Pol Pot — Profile, Rankings & Fame Trend

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

He ordered the emptying of Cambodia's cities, abolished money and private property, forced an entire nation into labor camps, and oversaw the deaths of approximately 1.5 to 2 million people—roughly a quarter of the population—between 1975 and 1979. The attention remains because the scale and speed of the killing were among the most extreme of the twentieth c

Biography

About

Born to a prosperous farmer in French Cambodia in 1925, Saloth Sâr attended elite schools before winning a scholarship to Paris in 1949, where he joined the French Communist Party while studying radio electronics. Returning in 1953, he worked as a teacher in Phnom Penh while rising through Cambodia's Marxist–Leninist movement, becoming leader of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in 1963 and retreating to the jungle to wage guerrilla war. After Lon Nol's 1970 coup, his Khmer Rouge forces—backed by North Vietnam—seized control of Cambodia by 1975. He declared "Year Zero" on April 17, 1975: cities…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Pol Pot

Pol Pot

saidOct 1997

Everything I did, I did for my country.

— "Day of Reckoning" by Nate Thayer, in Far Eastern Economic Review (October 1997)

Pol Pot

saidOct 1997

First, I would like to tell you that I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people. Even now, and you can look at me, am I savage person? My conscience is clear.

— "Day of Reckoning" by Nate Thayer, in Far Eastern Economic Review (October 1997)

Pol Pot

saidOct 1997

There's what we did wrong and what we did right.

— "Day of Reckoning" by Nate Thayer, in Far Eastern Economic Review (October 1997)

Pol Pot

saidOct 1997

Tuol Sleng was a Vietnamese exhibition; a journalist wrote that. People talk about Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, but when we look at the pictures, the pictures are the same.

— "Day of Reckoning" by Nate Thayer, in Far Eastern Economic Review (October 1997)

Pol Pot

saidOct 1997