SOVIET PLOTTERS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 267, 24 August 1936, Page 5

SOVIET PLOTTERS

READY FOR DEATH SENTENCE. PREFERRED TO IMPRISONMENT, FULL CONFESSION OF GUILT. (United Press Association —Copyright.) (Received This Day, 9.35 a.m.) MOSCOW, 9ugust 23. Describing the accused as a “murderous, despicable band of mad F ascist dogs, and scum of the underworld,” M. Vishinsky demanded the death sentence on Zinoviev and bis associates on trial for plotting against M. Stalin. The prisoners listened in a state of collapse to the German emigre, I'ritz David, as he gave evidence that he actually pointed a revolver at M. Stalin, but was unnerved by the enthusiastic reception which the Congress gave the Dictator. Ho added that the attempt was made on M. Trotsky’s personal instructions when David visited him at Copenhage. In liis final address, Kamenev said: “I do not ask for mercy, but wish to leave a last message to my wife and three children: ‘Be good; follow the party.’ I have conducted a personal fight against Stalin, who is the world’s greatest leader of the workers; yet the Communist Party tolerated me for 12 years. I was thrice expelled, but was reinstated and given responsible posts. There is no such example of toleration in the history of .revolution in any country. I do not fear death. Having failed to serve the revolution living, I am ready to serve it dying.” Zinoviev, made ( a full confession of guilt, and concluded: “M. Vishinski’s

demand for the death sentence was fully justified and legal. No douht it will bo fully supported by the Workers’ Soviet Union and by workers abroad. The death sentence will be just. I do not fear death. I prefer it to looking through prison bars at the progress of the Soviet.” THE COURT RETIRES. (Received This Day, 12.40 p.m.) MOSCO W, August 23. After hearing 16 prisoners, the Court retired. It is learned that Tomsky committed suicide when the police came to arrest him. SENTENCED TO BE SHOT. (Received This Day, 1.45 p.m.) MOSCOW, August 24. The sixteen defendants were sentenced to be shot. SUICIDE OF AN OFFICIAL. COMPLICITY WITH PRISONERS. MOSCOW, August 22. Moscow officially announces the suicide at bis country homo of M. Mikhail Tomsky, head of the State Publishing House. He was accused of complicity with the treason prisoners. He had concealed from it his counter-revolu-tionary negotiations with M. Kamenev in 1929. M. Tomsky, originally a Social Democrat, was twice arrested after which he was exiled until the Bolshevik revolution, he was refused admission to Britain in 1926, after attending the Trades Union Congress in 1925. He was excluded from the Communist party in 1928, but was pardoned in 1929.