Cuban leader: ‘Everything for the people and with the people’

First published in Spanish on Facebook. Translation, introduction and footnotes from World-Outlook.

The following essay was published on Facebook on July 18, 2025. The author, Ernesto Limia Díaz, is First Vice-president of the Writers Association of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (known as UNEAC, its Spanish-language acronym).

Limia Díaz’s essay is part of a public discussion that has swept Cuba over the last week. The debate broke out into the open in the aftermath of the resignation of Cuba’s Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera on July 15.

Feitó Cabrera resigned after making contentious remarks at Cuba’s National Assembly, the country’s parliament, a day earlier. Her televised comments went viral on social media, causing a major uproar by the public and government officials alike.

World-Outlook published yesterday an article posted by the Cuban government reporting the response by the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, to Feitó Cabrera’s controversial remarks. In its introduction to that article, World-Outlook noted that the former minister told the National Assembly that “there are no beggars in Cuba, that the island’s beggars are faking poverty in search of easy money, and that those cleaning windshields on the streets or picking up rubbish from trash bins are actually collecting raw materials without paying taxes.”

In his essay, Limia Díaz draws out the challenges Cuban revolutionaries face today as they try to confront the impact of a severe economic crisis.

As Díaz-Canel noted in his July 15 remarks at the National Assembly, this crisis has led to major blackouts and food shortages and has intensified social problems such as begging and homelessness.

Limia Díaz acknowledges that this economic crisis is caused, to a large degree, by an intensifying U.S. economic war aimed at asphyxiating and overthrowing the Cuban Revolution. However, he focuses his essay on “the problems that, in my humble opinion, are within our means to solve as soon as possible.”

Among other important points, Limia Díaz notes that “we cannot ignore that formalizing a private economy presents challenges to the Cuban model. One thing we must be clear about: under socialism the blind laws of the market cannot govern ― or to be precise, the “blind” laws of those seers who control the market. Under socialism the market cannot dictate the trajectory, it must establish a harmonious relationship with the interests of society. Achieving this requires planning, audacity, control, and solidarity education.”

The UNEAC leader emphasizes the importance for revolutionaries of honesty and the ability to listen as essential qualities for drawing Cuba’s working people into the discussion on how to collectively find solutions to the serious social problems the Revolution faces today.

“The proliferation of technocrats, incompetent bureaucrats and employees without any social commitment ― sometimes resentful due to their own privations and dissatisfactions ― adds fuel to the embers of Yankee harassment,” Limia Díaz notes.

“Such a scenario demands that dialogue be encouraged and, along with it, listening. Exchange is the most effective way to bring all social forces together in our efforts to build a society with justice and social equality. Any forecast or response to popular requests and needs is subjected to ridicule on social networks by the legion of trolls at the service of the United States; in these times of cognitive warfare, I know only one antidote: the collective development of solutions.”

He also acknowledges that discussion on the issues he tackles has been building in Cuba for some time.

“I recently met the moderator of a group that appeared in WhatsApp during the pandemic. They took the name ‘Learning from Covid’’’, he says. “Since then, they have produced 153 observations. They are veterans and they are revolutionaries with sharp opinions. They are pained by the poverty that sprouts again, the instances of corruption, the inoculated germs of capitalism. Who isn’t?”

World-Outlook is publishing the following essay for the information of our readers. The headline and text below are from the original. Translation from Spanish, subheadings, and notes are by World-Outlook.

‘Everything for the people and everything with the people.’

Ernesto Limia Díaz

It turns out that leading in Cuba today is an extremely complex endeavor, because the parable of the loaves and fishes seems like a chimera when your neighbor diverts the waters that nourish your lagoons and hoards the wheat to deny you flour, or keeps you from acquiring the charcoal you need to bake the bread. Add to this the energy required to guard all assets from the crime that creeps in to act in the shadows, and from the warehouse pilferers who swarm in during a crisis.

Not a single one of our cadres or officials is imported, all of them are of very Cuban stock, and most of them were born among the humblest segments of our people. It is then worth asking ourselves why disagreement about their management is spreading.

A simplistic answer would be to attribute it to anti-Cuban campaigns; but the phenomenon has multiple variables, and some are in our hands. Undoubtedly, Yankee economic and financial harassment ― as we have already pointed out ― is the main obstacle to our development, an unwavering objective since the Eisenhower Administration’s Assistant Secretary of State, Lester Mallory, called for starving us to death in order to counter Fidel’s leadership.

That is the main cause of the blackouts, the shortages, the lack of medicines, the way that the daily life of all Cubans who live on this island can be overwhelming. Our Chancellor has been eloquent, with detailed information and data. Whoever denies this is stretching the truth and, even if unintentionally, becomes an accomplice.

Let us then focus this essay on the problems that, in my humble opinion, are within our means to solve as soon as possible.

In Cuba human beings are the first concern, and the quixotic selflessness fostered by the Revolution is what made possible that maxim of José de la Luz y Caballero,1 of justice being at the center of the moral universe in the breasts of women and men. Humanism and the sense of justice are the pillars of the sensibility of our communist militancy, of the revolutionaries, of the majority of our people.

‘More than a few have no concern for the pains of our people’

But let’s be realistic: today many people occupy responsibilities or work in business organizations, vital service centers, and state institutions, who are devoid of sensibility and, often, of scruples. We are not going to dwell on the causes, but the truth is that, infected by an extreme individualism expanded by neoliberal ideology ― we are not in a bubble or in a glass box ― more than a few out there can be found who have no sense of loyalty to the homeland or pride in having been born in this land. Needless to say, they have no concern for the pains and dissatisfactions of our people.

Another plague that mills around is ineptitude: the mediocre find two problems for every solution and, imbued with the slop of self-help books, need to show themselves as winners. No one who contradicts them will be safe. They surround themselves with like-minded people, and that concert will not produce a single polyphonic sound.

No one is deafer and more arrogant than a mediocre person, because they are not capable of assessing collective intelligence; for that reason, under the pretext of unity, they reward obedience over talent and creativity. Then come mistakes and more mistakes.

In terms of services to the population, many people are distressed because a simple task can take you to the gates of Dante’s hell. The problem is not that there are bureaucrats, the problem is the inefficient performance of a bureaucrat. When dissatisfaction becomes chronic and those affected become irate, or when a call from on high demands to rectify a blunder in any sphere of the country’s life, the Fidelista maxim “Never lie” loses meaning for the mediocre…

In the best of cases, they do not distort reality, but they hide information to that end, or they sow optimism based more on an illusion than on facts. They promise solutions. They make you believe that they are betting on the right horse, and it is only a matter of time. Years will go by, until one day they are knocked down by a fortuitous incident. Now a long time has passed; the damage is done…

We cannot ignore that formalizing a private economy presents challenges to the Cuban model. One thing we must be clear about: under socialism the blind laws of the market cannot govern ― or to be precise, the “blind” laws of those seers who control the market. Under socialism the market cannot dictate the trajectory, it must establish a harmonious relationship with the interests of society. Achieving this requires planning, audacity, control, and solidarity education.

It escapes no one that in recent years the social inequalities that disappeared in 1959 have widened. And despite the efforts of our Party and Government, we observe instances of poverty that are more painful ― and, at times, even humiliating ― the more ostentatious those who have had the opportunity to prosper with private businesses become.

When a private owner imposes abusive prices without paying attention to what their surroundings and the country suffer; when they evade their tax contribution; when they make a mockery of established constitutional, legal and financial provisions; when they act as a front man for foreign interests and lend themselves to the clandestine repatriation of the dollars that the country needs in order to preserve social programs that both he and his family enjoy, when they inoculate the germs of capitalism among our people.

If we do not combat these outcomes all along the line and do not present a financial, cultural and political design capable of articulating personal interests as part of those of the nation, we will be ceding space to neoliberal ideology, which is instinctive and grows wild as purslane.

Collective development of solutions

The proliferation of technocrats, incompetent bureaucrats and employees without any social commitment ― sometimes resentful due to their own privations and dissatisfactions ― adds fuel to the embers of Yankee harassment.

Such a scenario demands that dialogue be encouraged and, along with it, listening. Exchange is the most effective way to bring all social forces together in our efforts to build a society with justice and social equality. Any forecast or response to popular requests and needs is subjected to ridicule on social networks by the legion of trolls at the service of the United States; in these times of cognitive warfare, I know only one antidote: the collective development of solutions.

In the current conditions of the country ― and in an era people watch less and less television and there are more people outside the state sphere ― the exercise of popular power ― that is, the government of the people, or as the expression goes: “That is real power” ― requires us to rethink some methods of work and ideological education.

As heirs to the political capital of those who brought us here, the new generations of leaders must contribute their own legacy to the spiritual construction of consensus. Most do it every day of the year, from first light to midnight; but more than a few are separated from the base by an evil that has spread like a biblical plague: endless meetings.

Facing emergencies with this unproductive scourge often limits the necessary friction to measure the heartbeat of our people, and this generates emotional disconnection, a prelude to rejection. It cannot be ignored that this is intended to enshrine a matrix that points against decades of indissoluble ties between the people and their leadership, with two pronouns that in this case are disruptive: “you” and “us.”

Our dilemmas require effective political management. In 2019 Pope Francis expressed an idea that sheds light on this: “Politics is not the mere art of administering power, resources, or crises. Politics is not a mere search for efficiency, strategy, and organized action. Politics is a vocation of service, a lay ministry that promotes social friendship in order to build the common good. Only in this way does politics help the people become the protagonists of their history and prevent the so-called ‘ruling classes’ from believing that they are the ones who can settle everything. As in the famously exaggerated liberal adage, everything for the people, but nothing with the people. Doing politics cannot be reduced to techniques and human resources and the capacity for dialogue and persuasion; this cannot work by itself. The politician lives in the midst of the people and collaborates with this medium or others so that the people who are sovereign will be the protagonists of their history” (Pope Francis, 2019: 20-21).

That communion of ideas between Pope Francis, Fidel [Castro] and Raúl [Castro] marked the sympathy and admiration that characterized their ties, the affection and respect of the Supreme Pontiff for Cuba and its people.

These principles guide the daily actions of comrade Miguel Díaz-Canel; but the people perceive resistance within intermediate layers that hinder their will. The truth is that this “resistance” is not new: Fidel denounced it during the process of rectifying errors in the 80s2 and then when launching the battle of ideas in the 2000s. The problem is that with the virulence of Yankee harassment and the proliferation of corrosive tendencies, this becomes more visible.

Do not evade accountability with triumphalism

It is urgent to review the ways that popular control is exercised. The people want every government leader in a municipality or province to be accessible and to tackle their complaints and demands; they want cadres and administrative officials at the central level to interact more with the press and social spaces, to explain policies and jointly lay out the way forward; they want each deputy to systematically visit his constituents and parlay their distress to the Assembly, so they can be discussed in their sessions and so they can reject failed policies, so that they do not evade accountability with triumphalism or give vague explanations.

Parliament cannot become a spectacle. We have endured that in a sister country in the region, friendly fire resulting from unresolved internal quarrels ended up freezing basic funds for social development programs. We cannot afford that luxury, especially with the Yankees hoping to atomize us; however, it is true that there is not a surfeit in the Assembly of those who dot the i’s ― as the people say; although luckily, one of them is our president and first secretary of the Party.

As I have already suggested in previous essays, together with a new literacy campaign ― which should encompass a revolution in the methods of ideological work ― we need to deploy all our potentialities in terms of communication.

I recently met the moderator of a group that appeared in WhatsApp during the pandemic. They took the name “Learning from Covid.” Since then, they have produced 153 observations. They are veterans and they are revolutionaries with sharp opinions. They are pained by the poverty that sprouts again, the instances of corruption, the inoculated germs of capitalism. Who isn’t?

I share an idea expressed by them about the press: “Despite having good young journalists, we hope that there will be a change in the way they approach our problems, that they will not let their commitment to the Cuban reality pass them by, and that they do not settle for always standing behind the news that they did not create, that they adopted because it was exposed without fear in other media.”

They are right but resolving it is not only up to the media. It is a problem of the entire institution. “The prize for the contests should not be for the best ode, but for the best study of the conditions of the country in which you live. In the newspaper, in professorships, in the academy, a study of the real factors that affect the country must be carried out. Knowing them is enough, without blindfolds or ambiguities; for those who set a part of the truth aside, either by will or by oblivion, will fall in the long run because of the truth they lacked, which grows in negligence, and overthrows whatever rises without it. Solving the problem once you know its inner workings is easier than solving the problem without knowing them,” wrote the Apostle,3 and this concept should be taken as the basis of our communication (Martí, O.C., t. 6, 1975: 17-21).

I will end with an instructive example. A few days ago, I read an article published in Trabajadores4 about begging in Cuba in 2024, “The faces of silence scream.”5 I didn’t know it, no one spoke to me before about it. In my humble opinion, we should take it as a subject of analysis in the nuclei of the Party and the UJC [Union of Young Communists]; in the State and the Government at all levels; in work and study centers; in cultural and scientific institutions; between the peasantry and non-state forms of management. It’s a clarion call…

No one has ever done – or continues to do – what the Revolution has done to heal the wounds of the body politic. This is the aftermath of the Yankee resolve to have us surrender due to hunger and family and social problems.

As Trabajadores points out, the solutions demand a large dose of sensitivity, intelligence, empathy and respect. They ask questions: “How do you keep a mentally ill person stable in the face of a crisis in the supply of drugs? How is it possible for homeless people to mill around for months in cities’ downtowns, despite the established protocol? What is the best way to support those who do not fall into the category of indigent?” And a shocking call…: “If we turn a deaf ear and avert our eyes, everyday life will continue to crush these people, because, although it hurts to admit it, they are a sad seed that has germinated and grows robustly.”

An analysis of this type could have been the focus of the presentation by the Minister of Labor in the National Assembly. Her address would have been full of reflections and proposals ― the scope of which could have been State and private.

Some claim to be a ‘Fidelista,’ but they are not

From all of the above, I draw five conclusions:

1) We must launch an all-out internal battle against any expression of technocracy, bureaucracy and mediocrity, which bogs down the will of the country’s leadership, the performance of our economy and the daily life of the people.

2) We cannot give any breathing space to those seers who, betraying the interests of the nation, work to submit us to their will in the name of the laws of the market.

3) The family is the first and most important school of humanism and civility in society. Beyond the efforts in terms of policies ― that the country addresses as a priority ― there is an urgent need for educational actions focused on the dilemmas that corrode us.

4) A revolution that must confront the greatest imperial power in history and the globalization of neoliberalism at the same time cannot for a second neglect cultural and ideological education ― and our cadres are in the first row.

5) The pillars of all socialist politics are the consciousness of the people and their leading role in the search for solutions and their implementation. Whoever denies that role in word or deed undermines the ideology of the Revolution. They can claim to be a “Fidelista,” but they are not.

A maxim was prominent in everything that Fidel and Raúl did long before the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks: “Everything for the people and everything with the people.” Preserving that principle is our challenge as communists and revolutionaries.

Bibliography

Martí Pérez, José: Complete Works. Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, Havana, Cuba, 1975.

Holy Father Francis: “Address to a Group of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.” Consistory Hall, Monday, March 4, 2019. In Pastoral Letter: “A Voice That Cries with Hope in the Desert, Episcopal Conference of El Salvador,” May 29, 2025.

• 1

  José Cipriano de la Luz y Caballero (1800-1862) was a Cuban philosopher and educator, acclaimed by José Martí as “the father … the silent founder” of Cuban intellectual life of the 19th century.

• 2

  The “Rectification Campaign” was a comprehensive process the Communist Party of Cuba initiated in 1986 to reverse the negative political consequences of economic planning and management policies modeled on those of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union. The Cuban leadership had adopted those policies in the early 1970s. By the early 1980s, this course had resulted in political demobilization and demoralization of layers of the working class in Cuba. Faced with this political disorientation, Cuban communists reached back to Ernesto Che Guevara’s arguments from the early days of the revolution — his criticism of the economic model of the Soviet Union and his proposals on how to build socialism in Cuba — ideas that had begun to be implemented in limited ways at that time.

  Rectification included steps to reduce social inequalities and privileged living conditions for those in the upper strata of the government, party, and army bureaucracies; cutbacks in administration and management personnel; a crackdown on corruption; increased reliance on volunteer construction brigades to build badly needed hospitals, day-care centers, and schools; and full-time volunteer labor contingents to tackle larger projects such as building roads, bridges, and factories.

  Rectification played a key role in the ability of the Cuban people to confront the devastating effects of the “Special Period,” triggered by the abrupt termination at the opening of the 1990s of long-standing development aid from and preferential trade relations with the countries of the former Soviet bloc. By 1996, through disciplined efforts, the decline in industrial and agricultural production had bottomed out. Soon shortages of food and other essentials, while still severe, began to ease.

  (For more information on rectification see also “Cuba’s Rectification Process: Two Speeches by Fidel Castro” in the magazine New International no. 6.)

• 3

  Limia is referring here to José Martí — a revolutionary, poet, writer and journalist — who is Cuba’s national hero.  Martí founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party in 1892.

• 4

  Trabajadores is the official newspaper of the Confederation of Cuban Workers (known by its Spanish-language acronym as CTC).

• 5

  This article was published in Trabajadores on April 8, 2024. It reported that 3,690 people had been registered as homeless in Cuba between 2014 and 2023. The original in Spanish can be found here.