The traditional dualism of law and extralegal coercion in the socialist bloc countries is well known. It is also well known that this dualism provides the framework for systematic circumvention of human rights. As it occurs in the Soviet Union, this phenomenon has been the object of scholarly studies, and a similar analysis of its existence in Cuba is long overdue. The point of this article, however, is not the violation of human rights in Cuba that violates its own or international laws but, rather, the limitations on fundamental human rights that are inherent in the Cuban legal system.