BOOR REVIEW 71
who later played a prominent role in the armed resistance to the French and the Americans.
Apart from the processing of agricultural products, there was no industrialization prior to independence. Stunted in many ways by the peculiarities and repressions of French colonialism, Cambodia remained essentially a rural society. In the year 1963 for which figures are available, 81 per cent of the population were in the primary sector, 4 per cent in the secondary and 15 per cent in the tertiary. Of those in the primary sector 81 percent were rice-growers, 3 per cent were fishermen and 16 per cent engaged in other agricultural pursuits. The colonial character of the economy is also reflected in the degree of urbanization : only 10 per cent are city dwellers, most of whom inhabit Phnom Penh, the capital (p 111).
The economic 'somnolence' was paralleled by a political apathy in contrast to the turmoil of ideas and movements in neighbouring Vietnam. French neglect of education prevented the rise of an indigenous class of intellectuals independent of the aristocracy. By 1939, only four Cam-bodians had matriculated from a senior high school established in 1935. In 1941 the only secondary school had 537 pupils drawn from a population of some three million. The objective circumstances in which the grievances and national consciousness of the masses might have found expression seemed to be lacking.
A genuine nationalist movement did not begin until the late 1930s although the Communist Party of Indochina had been formed in 1930. In practice, the nationalist movement was almost wholly Vietnamese. The Cambodian aristocracy, not to mention the royals, although restless and even rebellious at times under humiliating French tutelage, played no active part in the nationalist upsurge that swept the rest of Asia during this period.
In 1941, the French authorities elevated Prince Norodom to the throne. Chosen mainly for his youth he was expected to be a pliable instrument of control in a delicate situation with competing forces— Japanese, Vichy and Free French, anti-monarchist Khmer nationalists, Vietnamese Communist partisans, their Cambodian allies and Thai revan-chist circles—ceaselessly jockeying for power.
Sihanouk refused to play the French game, although he was made to sign a convention in 1949 which included clauses placing the country within the French Union. Nothing much was heard of him till 1953. His principal concern during this period was independence which, he felt, could be won by patient negotiations. In 1953 he made a futile mission to France and then went into a dramatic 'self exile5 at Battambang and Stem Riep,strongholds of anti-French struggle.in a bid to use the powerx^ul guerilla struggle to strengthen his bargaining power.
The insurgent Left which led the struggle was represented by Khmer Issarak and its military wing, the Khmer People's Liberation Army, which maintained a close liaison with the Vietminh (under Ho Chi Minh and Nguyen Giap), and the Pathet Lao. A Joint National United Front was