SOVIET RED TERROR

Hokitika Guardian, 8 December 1934, Page 5

SOVIET RED TERROR

TWO HUNDRED SHOT -v« ■— - RUTHLESS PURGE IN RUSSIA. c (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). LONDON, December 7. The “Daily Express’ ” Warsaw cot- , respondent says: “The Red Terror is d again running riot in Russia. Over s two hundred persons, including both r women and children, have been shot. Every ‘few minutes the sound of s shooting is heard from the Law Courts. Those who have been executed in- - .elude Kirov’s assassin, Nioolaev; also his wife, his sons, his two daughters, • and his eighty-five years old mother. Fourteen officials of the O.G.P.U. have ■ also been executed. M. Stalin is purging Russia ruthless--1 ly anj relentlessly. Some of the Courts in Moscow have sat for twenty-four • hours continuously ‘trying’ those who have been arrested. There is an execution every few minutes. Judge Ivanoff, alone sentenced to death thirty-two yesterday. The executions have been carried out within five minutes of the death sentences.” M. Stalin’s investigation, following on the death of Kirov,- revealed that dissatisfaction had arisen in the. Leningrad 0.G.P.U., because the members were told their numbers were about to be reduced, and their powers curtailed. Stalin ordered the members of the Moscow O.G.P.U. to go to Leningrad and arrest all the members of the O.G.P.U. there. The Moscowitc O.G.P.U. members were received with shots as .they entered the O.G.P.U. building. They returned the fire. A battle ensued. The Red Army garrison were called out. They rushed to the O.G.P.U. building with machine guns and hand grenades. They secured the arrest of the whole of the Leningrad staff. Ten were killed, including Lurviv, the Head of the Central Political Department. Stalin, on receiving the report, appears to hav e lost confidence in all of the O.G.P.U. H e ordered the arrest of fourteen of the Moscow O.G.P.U. staff, and they were shot. He then dismissed Jugoda, the Chief of the whole 0.G.P.U., for allowing'the disaffection. Stalin to-day trusts only the Red Army. Fifty thousand mare troops arrived yesterday morning. Stalin was guarded on the occasion of the funeral of Kirov as n 0 Tsar was ever guarded. He had 190 thousand troops around him in the Red Square. The people who caught a glimpse ofhim at a distance, say lie looked pale and worn and ill. Voroshiloff, in a speech to the officers of the Moscow garrison said: “We are ready -to shoot every one who rises against M. Stalin. I give my sacred . word of honour that, by the beginning of 1935,.a1l of the enemies of Stalin in Soviet Russia will be under the earth!”