FRENCH COMMUNISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3494, 22 February 1921, Page 14

FRENCH COMMUNISTS.

REVOLUTIONARY PLOT FOILED. PARIS, February 14. Following the arrests of Communists, the police discovered an organised plan for simultaneous revolutionary outbreaks in France, Spain, and Italy. The recent anti-Communist activity is having sensational results. The police investigations have produced unmistakable evidence that the Communist movement extends all over the country. The centre is Paris, with secondary centres at Bordeaux, Marseilles, Lille, Brest, and Toulouse. Branches are being organised everywhere, but hitherto many of them were small, and the members mostly youths. According to Liberte, papers seized at the headquarters of the Federation of Young Communists revealed a plot for a simultaneous revolutionary movement in France, Italy, and Spain on May 1. Investigations of the French police revealed details of the organisation for the purpose of infecting France, England, and other countries with Bolshevist doctrines. Secret headquarters were first established at Stockholm and Copenhagen under M. Litvinoff, but the British Secret Service discoveries in connection with the Daily Herald jewel smuggling incident compelled the closing of the Stockholm and Copenhagen offices. They have now been traced to Bremen, where secret agents are coming into Western Europe through Esthonia. Detectives secured photographs of many confidential documents. The Bolshevist propaganda is organised on military lines, each country being under special directors, who are responsible for all secret agents. The directors work under false names and do not reside permanently in the country, but move about leaving the detailed work to resident lieutenants. None of the subordinate agents know of the existence of the Bremen headquarters, but believe that they receive orders direct from Moscow. The last general meeting of directors at Bremen took place in December. Shorthand notes show that the Bolshevists have no great hope of success in France or Britain, but regard their prospects in Germany, Italy, and Central Europe, as promising. The detectives also secured a list of the names of Bolshevist agents in different countries and the sums of money paid to them there. Six hundred direct agents from Russia are working in Europe apart from the native propagandists. The Socialist Council called on M. Albert Thomas, who was French Minister of Munitions during part of the war, either to resign his scat in the Chamber of Deputies or the directorship of the International Labour Bureau. February 18. The examination of those arrested in connection with the Communist movement in France has established the fact that the alleged Bolshevist agent Adramovitch had a deposit of 200,000 francs in an American bank in Paris. The money came from a German bank. A number of further arrests have taken place throughout France and also in Algeria and Tunis. One man who was arrested was found to possess wliat purported to be a passport signed by a representative of the Soviet Government in Svdney, Australia. The police discovered large quantities of stolen explosives in the houses of four men who were known to be Bolshevists.