WI khmer rouge regime survives?

If history is anything to go by, we would see a softening of the Khmer Rouge stance as ideologues are gradually pushed out by Moscow-trained bureaucrats, leading to a more settled pattern of life and fewer atrocities. Of course, Pol Pot was a monster even by Stalinist standards, but if either the USSR or China have a reason to prop him up the diplomats might just hold their noses and smile. There would have to be resettlement in the cities (though there would be some kind of ideological justification for that). Other than that, Campuchea would be dirt poor, economically crippled and in deep societal shock denial. In a best-case scenario, expect a gradual admittance of 'overshooting the mark' in 'ideologically misguided' purges of foreign influence during the 'years of the personality cult'. Worst case, of course, is Pol Pot living to a ripe old age and passing power on to a designated successor.

And to think that we have, of all the people, the Vietnamese to thank for ending that...
 
No Vietnamese invasion ?

This scenario of the Khmer Rouge surviving assumes that the KR don't fall out with Hanoi and make incursions into Vietnamese territory in Dec 1978, which resulted in a fullblown NVA invasion (at the same time as the Chinese, being KR allies, invaded VN itself).

Another interesting POD- after 1975, and after public knowledge developed of the atrocities and inhuman forced labour occurring in Cambodia/Kampuchea under the KR, there was ironically some sentiment by liberal members of Congress, esp George McGovern (who'd been 1 of the most ardent anti-war 'Doves'), for humanitarian military intervention in order to stop the auto-genocide being committed by Pol Pot. Of course, such pleas fell on deaf ears in a USA still reeling from the effects of the VW. But, ASB outside, WI somehow the US was persuaded to invade Cambodia in the interests of humanitarian concern for the country's ppl ? Could the US have successfully taken out the KR in such a hypothetical humanitarian intervention ?
 
Melvin Loh said:
This scenario of the Khmer Rouge surviving assumes that the KR don't fall out with Hanoi and make incursions into Vietnamese territory in Dec 1978, which resulted in a fullblown NVA invasion (at the same time as the Chinese, being KR allies, invaded VN itself).

Another interesting POD- after 1975, and after public knowledge developed of the atrocities and inhuman forced labour occurring in Cambodia/Kampuchea under the KR, there was ironically some sentiment by liberal members of Congress, esp George McGovern (who'd been 1 of the most ardent anti-war 'Doves'), for humanitarian military intervention in order to stop the auto-genocide being committed by Pol Pot. Of course, such pleas fell on deaf ears in a USA still reeling from the effects of the VW. But, ASB outside, WI somehow the US was persuaded to invade Cambodia in the interests of humanitarian concern for the country's ppl ? Could the US have successfully taken out the KR in such a hypothetical humanitarian intervention ?

Surely yes, but this would simply restart the whole south-east Asian mess.
 
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