Monday, May. 19, 1947

Without Fireworks

To the Havana man in the street, Communist Lazaro Pena is the Cuban Confederation of Labor (C.T.C.) and the Cuban Confederation of Labor is Pena. Once a tobacco worker and now a connoisseur of fine cigars, he dominates meetings of his 400,000-member Confederation with his booming, deliberate voice, his attacks on U.S. imperialismo, his praise of Russia. His chief monument is the block-long Palacio de Los Trabajadores (Labor Palace), for which President Ramon Grau San Martin allotted $772,000 to butter up the Communists after they had given him a political hotfoot in 1945.

In the still unfinished Palace, Pena last week dominated the fifth annual Congress of the Confederation. There were no fireworks of the sort that set off an explosion last month, when a row between Commies and non-Commies broke up the Congress and forced its postponement (TIME, April 21). Pena was re-elected secretary-general, and carried with him an all-Communist executive committee.

Labor leaders who belong to President Grau's Autentico (Cuban Revolutionary Party) stayed away from the Congress; so did independents. They called it illegal, because the Government commission appointed to check delegates' credentials had not finished its work. At week's end the anti-Communist forces tentatively scheduled a "legal Congress" for May 18, speculated on who would control the Confederation's treasury if there were rival officers. They wondered if this would force President Grau, who needs Communist support for his administration, to take a stand for or against his Red allies.

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