When discussing dictatorship, one must first understand from which viewpoint the concept is being used. The dominant worldview — marked mainly by Europe and the United States — defines political terms according to its own idea of freedom and how a society should be organised.

If we turn to the conceptualisation of what a dictatorship is, it is understood as the leadership of a country by one person, by groups of people or by a political party, where popular participation is not permitted, where there is no freedom of expression, where individual liberties do not exist — or are not guaranteed — and where, moreover, there is no separation of powers. That is, the judiciary is subordinated to that structure, as is the government, and there is no real separation between them. This is, conceptually, what is called a dictatorship.

Concrete examples of the above can be found in different countries that present themselves as consolidated democracies. For example, in the realm of individual and expression freedoms, in Spain there was the case of the rapper Pablo Hasél, who was imprisoned after expressing opinions deemed offensive to the Crown.

Similarly, at the naval base the United States maintains in Guantánamo, there are individuals deprived of liberty in a context where basic guarantees are questioned. These examples open a debate about the extent to which certain freedoms are fully guaranteed in so-called Western democracies, especially when, at the same time, systems that organise themselves differently are labelled as dictatorships.

Let us turn to Lenin. He spoke of the dictatorship of the proletariat, understood as power in the hands of the people. In that sense, the debate cannot be reduced to simply stating whether a State is or is not a dictatorship, because, without a doubt, any group exercising political power assumes leadership and command functions as part of its nature. The question, in any case, is how that power is exercised and to what extent it is accepted or questioned by society.

Is a company a dictatorship? Is a father a dictator?

In Cuba, particularly, there is a clearly differentiated division of functions: on the one hand, the State, where the National Assembly is situated; on the other, the justice-delivering bodies, which answer only to the law and its interpretation — law that emanates from the interests of the people; the government exists as an administrative body, and the Party exists as a political force.

In the case of the Party in Cuba, which is the most discussed internationally — and I say internationally deliberately, because domestically it is not a central concern for the population — the Communist Party is the leading superior force of society. This is not a recent phenomenon but has historical antecedents in the thinking of José Martí.

Western social-bourgeois democracies, in their concepts of power participation, establish the existence of multiple parties. This gives the idea that there are several ways of thinking politically and that there are structures representing them, but it also functions as a divisive factor within the working class. Without a doubt, it fragments the working class. Currently, in many Western countries, the left is deeply divided into multiple parties, with constant splits, separations and reconfigurations, which weakens its capacity for action.

Martí, in his time, even before Lenin put it into practice, understood this problem. In Cuba there were multiple political forces fighting for independence, but they were fragmented. Martí created the Cuban Revolutionary Party precisely to unify those forces under a common goal: independence. The current Party is heir to that historical tradition.

Subsequently, once the Revolution triumphed, the Communist Party was consolidated as a mechanism to avoid internal fragmentation within the revolutionary process itself, especially in a context where it had to confront the power of North American imperialism — a power with which several peoples have recently grappled, but which has confronted Cuba for more than 67 years. Cuba is expert in this.

The fact that there is a single party does not necessarily imply the existence of a dictatorship. As explained above, there is a differentiation of functions, participation exists, and freedom of thought is not curtailed. In Cuba, there are people who consider other economic or political models, even annexationist positions, and they can express this without being deprived of their rights.

The Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior are nothing other than the people in uniform. They are humble people from the people themselves who defend their political and humanist system.

Moreover, historically, there are examples that clearly demonstrate sustained ethical conduct, such as the treatment of the Girón mercenaries and the prisoners captured in the Sierra Maestra.

In both cases, the first thing done was to attend to the wounded and then treat them with dignity. In the case of the Sierra Maestra, in fact, many of them ended up joining the Rebel Army. This excludes, logically, those criminals who, in wartime, had murdered entire families of peasants and who had to face a military court, as occurs in any such process.

Similarly, in a recent case where ten mercenaries approached Cuba in a boat loaded with weaponry, the first thing done with the survivors of this extremely serious act of aggression against Cuban territorial sovereignty, among other things, was to heal them.

One thing is a dictatorship in the classic terms of the concept, as understood or consensually defined by the West, and another is a political organisation that prioritises unity. In fact, in the Cuban case, we speak of a party that, although singular, responds to a logic of integration of social diversity. One only needs to observe it to see that people with different religious beliefs, social characteristics, racial backgrounds, ideologies and sexual orientations are part of the country’s political and organisational life.

No human condition excludes anyone from political participation in Cuba. The only fundamental requirement is the defence of the country’s independence, self-determination and sovereignty.

Therefore, the concept of dictatorship does not directly correspond to this reality. Does a dictatorship educate its entire population? What dictatorship exports doctors to the world and provides free training to professionals from needy countries? Does a dictatorship sustain universal education and health systems?

If we compare these elements with countries where there are multi-party political systems but with deep structural inequalities, limited access to healthcare, education conditioned by economic capacity or absence of universal social coverage, an evident tension arises between the formal definition of a political system and its material outcomes.

Does a dictatorship achieve high levels in international sport? Does a dictatorship mobilise millions of people in an organised manner?

From Western canons, Cuba is considered a dictatorship for not replicating their political model. However, if analysed from another perspective, a contradiction arises: a system that places the human being at the centre of its legal structure, where the Constitution establishes human dignity as the axis of political, administrative and military action.

A single party basically responds to a logic of unity and, citing Lenin, power is obviously in the hands of the proletariat.

If we broaden the analysis, we can observe other examples. In the United States, although multiple parties exist, political power is articulated fundamentally around two major structures: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

The internal processes for selecting their candidates are strongly conditioned by economic and military power structures.

This raises questions about the real degree of popular participation in decision-making, as well as the weight of economic interests in politics. In Europe, the existence of monarchies also opens debates about democratic legitimacy, as they do not respond to direct election processes.

These contradictions reveal the existence of different criteria when classifying political systems, as well as possible double standards in the construction of certain public narratives. Progressive currents and anti-imperialist projects are often subject to this type of categorisation and demonisation.

If we adopt the Western logic of analysis, it could be said that Cuba is a dictatorship, yes. But a dictatorship of dignity; a dignity that has been subjected for decades to external pressures, economic sanctions and structural limitations by the United States and its allies. A country that has faced for more than six decades a context of continuous restrictions with a direct impact on its development conditions from the same actors as always.

This raises a final question: if the system is considered failed, why maintain external measures that limit its development? Why not lift them and let it fall? Why not allow its evolution without restrictions?

At times when some measures have been relaxed, positive variations in certain economic indicators of Cuba’s gross domestic product have been observed internationally. It has been proven that Cuba, without the blockade, is capable of demonstrating much more than some imagine and even we imagine.

This is undoubtedly a model that sustains itself on a conscious relationship of dignity between the political leadership and the people, on a consensus built from resistance, sovereignty and the conviction that the human being must be at the centre of every decision. This is how it has been, this is how it is, and this is how it will be.

There is nothing more to say.

Ana Hurtado
Spanish journalist, documentary filmmaker and social media communicator.