Mao - Pol Pot

In June 1975, Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao Zedong in Beijing, where Mao lectured Pol Pot on his "Theory of Continuing Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", recommending two articles which were written by Yao Wenyuan and sending Pol Pot over 30 books which were authored by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin as gifts. During this meeting, Mao said to Pol Pot:

We agree with you! Much of your experience is better than ours. China is not qualified to criticize you. We committed errors of the political routes for ten times in fifty years�"some are national, some are local…Thus I say China has no qualification to criticize you but to applaud you. You are basically correct…During the transition from the democratic revolution to adopting a socialist path, there exist two possibilities: one is socialism, the other is capitalism. Our situation now is like this. Fifty years from now, or one hundred years from now, the struggle between two lines will exist. Even ten thousand years from now, the struggle between two lines will still exist. When Communism is realized, the struggle between two lines will still be there. Otherwise, you are not a Marxist. This is unity existing among opposites. If one mentions only one side of the two, this is metaphysics. I believe in what Marx and Lenin have said, the that path [of advance] would be tortuous ... Our state now is, as Lenin said, a capitalist state without capitalists. This state protects capitalist rights, and the wages are not equal. Under the slogan of equality, a system of inequality has been introduced. There will exist a struggle between two lines, the struggle between the advanced and the backward, even when Communism is realized. Today we cannot explain it completely.

Picket: Soldiers posted on guard ahead of a main force. Pickets included about 40 or 50 men each. Several pickets would form a rough line in front of the main army's camp. In case of enemy attack, the pickets usually would have time to warn the rest of the force.

Monitor: Originally, the U.S.S. Monitor, the first ironclad warship in the United States Navy, commanded by Admiral John L. Worden. The vessel had a large, round gun turret on top of a flat raft-like bottom, which caused some spectators to describe it as a "cheesebox on a raft." The first engagement between ironclads occurred on March 8-9, 1862, at the Battle of Hampton Roads, VA, when the U.S.S. Monitor fought the C.S.S. Virginia (formerly the U.S.S. Merrimack). Eventually a "monitor" became the official term for an entire class of warships modeled after the original U.S.S. Monitor.

Battery: The basic unit of soldiers in an artillery regiment; similar to a company in an infantry regiment. Batteries included 6 cannon (with the horses, ammunition, and equipment needed to move and fire them), 155 men, a captain, 30 other officers, 2 buglers, 52 drivers, and 70 cannoneers. As the War dragged on, very few batteries fought at full strength. A battery can also be the position on a battlefield where cannon are located.

Defensive: Resisting or protecting against attack from someone.

Slavery: A state of bondage in which African Americans (and some Native Americans) were owned by other people, usually white, and forced to labor on their behalf.