RUSSIAN EXECUTIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 December 1934, Page 5

RUSSIAN EXECUTIONS

DEATH MET FEARLESSLY MORE VICTIMS SOUGHT [BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.] MOSCOW, December 30. Nikolaez and the thirteen associates who were'accused of complicity in the murder of Kirov, were sentenced to death and shot. Their property has been confiscated. An official summary of the trial alleges underground counter-revolution-ary work;' Leningrad was the centre and it became especially active in 1933-34, when having lost all hope of support from the masses, a group started methods of terrorism with a view to securing a change in policy in the direction of the so-called Zinoviev-Trotskyist policy. The summary repeats the story about Nicolaev visiting a foreign consul still unnamed and receiving five thousand roubles, and concluded that the trial established the accused organised and committed the murder of Kirov.

Nikolaev showed the jaunty fearless air he displayed before his Judges. He turned to the guard in the prison courtyard and shouted, “Devil take you!” The executions will be followed by an intensive campaign against Zinoviev and Kamenev. Stalin, troubled by the tension here, has ordered New Year’s Eve to be celebrated as never before under the Soviet regime. He will permit dancing in the streets, and provide dance bands and vodka gratuitously. Invitations have been issued for a few distinguished Russians of the Left, and all foreign dignitaries to attend the first ball at the Kremlin, since it became the seat of the Government.

“OLD GUARD” REPRIEVED. LONDON, December 30. (Received Decembei’ 31, 10 a.m.) The “Mail’s” Riga correspondent says: Zinoviev and Kamenev will be exiled to “a climate good for winter sports.” The terrorised populace of Leningrad are discussing, in whispers, the mild sentence, and express the opinion that Stalin is keeping the oath sworn to Lenin, of whom Zinoviev find Kamanex were close friends, that the Bolshevik Old Guard would not pass sentence of death on one of themselves. EXILE IN ARCTIC. (Recd. December 31, 2.30 p.m.) LONDON, December 30. The “Daily Express’s’’ Warsaw correspondent says: Zinoviev and Kamenev, ex-Bolshevik leaders, were arrested last week, and secretly taken from the prison at Moscow to the railway, where a freight train was waiting to convey them to exile in the Arctic. They were sentenced to banishment to Solovetski Island, in the White Sea, where the temperature seldom rises above zero. The sentences were passed at- a secret session without trial, by Stalin and the Commissar for the Interior. Doubtless, foreign opinion caused Stalin to flinch at the death sentences. The station was closed when the prisoners entrained in separate trucks. Zinoviev was farewelled by his family and allowed to take a large bundle of books. The train journey will take eight days and eight nights, and thereafter six days with horse sleighs. Kamenev appeared to be happy and. astonished to have escaped the death sentence, but as Zinoviev is in_an advanced state of tuberculosis, his sentence of exile is regarded as equivalent to death. No official announcement of the sentences has yet been made in Russia.