The communist historiography usually called "errors" its own past crimes. Here we will show just a few of its erroneous stamps, a kind of philatelic stuttering that is nevertheless strongly related to crimes and repressions directed against their own populations.
The participants in the meeting (plenara) of the Central Committee of the Romanian Working Party (later the Romanian Communist Party) that took place between 3 - 5 March 1949 decided (of course unanimously) the creation of the collective farms, after the model of the infamous Soviet kolkhozes. The free Romanian farmers were obliged to hand over to the collective farms their land, livestock and tools, without any compensation and to work together in these collectives. Ten thousands of farmers that opposed these measures were imprisoned or deported, and many of them never returned to their villages.
In 1956 the Romanian post issued a commemorative stamps dedicated to the beginning of the collectivization, but labeled it "5 years from the creation of agricultural collective farms, 1951 - 1956." A few days later the stamp was pulled back and replaced by a new one, labeled: "7 years from the creation of agricultural collective farms, 1949 - 1956."
But some errors were so deep that the only solution was to just withdraw the erroneous stamp, without replacing it by a corrected one. Take a look at the stamp above, on the left, issued by the People's Republic of China in November 1968 (Scott 999A). Because the map is inscribed "The entire nation is red" but the island of Taiwan appears white, the stamps was withdrawn after two days. Obviously, the stamp could not be corrected and reissued, because Taiwan, always considered by the PRC as part of its territory, wasn't red (communist).
Just for fun, I have concocted a stamp that displays a modern Chinese ceramic, sought especially at the nostalgics of communism. The design of the statuette is the same as that of the stamp, and the inscription too, just that the "Red Book" is presented this time by its author (Mao) and by his wife.
Acknowledgment: Many thanks to the participants in the newsgroup news:fr.rec.philatelie who mentioned the Chinese stamp and who pointed me to the ceramics.
Created: 06/27/07. Revised: 06/27/07.
Copyright © 2007 by Victor Manta, Switzerland.
All rights reserved in all countries.
