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A presenter from the Cuban propaganda apparatus came out today to defend Miguel Díaz-Canel and to proclaim that “the Revolution lives, despite its undertakers,” in a text published on Facebook that, inadvertently, provides an involuntary snapshot of real Cuba: a country where, as the author herself admits, “people have more urgent matters to attend to.”
Marxlenin Pérez Valdés, host of the government program Cuadrando la Caja, a doctor in Philosophical Sciences and the wife of Fidel Castro Smirnov —Fidel Castro's grandson—, published today the text titled «Expectations» in support of the intervention announcing economic reforms that President Miguel Díaz-Canel delivered last Friday on state television.
The spokesperson acknowledges that what the president announced "was just a sketch of what we should learn about in more detail soon," but that does not prevent her from launching into a long tirade against those who reacted with skepticism. She categorizes them in a gallery of villains that includes "mercenaries," "theorists without work," promoters of "neoliberal and capitulatory agendas," and those who "use this crossroads to see if they can discredit the president, who is at the forefront fighting the battle."
The only group that deserves the label of "legitimate," according to Valdés, is those who care about the future of socialism and "will not stand idly by at the possibility of losing our social justice project."
The text's most profound irony comes from the author herself, without her realizing it: while she calls for "developing the necessary consciousness" and rallying expectations in defense of the Homeland, she casually admits that in real life, Cubans "have more urgent matters to attend to." Matters such as, for example, eating: nearly one in three Cuban households reported that a member went to bed hungry in the 30 days prior, according to recent research from the Food Monitor Program.
That "real life" that Valdés addresses in a subordinate clause also includes power outages of between twenty to twenty-five hours a day in some areas, and in others, 40 hours or more; an annual inflation rate of 13.42% in March 2026, and agricultural prices in the non-state market that increased by 31.9%. According to the VIII Report on the State of Social Rights in Cuba, 89% of Cuban families live in extreme poverty, and more than 1.4 million Cubans have emigrated between 2020 and 2024.
The reforms announced by Díaz-Canel —greater autonomy for state-owned companies, unblocking of MIPYMES, elimination of intermediaries in foreign trade...— were met with indifference. Economist Pedro Monreal described them as a "dated trick", and other analyses labeled them as "too late, too poorly, too little". The measures still need to be approved by the Political Bureau and the National Assembly, which are scheduled for July.
Valdés also addresses the memes that flooded social media after Díaz-Canel's television appearance —disheveled, thin, and with a haggard face— arguing that those who "make Díaz-Canel's appearance the news" would have criticized him just the same "if he had shown up looking like Richard Gere." The defense has its imaginative merit.
It is not the first time that Valdés has been involved in episodes of this nature. In December 2025, she referred to her critics on social media as "worms" over a suggestion to avoid eating rice or potatoes that she had shared on her own program. And in March 2026, during a tour of 18 cities in Spain, she went so far as to state that "we are going to create private businesses in Cuba to make them disappear."
The comments on the post were not exactly enthusiastic. One internet user asked, "Develop awareness? At this point and with empty stomachs? Why don’t they listen? Why do they always wait for a crisis?" Another was more succinct: "I’ll read it when I want to sleep and there’s no light." A third one concluded with surgical precision: "No text that uses the word 'agglutinate' has ever said anything serious." Valdés closes his text by quoting Díaz-Canel: "our response has to be one of unity." The Revolution, it seems, is still alive. The people, however, are suffering.
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