RUSSIAN PURGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22941, 20 January 1938, Page 11

RUSSIAN PURGE

FORMER DIPLOMAT'S FATE EXECUTION EXPECTED (Received January 19, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 19 The Stockholm correspondent of the Daily Telegraph states that the former Russian /Minister at Oslo, M. Yakubovitch, has arrived there en route to Moscow, where it is believed he will be sentenced to death. He decided to go to Moscow after receiving news that his two sons had been arrested and threatened with death unless he returned. A telegram from Budapest says the newspaper Pesti Naplo 6tates that M. Beksadian, formerly Soviet Minister there, was executed in Moscow on January 14.

A message from Moscow on Down be r 26 stated: In connection with the diplomatic purge, M. V. A. Mikanoff has been appointed Minister at Oslo in succession to M. Yakubovitch, whose destination is not revealed. He was recently reported by his secretary to be staying outside the Legation instead.of answering a summons to return to Moscow in order to furnish details of Trotsky's sojourn in Norway.

STALIN ORDERS HALT SEARCH FOR 'INFORMERS WRONG INFORMATION GIVEN (Received January 10, 11.35 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 10 The Moscow correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reports that M. Stalin has halted tho Communist Party purge. A decree issued to-day orders thp cessation of expulsions from the party without investigation and re-examina-tion, the reinstatement of tens of thousands thus expelled within 15 days and the punishment of malicious informers.

The decree states that thero has been a vast number of these expulsions in recent months and cites cases of whole families Removed without investigation by ambitious, .time-serving party chiefs. "We are now going to witness a hunt for informers instead of a hunt for victims of informers," says tho correspondent. "There has been evidence in the press in the past few weeks of this change in policy, notably an article by the celebrated Bolshevik journalist Kolzof, denouncing the Ogpu's method of accepting informers' unconfirmed reports. Kolzof would never dare to attack the Ogpu unless he was ordered to do so from a high quarter."