CUBA: FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY VOID TO THE PRECIPICE WITHOUT A FUTURE

 

For more than six decades, Cuba defined itself as a unique revolutionary project in the Western Hemisphere—a planned society, egalitarian in discourse, and resistant to “imperialist pressures” since the victory of an apparent revolution in 1959. This ideological discourse, however, has progressively eroded in the face of evidence of an economy increasingly dependent on external subsidies, unable to generate sustainable internal prosperity, and trapped in political rigidity that has excluded plurality and democratic competition. The Cuban Constitution of 2019 declares socialism “irrevocable” and the Communist Party as the sole leading force, closing off any possibility of real democratization and political liberalization.

Since the early 2000s, with Hugo Chávez and later Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela served as Cuba’s economic lifeline. More than 90,000 barrels of crude oil daily—representing up to 80% of its energy needs—arrived in Havana on preferential terms, even as part of a barter system that sent Cuban doctors in exchange for fuel.

Every time Venezuela's crisis deepened, the reduction in that aid intensified, until between 2025 and 2026, with Nicolás Maduro’s capture and the reorientation of Venezuelan oil, that flow was completely interrupted. Cuba faces a problem that is not merely energetic but structural dependency. Without Venezuelan oil, thermoelectric plants halt operations, causing prolonged blackouts. Transportation and logistics grind to a stop, driving up costs for food and basic goods. Consequently, the state loses its main tool for ensuring subsidies and maintaining social control.

The energy crisis overlays other deeply destructive factors, such as a structurally weak economy that contracts continuously. Sectors like sugar, tourism, and manufacturing have suffered severe setbacks amid inflation. Shortages are endemic. Millions of Cubans have fled the island, shrinking the young workforce, and the crisis is once again comparable to (or worse than) the “Special Period” following the Soviet collapse of 1990.

The Cuban exodus is not just demographic but a symptom of hopelessness that undermines the legitimacy of any political project offering no viable future or social mobility. As the economy collapses, the response from the Castro regime and Miguel Díaz-Canel has been to ramp up repression and peddle useless rhetoric of external threats. Detentions of several dissidents continue, and political and social pressure intensifies.

This raises a fundamental question: Will the economic crisis lead to the fall of the communist political system? Empirical evidence and specialized analyses offer important nuances. First, some observers of the crisis argue that while the economy teeters on collapse due to blackouts, migration, and scarcities, there is no clear evidence that Díaz-Canel’s regime will fall soon. This speaks to the structural resilience of Cuban communist power, bolstered by control of security forces, state media, and formal institutions (like the National Assembly) that ensure a level of survival, even without prior economic support.

Second, the regime has shown openness to dialogue with the United States and seeks diplomatic concessions once unthinkable, though without committing to fundamental political changes. For Díaz-Canel and Cuba’s current elites, the revolution is ideologically and politically ineffective. Moreover, China, Russia, or other states might offer symbolic or limited support to avert total collapse, though such aid cannot replace a prosperous economy.

Third, where the regime may weaken is not solely in traditional political arenas but in the erosion of cultural and social legitimacy: a people with no future expectations, no mobility, and lacking basic energy can become more indifferent or even hostile to a system offering no solutions. Cuba has become a state owned by a caste—loyal to Castroism—awash in internal privileges and disconnected from society. That ruling class has monopolized access to certain resources and promoted a monolithic narrative where any dissent is seen as “treason” or “foreign interference.”

That power monopoly is one of the main causes of the absence of authentic democratic prospects. And though the economic structure collapses, a transition to a democratic or pluralistic system is not linear, as it involves social, cultural, and geopolitical reconfigurations that could take decades and are subject to internal tensions and U.S. pressures, which are not interested in democratization but in direct control and the root destruction of communist elites.

Cuba's current crisis—accelerated by the interruption of Venezuelan oil and intensified sanctions—represents a profound historical threshold. It is not merely economic but a turning point in the revolutionary narrative, a fracture between a political project that promised emancipation and a daily reality of scarcity, poverty, emigration, and resignation to a nonexistent future. Moreover, the model's implosion does not automatically guarantee positive democratization; rather, it opens a zone of uncertainty where the communist regime could survive through cosmetic reforms and strategic alliances.

Popular pressure may increase, but without an organized, cohesive opposition with viable alternatives, it could all be in vain. External factors (international pressure, sanctions, and conditional aid) may deepen the crisis without necessarily provoking genuine democratic change.

At this moment, Cuba's history is that sad end of an island trapped between its ideological past, the brutal arithmetic of international markets, and its people's fragmented democratizing aspirations. The outcome—whether definitive shipwreck, gradual transition, or distinct authoritarian reconfiguration—remains unwritten, though it will be a crucial chapter in the contemporary history of the Caribbean and the failed revolutions of the 20th century.

Finally, Cuba is neither—and will not be—China, nor an Eastern European country in the 1990s. This historical and structural difference is decisive for understanding its lack of exit. Castroism and Díaz-Canel cannot replicate Deng Xiaoping’s pragmatic reforms, lacking continental scale, a massive investor diaspora integrated into the state project, and above all, a technocratic elite willing to sacrifice ideological dogma for sustained growth.

The Cuban Communist Party has not shown the instrumental flexibility of the Chinese Communist Party, which embraced the market as a tool without relinquishing political control. Cuba is not Poland either, lacking the social, religious, and union conditions that enabled the emergence of the “Solidarity” movement and leadership like Lech Wałęsa’s, capable of articulating a morally legitimate, democratic, organized opposition with international anchorage.

Isolated, impoverished, and with a civil society dismantled by decades of repression and emigration, Cuba is trapped in an infernal historical limbo: without an effective authoritarian path to economic modernization, nor a plausible democratic transition, condemned to administer permanent decay as its form of government.