The Demons of Cuba: The Prophecy of Dostoevsky

When Fyodor Dostoevsky published "Demons" —also translated as "The Possessed"— between 1871 and 1872, it was about 45 years before the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia. Lenin was just a child, and Stalin had not yet been born. However, within those pages, much of the moral anatomy of totalitarianism that would define the 20th century appears with extraordinary foresight.

The novel was partly born from the impression left by the real case of the revolutionary Serguéi Necháyev, whose underground circle murdered one of its own members. Dostoyevsky transformed that episode into something much greater: an exploration of political fanaticism, manipulation, the destruction of values, and the use of human beings as mere material to build a future society.

That is why Los demonios can be read today from Cuba with unsettling familiarity. Piotr Verjovenski is probably the most politically terrifying figure in the novel. He manipulates, conspires, manufactures enemies, compromises individuals against one another, and understands that fear can unite an organization better than any moral principle. He doesn’t need everyone to believe; he needs everyone to be committed, monitored, and afraid to leave the group.

Here we immediately see the parallel with the system created by Castro-communism. It is not to say that Fidel Castro is simply Stavrogin, that Raúl Castro is Verjovenski, or that each Russian character has a Cuban counterpart. Such a comparison would be overly simplistic. Fidel embodies traits from several of them: Stavrogin's magnetism, Verjovenski's manipulative ability, and above all, the ambition to place a historical idea above the individual. Raúl embodied, for decades, another essential dimension of the system: discipline, military structure, surveillance, and continuity.

Ernesto Guevara represented, in turn, the romantic dimension of the revolutionary willing to justify violence in the name of a future humanity. Subsequently, something even more characteristic of long-lasting regimes emerged: the bureaucrat. Here appears Miguel Díaz-Canel, no longer as the epic founder of a revolution, but as an administrator of an inherited structure.

Dostoevsky understood something crucial: totalitarianism does not necessarily begin with prisons and firing squads. It begins when an idea promises to be so perfect that any crime committed to achieve it can end up being justified.

The character of Shigaliov takes this logic to its ultimate consequences. His project aims to completely reorganize society, ultimately leading, paradoxically, to an immense concentration of power. Dostoevsky was precisely critiquing the claim to sacrifice real freedom for the sake of a supposed future collective happiness.

Cuba followed its own version of that path. They promised justice and imposed a one-party regime. They promised emancipation and shackled the people with chains. They promised equality and a privileged ruling elite emerged. They promised to give power to the people, and the State ended up controlling everything.

In 2026, Freedom House continues to classify Cuba as a "Not Free" country, scoring 9 out of 100, and highlights the effective prohibition of political pluralism, restrictions on independent media, and repression of dissent. Prisoners Defenders reported that as of the end of June, there were 1,306 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. And yet, perhaps the most unsettling mystery is not that the wolf exists.
The mystery is that the flock still exists.

For decades, the Cuban regime built extraordinarily powerful mechanisms of obedience: fear of losing one’s job, fear of imprisonment, fear of the neighbor who informs, fear for the school record of one’s children, fear of publicly expressing what is discussed at home. But something is changing. Cubans who remained silent for years are now protesting. Others are speaking out, recording the police that no one dared to film before, sharing on social media what was whispered for decades. Every citizen who overcomes fear psychologically leaves the herd long before even confronting the system politically.

What is truly perplexing is that some continue to remain part of the flock even after physically escaping from Cuba. They live in Miami, Madrid, or any other democratic society. They can criticize, organize protests, establish publications, vote, travel, prosper, and so on. They enjoy precisely those freedoms that the Cuban system denies or restricts, yet some still defend the regime they escaped from.

It is one of the great psychological paradoxes of servitude: the cage door may be open, yet the cage can remain within the mind for years. Perhaps the deepest relevance of "The Demons" lies here. Dostoevsky understood that political demons do not only reside in government palaces. They can also take root in consciences in the form of paralyzing fear, fanaticism that leads to crimes, lies repeated until they become habits, obedience transformed into virtue, and inertia that drives one to the abyss.

Cuba needs to transform much more than its institutions. It needs to expel those demons. No wolf can dominate a flock forever when the victims realize they were never meant to be sheep marching submissively and chanting slogans in favor of the one who devours them.

We are at a particularly favorable moment to exorcise demons both inside and outside of Cuba.