EXPLAINS SIGNIFICANCE OF NEW AGRARIAN REFORM
In a speech October 5, Fidel Castro explained the historic signi-. ficance' in the Cuban Revolution of the recent nationalization of all estates over five caballerias. [About 166 acres, not 193 acres as reported in World Outlook October 11.]
"It deals a powerful blow to the economic means in the hands of the enemy class hostile to the proletariat," said Castro. "It is also a powerful blow to imperialism. The blow is twofold: on the one hand, we deprive them of their battle positions, while on the other, we shall be able to resist more effectively their criminal blockade."
Castro said that in the countryside there will now be only two forms of production --+ state-owned enterprises and small peasant households.
"From now on,” he continued, “there will be only middle and small peasants and people's farms. The rural bourgeoisie will be eliminated because it will never move forward with the Revolution, and, as a class, ~ it will always remain an irreconcilable enemy of the Revolution, *
Among the charges that Castro levelled against the rural bourgeoisie was dividing their land into small plots for sharecropping.
Castro forecast resistance to the reform. ‘The promulgation of the: new law on agrarian reform entails a new class struggle which is much more arduous than at the time when the first land reform law was promulgated.
‘In explaining government policy toward the peasantry, Castro said that the small peasants can march forward with the Revolution. A certain number of them are willing to organize co-operatives while others prefer to continue individual production. What Cuba should do in the long pro-~ cess ahead, he said, is to encourage the small and middle peasants to organize and to use advanced techniques in order to get the highest possible yields from their land.
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"With the promulgation of the new agrarian reform law, most of the land will be under control of the state," he said. "By means of advanced techniques-and mechanization, we shall be able to increase production greatly."