April 27 marks the 55th anniversary of the event, which was a true watershed moment, a turning point, both inside and outside the Island.
14ymedio, San Salvador, Federico Hernández Aguilar, 23 April 2026 — When night falls on April 27, it will mark 55 years since the most despicable event that Castro’s totalitarian regime carried out on Cuban art and culture: the sadly famous “self-criticism” of the poet Heberto Padilla (1932-2000) before a group of prominent members of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac), after spending 37 days in prison accused of holding critical views against the Revolution. [Transcript, in English, here.]
The Padilla Case (as it has been known ever since) was a true watershed moment, a breaking point, both on and off the island. Authors who until then had remained steadfast in their support of the revolutionary process suddenly and painfully understood that Castroism was no better than Stalinism in its tolerance of intelligent dissent and creative disapproval. Even those who remained loyal to Caribbean socialism, whether out of emotion or pragmatism, began to question how far Cuba had gone in imposing limits on art and culture within its supposedly democratic system.
And it is not as if there had been a lack of warnings, of course. Besides the infamous speech of June 1961 in which Fidel Castro made clear how he conceived the “responsibility” of artists and intellectuals within the framework of the historical project he led —“…Within the Revolution, everything; against the Revolution, nothing”— it is sometimes forgotten that quite some time before, in October 1959, the Film Study and Classification Commission had been formed, attached to the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), an entity that began to censor films considered “problematic” because of their content.
In October 1959, the Film Study and Classification Commission was formed, attached to the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), an entity that began to censor films considered “problematic” due to their content.
Works such as Alberto Roldán’s Una vez en el puerto (Once in the Port) and Fausto Canel’s Un poco más de azul (A Little More Blue ) were banned from distribution on the island in 1964. Roldán’s film was banned because it realistically documented life in Havana’s seaside neighborhoods, while Canel’s film addressed the ever-sensitive topic of exile. Both filmmakers, of course, suffered the consequences of their “reactionary” actions: they were expelled from ICAIC (the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry), which they had helped found, their freedom of expression was restricted, and they ultimately left Cuba. (Roldán died in Miami in 2014 at the age of 81, and Canel lived in France and Spain before settling in the United States, where he currently resides.)
The hardest blow to creative freedom, however, was the one suffered in 1961 by the documentary PM by Orlando Jiménez Leal and Sabá Cabrera Infante, banned and confiscated by the authorities, who accused it of offering “a biased portrayal of Havana’s nightlife” because, “far from giving the viewer a correct vision of the existence of the Cuban people in this revolutionary stage, it impoverished, distorted, and misrepresented it…” It was precisely in the wake of the scandal caused by the condemnation of this short film, barely 14 minutes long, that Fidel Castro himself brandished his fearsome “ Words to the Intellectuals.”
The regime’s terrifying “all or nothing” approach found its next victim in Heberto Padilla, whose excellent poetry collection, Fuera del juego (Out of the Game), had been recognized by the UNEAC (somewhat reluctantly) with the 1968 National Prize. Despite having received the award by unanimous decision of the jury, the organization made a strange “statement” indicating that the book would be published—along with Antón Arrufat’s in the theater category—with a note “expressing its disagreement” because they considered them “ideologically opposed to our revolution (sic).”
Three years later, in January 1971, Padilla dared to give a reading at the UNEAC (National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba) of his new book, Provocaciones (Provocations ). And indeed, his attitude was considered provocative. A few weeks later, on March 20, Heberto and his wife, the writer Belkis Cuza Malé, were arrested by State Security agents and taken to the Villa Marista prison. The charge against them was “subversive activities against the government.”
“Did you think you were untouchable, the rebel artist…?” Padilla recalled the henchmen saying to him in prison. “Did you think we were going to forgive all your counterrevolutionary shenanigans?”
“Did you think you were untouchable, the rebel artist…?” Padilla recalled the henchmen saying to him in prison. “Did you think we were going to forgive all your counterrevolutionary shenanigans?” After the brutal interrogation, during which the poet was beaten, he awoke in a military hospital where he received an unexpected visit from Fidel himself. “Yes,” Heberto says in Bad Memory (1989), “we had time to talk, or for him to talk and expound to his heart’s content, and shit on all the literature in the world.”
The writer was then “suggested” that he draft a lengthy text listing his “errors,” a document he recited from memory 55 years ago at that private meeting at the UNEAC (National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba). The recorded material of this “self-criticism” finally came to light in 2022, when Cuban filmmaker Pavel Giroud rescued it and used it to create an extraordinary documentary titled The Padilla Case, which was nominated for several prestigious film awards.
At this time, the three and a half hours of the writer’s confession can be viewed on YouTube, something I would recommend to anyone who wants to delve deeper into the censorship processes that Castroism instituted to turn art into propaganda and writers into obligated spokespeople for a revolution that ended up devouring their illusions.
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