If you asked an average Cuban with functioning neurons the question in the title, without thinking much, they would answer:
The Communist Party of Cuba only serves to repress, instill fear, manipulate reality, lie, starve, make Cubans suffer, and overwhelm them with deceitful, alienating propaganda.
Moreover, it’s not really a political party. It’s a Party-State, which is not the same nor written the same.
It is a state-administrative-ideological-paramilitary-repressive machine whose function is to maintain the population’s “revolutionary loyalty” through intimidation, social control, and the perpetual brainwashing of “the masses.”
Let’s imagine that in the United States there were Republican Party committees (now in power) in every factory and company in the country, with orders from the White House telling CEOs and executives how to do their jobs.
That’s what the PCC does in Cuba.
Its members do not meet in regional, provincial, or national venues to debate ideas, craft political strategies, or government programs as political parties do in the “normal” world.
PCC members meet in every factory, business, school, store, hospital, military unit, media outlet, etc., to carry out the “orientations” (orders from the dictator and the mafia military elite who run the country) and ensure strict enforcement of control and intimidation of workers, administrators, and the general population.
One fact that reflects what the PCC truly is—and which the world ignores—is that it excludes 94% of the Cuban electorate from political life.
According to the socialist Constitution, the Communist Party is the “guiding force of society,” but it only has about 500,000 members.
It’s been 14 years since they last published membership numbers—so as not to admit that in that time around 200,000 members have left the party.
And increasingly fewer young people from the UC and not-so-young workers are willing to join that repressive machinery in any sense.
That half a million communist militants are the only Cubans who formally have the right to choose the leadership of the Party-State.
And I say formally, because in reality it is Raúl “The Cruel” who chooses or approves the leaders of the Party-State, the Council of Ministers, and the National Assembly.
Of the island’s 8.9 million inhabitants, about 6.8 million are 16 or older and can vote.
But only PCC members can actually vote.
In other words, only 6% of Cubans, the communist “patricians” (members of the PCC), have the right to vote for those who will govern the country as heads of the Party-State.
I must point out that since Raúl Castro took power by dynastic right and militarized everything, the real power in the country lies with a mafia military elite, headed by the dictator himself—above the Constitution, the PCC, the government, and the National Assembly.
But here’s the key: that absolute dictatorial power wielded by the mafia military clique is only possible thanks to the iron control that the Party-State exercises over all of Cuban society, including people’s private lives.
The real power of this military mafia has nothing to do with the State as the basic institution of the modern nation.
Without delving into the origins of the State with city-states in Mesopotamia or Greece (“polis”), etc., let us recall that after the end of feudal medievalism with the discovery of America, the Renaissance, and the end of prolonged wars, the nation-state arose in Europe in the 17th century.
A new social order based on sovereignty—now national—that reached its coming of age in America with the Declaration of Independence of the United States in 1776, the Constitution of 1787, and the first implementation of the separation of powers advocated by Baron de Montesquieu in the first half of the 18th century, which is today a sine qua non condition of modern democracy.
Back to the Party-State. Recently, yet another plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba took place in Havana (all useless since 1965).
Not even by accident—or by a slip of the tongue from one of the attendees—was anything said about the causes, effects, or proposals for emergency reforms to at least alleviate the crisis that is devastating the country.
As usual, it was a sleep-inducing meeting.
No one proposed anything new.
Of course, the one part where no attendee could afford to fall asleep—because it would cost them dearly—was during the conclusions of the First Secretary and “President” of the country, the inept Miguel Díaz-Canel (MDC).
Incidentally, this time it became obvious that his interminable 4,872-word speech (about 19 or 20 pages) was not written by MDC.
Due to its well-crafted prose, style, metaphors, and even a touch of lyricism, it was written by someone cultured and articulate.
In other words, nothing like the “houseless one.”
Instead of proposing bold emergency actions to alleviate hunger, extreme poverty, and blackouts, what he did was justify himself (“wash his hands”) as head of government for how bad everything is—and blame a foreign government: the United States.
Let’s look at some direct excerpts from his message to the country:
MDC:
“We are a country at war. Cuba has lived and resisted under war conditions for over 60 years. Every day, bombs from the economic war fall around us—blocking, hindering, slowing or paralyzing all efforts—and the bombs of disinformation, distortion and hate that accompany them.”
MDC:
“To sharply assess ideological problems (…) to better educate and guide the people about these realities (…) to strengthen consciousness, culture, and the anti-imperialist spirit.”
In other words, Cuba’s catastrophe is due to the “evil of Yankee imperialism,” not communism.
And for there to be more food on Cuban family tables and to end blackouts, what must be done is “strengthen consciousness, culture, and the anti-imperialist spirit.”
MDC:
“To stimulate economic activity also requires strict control over what is approved and implemented, to evaluate the results, correct deviations.
The most important task for the Party is to ensure the Government Program to eliminate distortions.”
The phrase “correct deviations” and “eliminate distortions” is a barely disguised copy of the “Rectification of errors and negative tendencies” from the 1980s, when Castro I abruptly halted the “perestroika winds” blowing in from the USSR.
MDC:
“On social media and in the streets, wherever hate or ignorance seeks to denigrate, humiliate, attack Cuba, it is our duty to confront the haters.”
This was the classic cry of the thief who shouts ‘thief!’ as he escapes from justice.
To deepen the grotesque disconnect between the Party-State and the starving Cuban people, they announced the 10th Congress of the PCC—another mockery, and an even bigger one, of the Cuban people.
Although, given the temperature of the national crisis, no one can say for certain that this totalitarian farce will actually take place.
But I’ll address that issue in a future column.
Roberto Álvarez Quiñones
July 10, 2025