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The Sangkum Reastr Niyum (, , ;Headly, Robert K.; Chhor, Kylin; Lim, Lam Kheng; Kheang, Lim Hak; Chun, Chen. 1977. Cambodian-English Dictionary. Bureau of Special Research in Modern Languages. The Catholic University of America Press. Washington, D.C. ), usually translated as Popular People's Socialist Community and commonly known simply as the Sangkum (, ; ), was a political organisation set up on 22 March 1955 by Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.Dommen, A. The Indochinese experience of the French and the Americans, Indiana University Press, 2001, p.318 Though it described itself as a 'movement' rather than a political party (members had to abjure membership of any political group), the Sangkum retained control of the government of Cambodia throughout the first administration of Sihanouk, from 1955 to 1970. Central to the Sangkum ideology were nationalism, conservatism, preserving the monarchy, and a conservative interpretation of Buddhism.
The movement was based on four small monarchist, rightist parties, including the Victorious Northeast party of Dap Chhuon and the Khmer Renovation party of Lon Nol.Kiernan, B. How Pol Pot came to power, Yale University Press, 2004, p.158 Sihanouk broadened this political base into the Sangkum in order to fight the 1955 parliamentary election, the first after independence. Despite its apolitical image, the Sangkum effectively functioned as the pro-Sihanouk party. It won an overwhelming victory in the elections: there were subsequently allegations of massive electoral fraud, and of intimidation directed against both the opposing Democratic Party and the socialist Pracheachon.
In power, the Sangkum functioned according to principles of 'Buddhist socialism', a rather vague construct that while claiming to seek progressive goals and the end of social injustice, was based around the conservative religious and social traditions of Cambodia. Rather than doing away with private property, 'Buddhist socialism' encouraged the wealthy to give to the poor in order to gain merit.Ayres, D. M Anatomy of a crisis: education, development, and the state in Cambodia, 2000, pp.34-35 Public figures were also instructed to be fully accountable to the populace, transparent in their dealings, and were encouraged to take regular breaks to perform ordinary agricultural-related work (Sihanouk often had himself photographed performing such labour during his visits to development projects).
In practice, economic management developed as a form of "crony socialism" analogous to crony capitalism: state enterprises were set up and then managed by members of the Sangkum elite, often for their own personal gain.Ross, R. Library of Congress Country Studies: Cambodia - Domestic Developments, 1987 State organisations set up under the Sangkum included OROC, the Office royale de coopération, which handled trade, import and export.
In 1957, Sihanouk set up a youth wing of the Sangkum, known as the "Royal Khmer Socialist Youth" (French: Jeunesse socialiste royale khmère, JSRK).
During the period of Sihanouk's rule, the Sangkum managed to absorb many of the rightist and centrist elements of Cambodian politics, as well as pro-Sihanouk elements of the left and moderate communists: only the more hardline secret elements of the Communist Party of Kampuchea avoided collaborating with Sihanouk's regime. Several prominent communists, such as Hu Nim and Khieu Samphan, accepted posts with the Sangkum in an attempt to work with the system.Kiernan, p.197 In the early 1960s, Samphan – later to become the head of state under the Khmer Rouge – was called on by Sihanouk to implement a series of economic reforms based on plans outlined in Samphan's PhD thesis.These reforms were an initial success, until massively increased cross-border smuggling of rice during the Second Indochina War severely damaged the Cambodian government's revenues. See Kiernan, How Pol Pot came to power
While the Democratic Party, the representatives of moderate, progressive republicanism politics in the Cambodian political milieu, were effectively incorporated into the Sangkum in 1957,Dommen, pp.359-360 many republican moderates simply avoided politics altogether until the period immediately after 1970.
The only notable element to remain outside the Sangkum, other than the hardline communists, was the right-wing, anti-monarchist nationalist Son Ngoc Thanh, whose Khmer Serei irregulars maintained armed resistance with funding from Thailand. Sihanouk was to label his opponents on the right as the "Khmer Bleu" to distinguish them from his opponents on the left. Library of Congress Country Studies: Cambodia - Major Political and Military Organizations However, it seems that during the late 1950s and early 1960s there was relatively little violent repression of opposition to the Sangkum (although there was repeated political intimidation of the leftist Pracheachon party, who were accused of being pro-Vietnam) and the country as a whole experienced a period of comparative stability.Kiernan, pp. 175-176. The official historiography of the Khmer Rouge, by contrast, depicts even this period as characterised by violent struggle against a repressive regime. The one exception was again the Khmer Serei, who were dealt with harshly: Preap In, a Khmer Serei activist who attempted to negotiate with Sihanouk in 1963, was arrested and his subsequent execution shown in cinemas across the country. The same treatment was given to another group of alleged Khmer Serei leaders, Chau Bory (previously implicated in the Bangkok Plot), Chau Mathura, and Sau Ngoy, in 1967.
Increasingly violent repression of the left, led by Lon Nol and the military in Sihanouk's name, came to alienate many of the remaining communists, especially the more moderate pro-Sihanouk faction who owed a strong allegiance to Vietnam and the Viet Minh. Sihanouk's public criticism of the 'Khmer Viet Minh' had the damaging effect of increasing the power of the hardline, anti-Vietnamese, but also anti-monarchical members of the CPK, led by Pol Pot.Kiernan, p.227 Escalation of the Second Indochina War also had a destabilising effect on both the political situation and the Cambodian economy. The Sangkum found itself locked in an increasingly bitter struggle with what it represented as 'foreign' elements of the Viet Minh and Pathet Lao within Cambodia: speaking on Phnom Penh radio after a group of Vietnamese communists was captured, Sihanouk stated that "I had them roasted ... we had to feed them to the vultures".Kiernan, p.275
The shockingly brutal tactics adopted by the Sangkum regime against not only leftists from outside the Cambodian borders, but also increasingly against the Khmer left, especially after a possibly CPK-backed Samlaut Uprising in rural Battambang Province beginning in early 1967, presaged the similarly brutal conduct of the subsequent Cambodian Civil War.Kiernan, pp.250-253 Reports stated that captured communists were summarily killed, in some cases being disembowelled or thrown from cliffs. The three remaining public representatives of the communists – Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon and Hu Nim – fled to the forests in 1967-8, though at the time it was widely rumoured that they had been murdered by the Sangkum's police (after their reappearance in the 1970s, they were referred to in the press as the "Three Ghosts").
Elements of Sihanouk's Sangkum regime went on to form the royalist party FUNCINPEC and its military wing, the Sihanouk National Army or ANS, which controlled large parts of rural Cambodia during the 1980s.
There is a certain degree of nostalgia amongst older Cambodians for the Sangkum era, especially given the relative stability of the years 1955–1965 in comparison to later periods. After the 1991 political settlement and Sihanouk's 1993 restoration as king, a number of Cambodian political parties used the term "Sangkum" in their name in order to associate themselves with this period.
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