Ideology in the Service of Propaganda: Lon Nol and Khmer Rouge in the Light of “Trybuna Ludu”

Abstract

The aim of this article was to analyze and compare press articles from Trybuna Ludu (Pol. People’s Tribune, the official media outlet of PZPR (Polish United Workers’ Party) in the selected time periods between 1970–1979 that referred to the situation in Cambodia. The analysis was done in terms of interdependence between the propaganda and ideological values that used to be in force in the Soviet Bloc.

Based on the texts of authors that used to publish in Trybuna Ludu on a subject of Cambodia’s affairs: the Lon Nol’s coup d’état of 1970 and his time of reign; the Khmer Rouge’s seizure of power of 1975; and their fall at the end of 1978 and beginning of 1979 as the result of an invasion of pro-Soviet Vietnamese forces, an instrumental approach to ideological issues has been proven. The authors that used to publish their commentaries and inform the public about current events treated the situation of Cambodia as an analogy to the situation of Vietnam: as a conflict between “western imperialism” and “national liberation forces”. As far as the pro-American General Lon Nol’s reign did not cause a problem at any point, the case of the Khmer Rouge turned the previous propagandists’ tactic against them. As the enemies of Lon Nol’s “reactionary regime”, they were portrayed—according to the logic of the symmetry mentioned above—as the “national liberation forces”, striving to build socialism and the “solidarity with the nations of Indochina”. In spite of having verified information about the introduced terror and the openly anti-Soviet intentions of Pol Pot and other leaders of Cambodian communists, the official media outlet of PZPR kept portraying them in explicitly positive light. The authors feared breaking the image that was accepted earlier. Only after the fall of the Cambodian communists’ rule was bound to happen at the turn of 1979, the propaganda makes a U-turn. Without any word of explanation of pampering the past Khmer Rouge’s rule, they proclaimed — just as they did the General Lon Nol’s reign a few years earlier — as the “reactionary regime”. Their crimes are being “revealed” to the readers — the same crimes which were earlier described with an extreme dose of euphemism (eg. evacuations of cities). The Khmer Rouge is being accused of “the theft of the revolution” and the betrayal of Marxist ideas. It is being followed by proclaiming them as an inert tool of the Chinese expansion.

In this case the ideological issues were secondary and depended on the needs of first-rate political propaganda goals of the socialistic countries bloc led by the Soviet Union, which led to the discreditation of the official media outlet of PZPR.