The exhibition of affinity with the Kremlin of the communist half of the government of Spain

@ElentirENG ES 2·18·2023 · 7:03 0

This Friday, the communist partners of the government of Pedro Sánchez brought together far-left parties from various countries of the European Union in Madrid.

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An far-left conference dedicated to criticizing NATO

The event, announced Thursday by Minister Ione Belarra (from the far-left party Podemos), was entitled "European Conference for Peace". The minister stated that the purpose of this event was to defend "the path of dialogue", but in reality its participants have leveled more criticism at NATO than at Russia, which is the country that invaded Ukraine almost a year ago. In fact, in all the tweets published by Podemos about this conference only one mention of Russia appeared and it was to blame NATO for being as guilty of the war as the invading country. It was not something unpredictable: the European extreme left has been displaying this same discourse for a year.

The event brought together nine of the most pro-Russian parties in the EU

It is not difficult to know the cause of this coincidence in the speeches of that event. In June 2022, the NGO VoteWatch Europe published a report on the position of European political parties in relation to Russia. The report examined those parties that have at least two seats in that institution, analyzing their positions in the different votes related to Russia. Based on the data from this study, in October you could read here the list of the most pro-Russian parties of each country of the European Union.

It coincides -although it is unlikely to be the result of chance- that nine of the pro-Russian parties on that list attended this event organized by Podemos yesterday in Madrid:

• Parti du Travail de Belgique (Belgium).
• Die Linke (Germany).
• Bloco da Esquerda (Portugal).
• La France Insoumise (France).
• Syriza (Greece).
• Left Alliance (Vasemmistoliitto, Finland).
• Left Party (Vänsterpartiet, Sweden).
• Izquierda Unida (Spain).
• Podemos (Spain).

Five parties participated in the event that did not condemn the Russian invasion

To this we must add that another of the parties invited, the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) , which is part of Izquierda Unida. The two MEPs from Izquierda Unida belong to the PCE. EH Bildu was also invited, a party that refuses to condemn the terrorist attacks by ETA. Let us remember that in March of last year, Members of Izquierda Unida and EH Bildu refused to support the European condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There were also other deputies who did not condemn this invasion either, such as Özlem Demirel, Martin Schirdewan, Cornelia Ernst, Martina Michels and Helmut Scholz (Die Linke), Malin Björk (Vänsterpartiet) and Marc Botenga (Parti du Travail de Belgique), three of the foreign parties invited yesterday to the Podemos event.

Minister Belarra asks to stop sending military aid to Ukraine

Taking these ingredients into account, the outcome of the event was predictable. Minister Belarra used that platform to demand that Sánchez stop sending arms to Ukraine -that is, that he stop all aid to a people that is being attacked by a invading country-, despite the fact that Spain has been one of the countries that has sent the least military aid to the Ukrainian people. Belarra also asked her socialist government partners to recognize that it was "an error to contribute to the escalation of the war", as if the ones to blame for a war are those who help the attacked people. What the communist half of the Spanish government did yesterday was show, once again, its affinity with the Kremlin's strategy, a strategy that consists of putting pressure on Western countries to stop helping Ukraine so that Russia can complete its invasion.

What happened with the Soviet invasions of 1939 is repeated

At this point it is more than evident that the European extreme left is not looking for peace: what they are trying to do is facilitate Russia's victory. All their political strategy has been geared towards that end for a year now. Part of this strategy consists of disguising it with timid criticism of Putin, while the ultra-left presents NATO as the main culprit behind the Russian invasion. Let us remember that this is not a new strategy: one of the participants in yesterday's event, the PCE justified the Soviet invasions of Poland and Finland in 1939 and did so by appealing to a false pacificism and blaming the French and British for siding with the invaded. Let's not forget that at that time Stalin and Hitler were allies (in fact, they jointly invaded Poland). Eighty-four years later, the communists continue to do favors to the worst tyrants amid cynical calls for peace.

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Main photo: Lilith Verstrynge. Minister Ione Belarra, from Podemos, with the participants in the event organized yesterday by that far-left party.