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The Cuban historian and intellectual Alina Bárbara López Hernández published a political analysis in which she denounces that the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and the state apparatus form a dual bureaucratic structure that has drained the nation's finances for decades, and that the recent ministerial downsizing project does not address the underlying issue.
The text, shared on her Facebook profile, emerges as a direct response to the bill presented by the National Assembly to reduce the number of Cuban ministries from 27 to 20, through mergers such as Agriculture and Food Industry into a single Food and Agriculture entity.
"One of the many inherent problems of the state socialism model, which was also adopted in Cuba, is that it has two parallel branches: an expensive ideological apparatus led by the Communist Party and another costly administrative apparatus led by the Government; a colossal structure that, given its results over the decades, can be considered ineffective," wrote López Hernández.
For the activist, the legislative proposal is "too late" and does not address the real issue: the coexistence of two chains of command funded by public resources.
López outlines a historical genealogy of this duality. The PCC was established on October 3, 1965, emulating the structure of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and since 1976—when the new Constitution enshrined the Party as "the superior guiding force of society and the State" in its Article 5—two apparatuses have operated in parallel, from the national level down to each municipality: one that "guides" and another that "governs."
"Who, if not the State with its resources, which are to say ours, has sustained the enormous political apparatus that is the PCC?" the author asks.
The only time the Party attempted to reduce its bureaucracy was at the IV Congress of the PCC in 1991, when it eliminated the Secretariat of the Central Committee as a measure of austerity during the Special Period.
The decision lasted just 15 years. In 2006, the Secretariat was restored, and in 2008, the Permanent Commissions of the Central Committee were also created, further expanding the apparatus parallel to the Government.
This cycle of reform and regression is the core of López's argument: without a systemic change, any bureaucratic reduction is reversible.
Miguel Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged the necessity for change by stating that "a small country, with such a complex situation, cannot have such a large structure, so much bureaucracy." However, the project that will be voted on in July 2026 does not address the funding or the territorial structure of the PCC.
López Hernández concludes with a warning for the future: "In the future Cuba we are fighting for, when there are no longer single parties, no political entity should ever be allowed to become a burdensome obligation as the PCC has been. All should be financed without resorting to public resources."
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