A semi-colony is, in Marxist theory, a country

Country

A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...

 which is officially an independent and sovereign nation, but which is in reality very much dependent and dominated by another (imperialist) country.

This domination could take different forms -

• economic (the supply of capital, technology or goods, and control over strategic assets and foreign trade),
• political (direct intervention by the imperialist country in the political affairs of the semi-colony to secure client-regimes),
• military (the presence or control exercised by foreign troops) and
• cultural (e.g. the imposition of a foreign culture on the local population through the media, education and foreign consumer products).

The term semi-colony is often used interchangeably with "neo-colony".

Client relationship

The relationship between the semi-colony is said to benefit the position of semi-colonial elite or ruling class (which serves both its own interest and the interests of foreign investors and creditors) and also to benefit the imperialist country, which obtains profits and cheap resources from its investments in the semi-colony. The semi-colonial situation however disadvantages the working majority of the population, insofar as balanced economic development is impossible - only those industries are developed which benefit foreign investors or the export trade (usually extractive and agricultural industries).

The class structure of a typical semi-colony features a large mass of peasants and unemployed, a relatively small urban working class and middle class, a strong landowning class, and an urban comprador

Comprador

Comprador or Compradore is a term used to describe native managers of European business houses in East Asia.-History:...

 bourgeoisie.

Many semi-colonies in Africa, Asia and Latin America are dominated by the imperialist countries which once colonised

Colony

In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....

 them, while others may never have been a colony but are nonetheless dominated by a superpower

Superpower

A superpower is a state with a dominant position in the international system which has the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests...

 such as the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 or formerly the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

Marxists regard semi-colonies differently to what they regard as genuinely independent nations, and will often support a semi-colony in a struggle against its dominating power, reasoning that it will help resolve the national question and thus promote class struggle

Class struggle

Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....

.

Origins of the term

The concept of a semi-colony originated in the earlier years of the Communist International, which classified the countries of the world as being either imperialist countries, intermediate countries, semi-colonies, and colonies. From that definition followed a political strategy for the labour movement in each type of country (for example as regards nationalisation of industry, workers' rights, democratisation, the ownership of land).

The term "semi-colony" has continued to be used particularly in the Trotskyist movement. The general perspective of the Communist International was that it was impossible for semi-colonial countries to achieve substantive industrialisation and transform property relations without a socialist and democratic revolution. In other words, the power of semi-colonial elite had to be overthrown by the workers and peasants, to liberate the country from its client-relationship with foreign powers, and make comprehensive local economic development possible.

Controversy

However, with the expansion of the world market and globalisation especially from the 1970s onwards, the "semi-colonial" status of particular countries became more ambiguous because a number of them were able to industrialise to a significant extent so that they became at least "semi-industrialised" countries. They gained somewhat more financial, political and cultural autonomy, and in some cases, the local elite became a major foreign investor in its own right. On the other side, it was no longer very clear that they were under the control of another foreign country, rather than being dominated by a bloc of several wealthier countries, or by international financial institutions.

This raised the question of whether the concept of a "semi-colony" is still relevant. Whatever the case, the definition of a country as a semi-colony as such refers to specific analysis of its place in the world economy and world trade, as well as its local political and economic culture.

Some Trotskyist groups, such as the League for a Fifth International interpret Lenin's analysis of imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

in a way which defines the vast majority of states in the world as semi-colonies, including all of Eastern Europe.