SOVIET’S LATEST PURGE

Grey River Argus, 3 August 1937, Page 5

SOVIET’S LATEST PURGE

BELA KUN ROPED IN I - And Many Leading Communists GREAT SECRECY SI;IOWN. [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.l (Received August 2, 7.35 p.m.) LONDON, August 1. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Moscow correspondent says:— Bela Kun, who formerly was the CommVnist dictator over Hungry, and who has been recently a member of the Soviet Secret Service, is among the latest of those to be arrested in President Stalin’s great purge. The police are still continuing the purge, and are doing so with unprecedented secrecy. The police are exploiting the late Maxim Gorki’s papers, which were impounded on the day of his death, and are also examining other old files so as to augment the denunciations and the confessions of victims. Those arrested are also believed to include the following:— Moskvin, who has been a prominent member of the Third Internationale, and who has opposed President Stalin’s new policy of fraternisingj with foreign Socialists. Chernoff, the Commissar of Agriculture. Nathalia Satz, who has been the manageress of a , famous Moscow children’s theatre. Arosieff, who is a head of the Department for Foreign Culture Relations.

The wife of Arosieff has also been arrested.

Fechner, the Head of the Department that is dealing with Scandinavia, the Baltic and Poland. There have been also arrested numerous officials of the Communist Party in Moscow, and in the Ukraine, and elsewhere.

It is rumoured that Krylenko, the Minister of Justice, has been arrested. In addition, Neumann, who is Litvinoff (the Foreign Commissar’s) assistant in dealing with Britain and other Western States, has mysteriously taken leave. The Bishop of Nikiforov, also twelve priests and other members of religious organisations are among thirty who have been arrested at Orel, for allegedly using Church services in order to organise Fascism.