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Signs of Melonism. Next to go Communist were Cuba's unwilling labor unions. Though the Communists campaigned hard for elections leading up to the first Cuban Labor Confederation convention, they were rejected. Going into the convention, 26 out of 33 syndicates were Communist-free. As the delegates were about to choose confederation leaders, Castro appeared to harangue the union men about unity, and insist that the Communists be represented. Once in, they gradually purged anti-Communist elements. Castro opened the way for Roca's militants to take over the universities. He removed his anti-Communist Provisional President, Manuel Urrutia, and replaced him with Old Communist Osvaldo Dorticos. The anti-Communists who were left in the government joked bitterly that the revolution was "like a watermelon, green outside and Red inside." Before long it was Red outside as well.
Raul Castro and Che Guevara visited Moscow, but in doing so obviously contributed to Khrushchev's uneasy feeling that there was a decidedly amateurish quality to the new Cuban Marxists. While Castro could be used, he was dangerously eccentric, and while he proclaimed his socialism, he gave socialists everywhere a black eye by ruining Cuba's economy.
Last August, as the economic slide steep ened, Castro hastened to "confess I was one of the promoters of projects that were not planned." The next month, Castro Puppet President Dorticos and Roca were in Moscow together. Dorticos was re ceived cordially, and went home before the 22nd Party Congress. Roca stayed on for the congress, and for more Moscow coaching.
Something Up. When Roca got back to Cuba, the Communists started moving in at an accelerated pace. Castro announced himself "Marxist-Leninist." He accepted "collective leadership," and insisted that he had "never aspired to be a Caesar." Talk went around that the new directorate of the O.R.I. (Integrated Revolutionary Organizations), the planning group formed to make the transition to a single ruling Communist Party for Cuba, would consist of seven men, weighted in favor of Roca. Then. Castro was removed from the presidency of the National Agrarian Reform Institute and replaced by Roca's man, the bearded Carlos Rafael Rodriguez.
This winter it was plain that something was up. Rumors raced through Havana that Castro had been overheard in a restaurant cursing the old-line Communists, that Castro had sounded out a Latin American government (the whisper had it as Brazil) about the chances of asylum. On Feb. 4, Castro, whose monumental ego keeps him constantly before the public, dropped out of sight for 22 days. Word spread that he was being shoved aside. But Castro was holed up on Che Guevara's farm outside Havana, getting ready to give battle to Roca and the old Reds.