FORMER OGPU CHIEF

Southland Times, Issue 23166, 6 April 1937, Page 7

FORMER OGPU CHIEF

Another Russian Arrest

MOST HATED MAN IN RUSSIA A CLASH OF ARMY LEADERS (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) MOSCOW, April 4. M. G. G. Yagoda, Commissar for Communications, has been dismissed from his post and arrested. This is believed to be a preliminary to his trial for “criminal activity.” The Riga correspondent of The Times says that M. Yagoda’s arrest created a greater sensation in Russia than the shooting of Zinoviev and Kamenev. He was head of the secret police until September and appeared to be all powerful. He was the most hated man in Russia since the death of Dzerzhinsky in 1926 and was feared even by high Communists. He organized the Ogpu’s notorious forced labour gangs of several hundred thousand strong, composed of recalcitrant peasants and the intelligentsia, with which he constructed the White SeaBaltic canal and began the Volga-Mos-cow canal for which he was given the title of Commissar-General. Despite the blame attached to the police for not preventing the murder of Kiroff in 1934 he was impeached and degraded after the execution of Zinoviev and Kamenev but cleared himself. Apparently his exoneration like that of M. Alexander Rykoff, a former Commissar, and M. Nikholai Bukharin, former editor of Isvestia, was only a trick by his successors as they arrested many with whom M. Yagoda was associated after his exoneration. Although he has not yet been stigmatized as a Trotskyist wrecker it is believed his downfall was largely due to a clash of leaders in the Red Army as Yagoda had his own army of 200,000 frontier railway troops. Moreover his secret agents meddled in the liberties or the military, the arresting officers angering the high command. RED ARMY AND OGPU CONFLICT REMAINS UNSETTLED (Received April 5, 7.50 p.m.) LONDON, April 4. The Riga correspondent of The Daily Mail says that the Red Army’s conflict with the Ogpu continues. The general staff refused to permit M. Yeshov, commander of the Ogpu, to arrest a number of officers on a charge of Trotskyism, declaring they could not be described as Trotskyites because they admired the German military organization. The general staff appealed to M. Voroshilov demanding the dismissal of M. Yeshov which has thus far been refused.