Sánchez pays tribute to a brutal dictator who killed more than a million people

The Socialist president of the Spanish government has once again demonstrated his double standards when it comes to speaking about dictatorships.

Pedro Sánchez's antidemocratic international and his friendly photos with dictators
The crimes of the communist dictatorship of China, which is praised by Pedro Sánchez

Sánchez pays tribute to dictator Ho Chi Minh

During his visit to Vietnam, a country that has been under a communist dictatorship for 50 years (a dictatorship that already existed in North Vietnam since 1945), and after repeatedly criticizing Francisco Franco's dictatorship in Spain, Pedro Sánchez has paid tribute to the dictator Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) at his mausoleum. The Spanish socialist leader himself has published a video of this tribute:

Este año, Vietnam celebra el 50 aniversario de su reunificación y del fin de la guerra.

Durante mi visita a Hanói he expresado la cercanía del pueblo español con una ofrenda floral en el monumento a sus héroes y una visita al mausoleo del presidente Ho Chi Minh. pic.twitter.com/AnCQdTRLtl

— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) April 9, 2025

Sánchez has justified the tribute to that dictator with these words:

During my visit to Hanoi, I expressed the closeness of the Spanish people with a floral offering at the monument to their heroes and a visit to the mausoleum of President Ho Chi Minh.

Spain is a democratic country. With this tribute to a brutal dictator, Sánchez is not expressing Spain's closeness to Vietnam, but rather his personal sympathy for a dictatorship. One more, in fact, since lately Sánchez has acquired the habit of approaching all kinds of dictatorships, openly displaying his sympathy for them while here in Spain he presents himself as a great democrat. With this tribute, Sánchez has made his opinion on democracy and human rights very clear.

A brutal dictator whose regime killed more than a million people

Let us remember that Ho Chi Minh was a brutal dictator whose regime killed between 1 and 3.8 million people, depending on the source. Professor Rudolph Rummel, an American historian who taught at Indiana University, Yale University, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, estimated that the war started by Ho Chi Minh City with his invasion of South Vietnam left 1,719,000 dead, and that the communist dictatorship murdered 1,250,000 people in Vietnam, a figure that rises to 1,760,000 murdered people if the crimes of the Vietnamese dictatorship in Cambodia and Laos are counted.

United by socialism

For those who are unaware of this fact, it should be noted that this undemocratic regime has the official name of "Socialist Republic of Vietnam". Coincidentally, Sánchez is currently and secretary general of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). So far, Sánchez has not condemned a single socialist or communist dictatorship. In March 2021, he and his party rejected the European condemnation of the crimes of communism in a vote held in the Congress of Deputies.

The connection between two of Sánchez's ministers and that dictatorship

Let us also remember that the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) has been governing that country as a single party since 1945, without free elections and systematically violating human rights. The PCV is a member of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (EIPCO), of which the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) is also a member, in which two members of Sánchez's government are active: Second Vice President Yolanda Díaz and Minister of Youth and Children Sira Rego. In October 2024, the PCV and the PCE strengthened their "bonds of friendship" on the occasion of a visit to Spain by Luong Tam Quang, Minister of Security of the Vietnamese dictatorship.

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Images: La Moncloa.