On this day, 17 April 1975, the Communist Party of Kampuchea (aka the Khmer Rouge) seized power in Cambodia after overthrowing the corrupt military dictatorship which had been backed by Western powers.
They forcibly evacuated the cities, attempting to create an agrarian society to produce rice to sell on the world market to fund industrialisation.
Their brutal, paranoid and ill thought-out nationalist policies were a disaster, and led to the murder or deaths of up to a quarter of the country’s population.
After Vietnamese troops eventually toppled them, military aid was then funnelled to the Khmer Rouge by the US, UK and China to continue their reign of terror in areas they still controlled.
This is a useful overview of the events: https://libcom.org/library/%E2%80%9Cif-we-have-rice-we-can-have-everything%E2%80%9D-%EF%BB%BF%EF%BB%BF-critique-khmer-rouge-ideology-practice https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1403689843149495/?type=3