If Pericles were to rise again in Havana and hear Miguel Díaz-Canel explain his concept of "single-party democracy," he would probably ask for a large glass of lemonade to process the astonishment.
Not because the juice of the aromatic citrus has philosophical properties, but because in Cuba's "continuity," lemonade — as decreed by Díaz-Canel himself — remains "the foundation of everything." Apparently, it is also the foundation of political theory.
During the XI Plenary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), the designated ruler once again gifted us with a conceptual gem: “if we are the only party, it must be the most democratic, because it is the party of all the people.”
The phrase, spoken with the solemnity of someone quoting Aristotle but without the bother of having read even the spines of his works, encapsulates the entire tragicomedy of contemporary political thought surrounding the so-called "revolution."
Because in the dialectical universe of Cuban socialism, democracy is not measured by the plurality of options, nor by freedom of the press, nor by institutional transparency. It is measured by the ability of a political organization — the only one permitted by law — to declare itself, with sufficient conviction, the embodiment of the people.
Díaz-Canel does not speak from political theory; he speaks from the legacy of a dictatorial catechism that transformed total control into a supposed "virtue" or civic nightmare.
Therefore, when citing Raúl Castro (“if we are the only party, it must be the most democratic”), he is essentially reiterating an old paraphrase of Lenin's doctrine: the Party does not represent the people; the Party is the people. A formula that, translated into contemporary language, amounts to saying that political monopoly is synonymous with national consensus.
The irony, of course, is that while the ruler strives to theorize his "one-party democracy," the regime inflicts blackouts, scarcity, inflation, censorship, and repression on the Cubans. Yet, the first secretary of the PCC also seeks refuge in concepts, as if it were a manual of tropical philosophy. In the absence of bread, concepts; in the absence of milk, "rare dictatorship."
Because let us not forget that in 2021, Díaz-Canel had already proposed another brilliant definition: “Cuba is a rare dictatorship that neither disappears nor represses.” In other words, a postmodern, ecological dictatorship, without side effects. According to his logic, Cubans who disagree with that vision “are not true Cubans,” but rather “haters, mercenaries, and traitors to the homeland.”
The problem with Díaz-Canel's speech is not only its disconnect from reality, but also the profound ethical trivialization of the idea of democracy.
When it asserts that the Party must "maintain contact with the population" and "be accountable," it is not inviting civic participation but rather a ritual obedience. It is a bureaucratic choreography where the people nod, applaud, and repeat the slogans that were already written before the consultation.
The paradox reaches its peak in the 2019 Constitution, where the legal text itself safeguards the existence of the Communist Party as the "leading force of society and the State." In other words, the country's fundamental law intentionally prohibits any form of political pluralism, sealing the monopoly on power as if it were a historical achievement rather than a democratic deprivation.
In other words, the Party reserves the exclusive right to represent national diversity, and anyone who questions it commits not a crime of opinion, but an ideological sacrilege.
In the Athens of Pericles —the one that inspired half the planet— democracy involved debate, criticism, and dissent. In the Cuba of Díaz-Canel, democracy consists of repeating the official line without nuances and calling it “participation”. The Athenian citizen could discuss the State's decisions; the Cuban, on the other hand, must express gratitude with revolutionary discipline.
If one day a manual on "Caribbean political oxymorons" is written, the chapter on "socialist democracy" will be the longest. It will feature the immortal phrases from the revolutionary era: “lemonade is the foundation of everything”, “we are not a dictatorship, we are a nation of rights”, “there is democracy because the people participate”. All of these are part of a lexicon that confuses governing with discussing trivial matters.
And indeed, beyond the satire, Díaz-Canel's speech reveals a desperate attempt to ethically legitimize a worn-out totalitarian regime.
Talking about "strengthening democracy" within the Party is a rhetorical maneuver that seeks to keep alive the fiction that there is still an evolving political project. However, no evolution is possible in a communist system that stifles criticism, penalizes dissent, and fears transparency.
It is almost touching the effort of Dr. Díaz-Canel to dress political coercion in theoretical terms. When he calls to "change everything that must be changed," he overlooks the fact that the only thing that cannot change—by design—is the supremacy of the Party. And in that silence lies the true essence of the system: the stated change is always cosmetic, never structural.
If Pericles were to rise from the grave, he would probably request to speak on the Prime Time News to remind us that democracy is not measured by the amount of propaganda, but by the opportunity to express oneself freely. However, in Cuba, the microphones belong to someone, the cameras point where the script dictates, and the people, unless under blackout, watch the news with bewilderment.
In the end, Díaz-Canel's speech is not just an attempt to justify the unjustifiable, but rather a philosophical tragicomedy where the ruler pretends to be a theorist while the nation drowns in recycled slogans. If Cuba's democracy were to have an official drink, it would undoubtedly be lemonade: acidic, diluted, and served in a cardboard cup.
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