Do the Khmer Rouge still come to power in Cambodia if the U.S. doesn't get involved in Vietnam?

CaliGuy

Banned
I've always been curious about this--if the U.S. didn't escalate the Vietnam War in 1964-1965, do the Khmer Rouge still come to power in Cambodia afterwards? Or do more moderate Communists take over Cambodia instead?
 
I've always been curious about this--if the U.S. didn't escalate the Vietnam War in 1964-1965, do the Khmer Rouge still come to power in Cambodia afterwards? Or do more moderate Communists take over Cambodia instead?

Hopefully not. North Vietnam wins much sooner, say after a Tet equivalent disintegrates the Southern military's morale. After that, Cambodia falls to Vietnam-aligned Communists who liquidate/exile a non-genocidal maniac Pol Pot that, the irony!, is hosted by the US as his henchmen find sanctuary in Thailand waging a "Commie on Commie" counterguerrilla also backed by China that raises certain embarrassing questions in Washington...
 
Cambodia probably wouldn't go communist at all. Sihanouk had things well-balanced until the war destabilized his country and made the nationalist coup possible by wrecking the economy and bombing the hell out of the countryside. Vietnam will not "invade" as they won't be getting attacked. And Sihanouk will be a neutral/strategic buffer between them and Thailand.
 
Sihanouk had things well-balanced

Yes, he had it pretty sweet at the top, ran a one party State after 1958, and after 1960, had all the powers of a King, but just the 'Head of State'

Recognized Red China in 1958, after receiving a large payment, ostensibly for economic aid pretty obvious where his sympathies were, rejecting US aid after 1963, replaced by secret aid from North Vietnam in addition to China. After he completely cut ties to the US(after celebrating JFK's death and assisting the VC run supplies to South Vietnam) asked for and received military aid from the USSR and the rest of the Warsaw Pact.

Yeah, what a real 'Neutral' buffer state he would run.
 
Yes, he had it pretty sweet at the top, ran a one party State after 1958, and after 1960, had all the powers of a King, but just the 'Head of State'

Recognized Red China in 1958, after receiving a large payment, ostensibly for economic aid pretty obvious where his sympathies were, rejecting US aid after 1963, replaced by secret aid from North Vietnam in addition to China. After he completely cut ties to the US(after celebrating JFK's death and assisting the VC run supplies to South Vietnam) asked for and received military aid from the USSR and the rest of the Warsaw Pact.

Yeah, what a real 'Neutral' buffer state he would run.

There was a reason why the Americans supported Lon Nol, after all.

But my point is that Vietnam would not invade him. Without the American intervention in Vietnam (and the subsequent extension of the war into Cambodia), Kampuchea would not go communist. It'd stay a shitty feudal backwater.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Cambodia probably wouldn't go communist at all. Sihanouk had things well-balanced until the war destabilized his country and made the nationalist coup possible by wrecking the economy and bombing the hell out of the countryside. Vietnam will not "invade" as they won't be getting attacked. And Sihanouk will be a neutral/strategic buffer between them and Thailand.
So, Communism lacked large-scale support in Cambodia before the U.S. began bombing Cambodia?

Also, does Laos still go Communist in this TL?

Finally, one last off-topic question--with no Vietnam War, would there be anywhere near as many Vietnamese people immigrating to the U.S. after the Communists capture South Vietnam?
 
with no Vietnam War, would there be anywhere near as many Vietnamese people immigrating to the U.S. after the Communists capture South Vietnam?

See North Vietnam after 1954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Passage_to_Freedom

I'm sure the Vietnamese Christians would repeat in not wanting to stay around for the Communists, as Mao was full Cultural Revolution mode. It did influence things south of that Border. Fewer Hmong, IMO
The North had started 'Collective Reformatory' and 'Socialist-Reform' camps in the early '60s. They would just get an earlier start in the South in this TL
 
So, Communism lacked large-scale support in Cambodia before the U.S. began bombing Cambodia?

Not only did they lack large-scale support, the communist movement (i.e. the Khmer Rouge) literally lied about being communists until September 1977 --- over two and a half years into their rule --- referring to themselves before then as "The Organization".

You have to keep in mind that Cambodia was the most backwards part of Indochina and there was little indigenous base for them to draw from. The communist movement was small and largely composed up French-educated Khmer students and Khmer from the more developed Vietnam. Unlike the Soviet and Chinese Communist Parties, the Khmer Rouge were not a mass movement at all, with only 14,000 members at their peak during the third year of their rule (out of a population of millions). Urban Phnom Penh itself had a small urban intelligensia prior to the revolution that was largely bourgeois nationalist, not communist. But the countryside contained the vast majority of the population, feudal peasants who largely supported the French imperialists and then the Sihanouk regime.

Sihanouk managed to lose support of urban Khmer because of the war, which wrecked the urban economy through runaway inflation. This loss of popular support in the capital led to the American-backed Lon Nol coup against him and the establishment of the Khmer Republic (which was violent, nationalistic, and engaged in mass pogroms). It was only when Sihanouk lent his support to the Khmer Rouge in a desperate attempt to take back his throne (lol) that the revolution gained mass support from the royalist peasantry, allowing a victory over the Khmer Republic to be possible.

No war, no Khmer Rouge. The corrupt Sihanouk regime likely limps on until at least the 1990s, despite growing nationalist agitation to take on the Vietnamese and develop the economy. Though of course there may be pockets of Khmer Rouge-controlled jungle as there still is to the present-day IOTL.
 
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