The initial objective of the Khmer Issarak was to fight against the French in order to gain independence, before later focusing on overthrowing the Cambodian government.

Among those groups, which were aided by Thailand, some of the members later established right-wing and left-wing bands, including Son Ngoc Minh, Sieu Heng and Tou Samouth.

In the 1950s, the Viet Minh controlled-Issarak groups eventually transformed into communist organizations: for instance, the Khmer People’s Revolution Party (KPRP).

Several significant figures in the Khmer Rouge and Democratic Kampuchea who participated in the Cambodian Civil War, were closely related to the Viet Minh influenced-Issaraks.

Even in 1953, the year Cambodia gained independence, the anti-French war was still led by disparate leaders, who were divided geographically and ideologically.

[11] Several powerful Issarak leaders such as Dap Chhuon and Prince Norodom Chantaraingsey allied with the Sihanouk government in different periods of time.

Furthermore, short-term goal of the Thai-supported Issarak movement was to conduct propaganda against French colonialism in the ceded provinces, which under Thai control from 1941-1946.

[12] However, in the rightist military coup in Thailand in November 1947 the Pridi administration was overthrown, and the new Thai government reduced support its and forced the Issaraks to come back to Cambodia.

Due to a large number of guerrilla groups being unwilling to work with the Viet Minh, some of them set up strong bases and became warlords, but the majority dissolved.

Poc Khun was born in a high-ranking aristocratic family in Phnom Penh and coincidentally was the uncle of Prince Monireth’s wife.

[1][16] Before the right wing coup in Bangkok in late 1947, a jointly Khmer Issarak-Viet Minh commanded guerrilla group was founded in the Thai capital in February.

In provinces close to Vietnam, Vietnamese ideologies, organizations and units played critical roles in developing the anti-French resistance.

[24] However, as Khmer communist organizations had to subordinate to the victory of the First Indochina War, only at most 5700 soldiers fought the French with the Vietnamese in Cambodia.

[26][27] Around 1955 election, Heng became a secret agent to Sihanouk and later openly defected to the government, with providing information about revolutionaries to Lon Nol.

[34][33] After commanding the Cambodian communist to fight the French in the First Indochina War, Son moved to northern Vietnam in 1955 and died in 1972.

Though Chhuon was nominally anti-communist, the organisation also had two important Viet Minh supporters: Sieu Heng, who was the head of the ICP North-Western branch, and his nephew Long Bunruot.

Chhuon's KPLC expelled Sieu Heng and the majority of the other leftists, and remodelled itself as the Khmer National Liberation Committee, with Prince Chantaraingsey as its military commander.

[46] In the eastern area of Cambodia, the leaders of those Viet Minh-influenced forces remained largely unchanged up to and beyond the establishment of Democratic Kampuchea.