First of May: the Cuban revolution walks and represses at the same time

• Cuba Castroism seeks to "defeat" 11-J with a massive May Day

"We paint together the landscape of unity and continuity. The landscape of a revolution in power."

The Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, achieved the objective that Castroism was seeking with the

celebrated today, a mass bath to appear that they have recovered the lost street.

It did not matter how to achieve it, because the popular muscle of the revolution contains tons of political doping, from the induction to march through ministries, workplaces, universities, schools and public organizations to the

As if it were a huge army, supporters and company paraded once again through the streets of Havana to the Plaza de la Revolución under the slogan

. "

Thousands of flags and many slogans, almost nothing was missing from the usual government menu, including buses to transport the protesters, the same vehicles that are so difficult to find on the streets of the country.

"May Day is important to maintain political control. It is also a pulse against international public opinion that calls for the freedom of those imprisoned and, especially, of minors. The pressure reaches the owners of small private businesses that they are everything that is contrary to the proletariat," explained analyst

to EL MUNDO.

A revolutionary party that multiplied throughout the country while independent journalists and activists once again suffered the government's wrath.

Some of them were arrested, such as

, while the majority could not even leave their homes intimidated by the repressive forces.

"They no longer know what to do to keep their lie afloat

," complained Julio César Góngora, leader of Somos +, who was harassed by State Security despite needing a wheelchair to get around.

"What is at stake is the need to relegitimize themselves, they needed a mass bath to send a message inside and outside that the regime has the legitimacy lost on 11-J. That is why they reinforced their repressive machine, many activists have received the visit of political police so that they don't leave,"

, coordinator of Arco Progresista and vice president of the Council for Democratic Transition

, confirmed to this newspaper .

Special emphasis on this "battle of ideas" of the revolution was given again on social networks, a territory that serves to demonstrate the fed up with

and that also became the cradle of the protests: first with memes that hammered the political and social management of the government and then as the virtual agora where dissidents organized to protest against Díaz-Canel.

On the eve of the march, groups of young people managed to make a very Cuban phrase go viral, summarized in the acronym DPEPDPE (for pinga in the country of pinga este), which not only rode through the networks, but also appeared printed on rebel T-shirts.

"Ingenuity against censorship," declared dissident playwright Yunior García Aguilera.

The importance of yesterday's test was marked by the presence in the Plaza of the Revolution of "Army General"

, about to turn 91 years old and who reappeared with force before public opinion since the early hours of 11-J, last year's popular uprising.

This very week Raúl has breached one of the rules that he himself imposed in 2017 to place the octogenarian General Ramón Espinosa in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), head of the army for years in the east of the island.

"The return of Espinosa debunks the thesis that Raul does not command or order. The military maintains the direction of the country. The plans of the so-called technocrats have not materialized or borne the necessary fruit. Olive green uniforms return to control political discourse ", deciphered for EL MUNDO the analyst Alva.

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