An experience that does not seem to be sufficiently valued, particularly in the Americas. The Uruguayan case.
Now it is the turn of another of its former victims: Poland.
The Polish Constitution of 1997 establishes in Article 13:
“Political parties and other organizations whose programs are based on totalitarian methods and modes of activity characteristic of Nazism, Fascism, and Communism shall be prohibited, as well as those whose programs or activities sanction racial or national hatred, the use of violence to obtain power or influence state policy, or provide for the secrecy of their own structure or membership.”
As can be seen, the ban covers several categories, including secret organizations.
In parallel, the Polish Penal Code punishes the “publication, promotion, or dissemination of communist ideas” with prison sentences of up to three years.
Despite the clarity of the legal framework, it was only at the end of 2025 that the Polish Communist Party was declared illegal by the Constitutional Tribunal.
The core argument of the ruling states that there is no place within the Polish legal order for a party that glorifies criminals and communist regimes responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings.
Poland thus joins other states that have adopted similar measures.
In 2019, the European Parliament, in the name of historical memory, condemned both Nazism and Communism, explicitly accusing the Russian government of covering up those crimes.
However, this has not been a process marked by the desired speed.
This perceptible slowness can be explained by the fact that communism collapsed as a system, but its prohibition has been resisted by a poorly understood form of liberalism.
As a result, the process unfolded in stages.
In 2006, condemnation came from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, appealing to historical memory and urging communist parties to undertake an honest introspection.
The condemnation was reiterated with the 2009 Prague Declaration, another statement of good intentions.
In the Polish case, it is noteworthy that in 2017 the removal of monuments and public memorials honoring individuals or symbols associated with communism was ordered.
At the same time, in a small South American country called Uruguay, the Communist Party was being honored with the erection of a hammer and sickle in a public space in the department of Treinta y Tres.
In doing so, the warning expressed by the poet Zorrilla de San Martín in his Leyenda Patria was ignored.
A long time has passed since the end of World War II, and islands of communism still exist in the world.
And by “islands,” we are not referring only to Cuba.
Communism also survives, more or less diluted, within so-called Popular Fronts, as in Uruguay, where they govern.
In Poland, they appear to represent only a marginal fraction.
In the Americas, however, there are groups that are stronger and better organized.
The striking irony is that these devotees of communism, these café intellectuals so often subsidized, or trade union leaders turned legislators, have never had to live under a communist regime.
Sadly, human nature does not seem to be satisfied with the experience of others.