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A Plea for Hope. The stuff, however, is having its effect, particularly on Cuba's youth. In Santiago one eightyear-old we talked to froze in terror when he discovered that we were "the imperialist monster." Students are told that they would never have had a chance to go to school except under Communism. To keep them believing it, scholarship students get first crack at the milk, butter, eggs and fruit. Older Cubans can only shrink back into themselves. They are the people who count less and less today. "Can't you give us some hope?" pleaded one woman in Havana.
The answer one gropes for but doesn't give is that one sees nothing inside Cuba to give hope. As the regime becomes more firmly entrenched, the older Cubans learn to live with their hardships and the younger Cubans to love them as a symbol of the revolution. The feeling among Western diplomats in Havana is that by 1969, when Castro has half-promised to draw up a constitution, it might actually be safe for him to open the polls. Over the next five years, the shortages may be alleviated somewhat, and the campesinos, true to Castro's boast, may have a bit more than before. Party control will certainly be more tightly sewed up, dissenters will be driven into deeper silence, and Cuba's internal power base will be broadened.
Already Minister of Industries Che Guevara has taken control of most of Cuba's economy, and Fidel's little brother Raul, head of Cuba's armed forces, is assuming an ever larger role in politics. It has been suggested that the only thing that could topple the Communists in Cuba would be Fidel's assassination. If Fidel were to die, there would indeed be turmoil. But a year or two from now, the party may be so strong that one man's death would make little difference.