Кәмбоджадағы "Бірінші Жыл" және Пол Поттың саясаты

Idea put into practice by Pol Pot in Cambodia
other uses of the term

Year Zero (, Chhnăm Sony ) is an idea put into practice by Pol Pot in Democratic Kampuchea that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and that a new revolutionary culture must replace it starting from scratch. In this sense, all of the history of a nation or a people before Year Zero would be largely deemed irrelevant, because it would ideally be purged and replaced from the ground up. The first day of "Year Zero" was declared by the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975 upon their takeover of Cambodia in order to signify a rebirth of Cambodian history. Adopting the term as an analogy to the "Year One" of the French Revolutionary Calendar, Year Zero was effectually an attempt by the Khmer Rouge to erase history and reset Cambodian society, removing any vestiges of the past.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, most of whom were French educated communists, took inspiration from the concept of "Year One" in the French Revolutionary Calendar. The French "Year One" came about during the French Revolution when, after the abolition of the French monarchy on 20 September 1792, the National Convention instituted a new calendar and declared that date to be the beginning of Year I. Upon seizing power, Year Zero was decreed. The people of Phnom Penh, in particular, were forced immediately to "return to the villages" to work. Similar evacuations occurred at Battambang, Kampong Cham, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom, among others. Knowledge of anything pre Year Zero was prohibited. To ensure that there was no recorded memory of a pre Year Zero society, books were burned. (Wearing glasses was also criminalized as it was taken to indicate that one might habitually read books.) In Democratic Kampuchea, the only acceptable lifestyle was that of peasant agricultural workers. Centuries of Cambodian culture and institutions were thereby eliminated—shutting down factories, hospitals, schools, and universities—along with anyone who expressed interest in their preservation. So called New People—members of the old governments and intellectuals in general, including lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, clergy, and qualified professionals in all fields—were thought to be a threat to the new regime and were therefore especially singled out and executed during the purges accompanying Year Zero. The Khmer Rouge's takeover was rapidly followed by a series of drastic revolutionary de industrialization policies which resulted in a death toll that vastly exceeded the toll that resulted from the French Reign of Terror.