The historical amnesia of the left-wing on the 90th anniversary of the assassination of José Calvo Sotelo

The Spanish left has spent two decades invoking "historical memory" as a democratic necessity, but with considerable gaps.

José Calvo Sotelo: this was the socialist crime that caused the start of the Spanish Civil War
The party of the murderers of José Calvo Sotelo wants to impose its narrative on us

Last Sunday we had the opportunity to see how uncomfortable certain past events are for the left, events such as the assassination of Miguel Ángel Blanco by the terrorist group ETA, a crime whose mere memory provokes clear displeasure among left-wing activists on social media. Yesterday we had the opportunity to see something similar.

This Monday, July 13th, marked the 90th anniversary of the assassination of right-wing deputy José Calvo Sotelo, a crime that triggered the Spanish Civil War and was perpetrated by members of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), one of the organizations that make up the current coalition government of socialists and communists headed by Pedro Sánchez, the current general secretary of the PSOE.

Such a significant anniversary was a good opportunity for some historical reflection, but that seems like asking too much of the Spanish left. Those who have spent years selling us their crude attempt to rewrite history to impose their biased and sectarian narrative as "historical memory," yesterday decided that this crime shouldn't be discussed on its 90th anniversary, turning historical memory into amnesia.

I conducted a thorough search and, to no one's surprise, not a single Spanish leftist media outlet mentioned that crime yesterday. This was predictable: for socialists and communists, if something doesn't fit their narrative, they simply omit it. The Spanish left tries to present that civil war as a conflict between democrats and anti-democrats, placing itself in the former group and the right in the latter, and of course, they're not going to acknowledge that those impeccable "democrats" murdered one of the opposition leaders on July 13, 1936, a crime for which the PSOE has never apologized.

That is their particular idea of ​​"historical memory": to decree the forgetting of the victims of their crimes or even to launch defamations against them, as happened seven years ago, when the communist party Podemos identified the victims of the Paracuellos massacre (among them 50 children) with "fascism", in an attempt to whitewash that horrendous crime. They are the same ones who boast of being great defenders of human rights while supporting all kinds of dictatorships. This left is cynicism disguised as political activism.

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Image: Grok, based on a photo by Abc.