Cuban Communist Party's 11th Plenary: A Showcase of Propaganda and Power Retention Amid Crisis

The 11th Plenary of the Cuban Communist Party's (PCC) Central Committee unfolded in a familiar fashion, filled with slogans, euphemisms, and rhetoric that seemed more like consolation than genuine political direction. This gathering, akin to previous ones, took place under the shadow of a so-called "peculiar dictatorship," a term coined by Miguel Díaz-Canel during the 3rd Plenary in December 2021, a notably grim year.

Amid an unprecedented national crisis—characterized by power outages, rampant inflation, repression, chronic shortages, and a mass exodus emptying the country—the ruling elite once again recited the old script of the so-called "revolution": resist, blame the enemy, defend unity, and promise reforms that never materialize.

As Cubans struggle to survive an increasingly dire reality, their leaders cling to a narrative that no longer depicts the country but instead masks it. The PCC plenaries have morphed into ideological reaffirmation ceremonies rather than arenas for genuine policy-making. Each new meeting reinforces the same truth: the regime's power cannot coexist with reality and facts, seeking refuge instead in empty rhetoric of a supposed "battle of ideas," where only the "heirs" and architects of "continuity" hold the microphone.

The Mandate of Unity: A Call for Silence

In his dual role as ruler and first secretary of the PCC, Díaz-Canel reiterated that "unity is the guarantee of Cuba's freedom, independence, and sovereignty," as reported by the Presidency's website. However, he failed to address the social divide, loss of trust, and growing discontent palpable across all sectors of the country. His invocation of "unity" seemed less a call for common purpose and more a demand for submission. To speak of unity, in practice, is to demand silence.

His speech largely focused on denouncing "disinformation campaigns" and the "media war" allegedly waged against Cuba by the media and social networks. The narrative of an external enemy, which has served as a political haven for the regime for over six decades, remains the most effective tool for avoiding accountability. Instead of addressing the energy collapse, inflation, or the plummeting national production, Díaz-Canel chose to speak of "ideological battles," the need to "rectify," and the "dignity of resistance."

No data, measures, or even a minimal acknowledgment of everyday despair were presented—just rhetoric built on the myth of a heroic Cuba that exists only in outdated Castroist propaganda.

Technocracy of Failure

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz attempted to give the Plenary a tone of modern and efficient management, but his speech ended up being another exercise in empty bureaucracy. He introduced the so-called "Government Program to correct distortions and reinvigorate the economy," filled with numbers—"106 specific objectives, 342 actions, 264 indicators"—that hold little meaning. His most quoted phrase was that "the main challenge is not the design of the program but converting planning into concrete results."

However, Marrero Cruz failed to question why those results never materialize or what prevents planning from translating into tangible improvements. The problem lies not in execution but in the model itself. Yet, in Cuba, no one can say this without risking their position or freedom. The Prime Minister—and potential successor to Díaz-Canel—knows this, opting instead for hollow phrases, remaining firmly seated on the bench of "continuity."

The program Marrero Cruz presented seemed more a collective delusion or exercise in self-persuasion than a real economic strategy. His technocratic language—"improvement," "management mechanisms," "exchange transformation"—functioned as a mask to hide structural paralysis. In the regime's hands, technocracy is not a tool of governance; it is a new form of propaganda.

Ministers of Collapse

Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy acknowledged that the country is experiencing "extremely high blackout hours," yet he attributed the crisis to "lack of fuel and installed technology." He did not discuss the deterioration of thermoelectric plants, concrete plans—with figures and deadlines—for recovering the electrical infrastructure, nor the complete lack of investment in a sector reliant on subsidized fuel from struggling allies or donations with dwindling momentum.

De la O Levy's intervention was a sequence of carefully crafted technicisms to avoid the forbidden word: collapse. Meanwhile, Health Minister José Ángel Portal Miranda adopted a similar tone. He described a "complex epidemiological situation" and an "accumulated vulnerability," using terminology that obscures the spread of diseases, the lack of medicines, and the collapse of the hospital system.

Instead of taking responsibility, he chose euphemisms and praised the "heroism" of health workers, transforming failure into a moral virtue. Both speeches exemplified how the regime has turned public management into defensive rhetoric. It's not about governing with initiatives born from debate and social dialogue, but maintaining the illusion of governing based on "scientific" Marxist criteria with the presumed support of a "heroic people" who "creatively resist."

The Language as a Power Refuge

In Cuban politics, words are not used to describe reality but to replace it. "Distortion," "pressure," "limitation," "complexity," "vulnerability": all are ways to avoid the real terms—crisis, hunger, blackouts, corruption, neglect.

The language of power does not seek communication but containment. Its goal is not to explain but to control. This rhetorical strategy is as old as the system itself. For years, the so-called "revolution" turned every difficulty into an epic and every mistake into a heroic lesson. Now, that formula repeats like an automatic reflex.

What once was an epic narrative of "emancipation"—which led to the loss of popular sovereignty at the hands of a despotic power subservient to Moscow—is today an excuse for inertia. The regime clings to its "external enemy" card, betting on its symbolic function: maintaining the idea of a constant threat and, with it, the need for obedience, under penalty of committing treason.

A Country That No Longer Listens

Beyond the air-conditioned rooms where plenaries are held, Cuban life unfolds at a different frequency. The power's words no longer resonate. Lines, inflation, blackouts, healthcare precarity, and mass migration define the daily existence of millions. The gap between official discourse and reality has never been wider.

Most Cubans no longer adhere to the "revolutionary" doctrine. They have lost faith in the leaders, the plans, the promises, and the system. People listen out of habit but expect nothing. This disenchantment may be the quietest form of rebellion. The power continues to speak, but the populace has turned its back.

The Party as Structural Distortion

In this landscape of systemic decay and ruin, the Communist Party continues to define itself as the "superior guiding force of society." This phrase, repeated in every document and speech, encapsulates Cuba's main obstacle to transformation. As long as the PCC remains above the State and law, no reform will be possible. The Party doesn't correct distortions; it creates them.

Marrero Cruz inadvertently hinted at this when he asserted that the government program must be implemented "preserving political stability and sovereignty." In other words, any economic change is contingent on not jeopardizing political power. Thus, the economy becomes an instrument of control, not development.

The 11th Plenary of the PCC offered no answers or signs of renewal. It only made clear that Cuban power is trapped in its own rhetoric. Díaz-Canel, Marrero Cruz, and their ministers manage the crisis as if it were a story: naming problems to neutralize them, turning scarcity into sacrifice, and incompetence into resilience.

But words are no longer enough. No speech can hide the blackouts, the lines, the hunger, or the desire to be free. No slogan can cover up the emigration of an entire people seeking, outside the Island, the life denied by despots within.

Cuba needs fewer slogans and more truth; less ideology and more freedom. It needs to turn the page and start writing a new history based on a political project that restores dignity, hope, and human rights, recognizing the pluralism of society within the framework of a democratic State of Law with a capitalist economy.

The regime knows this but cannot acknowledge it. Thus, while the country darkens and sickens, and the nation fades, the PCC continues "talking nonsense," constructing a parallel reality to perpetuate the power of new oligarchs of "state capitalism," which the communists attempt to sell as "necessary" for finally "building socialism."