First Published: The Call, Vol. 7, No. 23, June 12, 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
This is the fourth in a series of eyewitness reports by The Call’s delegation that visited Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) in April. The Call journalists were the first Americans to visit Kampuchea since its liberation in 1975.
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The flag of Kampuchea that flies proudly above the newly-liberated country depicts three yellow towers on a field of red. The yellow towers are symbolic of the ancient temple at Angkor Wat.
Why does Angkor Wat, a monument built almost a thousand years ago, hold such great significance for the Kampuchean people today?
We visited this great cultural relic and found out the answer.
After spending the night in Siem Reap, a town savagely bombed by U.S. B-52s even after the liberation of Kampuchea, we set out on the road to Angkor. Much of the road itself dates back over a thousand years to the great civilization that had its capital there.
“Angkor is our national symbol,” said Comrade So, our host, as we travelled. “It’s massiveness, its beauty, its intricate detail, its unprecedented engineering–all these are tributes to the creative talents of the laboring people of those times.”
“Angkor” is an ancient Kampuchean word meaning town. Angkor Wat is actually only one of the many temples and monuments that make up the complex known as “Angkor.” Built between 900 and 1200 AD, the buildings show the influence of both Buddhist and Hindu architecture.
Yet Angkor is completely unique. It was the capital of a civilization which had achieved an enormous technical revolution in agriculture and irrigation, and, on the basis of these developments, was able to buildup a highly advanced culture.
The first building we came upon was Bayon, a temple built around 1190. None of us had ever seen anything like it before.
Seeming to grow out of the jungle itself was a massive stone structure, perhaps 15 stories high. The facade was carved and embellished with sculptures, while an elaborate system of stairways, passageways and rooms of all types could be seen even from the road.
As we began to climb the steep stairs to the top, we realized that the building was decorated not only with large sculptured faces of gods and mythical figures, but with detailed bas-reliefs as well.
Fascinated by the story that these walls told, we moved on to tour other monuments. Angkor Thorn especially captured our attention. Its extensive bas-relief shows, not the life of the kings and queens, which is the subject matter of most of the artwork in Angkor, but the daily lives of the masses of people–the slaves, the soldiers and the artisans.
Angkor Thorn’s mural shows in graphic detail the oppression of the people and the grueling labor that went into building these great monuments. It is so realistic that, without a single written word, the viewer can learn everything about this ancient society, from how fishing was done to how marriages were arranged and the barbaric tortures that the nobility used on the slaves trying to keep them in line.
Finally, we arrived at Angkor Wat itself. Built around 1100, it is the most extensive and imposing of all the monuments. Getting up close to the huge towers we had seen the day before from a distance, we realized that they too were covered with sculptures and carvings. We were also surprised to discover that there are actually five towers, with the front three concealing the rear two.
As we stopped in the shade to drink coconuts before ascending the heights of Angkor Wat, Comrade So filled us in on some more recent history: “Angkor was one of the first places our Revolutionary Army liberated in 1970,” he told us. “We knew we had to take it out of the hands of the Lon Nol clique, or it would be destroyed. We had over a thousand troops here to defend it.”
Lon Nol and his U.S. imperialist backers tried to recapture Angkor many times. “Especially in 1974, the fighting here was fierce,” So explained. “We used the ancient moat around Angkor Wat as our trench. We dug in and fought off an offensive by more than 8,000 Lon Nol troops.”
The U.S., fearful of world opinion, dared not destroy Angkor Wat itself. Instead, U.S. planes napalmed the area in the hopes of burning and killing the Revolutionary Army troops. Even today, three years after the war ended, we saw traces of encrusted napalm all over the ancient stones.
Learning the recent history of Angkor helped us to appreciate its artistic beauty even more.
We passed a mural that extended for what must have been a half-mile. It showed images of life on earth, with life in heaven and hell described above and below it. Actually, the three-part tableau makes a statement about class structure of the Angkor period. Heaven represented the life of the nobility. Earth represented the life of the artisans and skilled craftsmen, and hell represented the life of the slaves, who made up the majority of the population.
After viewing the murals, we climbed a seemingly endless stairway, crossing through galleries and hallways, and finally reached the top level of Angkor Wat. We marveled at its immense size and scope.
European scholars have written many books on Angkor, claiming that there is a great “mystery” about how it was built. While it is true that the exact method used to carry the huge stones to the top is not known, there really is no “mystery.”
Angkor was built by human labor power. Hundreds of thousands of slaves put their sweat, their blood and their whole lives into its construction. Their experiences and abilities led them to solve the technical and engineering problems, as well as to create the great art works.
As Comrade So put it: “The ancient kings may have thought that these monuments would bring eternal glory to themselves and to the gods they believed in. But really, Angkor brings glory to the traditions of the Kampuchean people. If we could accomplish such great feats even in the dark days of slavery, then we know that we will be able to accomplish things ten times greater now that we have been liberated by socialism.”
Angkor Wat is a well-chosen symbol. It represents the spirit of “daring to scale the heights” that fills the Kampuchean people today as they build a new society free from the oppression of the old one.