Another Moscow Trial

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22003, 29 January 1937, Page 10

Another Moscow Trial

Revolutions, whether of the right or of the left, run depressingly true to form. On June 30, 1934, Herr Hitler and General Goering carried out a not very discriminating massacre —at least one innocent man was shot—of many of those who had played a leading part in the National Socialist coup of 1931. The murder of Kirov in December, 1934, brought the beginning of a similar and more drastic purge in Russia. The difference is that, whereas Herr Hitler believes in shooting first and explaining afterwards, M. Stalin has dramatised his purge by means of a series of " mass trials," the proceedings at which have baffledVall dispassionate observers. That the accused are fairly treated in the court and allowed to engage counsel if they so desire is not denied. Mr D. N. Pritt, K.C., who was present at the trial of Kamenev and others last August, has testified that the accused were treated with every consideration by the court and that the verdict was in accordance with the evidence. Even so, it is impossible to believe that the hysterical confessions of guilt which have become the normal feature of these trials are obtained without some form of coercion. Torture, hypnotism, and" the use of drugs have all been advanced as explanations and could be dismissed as fantastic if the trials themselves were not so fantastic. A question equally difficult to answer is whether the vast plot of which the trials are supposed to be the outcome has any existence in fact. That the "Old Bolsheviks" disapprove of Stalin's policy, particularly his introduction of piecework and his abandonment of the idea of world revolution, is true enough. And it is also reasonably certain that this group has always regarded Trotsky as its leader, though whether Trotsky, broken in health and unable to find a permanent asylum in any European country, has been able to engineer conspiracies on any large scale may be doubted. Moreover, it is worth noting that almost all of the accused in the present trial and in the earlier trial involving Zinoviev and Kamenev had been marked men for years. Zinoviev, for instance, had been three times expelled from the party before 1935; Kamenev had the same x-ecord; and Sokolnikov was in disgrace between 1925 and 1927 for associations with Trotsky. It seems incredible that such men, whose activities would be closely watched by the secret police, would have opportunities for plotting on the scale implied by their confessions. It is a strange reflection that of the seven members of the Bolshevik Political Bureau which held power at the beginning of the revolution, three have been executed for plotting against Stalin, one has committed suicide to escape execution, and one is in exile. Only Stalin, the dullest and the least able of the seven, remains in the Kremlin.