RUSSIAN DISGUST

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 110, 5 November 1937, Page 9

RUSSIAN DISGUST

SPAIN'S TROTSKYISTS

Moscow's dissatisfaction over the unwillingness of the Spanish Republicans to adopt the summary Russian methods in dealing with political dissenters has been shown in recent reports of Spanish events appearing in the Soviet Press, says the Moscow correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." Impatience over the failure of the Valencia Government to "dispatch" Nin and his fellow-P.O.U.M. adherents is expressed by Mikhail Koltsov, probably the leading Soviet journalist since the eclipse of Karl Radek. ; Koltsov has spent much of his time in Spain since the civil war began ■there as the correspondent of "Pravda," and-he writes bitterly from Lfcrida that' despite the repressive measures taken against the P.O.U.M. leaders Republican Spain had not "got rid of this insignificant rotten gang of spies." Koltsov attribute's the escape of Nin from prison to the fact that only a "very weak . guard" was placed over him by the Government, and remarks, "The chief Trotskyist spy is at large so far. The rest feel at home in gaol. People here still do not understand how tb fight against spies." BITTERNESS SHOWN. Quoting a leaflet circulated by the P.O.U.M. which asserted, "Soon the people will demand the head 6f Prieto" (Minister of National Defence), Koltsov reveals the Communist disgust with, conventional administration of justice by remarking, "Justice with the Trotskyists is very swift, much swifter than that of the Government. While the court apparatus is still only dealing with the indictment material the 'unfortunate prisoners' have already passed sentence on the Minister of National Defence." The Russian writer is particularly enraged over the P.O.U.M. demand that the Republican Army should be put under trade union control, together with a general extension of the power of the trade unions uver political affairs, a demand closely analogous to the slogan of the Bolsheviks in 1917 demanding all power for the working class. The real aim of this manoeuvre, Koltsov asserts, is to break up the Popular Front. He shows pessmism regarding the prospect of the P.O.U.M. group's being wiped out, for he expresses his fear that the present action against them "will be transformed simply into a political discussion which, under the present soft and quixotic attitude, is nothing to be frightened of."