Professor Jorge Domínguez | How Cuba’s Leadership Responded to Crisis: Combining Repression with Reform

While President Miguel Díaz-Canel initially responded with alarming rhetoric, declaring that those wishing to confront the Revolution ‘must climb over our corpses’, the government’s subsequent actions combined coercion with calculated reforms.

The government arrested over a thousand protesters, charging many with sedition and imposing lengthy prison sentences. However, officials employed what they term ‘socialist legality’ – using legal frameworks to justify repression while establishing certain constraints. Unlike historical crackdowns in other communist states, Cuban armed forces did not shoot at protesters. Moreover, the Supreme Court later reduced many sentences upon appeal.

Another significant response was facilitating emigration. In November 2021, Cuba’s ally Nicaragua removed visa requirements for Cubans, creating a pathway for the discontented to leave. This resulted in over 224,000 Cubans encountering US border officials in 2022. This exceeds the combined totals of the 1980 Mariel boatlift and 1994 Balsero crises – previous mass emigrations from Cuba.

The government also implemented political accountability measures, dismissing one-third of provincial Communist Party first secretaries within a year of the protests. Simultaneously, it enacted selective liberalization policies targeting key constituencies, establishing provincial councils against racism, implementing LGBTQI+-friendly policies, and creating a Supreme Court chamber to protect constitutional rights.

Perhaps most remarkably, the government submitted its new Family Code, which legalized same-sex marriage. Economic reforms accelerated as well, with the government implementing long-delayed policies allowing private businesses to operate with fewer restrictions. While officials denied any connection between these reforms and the protests, the timing suggests the unrest helped overcome resistance to change.

By March 2024, when new protests erupted, the government had refined its approach. Provincial officials directly engaged with protesters, acknowledged their concerns, and limited repressive measures to temporary internet restrictions and a handful of arrests.

Domínguez concludes that Cuban authorities have developed a ‘coping pattern’ that combines elements of repression with calculated liberalization, prioritizing the preservation of the Revolution while making tactical concessions. This mixed strategy has succeeded in maintaining the established order in the near term, though its long-term effectiveness remains an open question.