The daily worker., 1933-12-16

tlgureS OF wall s ;$$2 A
street in the cr.T ,r.rrY>-
Cuban revolution. GRAU MARTIN
Sumner Welles was sent to Cuba by
President Roosevelt as Wall Streets
ambassador to the bloody regime Of
the Cuban President Machado. At
that time, series of strikes in the
sugar mills and other industries were
the signal Of rising revolutionary
struggles led by the Cuban toiling
masses.
Welles called mediation meetings
between the Machado forces, perpe-
traitors of thousand murders, and
the opposition landlord capitalist
groups, represented by the ABC, the
MenocalistaS and Mendietistas - all
conflicting exploiting groups seeking
to replace Maehado as Wall Street
oppressors of the Cuban masses.
Visits Chase Bank
Before Welles left for Cuba, he
stopped at the offices of the Chsse
National Bank in the Wall Street
district of New York to receive in
Structions and ITO talk over Cuban
matters" The Chase National Bank
and the National City Bank of New
York are the dominant representa-
tives of the American bankers, indus
trialists, niechants, utilities, railroad
owners, landowners, who, with their
S1,500,000,000 investment have domi-
mated the island through various ma
ave dictators.
The Chase National Bank helped
Nachado rob millions so it could ex-
ploit the Cuban workers and peasants
60 the tune of hundreds of millions.
The American bankers, supported
by Washington's representatives, aid
ed Machado TO butcher hundreds of
workers and peasants for leading
strikes and for attempting to i'm
prove their conditions.
WHILE We,les was negotiating with
" the capitalist landlord opposition
in Cuba, general strike broke out
in the early part of August of this
year. Starting as struggle for eco
non,ic demands, the strike developed
into a revolutionary political lever
that drove Machado out of Cuba.
In Orientc and Gamaguey, as well
as in other provinces, the workers be-
gan to seize sugar mills and set up
embryo soviets. The revolutionary
trade unions began TO win leadership
Of the organized working masses. To-
day the Cuban National Confedera-
ton of Labor has leadership of 20
per cent of the organized workers.
Welles, and the American rulers of
Cuba became alarmed, lest the revo-
lutionary workers and peasants, feel
ing their power through the general
strike, continue their revolutionary
struggles to the point where inpe-
rialist domination is broken, a work.
ers and peasants government estab-
lished, and the agrarian anti-impe-
rtalist revolution achieved.
Engineers Cespedes Rule
Welles engineered the presidency of
Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, another
lackey of Yankee imperialism. Mean
while strike struggles increased. The
toiling masses had taken up the Of
fensive. In the army and marines,
discomfort was rife. The old Machado
officers still were in control. A group
of the landlord OF Cuba,
headed by Grau San Martin, Ser
geant Batista, Guiteras and Carbo
working within the army, among the
students, overthrew Cespedes. They
feared, on the one hand, that the
consolidation OF the Cespedes regime
would bar them from participation
in the crumbs dropped from Wall
Streets table, and on the other hand,
that the advance OF the Communist
Party and the revolutionary trade
unions would sweep the workers and
peasants into power, and 80 they
overthrew the weak Cespedes govern
rnent.
WHEN they set up their government
" they began to negotiate with
Welles and the American bankers.
1t is with events following this pe-
Rod that the letters published In the
Daily Worker today are most con-
cerned.
The -Guiteras- -Batista regime
particularly represented that section
Of the Cuban landlord capitalists who
wanted to win greater concessions
from Wall Street. greater participa-
ton in the spoils OF colonial plunder.
In return, they promised suppression
of the revolutionary movement Of the
toiling masses.
Crau's Demagogy
In orde'. to keep itself in power,
the Grau regime had to resort to the
slimiest revolutionary demagogy. It
dubbed itself as "revolutionario au-
tentica"-genuinely revolutionist. It
indulged in an orgy OF revolutionary
phrases. At the same time, it began
ferocious attack against the reyolu-
tionary trade unions and the Com
munist Party. On Sept. 20, when q
mass funeral demonstration was ar