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Take the example of Paradise, a farm that lies at the end of a dusty red road on the fertile plain south of Havana. A white bust of Lenin marks the entrance. By day Paradise is where Cuba's young dirty their hands with the real work of the socialist revolution, weeding, hoeing and harvesting in fields planted with banana trees. But by night it seems more of a '60s hippie commune, with parties in the "club," El Mosquito Picante (The Spicy Mosquito) and stolen kisses in the thatched hut out back.
Ninety miles away in Miami, Cuban emigres wish for Fidel's imminent collapse, but the island's university students who volunteer to take a two- week "vacation" in the fields don't see trouble brewing in Paradise. Marlen Fuentes, 21, her pants caked with red mud after a nine-hour day, is typical of the young Cubans who come. "We need a change," she says, "but from inside our system. We need to talk about our mistakes and find solutions inside socialism." These aren't assembly-line thinkers; they genuinely care about the gains of the revolution. "I don't have a car or a lot of jeans, but for me Cuba is more important," says Randy Alonso Falcon, 21, a student leader at the University of Havana.
As the sun set over Paradise, the students gathered for a ceremony that ended with Castro's latest call to arms: Socialismo o Muerte! -- socialism or death. There was a barely audible laugh at the choice, but the answer came back: "Socialismo!"