A Cuban interviewed on the streets of Havana by the American YouTuber Nick Shirley delivered one of the rawest testimonies about the reality of communism recorded recently on the island, in a video published this Saturday on X that has already garnered around 300,000 views.
The most striking part of the material shows the man speaking with an unusual frankness about hunger, the corruption of the ruling elite, and his hopes for American intervention.
"The worst thing that has ever existed in life is communism," asserts the interviewee without hesitation, explaining that the system promised equality but in practice only enriches those in power.
"All of them have everything. They have light, they have the best cars of the year, they have oil, they have gasoline, they have it all. And the people have nothing."
The Cuban describes in detail the precariousness of the ration book. "How can you live with a ration book that only gives you three pounds of sugar and one of salt?" he asked.
It also reveals that eggs have not been available through the rationing booklet for a year. "Eggs haven't come for a year. Imagine, a year without having an egg," he stated.
He also denounced that the humanitarian aid sent from abroad never reaches those who need it. "The remittances you give, the aid, they sell it to us afterward. The help never comes to the people," he stated.
He also summarized the collapse of the socialist system on the island by stating, "We have no electricity, we have no food, we have no medicine, we lack the basic necessities of a hospital. No human being can live like this."
A woman who appears in that same footage refuses to speak in front of the camera for fear of being imprisoned. "If you publish that video now, I'm going to jail," she confessed.
The main interviewee issues a direct warning to those in the United States who sympathize with socialism.
"The worst thing you can do in life is to allow socialism or communism," while clarifying that only "the Castro family or someone who is afraid or someone who lives off the government, who lives off that dictatorship" supports the system.
His final message is addressed to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"I am waiting for you, please, to see if we can live like people, live like human beings, because we are living worse than animals," he concluded.
The video was recorded on April 30, amid the greatest humanitarian crisis Cuba has faced in decades. According to data collected in the material itself, seven out of ten Cubans are going hungry, and the average monthly salary is just 14 dollars.
The liter of gasoline on the black market reaches 10 dollars, equivalent to about 40 dollars per gallon.
The fuel crisis worsened after the capture of former president Nicolás Maduro, leading to the disruption of Venezuelan oil supplies. Cuba needs eight fuel ships per month, and since December 2025, it has received only one.
During the recording, Shirley was followed by Cuban intelligence agents and interrogated at four in the morning by a two-star general before fleeing the country.
The regime responded through its media outlet, the official profile Razones de Cuba, which dismissed the account as "pure anti-communist script".
The material adds to a trend of international creators documenting the crisis. The Mexican YouTuber Luisito Comunica published a documentary in 2025 that gathered nearly 30 million views, although none went as far as Shirley in depicting the everyday fear under the dictatorship.
Cuba currently maintains 775 political prisoners, illustrating the context of repression in which the interviewees risked speaking out.
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