Khmer Rouge was backed by the US and was lead by fascists who rejected Marx, like the Nazis.
I think that's a highly misleading and highly reductionist interpretation. The Khmer Rouge was supported by the US, but mostly after the conflict had ended.
The Khmer Rouge was overwhelmingly supported by the CCP, especially during the Vietnam war, and before the Chinese invasion of Vietnam afterwards.
Also, PolPot wasn't criticized for his diversion from Marxism until the 80's, well after the most turbulent times in Cambodia. And even then Deng Xiaoping only criticised the Khmer Rouge for engaging in "deviations from Marxism-Leninism"
The only person on the left who accused him of being a fascist was Hoxha, but that was after his schism with the maoist. So to him any communist Asian was basically a barbaric fascist.
I think what's pertinent to the original argument was that they were communist while the Khmer Rouge were committing their atrocities. Labeling a country that transitioned from communism to fascism as a purely fascist government is misleading and reductive.
Also, being opposed to a communist government does not mean you're automatically a fascist. As we know communist China attacked communist Vietnam right after the US Vietnam war.
It's no more complicated than the history of European geopolitics. As an Asian person, I get told this by western people a lot. I think it's just a hold over from the western interpretation of the east being based in mystery. Also, the complications of any topic does not validate the type of misleading/reductive comment you made.
I think this is completely inaccurate depending on what time you are talking about. I would say Pol Pot was probably one of the most ardent communist of the 50's, it was just a weird type of agrarian communism. And in the regions he controlled he did attempt to construct a classless agrarian socialist society.
Pol Pot didn't really divert from communism until the 80's and that was a last ditch effort to get the west to support his failing regime. I don't particularly believe that "We chose communism because we wanted to restore our nation. We helped the Vietnamese, who were communist. But now the communists are fighting us. So we have to turn to the West and follow their way." constitutes as denouncing Marxism.
You haven't supported the argument that the Khmer Rouge were never communist...... Now I'm willing to compromise and say they transitioned away from communism as did the Russians, but that doesn't detract from the fact that they were communist at some point.
How exactly was Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge not communist in the 50s-70's?