After the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia in 1979, the Vietnamese authorities began to put together a new government for Cambodia. "A Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Council was set up in three days after Phnom Penh had been taken [liberated by Vietnam,] and the country was renamed the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (P.R.K). Ironically the new president of Cambodia was a former Khmer Rouge military commander, Heng Samrin. He quit working for the regime in 1978" (Chandler, pg. 159).

During the early 1980’s the P.R.K openly came out as a socialist government. The P.R.K strived to gain support of the Cambodian people. So the P.R.K made sure that "schools were reopened, money was put back into circulation, and monasteries allowed to function." Although this was a start the P.R.K government still had a ways to go. The country was still in bad shape. Often times there was no running water or electricity. The country was in poor sanitary condition and worst of all there was still not enough food to feed everyone in the country.

In the late 1980’s Cambodia was beginning to regain its strength. Farmers began growing rice again, the economy finally became stable and the P.R.K tried its very hardest to make up for a four-year lack of education ( Cambodia lacked intellectuals to "run" the country and its economy because most intellects were all killed during the Pol Pot era.) In 1989 the P.R.K declared that the national religion of Cambodia was Buddhism. They also began to make changes in their constitution and in that same year they were able to give their people thousands of tons of rice to eat.

Source:Chandler, David P. The Land and People of Cambodia. U.S.A.: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.

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