While other writings on the Kampuchea period have blamed its violence on the supposed “totalitarian aspects” of attempts to create a more equal society — or on either the personalities of CPK leaders or Cambodian and Buddhist culture — Tyner situates the CPK regime in its social and economic context. Rice Fields to Killings Fields aims to critically apply Marxist concepts to a regime that claimed to be Marxist. Tyner focuses on the CPK’s economic policy as providing the “base” for the DK regime, allowing him to dispel several myths about the Khmer Rouge. But in the end, the book is unable to fully explain the exceptional violence of the regime. 
(My emphasis, N. M.)

Inside the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields