Cubans in the diaspora are increasingly hopeful that 67 years of communist one-party rule on the island may be nearing its end, but there is also trepidation about how that change might occur.

Perhaps the only thing that all Cubans can agree on is that the current situation cannot continue indefinitely. But few can predict whether change will come from within, in the form of a popular uprising, or from outside, in the form of U.S.-imposed change.

And would such a change really mean the end of Communist Party control, or would it be just a negotiated reshuffling of the deck chairs, as occurred in Venezuela?

There are reasons to fear that any transition away from communist rule in Cuba could be more traumatic and turbulent than Venezuela, where the opposition was never forced fully underground, and where the ruling party is less deeply entrenched than the Communist Party of Cuba.

Moreover, Venezuela never truly embraced Marxist economic policies. As Venezuelans often point out, Socialist Party enchufados (people with connections) are among the country’s most successful capitalists. Cuba, on the other hand, has long suppressed private enterprise and private ownership, albeit with fitful and timid rounds of opening.

‘Shelves have been empty since I can remember’

Last month on Parliament Hill, Cuba’s ambassador to Canada defended his country’s economic record at the foreign affairs committee.

“In the last 20 years we have introduced a lot of reforms in the economic field, many of them to give more possibilities to the private sector to operate in Cuba,” said Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz.

“We have in maybe in the last 10 years created thousands of new enterprises.… We are not closing doors to the development of the private sector in Cuba.”

Malmierca Diaz repeated the Cuban government’s refrain that its economic difficulties are a consequence of the U.S. embargo on the island, a claim dismissed by representatives of the Cuban opposition who appeared before the same committee two days later.

John Suarez, director of the Center for a Free Cuba, argued that a far more complete embargo imposed on apartheid South Africa never seriously interrupted the food supply in that country, because both South Africa and Cuba were able to find ways around the restrictions (which in Cuba’s case do not extend to food and medicine).

“The same cannot be said for the devastating effects of communist economic planning on food security,” he said, giving details on the decline of food production in Cuba since the 1959 revolution.

He told Canadian MPs that Cuba’s subsidized food program has been used as a means of control for decades.

“Cuba’s centralized system forces farmers to sell fixed crops to the state in exchange for supplies, often leading to rotting crops and shortages of inputs like feed, pesticides and fertilizer,” he said.

“These inefficiencies, which are unrelated to sanctions, stem from the absence of market mechanisms.”

“We have been suffering from hunger for decades,” Cuban Canadian Kirenia Carbonell told MPs. “It’s estimated that 89 per cent of the population lives in extreme poverty. We have bodegas, what we call in Canada convenience stores. Each town might have one. Those shelves have been empty since I can remember.”

President Raul Castro himself recognized Cuba’s ideological rigidity 15 years ago, in remarks marking the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

“In order to succeed, the first thing we need to change in the life of the party is its mentality, which as a psychological barrier will, in my opinion, be more difficult to overcome for it is tied to many years of repeated dogmas and obsolete criteria,” he said.

An influx of money that could swamp the island

There is some trepidation about what could happen if Cuba’s economy is suddenly confronted with an influx of money from a wealthy diaspora just across the Straits of Florida.

“I think that’s one of the main discussions that we Cubans need to have before a transition,” said Cuban Canadian Eloy Viera, who publishes the online Cuban affairs publication El Toque.

“Many people in Cuba do not want to enrol in the transition part process because they are afraid of their situation in a future Cuba — where Cubans return from abroad with money, with possibilities to establish there — and to create an underclass.”

Fortunately — and unusually for a communist country — an estimated 85 per cent of Cuban homes are owned by the people who live in them thanks to a series of reforms in the 1960s that shifted title from the state to tenants. It was one of Cuba’s few concessions to capitalist concepts of private ownership.

But there are still many who live in homes on the basis of “usufruct” (without title), and there is a severe housing shortage, estimated at close to a million units. Many Cubans live with family members because they have no other options.

And even those Cubans who hold title to their homes might struggle to hold onto them. Few would be able to afford utility bills, property taxes and repairs in a free-market economy.

Recent Cuban government offers to grant land in usufruct to Cubans abroad failed to generate much interest, as few in the diaspora trust the Cuban government’s promises.

But that could change if there is a political opening or transition.

“We need to debate that right now,” Viera said. “The people who are going to lead the transition process are the people who live in Cuba. The Cubans who live in exile can accompany that process, and support it.”

He said that a lack of guarantees for the Cubans who live on the island “could be the worst thing that can happen to the Cuban nation.”

Giving up claims for the greater good

Former Cuban diplomat-turned-dissident Juan Antonio Blanco heads the Madrid-based Cuba Siglo 21, which has worked to produce a roadmap for a democratic transition.

He said he doesn’t expect to see a flood of Cubans return to the island as soon as the regime falls.

“Three million Cubans living abroad are not going to go back,” he said.

While he expects many will want to visit or work there, few would immediately invest their life savings.

“That’s not the way that normally things happen and I don’t expect that to happen here,” he said.

Blanco says he himself had to abandon his Cuban apartment when he left during the “special period,” the euphemistic term the Communist Party used for an earlier time of hardship following the collapse of Cuba’s then patron, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

“My property was confiscated and they gave it to somebody else. I don’t know if that same person is living there now,” he said.

“But it would be totally unfair for me if I ever go back to declare that that guy has to be evicted and I have to take over.”

He believes that most Cuban exiles would not think it fair to “evict any family in Cuba.”

$13B in claims outstanding

Blanco says Cubans are fortunate to be able to learn from the experiences of other countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe, that had to transition from communist to free-market economies.

His main concern, he says, is not the claims from Cubans seeking to recover homes, but from large corporations.

There are certified claims registered with American courts against the Cuban government for over $13 billion, mostly relating to expropriations that occurred at the time of the revolution.

Texaco (Chevron), ITT Corp, Exxon Mobil and General Electric are just some of the major U.S. corporations likely to seek compensation from any future Cuban government, claims that the Trump administration could perhaps be expected to support.

Blanco says claimants would have to adjust their demands to reality.

“You cannot put a burden on the new republic that the republic could not pay,” he said. “The economy of the island will be paralyzed.”

He said billions in debt would not be paid — because there is no cash to do so.

“The only thing that [a new republic] can do is to say, would you like to invest in your property and make it run?” he said.