S3: Interview: Maoism, the Three Ghosts, and the Khmer Rouge with Matt Galway

About this episode

The episode features an interview with historian Matt Galway discussing Maoism and its impact on Cambodian communism and the Khmer Rouge.

In this extended interview, I’m joined by historian Matt Galway, author of Global Maoism , to unpack the intellectual, ideological, and historical foundations of Maoism and Cambodian communism. We begin with Galway’s academic background and how the Khmer Rouge became a central focus of his research, before moving into core Marxist concepts such as dialectics, contradiction, and why communists historically understood Marxism as a science rather than a belief system. From there, we turn to the Cambodian students in Paris, particularly Hou Yuon , examining the seriousness of their Marxist education, their intellectual commitments, and the long-term consequences of their ideological formation. We explore the “Three Ghosts,” the growing divide between intellectuals and the Khmer Rouge leadership, and how revolutionary paranoia hardened into purges. The conversation then widens to Maoism itself: the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Maoism’s distinctive features compared to orthodox Marxism-Leninism, and how Maoism evolved into a flexible, exportable revolutionary model. We conclude by discussing communism as a quasi-religious system, touching on Pol Pot, Buddhism, and how revolutionary…

People in this episode

Host: Lachlan Peters

Guest: Matt Galway

Topics covered

• Maoism
• Khmer Rouge
• Marxism
• Cambodian communism
• intellectual history
• revolutionary ideology

Keywords

• Maoism
• Khmer Rouge
• Marxism
• Cambodia
• intellectual history
• revolutionary ideology
• Pol Pot
• Cultural Revolution

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Global Maoism

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