“Monarchy or Democracy?”—like Sar’s later writings and speeches—is conversational in tone, overheated in rhetoric, and uncertain in its grasp of history. There is no evidence, for instance, that “enlightened monks” composed “Tmenh Chey” or that the Buddha left home because of his father’s behavior—although these may have been stories told by antimonarchic monks and common currency among liberal Khmer. The essay also makes no distinction between the “democratic” regimes of China, France, and the USSR, stressing only that all three had rejected monarchy as an institution. Furthermore, it fails to take sides in the conflict in Indochina. More ominously, “Monarchy or Democracy?” fails to suggest how democracy might take hold in Cambodia, although references to revolutionary leaders (but not to parties or political groups) suggest obliquely that someone as enlightened as Yuthevong, the Buddha, Tmenh Chey, or Robespierre might eventually take command.

In August 1952 Sihanouk’s adviser Penn Nouth came to Paris under orders to cut off the scholarships of those associated with the offensive issue of Khmer Nisut and other student outbursts that had followed the coup d‘état. Keng Vannsak was protected from reprisals because he was related to Cambodia’s minister of education, but he was told to return home before he had completed his dissertation. He arrived in Phnom Penh in October 1952.

By the time Saloth Sar was writing “Monarchy or Democracy?” he was no longer enrolled as a student. As he said in 1978, “I neglected my studies, and the authorities took away my scholarship.” The government ledger verifying this assertion makes no mention of political activities. Others in the same position, and students whose scholarships were cut off for political reasons, often lingered in France, living by their wits on borrowed money. Three such students were Ieng Sary, Hou Youn, and Son Sen. According to Keng Vannsak, Sar was eager to return to Cambodia to engage in the anticolonial struggle, and his views were shared by several others, including Sien An, Rath Samoeun, Mey Mann, and Yun Soeurn. Vannsak’s recollection was corroborated many years later by Mey Mann, when he told Steve Heder:

Because of our thirst for information, Ieng Sary, Rath Samoeun, and Thiounn Mumm decided in 1952 that some of us would go back to Cambodia to find out more about what was really happening.... Saloth Sar was among those designated to go.... There was an internal discussion and we were asked to decide and declare whether we were prepared to dedicate our lives to the revolution. Saloth Sar was one who said that he was.26