The Deprogram Podcast

Yeah if we're gonna No True Scotsman a party then they're the most obvious candidate. But there's more to it than, say, fascists cynically co-opting the word "socialist" for National Socialism. This was a longstanding communist party with membership that had been involved with other communist parties (Pol Pot was in the French Communist Party prior to returning to Cambodia). It existed as a communist party for 15-20 years prior to gaining power, and was backed prior to and during its rule by the CPC at least in part due to being a communist party. Its actions were guided by "theory" in the sense that they weren't done purely out of immediate self-interest or randomly. In some ways it tried to emulate models of other socialist countries. It's just the theory and application obviously wasn't good.

Of course, it's not like they took a perfect situation and turned it into an atrocity. The sheer amount of destruction already done to Cambodia by the US meant that no matter who was in charge it was not going to be great or easy. Ultimately what survived of the party and country after the US-backed apocalypse was a shadow of what it should have been, and was very much shaped by the terror and destruction of almost a decade of carpet bombing.

It gained power as a communist party, was backed by a communist party (and the US), and eventually had to be put down by the Vietnamese communists.