The intellectual and activist from Matanzas Alina Bárbara López Hernández published a text titled "Living for Appearances" on her Facebook profile this Sunday, in which she dismantles the official image of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) based on a specific event: the designation of Matanzas as the National Vanguard of the organization, celebrated on Saturday at the Teatro Sauto.
The event, covered by the state newspaper Granma as "a nice gift for its results," brought together authorities from the Matanzas region, the national vice-coordinator of the CDR, Yosveny Verdeal Castellanos, and representatives from the coordinators of Santiago de Cuba and Pinar del Río. López Hernández's publication arrives just before the 66th anniversary of the CDR, which is commemorated this Monday, September 28.
The activist, a resident of that city, contrasts the official recognition with a reality that the gala events overlook: according to the semiannual report from the Cuban Citizen Audit Observatory (OCAC), Matanzas tops the national ranking for the first time with the most murders (18 homicides), assaults (21), and thefts (155) in the first half of 2026, in addition to having been the epicenter of several epidemics in recent years.
"As happens throughout the Island, in Matanzas the CDR have become a gigantic and ineffective bureaucratic structure without a social base to support it. Many people don’t even pay the monthly fee, meetings are not held, CDR watches, voluntary work days, blood donations, or festivities related to September 28 are not occurring. We have neighborhoods in darkness and at the mercy of crime," wrote López Hernández.
To illustrate this collapse, the author refers to an example from her own surroundings: a building across from her house, popularly known as "The Kremlin" due to the fervent Cederist spirit of its neighbors—many of whom work at the Provincial School of the Communist Party—which in the past was visited by leaders as a model of activism. "For years now, The Kremlin has succumbed to the apathy of the rest of the neighborhood where it is situated. Its events, once filled with loud music, speeches, and toasts over a caldosa, have become a memory," she noted.
The reason for this decline, according to López Hernández, is not ideological but material: "Currently, people are too stressed thinking about what they will eat, how they will cook, how they will have light at night, how to avoid theft, and how they will survive the next day." Nationally, homicides in Cuba increased by 42.9% in the first half of 2026, rising from 63 to 90 compared to the same period the previous year, according to the OCAC.
The activist herself incorporates into her analysis the words of Miguel Díaz-Canel, who, in a meeting with leaders and prominent members of the CDR acknowledged the decline of the organization: "There are many people thinking that this is already an outdated organization, that it makes no sense under current conditions, that it contributes nothing." Although the leader asserted that the reality is "the complete opposite," he urged the structure to "reinvent itself" in the face of the crisis.
This official acknowledgment of decline contrasts with the gestures of celebration for the anniversary: the regime awarded 134 cederistas through Presidential Decree 1284, signed on the 3rd of this month and published in the Official Gazette 20 days later, while the national coordinator Gerardo Hernández Nordelo promotes initiatives like "My Neighborhood for the Homeland" in an attempt to revive the structure.
For López Hernández, none of these initiatives address the root of the problem. "Acts like those at the Sauto Theater [...] aim to present the image of revolutionary traditions sustained over time; however, they are activities that unfold like a ritual, with the presence of leaders disconnected from reality and oblivious to the suffering of the people," he wrote.
And he concluded with a phrase that sums up his diagnosis: "Those leaders are the last bastion of what once was the Cuban revolution and its Committees for Defense. They truly reinvent themselves every day."
Related videos:
Filed under: