Separate Roads

A pattern of division began to take form last week in Cuba's new government. On one hand, a pair of responsible moderates, President Manuel Urrutia and Premier Jose Miro Cardona, struggled with the nation's immediate problems, notably restless labor. On the other, Fidel Castro (who hand-picked Urrutia and Miro Cardona) moved uncoordinatedly toward a nationalist, leftist social program.

Castro was in Oriente province, his stronghold during two years of fighting. He talked endlessly, mainly of land redistribution that will include uncultivated U.S.-owned sugar plantations. "The powerful foreign companies that stole it from the state will scream to high heaven," he said, "but it will not do them any good." His program would rest on two principles: "The land should belong to those who work it," and "Those who have no land must have some." Shouted Castro: "We must win our economic freedom and cease being ruled by U.S. ambassadors who have been running our country for 50 years." He went on record as favoring capital punishment throughout "the revolutionary period"--as firing squads cut down 24 more "war criminals" (13 in one day) to bring the post-revolt total to 288.

In Havana the Urrutia-Miro Cardona team labored in all-night Cabinet meetings to cope with a wave of strikes. Dictator Fulgencio Batista kept Cuba's unions close-reined, and they stuck with him to the end. Now freed from restraint and wooed by Communists and Castro, they are demanding sweeping concessions.

Most serious is a strike of sugar workers that has closed down 21 sugar-cane grinding mills. Before mid-May, when seasonal rains start, 5,800,000 tons of cane must be ground in the country's 161 mills to bring in $600 million to make up the great bulk of Cuba's national income. Without the 21 closed mills, the goal cannot be met. Electrical workers were on a slowdown strike against the U.S.-owned Cuban Electric Co. They demanded higher pay, reinstatement of every employee fired since 1952 and the removal of Company President W. J. Amoss.

At week's end Miro Cardona persuaded Castro to take notice of the sugar threat. Castro asked the workers "not to create problems by striking now." But he added that the "sugar magnates" obviously brought on the strikes themselves because they know Cuba needs a successful harvest this year. "They have us at a disadvantage," he snapped.

The pattern of division was enough to make a Communist exult. Said Red Leader Anibal Escalante: "The dynamic forces of the revolution will sweep away conservatives like Miro Cardona."

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