Leftist blindness about today's dictatorships calls into question its 'historical memory'

For many years now, the Spanish left has been imposing its sectarian vision of history under the title of "historical memory."

Spain: a totalitarian law that hides the war crimes of the left comes into force
Pedro Sánchez's denialism: he voted against a condemnation of nazi and communist crimes

The left uses these two words, and also the term "democratic memory," to define what it considers an unquestionable vision of history that divides Spaniards into good and bad, while turning a blind eye to the numerous crimes committed by socialists and communists in the Spanish Civil War and even before it. For the Spanish left, the Franco trump card has served to systematically label all those who are not left-wing as "fascists," while the left omits any criticism of current dictatorships.

Socialism and its inability to call Venezuela and Cuba 'dictatorships'

Let's look at an example: today the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, the Spanish socialist Josep Borrell, did not want to describe Venezuela as a dictatorship. This is not a new or strange position for Spanish socialism. This very week, the also socialist José Manuel Albares, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, avoided calling Venezuela a "dictatorship".

Let us also remember that in 2018, the president of the Spanish government, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, avoided calling Nicolás Maduro a "dictator", despite recognizing that Venezuela is not a democracy. And if it is not a democracy, then what is it? This blindness towards far-left dictatorships does not only apply to Venezuela. In July 2021, Sánchez avoided calling Cuba a "dictatorship", despite acknowledging that it is not a democracy. If the dictatorship is socialist or communist, then the left suffers from selective blindness that prevents it from seeing a dictatorship where there is a regime that perpetuates itself in power without free elections and violating the most basic human rights.

Not a single tweet from the PSOE calling Cuba, Venezuela and communist China 'dictatorships'

Also in 2021, Pedro Sánchez's party, the PSOE, published the only tweet in which he mentions the words "Cuba" and "dictadura" (dictatorship), but he used the latter to talk about Franco's regime, and not the totalitarian communist regime of the aforementioned Caribbean island, criticizing Vox for caring too much about Cuba, whose dictatorship, apparently, does not concern the PSOE in the least. In the case of the Maduro regime, the result is worse: the PSOE has never been able to publish a tweet that includes the words "Venezuela" and "dictadura" in the same message.

Similarly the PSOE has not published any tweet saying "China" and "dictadura" in the same text. This should not surprise anyone who is minimally informed, since the PSOE maintains a long and friendly relationship with the Communist Party of China (CPC), the sole party of the totalitarian regime directed from Beijing.

Socialists and communists voting together in defense of the Cuban dictatorship

It must be said that this blindness is not exclusive to the PSOE. Sánchez's communist allies openly support Maduro's socialist dictatorship, the communist dictatorship in Cuba and other similar regimes. In practice, their position is not very different from that defended by the socialists. Let us remember that in 2021, when the European Parliament approved a resolution condemning repression in Cuba, the PSOE and the communists of Podemos voted against it. That same year, in a vote held in Congress, the PSOE and its communist allies voted against the European condemnation of the crimes of Nazism and Communism.

The case of the media

Beyond politics, this bias is also observed in many media outlets, especially in leftist media, but not only in them. Other media have also ended up assuming this leftist bias to the point that they are unable to cite words like "dictatorship" or "dictator" when publishing a news item about Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Russia or communist China, thus contributing to the whitewashing of these anti-democratic regimes.

They are the same ones who impose their opinions on us about history.

These positions call into question the "historical memory" of the left. With what authority does the left impose its vision of history while it is unable to recognize today's dictatorships? Apart from the fact that "historical memory" is a cynical title to silence any opinion on history that does not coincide with the opinion of the left, something incompatible with democratic principles, what kind of opinion of the past do those who are unable to see today's dictatorships simply because they are ideologically similar have?

---

Photo: Yassir Abbas.