SOVIET RUSSIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 207, 2 September 1936, Page 20

SOVIET RUSSIA.

According to your correspondent "R.G.F." Soviet trials of traitors, spies, etc., are for the purpose of making political capital to cover up inefficiency and continuous overwork (Five Year Plans, etc.) and chronic shortage in food and clothing. Such wild assertions and ramblings as these only prove "11. G.F." to be antagonistic to systems of production for use instead of private profit. Does he complain of such happenings in other countries? Take, for instance, Germany, where hundreds were shot without trial, and Austria, which cleaned up hundreds of Communists without trial. Yet correspondents such as "R.G.F." wake up only when traitors to the Soviet system are tried and proved guilty. Having built up a new system, Soviet Russia will not allow spies and traitors to undermine same. I did not notice " R.G.F." complain lately when Japan executed a number of Russians for being spies who were opposed to her system of sweated labour. Why squeal about the Soviet being hard on sixteen proved traitors, " R.G.F.," when other countries with systems you evidently support make no fuss about cleaning up hundreds? K.M.