POISON VICTIM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22326, 28 July 1934, Page 14

POISON VICTIM

HEAD OF DREADED O.G.P.U. What is the mystery behind the death of Viacheslav Menjinski, who, as head of the dreaded 0.G.P.U., won the reputation of being the most hated man in Russia? Thousands of red flags edged wica black recently flew in Moscow, and a State funeral was arranged tor the former chief of the secret police, but this display did not succeed in quelling the persistent rumours in Russia that Menjinski was murdered. Heart disease was given officially as the cause of death, but the police, with knowing looks, significantly say that it should have been heart failure. Every heart must fail when poison is given to its owner.

For two months the O.G.P.U. has been under direct control of Stalin, supposed to have taken over because of Menjinski’s illness, but really because for years (here has existed a private fued between the two, Bach was jealous of the power of the other, yet each was powerless to change the position. Menjinski was hated because he was ruthless. Under hi s regime the O.G.P.U. filled the notorious prisons of Butyrka and Lubiftnka with thousands of alleged political foes. But the prisons weren’t filled for long. Th *y were quickly emptied at frequent intervals and the method used was so brutal that the very name of Menjinski breathed terror into the soul of the. Russian people. Every now and again, to make room for new batches of prisoners the political “ enemies ” of the State wore driven from their cells into corridors, there to meet sudden and urescapahle death from machine guns. Yet Menjinski, the ruthless, the pitiless, the merciless, to whom it was useless to appeal, sat in his home at night and wept Sometimes he read poetry and listened to music, of which ho was passionately fond. But he was never ashamed to weep. He wept real tears. Not tears of grief for those who had been sent to an awful doom by his command, but tears of anguish at such unavoidable minor catastrophies as the death of a child under the wheels of a drosky or the suffering of other children in the famine and fever-infested areas of the Soviets. He was ruthless only to Russia’s political enemies. He hated to see other people suffer.