RUSSIAN TRIAL

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 136, 5 March 1938, Page 11

RUSSIAN TRIAL

Evidence Of Agreement With Britain ACCUSED’S STORY Krestinsky Reverses Plea Of Not Guilty By Telegraph—Press Assn—Copyright. Moscow, March 3. The British Ambassador was present in court on the resumption of the treason trial, and heard the accused Ivanov declare that Bukharin, former President of the Communist International, and , one of those charged, told him the Rightists had an agreement with Britain to overthrow the Soviet and give Britain concessions in North Russia. The accused Rosengoltz, . former Foreign Tra’de Commissar, as a guarantee of good faith, he said, sold Britain millions of pounds worth of timber at a heavy loss. Ivanov, who followed what has become the normal procedure of selfdenunciation, said he was originally attached to the Tsarist Secret Police, at whose behest he joined the Communist Party, and that later he joined the British Intelligence Service. Zubar, former Assistant Commissar of Agriculture, confessed in evidence that he and Rykov, Communications Commissar, plotted sabotage, and added that an organised terrorist group within the Commissariat of Agriculture had proposed to kill Stalin, Molotov, and Voroshilov. He also admitted that he had been a member of the Tsarist Secret Police since 1908. Bukharin, broadcasting his confession to the nation, said: "I am fully guilty and deserve punishment.” “You will be punished,” declared the prosecutor, M. Vishinsky.’ Bukharin replied: “Thank you. I know that without your consoling reminder.” A most dramatic moment of the trial occurred when Krestinsky, his resistance breaking down under Vishinsky’s searching examination, withdrew his pica of not guilty.. “Yesterday, under the pressure of illness and shame at being in.the dock,” he declared, “I said I was not guilty. I now plead guilty to all the crimes.” TROTSKY’S THEORY Poisoning Charge Against Levin (Received March 4, 10 p.m.) New York, March 4. In a further message, which is copyright by the North American Newspaper Alliance, M. Leon Trotsky from Mexico City advances the theory that the G.P.U.’s charges that Levin poisoned Kuibishev, Menzhinsky and Gorky arose because immediately after the death of Ordjonikidze, head of the Heavy Industry Department, Levin had intimated that it was probably due to poisoned by G.P.U. agents because Ordjonikidze opposed Stalin. The G.P.U. then arrested Pletnyev, Kazakov and Vinogradov because the last-named, who had been consulting with Levin, probably voiced the same suspicions concerning Ordjonikidze's death. M. Trotsky then says the G.P.U. said to four physicians, “So you suspect that Ordjonikidze was poisoned. We suspect you of poisoning Kuibishev, Menzhinsky and Gorky. Confess! You wont? Then we shall execute you immediately. But if you should confess that the poisoning was accomplished on the orders of Bukharin, Rykov and Trotsky then you may hope for leniency." PROTEST TO SOVIET Presumption Of Guilt Brussels, March 3. The Socialist General Council has decided to telegraph to the Soviet Government protesting against the presumption of the guilt of the defendants in the spy trial until it lias been proved.