Who is Pol Pot - a quiet teacher, educated in Paris, an admirer of Rousseau? He was called a “chubby monster”, a “maniac”, a criminal “worse than Hitler”. However, this explains little. The damage that Democratic Kampuchea, led by Pol Pot, caused to its people was called “self-genocide” by some researchers. In less than four years, a million Cambodians (one in seven) died from malnutrition, overwork, and disease. About one hundred thousand people were executed for committing crimes against the state. In a detailed biography of Pol Pot, an attempt is made to place the tyrant in the context of his native country and world processes, to explore the mechanisms that powered the monstrous machine. We accompany step by step the mysterious dictator, who did not like to be photographed and until the end of his life did not understand what he was accused of, in order to understand both this man and the tragic history of his country.