DRASTIC PURGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 142, 17 June 1937, Page 10

DRASTIC PURGE

WHITE RUSSIA

PRESIDENT COMMITS

SUICIDE

OFFICIALS ARRESTED

United Press Association—By Electric Tele-

Eraph—Copyright. (Received June 17, 2.15 p.m.)

MOSCOW, June 16.

A drastic purge of White Russia involving members of Cabinet was revealed at a White Russia conference at Minsk. An immediate sequel was a report of the suicide of M. A. G. Cherviakov, President of White Russia. Existence of a Trotskyism spying and wrecking organisation led by the Commissar of Agriculture, M. K. F. Benek, and the Commissar of Education, M. A. I. Diakov, is alleged. The wreckers are accused of destroying livestock and crops, scientists being instructed to infect cattle with cholera. The collective farms are alleged to be hotbeds of Polish espionage. The former Premier, M. Goloded, has been arrested, also a number of former Commissars of Agriculture and Education.

The Riga correspondent of "The Times" states that the trial of high Communist officials charged with creating discontent against M. Stalin among peasants in the Ukraine is announced from Moscow. Further "Communist agricultural wreckers" have been discovered in the Crimea, South Russia, and the chief grain, and sugar beet centres. The chief crimes are alleged to be efforts to wreck spring sowing and to destroy crops, but the real reason of the poor crops appears to be that the grain collectors last autumn left insufficient food and the peasants were obliged to eat part of the seed for grain.

CZECHOSLOVAK DEFENCE

TRAINING SCHEME

100 HOURS A YEAR

AGES SIX TO SIXTY

(Received June 17, 2 p.m.)

PRAGUE, June 16.

Defence training between the ages of six and 60 years, with a minimum of 100 hours a year, is provided for under Czechoslovakia's new military programme. Children from six to 14 years of age are to undergo "physical and moral preparation for defence," those from 14 to 17 training for the auxiliary services, especially for civil air defence, and citizens of between 17 and 30 actual military training. Girls and women will be trained in gas defence and hospital work.