LONDON -- "Are revolutions doomed to fail?" asked Fidel Castro last November, addressing an audience of university students in a five-hour speech that was followed by a question-and-answer session that lasted until dawn. "When the veterans start disappearing to make room for new generations of leaders, what will be done? Can the revolutionary process be made irreversible?"
Those questions haunt Cubans now, as the 79-year-old Maximum Leader recovers from surgery for "intestinal bleeding," having temporarily handed power over to his designated successor, his brother Raul.
Some Cubans desperately hope that Fidel will survive; others hope just as strongly that he and his revolution will pass away. But the only people currently in a position to affect the outcome are the senior officials of the Cuban Communist Party. None of their alternatives is ideal.