Four days. That was the time needed for the regime's ideological apparatus to come to the rescue of Miguel Díaz-Canel after one of the most unfortunate responses during his interview with RT en Español.
When the leader was asked if there were reasons to believe that Cuba could emerge from the crisis, he did not mention production, investments, salaries, electricity, fuel, or food. He responded with a metaphor about utopia and the horizon.
It took just a few hours for thousands of Cubans to interpret those words as the involuntary admission that the regime can no longer offer a realistic prospect for recovery, but merely the promise of continuing to walk toward a destination that always seems to recede.
The reaction was immediate. Social media did what propaganda could not prevent: it appropriated the phrase and turned it into a symbol of the exhaustion of the official discourse.
The "utopia" became chicken, electricity, transportation, medications, salaries, or any other promise that never fully materializes.
Then Cubadebate appeared.
Not to explain how Cuba will emerge from the worst economic crisis in recent decades. Not to answer the question that Díaz-Canel did not address. But to explain what the people should understand from the words of the appointed leader.
His article, titled From the Networks: "The Utopia of Díaz-Canel, the Same One That Brought Us Here", aims to be a damage control exercise but ends up becoming a second blunder in communication. This time, from the propaganda machinery itself.
Before delving into its content, the headline itself poses a devastating question: “up to here” where? Because the “here” of Cuba in 2026 bears little resemblance to a utopia.
It is a country with endless blackouts, salaries that barely amount to five dollars a month, chronic shortages of food and medicine, the largest exodus in its history, a declining economy, and a population that is losing hope much faster than it gains new horizons.
If this is the destination to which the revolutionary utopia led, the propagandist chose the worst possible argument to defend it. His own headline ends up serving as an involuntary summary of nearly seven decades of Castroism: the utopia, indeed, brought Cuba to this point.
From that point on, the article employs a classic tactic of political propaganda. When a message fails, the error is not acknowledged. The meaning of the message is changed. And, if necessary, so is the topic of conversation.
The controversy should no longer revolve around the leader's inability to provide a concrete answer to a specific question. It should shift to the favorite ground of the ideological apparatus: revolutionary heroism, sacrifice, resistance, and the eternal struggle against imperialism.
Suddenly, the presidential evasion ceased to be an evasion. It transformed into a "lesson in revolutionary strategy".
The maneuver is as predictable as it is clumsy.
Cubadebate devoted entire paragraphs to explaining who Eduardo Galeano was, what the metaphor of utopia truly meant, and why those who criticized the phrase "didn't understand anything."
The curious thing is that Díaz-Canel himself didn't even mention Galeano when he referred to the quote. In a rushed, barely audible comment, he attributed it to Lenin, mixing one of the most well-known metaphors spread by Galeano—originally formulated by the Argentine filmmaker Fernando Birri—with the founder of the Soviet state.
The detail went almost unnoticed amid all the controversy, but it is revealing. The president confused the origin of the phrase; four days later, the official press had to conduct a crash seminar on Galeano to explain what it claimed he really meant.
Few images better describe the functioning of the system. First, the leader improvises. Then, they interpret the propaganda. And finally, reality is expected to adapt to the new narrative.
However, the attempt by Cubadebate had the opposite effect than intended.
In his eagerness to defend the leader, he ended up elevating his response to a doctrinal level. "The Revolution is not a destiny. It is a path," solemnly stated the author of the article, a typical profile of a "cibercombatiente" / "ciberclaria."
It's hard to imagine a more devastating confession.
Because that is precisely what thousands of Cubans understood when they heard Díaz-Canel. That after nearly seven decades, the regime continues to present itself as a process that is always progressing but never arrives. That the promised future remains exactly where it was over sixty years ago: on the horizon.
What Cubadebate intended to present as a strategic virtue ended up becoming an involuntary confession. Because if, as its own headline proclaims, that utopia has led Cuba "up to this point," the assessment does not need to be written by the opposition: it is summarized by the current situation in the country.
If success consists solely of keeping on walking, then there will never be a moment when someone can ask about the results.
It doesn't matter how many generations pass. It doesn't matter how many reforms fail. It doesn't matter how many young people emigrate. It doesn't matter how many times the electrical system collapses.
It can always be said that the "revolution" continues to advance... even though the horizon keeps receding.
Propaganda thus turns persistent noncompliance into a method of governance.
The reasoning calls to mind that old maxim of totalitarian systems: when reality contradicts propaganda, the problem is never the propaganda. It's reality.
The truly significant aspect of this episode is not that Cubadebate has come out to defend Díaz-Canel. That's what it exists for.
The significant thing is that it was necessary to do so. Because rescue operations for propaganda only emerge when the original message has failed.
No one writes a treatise to explain a phrase that worked. It is written when public discourse takes a turn that those in power cannot control. And that is exactly what happened.
Cubans did not debate Fernando Birri, Eduardo Galeano, Lenin, or the philosophy of utopia. They debated something infinitely simpler.
That the leader of a country plunged into blackouts, scarcity, inflation, and massive emigration was unable to provide a single concrete solution when asked if there was hope for overcoming the crisis.
That was the problem. Cubadebate decided to respond to another. Because, as so many times in the history of revolutionary propaganda, it is much easier to rewrite the meaning of a phrase than to change the reality that caused it to explode.
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