ABSTRACT
When Pol Pot fled Phnom Penh in January 1979, the Kampuchean peasantry was in the midst of a brutal transformation from a system of control dominated by moneylenders, landlords, the bureaucracy, and the military to a military regime guided by an extreme form of peasant socialism. Cities were emptied; there were perhaps 30,000 people left in Phnom Penh. The Central Bank had been blown up and money and credit abolished. Most schools were closed. Technicians, scientists, administrators, and merchants lived in fear. Many fled the country, lived in hiding, or were killed.
