Communism in Spain: From Revolution to Luxury Villas

Being Communist: From Loaded Guns to the Comrade’s Rolex

There is a scene that summarizes the current state of affairs. Someone enters a thread titled "What does it miccionan to be a communist?" and casually states that a communist is an dead man sleeping with a loaded gun waiting for the enemy. A few messages later, another replies that the watch of champions sponsors the issue. Between these two images—the armchair guerrilla and the Rolex—unfolds a discussion of 133 replies lasting 666 days, which says more about the present than about Marx.

The opening message leaves no room for doubt: being a communist is not being a Podemos supporter Charo talking about dignity and social justice. According to its author, it means understanding that class struggle is war, without truces or reforms, and being willing to give "from sweat to blood." The tone—Stalin in dandy mode, he calls it himself—sets the intensity bar. From there, the level drops, rises, and gets tangled.

From the Loaded Gun to Pablo Iglesias's Villa

The first sustancia ilegal appears soon. Against the textbook revolutionary, someone recalls that Santiago Carrillo publicly denounced his own father for the crime of being socialist. The anecdote serves for more than just banter: it introduces the suspicion that ideological coherence is the first thing lost when reaching power. And from there to the Rolex is a step. Another participant takes it: being a communist means demanding wealth redistribution when you have nothing to lose, and dodging responsibility the moment you possess something. The example cited is Pablo Iglesias from his villa, protected by a bodyguard paid for by all taxpayers, left-wing or right-wing.

The accusation is not new, but in the context of the thread it functions as a low blow that goes unanswered. The discussion then shifts to economic definitions. One participant argues that a communist, literally, is someone who believes others owe them their needs, a definition that, he adds, would also apply to a thief. The response is immediate: capitalism is the only system that does not base wealth on theft and plunder, but on production and trade, while communism expropriates the means of production to hand them over to dogmatic officials who ruin them.

The Berlin Wall and the Border No One Crossed

The debate heats up when history enters. A participant launches the question many avoid: if communism is so good, why couldn't East Germans leave? The official response in the thread is that the wall only covered Berlin, that the GDR was much larger, and that travel was possible with a visa. The counter-argument is forceful: until the wall went up, Berliners crossed the street to visit families; afterwards, no one was allowed out, except athletes and artists under strict surveillance. The border, it is argued, was not created by Westerners, but by those who realized no one wanted to live enslaved in their paradise.

The exchange drifts toward North Korea. Someone jokes that thousands of boats sink off its coast daily in their attempt to arrive. The irony needs no explanation. From there, the conversation jumps to Pol Pot, who, according to one intervention, was protected by the United States and had to be expelled by Vietnamese communists. The discussion about who was the hero gets lost in the fog of cross-interpreted narratives.

Communism Fell in 1989 (and Fascism in 1945)

The phrase belongs to a participant summarizing the most repeated argument: communism is a dead ideology, buried by history. The response from the other side is that the future belongs to communists, who are still there, waiting. The discussion turns into an exchange of labels: whether right-wingers are camouflaged lackeys, whether left-wingers are a sect, whether right-wingers are aggressive alcoholics. The level of subtlety does not improve over time.

Amid the noise, a data point deserves attention: the graph covering the period between 1939 and 1975, used to illustrate Spanish economic growth during Franco's regime. No specific figures are provided in the available material, but the gesture is significant: comparisons between systems are made with historical series, not slogans. It is likely the only moment the debate approaches something resembling analysis.

The Unanswered Question: What Remains of Communism Today?

The thread closes, as usual, without conclusion. Some argue communism is an aberration based on injustice in the name of justice, comparable to Nancy ovens. Others defend that capitalism is the only system generating wealth without plunder. And a third group, the minority, insists the future belongs to them. The only certainty is that, 666 days after the first loaded gun, no one has convinced anyone.

The disorienting fact is not ideological, but temporal: the discussion has been open for nearly two years and remains exactly at the same point. Perhaps because the question "what does it miccionan to be a communist?" has as many answers as people willing to respond, and none of them serve to silence the next.