Red Setback

Cuba's Communists, who keep shoving Fidel Castro to the left as they march side by side in the island's revolution, pushed a little too hard last week. Tempers flared, raising the possibility of a split. Then the Red leaders realized the folly of alienating Castro before they could fully control him, told their membership that attacking the revolution is still "inexpedient," got back to the task of making the revolution theirs.

The dispute was for control of the powerful, 450,000-member Sugar Workers Federation. To gain a voice in it, the Communists used an old ploy: they headed their slate of candidates with Conrado Becquer, 39, a respected, longtime labor leader. Becquer shot to his feet, denounced the Red list, swept to victory as the Castro candidate for secretary-general by a vote of 885 to 13.

Communist Party Boss Bias Roca blasted the sugar workers in the Red newspaper Hoy for "brutally antidemocratic methods." The sugar workers answered Bias Roca by voting to censure Hoy for its "distorted, calumnious and counterrevolutionary reports." Shouts of "Burn Hoy !" rang through the hall, and a cordon of cops had to be sent to protect its plant for 24 hours.

The Reds' national committee met and drafted a soothing statement that "the key approach continues to be defending the revolution." Castro himself said nothing, but the sugar union leaders were obviously doing his bidding. While soft on individual Communists, Castro apparently fears that if the Reds gain a wide popular base, such as labor, they will challenge his position as people's hero.

Last week Castro also: -P: Heard 700 tobacco farmers vow that they were ready "to be led before firing squads" rather than comply with Castro's confiscatory land reform (TIME, June 1). P: Waited the results of a "public-opinion poll" that will purport to show what the U.S. thinks of Castro. The poll is the first project of Bernard Relin & Associates Inc., a U.S. public-relations agency hired by Cuba in April for $72,000 a year. P: Learned that ex-Dictator Fulgencio Batista held $45,879,245 worth of stock in Cuban and foreign industries, about $12 million of it in U.S. companies.

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