Anti-Castro plot shows crisis of Cuban regime

which on the ground floor expensive computers have been installed, while on the second floor a whole army of bookkeepers and accountants still do the work in the old way. He adds, 'one could bring many, many more examples'.

One could bring hundreds more examples of a similar kind as reported from many other regions, but here is what 'Pravda', November 17, 1965, wrote about Soviet industry as a whole:

'One of the most serious shortcomings of nearly all branches of our industry is its slow mastery of its new capacities. In the metallurgical and chemical industries, many enterprises, which began to function three to four years ago, have not achieved their planned capacities.' (My emphasis.)

Among the reasons given:

rious defects in desiga, imirfect assembly, the introducTHE trial of Rolando Cubelas, a major of the Cuban Army, and six others on a charge of plotting to assassinate Castro is further evidence of the deep and insoluble crisis of the Bonapartist dictatorship in Havana.

Cubelas is accused of conspiring with Manuel Artime an anti-Castro right-wing leader whom he met in Madrid December 1964 and of receiving a silencer and telescopic sight from him.

Many of Cubelas' supporters, it is reported, were participants in the Cuban revolution.

The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for Cubelas and hree other defendants but Castro has intervened to request clemency be shown.

It is certain though that this will not be the last of the plots against Castro's regime, whose present conciliation of imperialism and Stalinism must have profound repercussions in Cuba.

If 1965 was the Year of Economy-then 1966 must surely be the Year of Disenchantment ...for the Cuban workers.

Morbld suspicion

Authoritative sources have :ently revealed another spect of the crisis: Castro's morbid suspicion and pathological obsession with security problems.

A number of people have been wounded by his trigger-happy guards who have opened fire on the slightest suspicion. The latest victim of this security mania is a high-ranking Yugoslav diplomat who took the wrong turning and drove past the house of Castro's secretary Celia Sanchez.

The diplomat was critically wounded by a hail of bullets from Castro's security men.

Events in Algeria and Ghana have shown that where there is no Marxist leadership, the army ultimately decides the fate of every Bonapartist dictatorshipas well as the parliamentary regime.

Right-wing encouraged Castro's decisions to disarm the militia and oppose the Chinese have encouraged the extreme right-wing forces who want a bloody settlement with the workers and peasants.

These people find Castro an embarrassment and an obstacle to their policies. They would like to see him dead—or out of the way.

The question that faces Castro now is not whether he can stay in power-but for how long.

March 12, arțicle