BLOW TO SOVIET ARMY

Southland Times, Issue 23227, 16 June 1937, Page 5

BLOW TO SOVIET ARMY

PROBABLE EFFECT OF . STALIN’S PURGE 96 EXECUTIONS IN FAR EAST (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received June 15, 10.5 p.m.) LONDON, June 15. The execution of the eight Soviet military leaders, especially that of Marshal Mikhail Tukhashevsky, have bewildered the Red Army, says the Riga correspondent of The Times. Marshal Tukhashevsky was regarded throughout the army as the most authoritative and trustworthy man next to the Commissar of Defence (Marshal Klement Voroshilov), whose deputy he was. Nobody appears to understand the purpose of M. Joseph Stalin’s great army purge. The general conviction in Moscow is that he has dealt the army a severe blow. What, it is being asked, could be more in the interests of the Soviet’s enemies than the removal of eight of her most efficient organizing generals, thus depriving the army of its military brains? The Commissar of Foreign Trade (M. Rosengolz) has been dismissed. A communication says that other work is being found for him. The Moscow correspondent of The Daily Herald says that 28 more executions were revealed when Far Eastern newspapers arrived in Moscow, recording the shooting in June of alleged spies for Japan on the Amur railway. A total of 96 alleged Japanese spies and wreckers were shot in the Far East during the past month. The Berlin newspapers combine a denunciation of the Russian executions with denials of any German connection with the executed generals. An official German news agency has circulated a message declaring that 12 German communist leaders, including 11 members of the Reichstag, who emigrated to Russia, have been missing for some time.