The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-05-22
Cuban Sugar Strike Fights
Wall Street I'm berialism

Cuba is q colony Of American i'm
perialism Only in Canada and Ger
many has Wall Street larger invest
ments. At present there are 1900
millions invested in Cuba by Amer
lean imperialists. OF this amount
more than 500 million are invested
in the sugar industry.
The island is an agrarian-nnono-
cultu.al-countrv Eighty per cent
o. Cu2as whole export consists OF
sugar. The second industry in the
country is tobacco; but the export
OF tobacco and its manufactured pro-
Gucts does not reach IN value 20 per
cent OF the sugar exports.
In view CT the above facts it is
easy to understand that the whole
economic life OF Cuba is based on
sugar production, sugar Exports and
sugar prices in the world market.
Crisis Sharp.
For this reason the general crisis
IN the sugar industry (overprcdLc-
ton, fall of prices has shaken with
tremendous force the entire Cuban
CkOAAOllly. LILO u AolS has GohCIl lilCl Z
acute forms owing to the struggle
between the two groups of American
sugar producers-one group produc
ing sugar inside the tariff wall of
the United States Omitted States,
Porto Rico. Hawaii Philippine Is
lands and the other group produc-
ing sugar in Cuba, which has to pay
tariff in the American market. The
fact that the price fall is acCompa-
MED in Cuba by restriction in pro-
duction (Which is now less than so
per cent of the 1929 production has
aggravated tremendously the whole
economic situation
The first consequences Of the crisis
upon the masses has been a huge
increase in unemployment, an i'm
placable wage-cutting offensive, and
in general lowering of the standard
Of the working and living conditions
Of the toiling masses.
Revolutionary Upsurge.
The situation has caused a mass
rehabilitation which, guided and or
ganized by the Confederation Naci-
onal Obrera de Cuba and other revo-
lutionary organizations led by the
Communist Party of Cuba, has been
the motive force Of the revolutionary
upsurge The bourgeois landlord
clique of Menocal-Mendieta has at
tempted to utilize this revolutionary
mass movement, which comprises diff
ferent strata of the impoverished
petty bourgeoisie (artiSans. poor
peasants, small merchants, students
teachers, etc. in order to become
lackeys of Yankee imperialism in
place of Mschado and his consorts.
But the Cuban proletariat led by
the Cuban Communist Party and
its Red Trade Union. is really on the
way to winning the hegemony in the
whole revolutionary upsuree
The last months have witnessed a
revival of the economic struggles of
the workers in Cuba but amongst
these struggles the outstanding ones
are the fights wseed by the sugar
workers. The mass strikes in the
sugar mills, which are taking place
~ 1AhN SIN fHON4itSDos niC ACTUALLY bllE
most important political event in
Cuba II is a flght against wage cuts,
against the serni-slave and semi-feu-
DIAL conditions prevailing throughout
the sugar mills and plantations, and
is becoming 8 revolutionary move
ment against the whole system of i'm
peria1ist- landlord bourgeois regime in
Cuba.
All these struggles have been pre-
pared and organized through a Ma
tional Conference of workers in the
sugar industry, at which 4 general
programme of struggle for the i'm
mediate demands Of these workers
and the constitutional rules of the
SYNDICATE Nacional de Obreros de
Ia industrial Azucarera" Sugar Work
ers' National Industrial Union) we're
approved and a national organization
committee was elected. Afterwards
regional conferences were held, and
strikes IN each place were prepared
by fighting committees and led by
strike committees, both elected By
the masses
Embyycs NJ Workers Militia.
In some Of these strikes the work
ers have occupied the sugar mills for
snas DAYS; tp others the Red Fag
'.s1s hts Asssaes ayd s*cz4e hes beer