MOSCOW ARREST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22695, 6 April 1937, Page 9

MOSCOW ARREST

FORMER OGPU CHIEF ACTION CAUSES SENSATION CLASH WITH ARMY LEADERS By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received April 6, 5.45 p.m.) LONDON. April 4 It is reported from Moscow that Grigori Yagoda, Commissar for Communications and former Chief of the Ogpiu has been dismissed from office as, it is believed, a preliminary to "trial for "criminal activity." The Riga correspondent of the Times states that Yagoda's arrest created a greater sensation in Russia than the shooting of Zinovieff and Kameneff. He was head of the secret police until September, and appeared to be allpowerful, and had been the most hated man in Russia since the death of Dzerzhinsky in 1926. Yagoda was feared even by high Communists. He organised the Ogpu's notorious forced labour gangs, several hundred thousand strong, composed of recalcitrant peasants and intelligentsia, with which ho constructed the White Sea-Baltic Canal and began the VolgaMoscow Canal, for which he was given the title of Commissar-General, in spite of the fact that blame was attached to the police for not preventing the murder of Kiroff in 1934. Although impeached and degraded after the execution of Zinovieff and Kameneff, Yagoda cleared himself. Apparently, however, his exoneration, like Rykoff's and Bukharin's, was only a trick by his successors, as they have arrested many with whom Yagoda was associated after his exoneration. Although not yet stigmatised as a Trotskyist wrecker, it is believed Yagoda's downfall was largely due to his clash with leaders of the Red Army, as Yagoda had his own army of 200,000 frontier railway troops. Moreover, his secret agents meddled with the liberties of the military, arresting officers and angering the high command. The Daily Mail's Riga correspondent says the Red Army's conflict with the Ogpu continues. The General Staff refused a permit for M. Yeshoff, commander of the Ogpu, to arrest a number of officers on a charge of Trotskyism, declaring that they could not bo described as followers of Trotsky because they admired the German military organisation. The General Staff has appealed to M. Voroshiloff, president of the Military Council, demanding the dismissal of M. Yeshoff, which : so far has been refused. POWER OF STALIN STATUS OF ARMY UNITS DECORATIONS FOR CITIZENS LONDON, March 29 "Stalin has decided that his proclamation as Lord Protector of Soviet Russia shall coincide with the 20th anniversary of the revolution, which will be celebrated in November," writes M. Yves Delbos, French Foreign Minister, in the Paris Matin. The centralisation of administrative power in Moscow, he adds, has been so solidly established that political commissaries sent into the federal republics have been recalled. Among the November reforms will be the use of the ballot in Communist Party elections, instead of a vote by acclamation. Chosen units of all arms will be given a privileged status. The old Imperial Guard will be revived in a new form. Tartar cavalry from the Crimea, recalling that of the days of the Empire, will join Stalin's personal guard, and the old military position of the Cossacks will be revived. Twenty thousand citizens will receive Soviet decorations —the Orders of Lenin, the Red Star, the Red Flag, the Red Flag of Labour or the Signal of Honour, while 100,000 will receive titles, "Hero of Toil," "Notable Citizen," or "Hero of the Soviet."

An amnesty will be given but it is unlikely that persons imprisoned for sabotage or Trotsky supporters will benefit.

"All the measures," writes M. Delbos, "tend to one end—the placing of the personal power of Stalin on an inaccessible height and creating therefore an enlarged basis no longer resting only on the Communist Party. "Among the titles from which Stalin will be asked to choose are 'Chief of the Peoples' and 'Saviour of the Soviet Fsitherland.' "