In a surprise move that quickly raised eyebrows in Havana, Cuba's Communist Party has slashed its ruling Central Committee from 225 to 150 members in a massive overhaul.

Defense Minister Raul Castro said the smaller Central Committee elected at the first party congress since 1991 would give it the kind of agility needed to make decisions in times of crisis.

But the names of those cut from the committee, those who kept their seats and those who were newly appointed may reflect which way the political winds are blowing in Havana these days.

The list of the 150 names -- and of those elected to the party's innermost leadership ring, the 24-seat Political Bureau -- were not expected to be announced until late Friday or early today.

Raul Castro said the new Central Committee was elected late Thursday, on the second day of a three-day closed-door congress that brought more than 1,500 delegates to Havana.

More than half the members of the Central Committee were replaced in 1991, many of them older veterans of the Cuban Revolution whose seats were taken by newcomers who tended to be younger and come from labor groups.

Review of last five years

The current congress appears to have done little more than review the past five years of fighting to overcome the economic crisis caused by the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

Party officials approved a platform reaffirming Cuba's single-party communist system and designating ``Yanqui imperialism'' as the main enemy.

President Fidel Castro's nearly-seven-hour opening speech Wednesday was seen as proof of his good health, despite recent rumors of ailments, although party members said he looked thin and pale, and spoke in a low tone that forced audio technicians to turn up the volume on his microphone.

Castro said he was not happy with the vast gap between rich and poor opened in Cuba by some of the reforms he has allowed since 1993, but he and other party officials stressed that there was no going back.

`Irreversible trend'

``The process of economic recovery is an irreversible trend,'' vice president and economic czar Carlos Lage told the congress, and none of the reforms -- legalization of the U.S. dollar, opening of farmers' markets and increased opportunities for private work -- will be rolled back.

But those reforms pale in comparison to other communist countries like China, which approved a massive sell-off of government enterprises last month, and Cuba's economic reality lags far behind party hopes and predictions.

The congress' economic platform calls for annual increases in the gross domestic product of 4 to 8 percent, even though 1997's growth is expected to hit only 2 percent. And it predicts sugar harvests of six million tons even though the high mark of the past three years was 4.5 million tons.

The 1997-98 harvests of sugar, tobacco and coffee are all expected to be badly hit by heavier-than-normal winter rains as a result of the El Niño ocean current, Cuban agricultural forecasters have said.

Cuba may try to shift some of its sugar industry -- with 460,000 workers one of the largest employers on the island -- to finished products like rum and animal feed, but there appears to be little hope of a major opening for private Cuban participation in small and medium enterprises.
$11 billion foreign debt

The island still faces a huge foreign debt of $11 billion, a shortage of new credits at moderate rates and U.S. sanctions that have slowed -- though not halted -- the flow of foreign investments into Cuba.

Lage told the party that Cuban enterprises simply have to become more productive and profitable, but acknowledged a string of internal problems: theft of government resources, inefficient accounting, corruption, lack of initiative, negligence and the ``rotten'' practice of meeting production goals without taking costs into account.

But while the party platforms promised little change, Cuba analysts noted that both Castro and the party have changed their minds before when confronted with hard economic realities.

The 1991 congress ended with a ringing call for economic steadfastness that was abandoned in 1993 as Cuba, facing a bruising crisis, was forced to open its economy somewhat to market forces.

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald