SOVIET RUSSIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19182, 27 May 1924, Page 7

SOVIET RUSSIA

A CORRUPT .JUDICIARY. SEVERE SENTENCES IMPOSED. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyrig it. MOSCOW, May 25. A sensational trial of a number of judges, examining magistrates, and members of the Revolutionary Tribunal by the Supreme Court at Leningrad on charges of accepting bribes from the keepers of houses of ill-fame, and of blackmail, extortion, and the illegal release of prisoners, has resulted in the sentencing of 17 of the accused to death, seven to 10 years’ imprisonment, two to five years, and eight to throe years, while two were exiled to Narim (Siberia! province.—Reuter. FRANCE AND RUSSIA. M. HERRIOTT ON RECOGNITION. PARIS, May 25. (Received May 26, at 7.20 p.m.) M. Herriott, speaking in regard to Russia, said he did not confuse the Russian Government with the Moscow International, the political literature of which was as vulgar as it was childish. In any endeavour to re-establish relations with the Soviet he would not allow himself to be manoeuvred by a handful of excited people. He would not fail to remember that the small FTench investor had important interests in Russia.—The Times. BERLIN EMBASSY INCIDENT. A CALL TO BATTLE. LONDON, May 14. The Soviet Government has developed the Berlin incident—the searching by German police of the Soviet Trade Delegation’s offices—into “a question of the first international magnitude.” Izvestia, the Soviet newspaper, devotes whole pages to what is termed ‘‘Germany’s insolent violation of the sovereign rights of the Soviet.” Simultaneously, says the Riga correspondent of The Times, M. Zinovicff is totally ignoring Germany’s sovereign rights. Ho has dispatched by telegraph to the central committee of, the German Communist Party a “call to battle, which Izvestia displays on its front page. M. Zinoviefi declares that parliamentary elections settle nothing. Civil war alone can end the struggle between capitalism and Communism, ‘‘The time is near,” he says, ‘‘when we must lead the workmen to battle for a last decisive combat. The impending French elections show that Communism in France also is becoming a formidable force.” Izvestia, in a leading article, declares that Germany must make amends for her ‘‘unspeakably shameless attitude” towards the Soviet, and must guarantee never again to act in a similar way.