Old Order in Cuba is Threatened by Forces of an Internal Revolt

Traditionally Corrupt System Faces Its First Major Test as Reform Groups Challenge Batista Dictatorship

This is the last of three articles by a correspondent of The New York Times who has just returned from Cuba.

By HERBERT L. MATTHEWS

The old, corrupt order in Cuba is being threatened for the first time since the Cuban Republic was proclaimed early in the century. An internal struggle is now taking place that is more than an effort by the outs to get in and enjoy the enormous spoils of office that have been the reward of political victory.

This is the real and deeply significant meaning of what is happening in Cuba today, and it explains the gravity of the menace to the military dictatorship of President Fulgencio Batista.

This writer has studied Cuban affairs on repeated visits since General Batista seized power by a garrison revolt on March 10, 1952, and he has just spent ten days in Cuba talking to all sorts of conditions of men and women, Cuban and American, in various parts of the island.

At last one gets the feeling that the best elements in Cuban life-the unspoiled youth, the honest business man, the politician of integrity, the patriotic Army officer-are getting together to assume power. They have always made up the vast majority of Cubans, but Cuba has never had majority rule, least of all since General Batista interrupted a democratic presidential election in 1952 to take over by force. The Cuban people have never forgiven him for that.

By coincidence, economic and fiscal developments are going to bring a crisis of their own that will affect politics. This year's sugar crop will be very profitable and next year's also promises to be so, but the experts agree that after that a recession is almost certain. The public works program, an enormous slush fund providing colossal graft, but also much employment and accomplishment, will end in the summer of 1958.

To finance the program, amounting to $350,000,000, the Government led by Joaquin Martinez Saenz, Governor of the National Bank, resorted to inflationary tactics, pledging the gold reserves and increasing the public debt. Even those best informed on the Banco Nacional and what it is doing do not know the real figures of reserves, public debt and the like. Economists believe that statistics and information are being twisted, and many believe that if present policies are continued the Cuban peso, now on a par with the United States dollar, will have to be devalued next year or protected by exchange regulations. The trade balance is still heavily against Cuba.

These calculations are making many Cuban and United States bankers and business men critical of the Batista Government's fiscal policies. The Cuban elements ask whether President Batista should not be got out of the way in 1957 while the currency is still sound and the economy prosperous. They want to face the hard times with an honest, orthodox, democratic, patriotic Government.

It is disturbing to find that the opposition, which contains some of the best elements in Cuban life, is today bitterly or sadly anti-United States. This is a recent development in Cuba and it is one of the sharpest impressions a visitor from the United States now gets. It does not, of course, apply to United States tourists, who are not held responsible for the situation and who meet unfailing friendliness.

The opposition says there is an infinitely harder problem because Washington is backing President Batista, and many proofs are offered. The first is the public cordiality and admiration for General Batista expressed on frequent occasions by United States Ambassador Arthur Gardner. Another is the friendliness of the United States investors and business men who, despite their misgivings, naturally want to protect their investments and businesses. "We all pray every day that nothing happens to Batista," one of the most prominent directors said to me. They fear that the alternative would be much worse, at least in the beginning, perhaps a military junta, perhaps a radical swing to the left; perhaps chaos.

There is also bitter criticism in Cuba, as in all Latin-American dictatorships, over the sale of United States arms. While I was there, seven tanks were delivered in a ceremony headed by Ambassador Gardner. Every Cuban I spoke with saw the delivery as arms furnished to General Batista for use in bolstering his regime and for use "against the Cuban people."

Also while I was there, the United States aircraft carrier Leyte came on an official visit with four destroyers, and this, too, was taken as evidence that the United States was displaying its support of President Batista.

An appeal in English was circulated in Santiago de Cuba during my visit. "To the People of the United States From the People of Cuba."

"We do not wish to harbor resentment against you, our good neighbors of the North," it said. "But do give us your understandingand fairness when considering our crisis."

A movement of civic resistance has been formed in Santiago, which is the capital of Oriente Province at the eastern end of the island where Fidel Castro, the rebel leader, is fighting a guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra. Business and professional men of the highest type are the leaders. The women of Oriente have cooperated so impressively that for many weeks they have refused to send their children to school. The University of Oriente is closed.

A similar movement of civic resistance is getting tinder way in Havana. It is a non-violent movement of influential citizens in support of honesty, decency, democracy, apart from the political parties and movements, which are hopelessly divided and discredited, and also apart from the Army. The citizens want to demonstrate to the decent, patriotic elements in the Army that the people of Cuba, moderate, bourgeois people, will support them against the regime as the Argentine people did their Army and Navy against General Juan D. Perón.

In this struggle one other element of prime importance must be added-the Cuban university students with their long traditions of struggle against Spanish oppressors and Cuban dictators.

The directorate of the Federation of University Students has been on the run from the police for many weeks, thus far successfully. The authorities accuse them of complicity with Fidel Castro, with whom they signed a pact in Mexico City, but they say they are fighting a parallel, separate fight for the same goals. The real reason the police want them is that they are out for trouble, and the Superior Council of the University of Havana, headed by the rector Clemente Inclán, whom I saw, is clearly afraid to reopen the university in present circumstances.

Through underground connections, I was able secretly to see five members of the student directorate, including their leader, José Antonio Echeverria, whom the police want most of all, and who therefore has considerable fame in Cuba at the moment. His friends call him "El Gordo" (the Fat One), but in reality he is merely heavy set, florid, handsome, with a mass of hair in a pompadour, prematurely touched with gray. He is only 24 years old and is an architectural student.

Señor Echeverria said the students were active in the present resistance, which may or may not have meant they were taking part in the bombings and sabotage. The students, he said, would get behind a respected civic resistance movement, but meanwhile they are waiting their chance to get into the streets and join a revolution, if there is one. They concede that they are in no position to start one.

The directorate maintains that it has the almost solid backingof the student body. The students obviously are not seeking anything for themselves. As a whole, their traditions are anti-Communist and democratic. One boy said: "My father fought against Machado (Gen. Gerardo Machado, the brutal President and dictator of the Nineteen Twenties); my grandfather fought in the War of Independence (which began in 1895 and resulted in the Spanish-American War). I must fight now for the same ideals and the same reasons."

Their talk was studded with phrases such as these: "Cuban students were never afraid to die," and "We are accustomed to clandestine struggle." This is true.

So one see three elements lining up against President Batista today-the youth of Cuba, led by the fighting rebel, Fidel Castro, who are against the President to a man; a civic resistance formed of respected political, business and professional groups, and an honest, patriotic component of the Army, which is ashamed of the actions of the Government generals. Together these elements form the hope of Cuba and the threat to General Fulgencio Batista.