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The Cuban historian and activist Alina Bárbara López Hernández published an analysis on Facebook this Thursday, asserting that the Cuban regime squandered three "hinge moments" that would have allowed for an orderly transition: the implosion of the European socialist bloc in the early nineties, the constitutional consultation of 2018, and the social outbreak of July 11, 2021.
The text, titled "Regarding the Rise of Social Protests", is published at a time of maximum tension, with power outages ranging from 20 to 22 hours daily in some circuits of Havana and an escalation of protests not seen since the very events of 11J.
"There are three things impossible to turn back: the arrow launched, the word spoken, and the lost opportunity," writes López, noting that each of these moments was either ignored or met with repression.
Regarding the 11J, the activist is unequivocal: she describes that day as "the largest mass popular protest since the post-59 era" and asserts that, instead of opening a dialogue, the regime chose state terror. "It was a fatal mistake," she writes, as it led to a "reciprocal adaptation": state repression became normalized, while protest and civil disobedience were also normalized.
López also questions the constitutional foundation of the dictatorship. "Declaring a social system irreversible, as Article 4 of the Cuban Constitution does, is an anti-dialectical and pessimistic approach that aims to transform the social subject into a passive entity, obedient to a superior will," he writes, and he reminds us that the collapse of the socialist camp demonstrated that no system is permanent.
In its economic diagnosis, it describes 67 years of decisions that turned Cuba into a dependent nation with no food autonomy. The power group "bet everything on building hotels and exporting medical services" while neglecting basic infrastructure, and its existence without conflicts has always depended on a "pillar country": first the USSR, then Venezuela.
The activist also dismantles the official narrative regarding the embargo. She claims that the regime "knowing that the hostility of the U.S. government was a fixed variable in the political equation, deliberately ignored it, and even encouraged it when it suited them," only to later complain about that same hostility while their own decisions weakened the country.
"Political bureaucracy has created a Frankenstein in Cuba: an oppressive state that has been declared eternal during a period of irreversible systemic crisis, and in the conditions of the digital age where it is no longer possible to conceal it," writes López, adding that this State is increasingly spending on surveillance with diminishing resources, leading to a gradual self-annihilation.
The regime has also not offered any dignified solution: neither national dialogue nor amnesty for the more than 775 political prisoners documented by Justicia 11J, 338 of whom were sentenced for participating in the protests of July 2021.
The analysis comes amid an unprecedented energy crisis. The organization Cubalex documented 229 protests on the Island during last March, averaging seven protests daily and occurring in all provinces of the country. This is the highest number recorded in a single month since the mass protests of July 11, 2021.
Between May 12 and 14, there were cacerolazos in at least 12 municipalities in Havana, with barricades and bonfires in Guanabacoa, while the U.S. Embassy issued a security alert due to the blackouts and protests.
López, who was expelled from the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba and has been detained multiple times—including on April 18, 2026, during her monthly protest in Matanzas—concludes her text with a direct warning to the leadership: "The day the tanks take to the streets, the day they openly fire upon a popular protest, that violence will not only bring sanctions upon our country, but it will serve as a civic wake-up call for many compatriots to understand that the only option left is to commit as political subjects. And they will. I have no doubts about that."
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