish and vegetables, or when a pig of the cooperative was slaughtered
it was distributed to every family. Sorting out tools for increasing production: Back when they were org-
anized in groups, some groups had livestock, plows, harrows, hoes, knives, hatchets, etc. Some even
had left-overs, but they did not think about cooperating to sort this out for the groups who faced shortages.
Therefore, the groups that faced shortages were still short and could not resolve that, and the production
movement encountered obstacles. When organized as village cooperatives instead, sorting out production
tools was easier than it had been previously. Therefore, this gave an impetus to the movements to incr
-ease production, and they gained even more momentum. Another important problem that must be paid
attention to is the role of leadership in the Party branches in the base areas. Back when they were org-
anized in groups, the forces of the Party members were greatly split-up and scattered, but when organized
as village cooperatives instead, the leadership forces were centralized, were united in terms of the leadership
and in terms of the ideological and organizational stances and the plans to increase production of the
cooperative. In a word, the Party branches grasped the leadership of the village cooperatives, were more
centralized than before, and were more solid than before. The summarizing of experience was more
centralized, and disseminating experience on what had gone right or wrong was more correct and quicker
than before. According to the several initial experiences mentioned here, village cooperatives should be
organized everywhere. Locations where village cooperatives have already been organized must concentrate
on strengthening them and making them more solid and on gradually drawing from experience to improve
them. With the current new situation and with the new missions of the Party, the cooperatives are important
organizations and are one foundation giving impetus for backward agriculture to advance toward modern
agriculture and to advance on toward a progressive industrialized country that has mighty strength to
defend the country.