Raúl Castro has been leading an attack on corruption and liberal attitudes among members of the Communist Party in Cuba.

BY MARC FRANK
Financial Times

HAVANA - Cuba's ruling Communist Party has launched a far-reaching assault on ''corruption and illegalities'' that could lead to the expulsion of moderate members.

The campaign -- yet to be reported by official government media -- reflects the party's ideological retrenchment and underlines the extent to which the government has renounced its timid market-oriented reforms of the early 1990s.

Over the past two or three months, members of the party's Political Bureau have been visiting local party branches to tell militants that they have one last chance to clean up their acts.

The new focus on corruption has been accompanied by measures to strip state businesses of their limited operational autonomy and to scrap executive perks such as expense accounts.

PROMINENT VOICE

A prominent voice in the anticorruption effort has been Raúl Castro, defense minister and apparently the person in line to succeed his brother, Fidel Castro, as Cuba's president, according to party cadres who attended high-level national and provincial party meetings two months ago.

The meetings were shown a video prepared as part of Raúl Castro's anticorruption drive.

''Raúl was adamant that the revolution is threatened not just by the United States but [by] corruption and liberal attitudes that give space for it to grow,'' said a midlevel party official who attended a secret gathering at central committee headquarters in May.

The official quoted Raúl Castro as saying, ``Corruption will always be with us, but we must keep it at our ankles and never allow it to rise to our necks.''

'CAPITALIST' METHODS

According to a partial transcript of a separate meeting of top Communist Party officials in Matanzas province, José Ramón Machado Ventura, a Political Bureau member, warned that Cuba was not only copying 'capitalists' management technique, but [also] its methods and style.''

Machado, thought to be Raúl Castro's right-hand man, criticized ''those who have copied capitalist methods so well that they have become capitalists themselves.'' The Matanzas meeting was told that ''liberalism, lack of control and tolerance'' are affecting the entire country.

A report read at the same meeting cited 219 of a total 593 audits last year that showed that serious problems of ''corruption continue increasing in various sectors, including tourism.'' In his video, Raúl Castro reportedly makes clear that tolerance is out and discipline in.

The one-hour presentation shows the younger Castro talking to tourism officials about a corruption probe into the sector.

Viewers at selected screenings were not allowed to take notes or make recordings, but five people who have seen the video say that Castro was forthright in urging a crackdown on liberal attitudes.

''He says that tourism is a tree that was born twisted,'' one party member said. ``He insists that liberalism has led to a lack of respect for the party and government within tourism and other economic sectors, in turn creating space for corruption to blossom.''

TOO FRIENDLY

In the film, Raúl Castro concedes that Ibrahim Ferradaz, the former tourism minister, and two of three deputy ministers were replaced because they were too friendly with junior officials and unable to control corruption.

''We are not militarizing tourism, but I would not hesitate to do so if I had to,'' he reportedly said.

He was referring to the appointment of a top executive from the Gaviota group -- the tourism company of Cuba's armed forces -- as tourism minister, and of another to head Cubanacán, the largest of five state-run tourism corporations.

According to Western diplomats, the campaign may also reflect the start of the inevitable post-Fidel Castro battle for control of the party.

They argue that Raúl Castro is using the campaign to knock out any competitors and avoid a power struggle when the day arrives that his brother can no longer lead.

''Raúl and the military have taken over tourism, the country's most important sector, and his men control basic industry and many other positions,'' one European ambassador said.