world’ sa

Rae Murphy, national secretary of the Socialist Youth Lea
returned from a brief visit to Cuba, where he attent
munists of that country as a fraternal dele
Tribune a few impressions of his Visit.

' It would be very difficult
for.a stranger to. visit Cuba
during these days and fail to
. feel the enthusiasm in the air.

The life of every Cuban is

changing. For the first time in
history of that hitherto unhap-
py land, the great creative
powers that lie in all men are
released and the Cuban people
are masters of their own dest-
‘iny.
_ The sweet smell of freedom.
Overcomes: the stench: of an-
cient poverty that still exists
in Cuba,

It is said that economic se-
curity isthe base of democrat-
ic freedom. Today the whole
country is united, and as one
the Cuban people are building
that base,

The Cuban revolution was
not a mere change in govern-
ments or in ministers, as so
many Latin American revoly-
tions have been in the past.

The Cuban revolution is a
peoples revolution, based on
land reform, and the national
aspirations of the people,

The great land reform pro-
gram is in full swing. Thous-
ands of acres of land have

been confiscated - and many
thousands of former landless
laborers are now shareholders
in large cooperative farms.

Cuban. peasants who have
never known what it is to be
able to visit a doctor, or to be
able to go to school, now have
medical centres and _ schools
on their farms,

_ The: great feudal estates are
being. broken up.

It is.now against the law
for a person: to own more than
30 caballerias of land (one

caballeria is about 14 acres),

Land that is taken over in
most cases is paid for by gov-

ernment bonds with 414 per-
cent interest.

‘Cuba shows example to
yS eyewitness

By RAE MURPHY

gue of Canada, recently

ed a convention of the ‘young Com-
gate. Here he gives the readers of the Pacific

which was not obtained by its
former owners through graft
or manipulation; such land is
simply taken over by the De-
partment for the Recovery of
Stolen Property.

One of the problems the for-
mer landowners have run in-
to, however, in being paid for
their lost estates, is that dur:
ing the former dictator regime
of Batista. large ‘landowners
were allowed to value their
property for the purpose of as-
sessing taxes. In the vast ma-
jority: of cases, to avoid taxes,
they undervalued their land
enormously.

Today they are paid for
their land at the price they
themselves put on it a few
years. back; and everyone re-
alizes, of course, that nothing
could be fairer than to get paid
for your land at the value you,
yourself set on it.
There is also
change
Cuba.

The country is very fertile,
and the climate is perpetually
spring-like, yet until now Cu-
ba’s only real crop was sugar
cane. It depended for its food
on. other countries.

Today the effort is to change
this by diversifying the crops.

One co-operative farm
which [I visited, the Cuba
Libré Co-op, is made up of five
separate former estates com-
bined.

Before the revolution its
only crop was sugar. Today
they grow potatoes, malanga,
tomatoes, peanuts, and Fruit
de Bomba (a. large quantity
mellon),

All this done’ in less. than.
eight months, Yet during this
time the Sugar yield not only
has not decreased but has ac-

a profound
going on in the crops of

This applies only to lana

Photo shows farmers in Cuba harvesting suga
cane was the crop on which everyone depended
new regime crops are being diversifie

fine climate.

tually increased because of
‘scientific farming, ee

At this same Cuba Libre
Co-op there is already a small
hospital, built to service the
200 members of the co-op, free,
a new school is almost com-
pleted, and the first batch of
new houses has already re-
placed the squalid palm-leav-
ed “bohios” which housed the
former farm laborers until
now.

_When we arrived at the co-
op I was told that the farmers
were out in the cane fields
fighting a fire that had brok-
en out when one of those
“mysterious” little planes com-
pletely baffled the great Am-"
erican defense system and left
Florida “without anybody
knowing” and dropped phos-
porous on the sugar cane.

However, there were still

r cane under the old.

dto take advantage of

many workers working on the
new houses, and I asked them
who they were.

I was told they were volun-
teer construction workers
from the city donating their
days off to help build the co-
op village.

This, in many ways, 1s sym-
bolic of the new Cuba, for it is
not an isolated example. It is
indeed typical of the confidence
of the Cuban: people ‘in. their
present path and. their future,

The campaign or slander and
lies about the Cuban govern-
ment, the mysterious bomb-
ings, are all part of the plot of
the desperate little men in the
Rockerfeller banks, and the
giant fruit monopolies, who
determine U.S. policy in. Latin.
America to turn back the
clock in Cuba, and thus shore
up their crumbling empires in.
South. America,

For Cuba is not in. isolation;
today it stands as a symbol. to’
all the people in. the Americas.
What happened in Guatemala,
must not be repated in Cuba,

regime, when sugar
. Now, as the article shows, under the.

Cuba’s. fertile soil and

; / | tion for
Above is a photo of the new heat and power sta :
the Taiyuan Iron and Steel Works in North China. It ua
part of a fully mechanized, automated blast furnace a
coke oven designed ‘and made in China.

A provincial convention

The main report, presented
by Glyn Thomas, the Provin-
cial Secretary,
importance of total world dis-
armament, support of the
people in such countries as
South Africa and Korea, un-
employment among _ youth,
fight for Canadian independ-

Through heroic efforts and
unbelievable sacrifices, with
the inspiring backing of their
rebel army and the great uni-
fying force of their revolution,
Fidel Castro, the Cuban peo-
ple are carving out a new life
for themselves.

They need the solidarity of
all people, especially here im
the Western hemisphere.

They are showing by exam-
ple the path all peoples who
suffer under the economic col-
onialism of the United States
should take. f

We have all much to learn
from these brave people, who
are no. longer - strangers in
their own land. f

stressed. the

B.C. socialist youth 4
hold city convention

of the S.Y.L.C. was held on

April 30 at the Pender Auditorium.

ence from U.S; domination, the
building: of the SYLC, and
better opportunities for youth
in the form of jobs and cul-
tural expansion.

One of the most important
points discussed by the con-
vention was the proposed
change of the name of the or-
ganization to the Young Com-.
munist League. A vote was
held in favour of the change.
This will be decided finally at
the SYLC National Convention
in Toronto next month,

A nine member Provincial
Executive was elected follow-
ed by the election | of Glyn
Thomas as provincial secre-
tary, and Bert Johnson as pro-
vincial chairman. Delegates. to
the National Convention in
Toronto were also elected.

Several resolutions on key
issues were discussed and
adopted by the convention.
Greetings from the Communist
Party were brought by Harold

Pritchett, City Secretary.

AFRICAN

H|  Sat., May 7, 2:30 p.m.
| POWELL STREET GROUNDS
Speakers: Maurice Rush, Dora Stewart.

Sponsored by Vancouver Committee,
r Communist Party of Canada

OPEN AIR RALLY

PROTEST SOUTH

TERROR ©

May 6, 1960—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2