A postage stamp commemorating the centenary of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), has stirred up the Spanish political right, PP, Ciudadanos and Vox, who have come out in a storm to criticize the decision of the state company, which justifies the edition within the centenary commemorations that he usually does.
The last editions of commemorative stamps would have been those of the bicentennial of the independence of Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua or the one launched for the 500 years of the battle of San Marcial.
The stamp, which will go on sale on November 14, with a circulation of 135,000 copies, with a rate of 0.75 euros -the normal rate for shipments to Spanish territory- has the meaning, according to a spokesman for Correos, to recognize the PCE and value "a story with many faces of women and men who decided to commit themselves to change the reality of an unjust and unequal country".
Correos sources, whose president, José Manuel Serrano, was Pedro Sánchez's chief of staff, point out that the PCE, "during the Franco regime, despite the harsh underground conditions, became the engine of the forces that fought for democracy".
The issuance of this stamp was announced on Twitter by the PCE himself, who thanked Correos for publishing this stamp, and immediately there was a great controversy on Twitter, with numerous messages from the PP, Ciudadanos and especially Vox, against this initiative. . Those of Abascal came to request a commemorative stamp of the murders of Paracuellos, which are attributed to the PCE.
The current general secretary of the PP, Enrique Santiago, responded to this controversy by emphasizing that those who protest the issuance of the stamp "cannot support democracy, nor that the PCE has been in the front line to defend it every time the oligarchies and the reaction have tried to kill her."
Those of Abascal denounce that the seal is the work of the "criminal, corrupt and lying government" and recall that "the European Union approved that any historical memory must go through condemning this criminal ideology." Joan Garriga, general secretary of the far-right formation, has stressed that the "victims of communism" reach 100 million and has stated that it is "shameful that an institution founded in 1716 is stained by the Government in this way" and the deputy for Seville Francisco Contreras recalls that the stamp is issued "Just on the anniversary of the executions of Paracuellos. We must recognize that they are in everything."
From the PP the self-tribute stamp has been described, since the PCE is part of the Government, and they stress that Correos should not be a "suspicious and partisan institution, as the CIS or the Prosecutor's Office has been shown to be, nor should it serve to place advisers who are no longer worthy of Sánchez, nor to make love to the parties that keep this president in power".
The PP senator, Rafael Hernando, went directly on Twitter and asked for the stamp to be withdrawn. "It is a shame. Take it back”, he said, since “communism, Nazism, and fascism are totalitarian ideologies condemned by the European Parliament and that caused millions of deaths”. "Here the social power government celebrates it and pays homage to the Communist Party with a stamp," he stressed.
Ciudadanos, for its part, calls for the resignation of the president of Correos, because "commemorating the century of life of the hammer and sickle party is commemorating hatred, crime and misery, it contravenes the 2019 European resolution on communism and Nazism", "it stains the image of Spain" and "it is a shame".
The controversy transcended the Spanish borders and the Visegrad Group, which brings together four Central European countries that belonged to the Soviet Union, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, have published a tweet in which they explain that Spain has issued a stamp commemorative on the occasion of the centenary of the Communist Party of Spain, which will be put into circulation on November 14 and asks: What is the Madrid government doing? Central and Eastern Europe lobbied for years for the EU to condemn ALL totalitarian ideologies."
