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China is still NOT an imperialist country (and I don´t know if it will ever become one). I still cling, stubbornly and with a rash one-sideness of mind, to Lenin´s assertion: the world is split between a small gang of imperialist nations, and a host of semicolonial countries. Comment Lenin never stated this. Further he uses the term "semi-colony" in a specific context. The context is the closed or direct colonial system, as it existed in the pre and post WWI period. Imperialism initially expanded based on colonial blocks or direct colonies "connected" to the imperialist state. Direct colony means "occupied by the imperialist military to suppress all opposition." One can of course just show where Lenin divide the world between imperialist nations and semi-colonies rather than imperialist states and colonies; oppressor nations with their oppressing peoples and oppressed nations/peoples. Perhaps your copy of Lenin reads different from mine. My copy reads as follows. "First, what is the cardinal idea underlying our theses? It is the distinction between oppressed and oppressor nations. Unlike the Second International and bourgeois democracy, we emphasise this distinction. In this age of imperialism, it is particularly important for the proletariat and the Communist International to establish the concrete economic facts and to proceed from concrete realities, not from abstract postulates, in all colonial and national problems. The characteristic feature of imperialism consists in the whole world, as we now see, being divided into a large number of oppressed nations and an insignificant number of oppressor nations, the latter possessing colossal wealth and powerful armed forces. The vast majority of the world's population, over a thousand million, perhaps even 1,250 million people, if we take the total population of the world as 1,750 million, in other words, about 70 per cent of the world's population, belong to the oppressed nations, which are either in a state of direct colonial dependence or are semi-colonies, as, for example, Persia, Turkey and China, or else, conquered by some big imperialist power, have become greatly dependent on that power by virtue of peace treaties." WL. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
