Norodom Sihanouk Quotes
I'm not a communist, but I'm not anti-communist either. I'm not afraid of communists, and declare that if a country wants to be communist, it has the right to be so.
Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodian King & Chief of State, Interview with Oriana Fallaci, June 1973
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
First Mormon Cabinet Member
At the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in 1935 the new Popular Front policy was announced. To communist hard-liners and to the far left, the policy was an abandonment of the Marxist revolutionary line.
The reason this is an important quotation is that since the end of WWII, most Americans have used the term “socialism” rather loosely. President Obama for example is often referred to as a socialist by his political enemies. Conservatives refer to Norway, Sweden and Denmark and other European nations as socialist states. But none of them would ever meet the definition of a socialist state of the major socialist state in history. After WWII, the Russians intimidated many of the Eastern European with force of arms and there were some other socialist states for a while but the all abandoned Soviet style Russian socialism, Ironically, the only state that the old Russian Communists would recognize in 2011 was Cuba. However, there are many who call themselves socialists who would never agree that the Soviet Union was remotely a socialist state—they see it as a Fascist dictatorship.
After the 1917 Russian Revolution many of the Western Countries sent troops to Russia where they aided the Whites against the Reds. When the Red Bolsheviks prevailed, there were many attempts to diplomatically and economically undermine the Communist government. This caused a unity among different Russian factions. Sforza urged leaving them alone and letting the Bolsheviks fail by their own ideology. Most Western nations and the United States did not agree with him.
He had asked a family friend not to bring books by Hemmingway into his home. The friend asked why and received this answer. Koch and his brother were the largest political contributors in the United States, so they had enormous influence on Republicans (they only made political contributions to conservative organizations).
Norodom Sihanouk was a Cambodian politician who led Cambodia in various capacities throughout his political career, but most often as the King of Cambodia. In Cambodia, he is known as Samdech Euv (Khmer: សម្តេចឪ, 'King Father'). During his lifetime, Cambodia was variously called the French Protectorate of Cambodia (until 1953), the Kingdom of Cambodia (1953–1970), the Khmer Republic (1970–75), Democratic Kampuchea (1975–79), the People's Republic of Kampuchea (1979–93), and again the Kingdom of Cambodia (from 1993).
