REVOLT AND TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 22, 27 January 1937, Page 6

REVOLT AND TRAGEDY.

One by one the men who made the Russian revolution have disappeared, shot after ti'ial by their former comrades because they had got in the way of leaders of the new order, or "liquidated" by the G.P.U. for expressing opinions not exactly in accord with those of the central group. But one by one was not fast enough, and group trials, at which a score or two at a time can be eliminated, are now the fashion. The trial now proceeding at Moscow is not farcical; its verdict will be too tragic for that. It is a dreadful revelation of what can happen when the administration of justice is displaced by a political organisation. The "confessions" and admissions of the seventeen prisoners now undergoing trial are too obviously extorted, despite the statements of some of them that they were given freely from a belated realisation of the gravity of the offence. Even for a country like Russia the reasons for these confessions ,are becoming too patent, and while the trials have a mass psychologic effect which may help to keep the rank and file in subjection, ultimately there must be a reaction which will affect even those who apply! terroristic methods with such tremendous zeal to such devastating purpose. Blythe assurances of guilt at such a time are particularly unconvincing.