PERSPECTIVE ON CUBA : A Last Act of Valor for Fidel : He may have to step aside if the achievements of the revolution are not to be lost in the search for economic survival.

Going beyond the unending but ultimately idle speculation about Cuba’s immediate future is perhaps the most daunting task any visitor to the island faces. How long Fidel will last is, understandably, the favorite topic of journalists and diplomats, bettors and oddsmakers, but this is not necessarily the only question, or even the most important one that the thirtysomething revolution poses today.

Viewed from a historical, hemispherical perspective, Cuba’s advancement under Fidel Castro is impressive, in education, health and the eradication of extreme poverty, in the people’s sense of dignity and the relative social homogeneity that contrasts so vividly with the exclusion of broad sectors of the population throughout Latin America. The key question is whether these achievements will outlast socialism, the revolution and Fidel.

The experiment begun on Jan. 1, 1959, is in its most serious economic, political and ideological crisis.

The economic crisis is the most obvious; it can be seen and felt in the streets and homes of Havana. It is a creature with many fathers. The first was the end of the Soviet subsidy, which was probably larger and more decisive than most people, including the Cubans themselves,suspected. That was compounded by the Soviet Union’s dramatic noncompliance with its post-subsidy commitments. In his opening speech at the Fourth Communist Party Congress last month, Castro announced that Moscow had delivered only 38% of the goods it agreed to send by Sept. 30.

With the exception of a few isolated, specialized sectors, such as biotechnology, tourism and citrus, the island’s economy is suffering from a total breakdown. Work motivation, productivity and economic mechanisms collapsed as the revolutionary mystique faded over the years and market mechanisms were not chosen to replace them.

Lastly, but certainly not insignificantly, Cuba is sinking because of the maintenance and tightening of the U.S. embargo, the consequences of which have become much more severe with the loss of the Soviet lifeline.

Part of this is self-inflicted: Inefficiency, corruption and dogmatic respect for mistaken principles explain a great deal. So does the revolution’s inability to profit from three decades of Soviet subsidy to become self-sustaining (although other small, highly subsidized besieged nations, such as Israel, have not successfully managed this transition either). But another part is external in origin: Few economies could survive a complete, virtually overnight suspension of trade and financing with their main partners and an economic embargo on the part of their closest neighbor. Cuba is collapsing, quite logically.

The economic policy mapped out to deal with this debacle is, paradoxically, rather sensible. For the first time, Castro has a coherent economic program that would capitalize on Cuba’s comparative advantages--its natural beauty, fertility and weather, and the expertise of thousands of highly trained scientists, engineers, doctors and professionals born from the revolution--and trade for the rest. Agriculture, tourism and medicine and biotechnology, backed by foreign investment and redirected in trade with Latin America, should, in theory, give the island a better chance for economic survival and even prosperity than most of its neighbors. The problem is, of course, that such a reconversion takes years to bring to fruition, and Fidel Castro is very quickly running out of time.

He is out of time in another sense, too, in a world where socialism has fallen by the wayside, and where any form of confrontation or even disagreement with the United States is viewed as quixotic if not foolhardy.

Under these circumstances, it would be extremely difficult to ask the Cuban people to endure deprivation on a scale they have not suffered since the early 1960s, with virtually no relief in sight for the short term. The socialist, utopian ideological motivation is no longer there, and while nationalism and pride continue to nurture Cuban endurance, the island’s sense of isolation is over powering. The revolution has just about lost the struggle it was used to winning, the one for the minds and broken hearts of the Cuban people.

Which brings us to the most important of Cuba’s three crises: the political one. Fidel Castro has couched the people’s choice in terms highly favorable to himself: Fidel or Miami, meaning a return to the Cuba before Fidel. Many Cubans watching events in the rest of Latin America and in Eastern Europe believe that they have a great deal to lose if the regime falls, and in some respects, they are right. Havana’s rulers have built some strongly supportive constituencies by persuading select sectors that things could get worse. The not-so-subliminal message is that a Miami comeback could signify the end of their standing, standard of living and pride. The middle class of well-trained professionals--doctors, engineers, technicians--is being persuaded in his fashion, along with the military, the elderly, some youth and, to a certain extent, blacks (Nelson Mandela was the guest of honor at the revolution’s anniversary commemoration this year, and the opening speaker at the Party Congress was black).

This approach wouldn’t work for those more dramatically affected by the current hardships, or for those who haven’t gained as much from the revolution. But for many, the fear is real. As one journalist told me: “I don’t want to go back to sweeping floors.”

Pandering to these constituencies, along with the persistence of a sophisticated and effective police state, could save the regime. But that tactic could also squander much of the revolution’s achievements if, driven to despair, these influential sectors end up doing as their Eastern European cousins did: throwing the proverbial baby out with the Caribbean bathwater.

Advances in education, health, the dignity of the Cuban people--all are being reversed by economic scarcities and humiliating quests for hard currency and everyday necessities, and by the growing marginalization of certain sectors of Cuban society.

While political democracy does not appear to be high on the Cuban people’s agenda, the total lack of democratic mechanisms for choosing among conflicting options and solving central disagreements makes the economic deprivation all the more difficult to bear. Unlike Eastern Europe, a Cuban clamor for democratization will not bring down the regime. But it could transform the economic constraints into the catalyst of a fin de regime crisis.

Castro could be right: The association between the revolution he led 30 years ago and his own person may be so strong that one cannot survive without the other. But it is also possible that his analysis is mistaken: If the revolution’s achievements cannot survive Castro’s passing from the scene, then nothing can save them when the passing occurs (whether soon or later is a prediction best left to astrologers and bookies). If his withdrawal can preserve the admirable advances of the revolution, keeping them is more important than saving him.

Perhaps the only way to preserve what the Cuban people earned through their revolution is for Fidel Castro to step aside into history--to recognize that the symbiosis of the old man and the island must end if one of them is to survive.