Perhaps in the classical Roman sense of the term colony, combined with an ideological perspective: outpost established in "conquered" (or "liberated" in Syndicalist terminology/point of view) territory to secure it. But the mere fact of being propped by the Internationale does not make it a colony or a protectorate of the Internationale, in the same way that Franco's Spain, Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam, MPLA's Angola or Mao's China were not colonies of the Axis, of the Soviet Union, or of Castro's Cuba.
With regard to the FOP, the context must be taken into account:
- The region they control, Patagonia, is one of the least populated in Argentina, with roughly 311,000 people at the time if the Kaiserreich Wiki is to be believed. This same source claims that the population of Argentina in KR 1936 is around 13 million.
- The population is mainly composed of rural workers, and a good percentage of them are European immigrants, who are the ones who brought socialism, syndicalism and anarchism to Argentina. Some of them are even former Bolsheviks. However, if I remember correctly, most of the leaders of European origin have been in Argentina since before the success of the revolutions in France and Britain, so they are not agents sent by the Internationale.
- The FOP is not a country: is a movement, a front, formed as a measure of self-defense (strength is in the union), that has come to be as a result of a revolt, and circumstances have led it to become government aspiring to rival that of Buenos Aires. Argentina is in a kind of civil war/rebellion in stand-by, which has not reached its logical conclusion (the FOP being crushed by the Argentine forces of order) due to Chilean protection and Argentinian instability.
@Worffan101 compares the situation of the FOP with that of the Spanish Republic. In my opinion, a more exact simile would be with the so-called Asturias Revolution of 1934, only that instead of being crushed by the central government, it reached an impasse, allowing the forces behind the revolt to coalesce into a united front, consolidate territorial control, and get international support/protection. Such impasse, of course, being resolved by the conciliatory/ineffective central government of the republic being overthrown in a right-wing coup d'état among whose main objectives is to end the Reds once and for all, igniting a civil war.
Therefore, if we transferred the situation from KR Argentina to OTL Spain, it would not be the Spanish Republic against Nationalist Spain, it would be the Asturian Workers Alliance with heavy support of the International Brigades and the protection of a Socialist Portugal, against the result of a Spanish coup of July 1936 that came out just as planned.
With regard to the radical and extreme conscription measures of the FOP, these are explained (but not justified) in the massive population imbalance between the two sides of the Argentinian conflict. The native revolutionaries may be doing a lot of fighting, but there are simply not enough revolutionaries, enough people in Patagonia, to carry the weight of the conflict by themselves. Even if every human being that appears in the population register were recruited, they could hardly aspire to parity with the number of troops that Argentina can mobilize, and that is without taking into consideration the support of international brigades sent by reactionaries and anti-syndicalists around the globe to the Government in Buenos Aires.
Ultimately, the measures implemented by the FOP are nothing more and nothing less than an updated version of the levée en masse implemented by the First French Republic. If they include women, unlike the Jacobins or the Nazis, it is because they do not have the same prejudices that made it unimaginable for them, even in the midst of the greatest distress and urgency, to include women as combatants. If they include children (which I don't think I remember from the last time I played a Kaiserreich game with the FOP, although that was months ago and I may well have forgotten), I imagine it is more out of desperation than ideological reasons.
Paradox detected. You cannot simultaneously be a colony/protectorate of the Internationale and a puppet of a state that is not a member of the Internationale. (Unless Chile was the Internationale´s colony/protectorate/puppet, something that is simply not true).
Taking into account the situation on the ground, it could be said that the FOP is a "protected state" of Chile, as well as a common enterprise between Chile and the Internationale, in which both play the role of investors.
So, in a way, you would be right: The FOP is a protectorate ... but of Chile, not of the Internationale. Likewise, it is imperative to indicate that not all protectorate relationships are the same. The most infamous, and the first that comes to mind when the term "protectorate" is mentioned, is colonial protection, in which the protectorate is nothing more than a de facto colony, with the state to which protection is granted becoming a agent through which the Protector governs indirectly. Above, I used the term "Protected State" for a reason.
A Protected State, unlike a Colonial Protectorate, retains its sovereignty and independence. The relationship between Chile and the FOP is not one of Colonial Protection, but of Amical Protection. To explain it better, the modern microstates are the best current example of Protected States under Amical protection: They are sovereign states that have been able to unilaterally depute certain attributes of sovereignty to larger powers in exchange for benign protection of their political and economic viability against their geographic or demographic constraints.
In exchange of resources and support, the only thing the FOP may have surrendered to its protector is some control of its external relations; this, however, do not constitute any real sacrifice. Not only because the FOP may not have been able of such relations without the protector's strength (because without Chile, the FOP would have been crushed by Buenos Aires long ago), but because, according with KR focuses and events, the FOP is apparently able to contact with its Internationale supporters directly with no problem, instead of depending of Chile for that.
On the other hand, as others have indicated, the FOP status as a dependent protectorate last only until victory is achieved. Once the FOP is in charge in Buenos Aires, they quickly become fully independent, transitting their own path towards socialism/syndicalism, which can totally diverge from that of Chile or the Internationale. In fact, Chile doesn´t even get a redrawing of borders in its favor. Weird is the colony, where its master does not hold any authority, isn´t it?
Therefore, I return to the point of my previous post: the FOP can´t be a colony or a colonial protectorate of the Internationale, because the Internationale do not hold the required level of control, whether economic or political, direct or indirect, over the FOP, for that denomination to be correct.
In practice, Chile ends up being less a puppet master, and more of a parent, from which its progeny depends, until it can live by itself. The FOP is not a marionette, but a child, that must be protected until it grows, that can´t do things alone, but holds its own opinion. And the Internationale? Well, they are the (fairy) Godmothers, of course!
Finally, if further proof is necessary to solidify the position of this defense, I will proceed to present the following evidence: the rise to power of Alfredo Fonte. No empire, power, or puppet master worth respecting, would allow someone like him to become the leader of their puppet state.
🇪🇸:"Forgotten again, naturally..."
Ok you convinced me on the most cirurgical way possible, thanks
*applauds*
