Open verdict

DR CASTRO has now done what it would have been impossible for him to do before the United States had tried, and failed, to have him overthrown. In his May Day speech to a vast crowd in Havana last Monday he made three departures from previous policy. First, he announced that Cuba was a socialist state. This is no news to those who have noted the spread of marxism through the Cuban economy; but it is a change from the government's earlier claim to be eclectic in its politics, mixing a few ideas from America and a few from European welfare states into the basic marxist brew.