GERMANY BEHIND ANTI-SOVIET PLOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 22, 27 January 1937, Page 7

GERMANY BEHIND ANTI-SOVIET PLOTS.

ACTS OF SABOTAGE.

Further Startling Evidence At Moscow Trial. WRECKING OF PLANT. United Tress Association.—Copyright. (Received 10 a.m.) MOSCOW, January 2fi. The trial of the 17 prisoners charged with plotting against the Soviet entered its fourth day today. Stroiloff, a former mining chief, gave evidence that he became tangled up with German intelligence officers while visiting Berlin. They gave him the choice of a German or a Soviet prison, and he therefore agreed to agitate in favour of German machines in industry and to help impede the production of coal.

Documentary evidence was produced to support Stroiloff's story.

The first foreign witness, Stein, a German engineer, testified that he was prevailed upon as a patriotic German to participate in the wrecking of plant that would necessitate purchases from Germany. A German Fascist engineer, Slesser, he said, had reprimanded him for not doing some acts of sabotage.

The mother of Radek, one of the principal prisoners, has telegraphed to Stalin and to Stalin's mother appealing to them to use their influence to save her son's life. Radek's mother, who is 72 years old. says that if her son is condemned she will die of sorrow.

UNDER A DRUG?

Remarkable Attitude Taken Up

By Prisoners.

SPECULATION IN LONDON,

LONDON, January 26

The attitude taken up by the Moscow prisoners toward the charges against them is causing considerable speculation.

The "Morning Post" says one suggestion is that the accused are under the influence of some drug which is affecting their will power.

"The Times" says the most perplexing feature of tlie whole affair is the behaviour of the prisoners. At previous Soviet trials prisoners have been openly defiant, like the British engineers in 1!>33. or broken and cowed like the Zinovieff and Kameneff group in August. Radek and his companions, however, give blithe assurances of their guilt.

A London psychiatrist interviewed bv a representative of the "Morning Tost" revealed the fact that a drug exists which would fully account for the prisoners' behaviour. He said it would not be in the public interest to identify the drug but its effect was to render the subject "incapable of resistance."

Moreover, it was not inconsistent with the effects of the drug that th-2 subject should remain cheerful.

DOGS BRING POLICE.

TO SCENE OF MURDER. (Received 10.30 a.m.) PARIS, January 26. The howling of two dogs brought police to the scene of the murder of M. Xavachin, a brilliant Russian economist, who is believed to have been killed because he might have been able to prove the innocence' of certain of the men now on trial in Moscow.

M. Xavachin was taking his accustomed walk with his dogs when he encountered a man with whom he had a dispute. An eye-witness of the struggle and of the unknown man's flight ran to the spot and found that M. Xavachin had been twice wounded, once through the face and once near the heart.

Several mysterious Russians in the last fortnight have visited M. Xavachin's apartments, and one succeeded in gaining an interview. It is recalled that M. Xavachin was an important witness some years ago at an inquiry into the counterfeiting of Soviet notes. M." Xavachin, who was 47, was an intimate friend of Sokolnikoff and Piatakoff. He acquired French nationality in 1927.

TROTSKY CHARGES STALIN

"DOWNFALL OF THE SOVIET."

LOXDON, Januarv 26

"I scornfully reject the charges being made against me at the so-called Moscow trial," says Leon Trotsky in a cablegram to the "Manchester Guardian" from Mexico. "There is not a single word of truth in them.

"It is alleged that in 1935 I wrote to Radek, with whom I had had no relations since 1928, urging the necessity of restoring the capitalist system in the Soviet Union. That is exactly what i* happening now. Stalin, therefore, is attributing to me. through Kadek, the very policy 1 publicly accuse him of putting into practice.

''Also it is alleged that I insisted that German and Japanese capital should be admitted to Russia, whereas at the very moment Herr Hitler was seizing power I urged the mobilisation of the Red Army on the Soviet's western frontier in order to support and encourage the German proletariat. What could I hope to gain from an alliance between Germany and Japan? In what strange way could Herr Hitler and the Emperor Hirohito give me power?

"Stalin merely wishes to compromise me before public opinion in democratic countries and thus deprive me of finding an asylum anywhere. I do not know if Stalin dreams of a Crown, but I know he is bringing about the downfall of Soviet Russia."