The Timaru Herald. THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1937 THE PURPOSE OF THE SOVIET PURGE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20762, 24 June 1937, Page 8

The Timaru Herald. THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1937 THE PURPOSE OF THE SOVIET PURGE.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin’s response to the worldwide questioning of the genuineness of the “confessions” at the trials following each Russian “purge,” in which he explains that readiness to confess is of course not understandable to those ignorant of Slav psychology, will be read with interest by everyone who has watched with amazement the proceedings that marked the course socalled justice takes under the Soviet regime. The leader of the Communist Party in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is moreover most accommodating in the pains he had taken to explain to the world the purpose of the penetrating “purge” that not only removed the chiefs of the Red Army, but subjected them to the indignities of a more or less comic opera trial and then sealed their lips for ever with rifle fire directed at them by the grim executioner of the terrorist police. “Those executed,” declares M. Stalin, “were not charged with treason in the vulgar sense. The army leaders were suspected of desiring to wreck Russia’s alliances with the bourgeois governments.” And because their “political conceptions were not acceptable” to M. Stalin and his fellow Commissars, the leader of the Soviet Communists removed them from the scene. In Russia, the knowledge that dead men tell no tales seems to actuate the Soviet leaders in their attitude to anyone suspected of disagreement with the acts or policy of the leaders. “The men were traitors,” says M. Stalin, “therefore I struck.” It is true, of course, that the civilised world has looked on with amazement at the sweep of the Soviet purge and the grim fate overcoming anyone in a position of authority who becomes suspect. It is true, also, that doubts have been expressed by enlightened peoples in other countries as to the genuineness of the “confessions” of all adjudged guilty of being traitors. But we doubt very much if M. Stalin’s explanation will remove the feelings that are so widely held. It may be true that ignorance of Slav psychology is general in Western countries, but no one regards a system of justice with any degree of confidence when the principal evidence, usually the only evidence, consists of confessions and mutual accusations. From time to time the Soviet methods of disposing of objectionable officials have been soundly denounced. Observers of the trials say that they have not seen any corroboration of an impersonal documentary type presented at any trial. It is recalled, moreover, that Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence sensibly does not accept confession as in itself conclusive proof of guilt. But for exhibition purposes in Russia, moreover, it suits perfectly. One observer points out, too, that there is never a genuine effort by counsel to protect the accused; indeed, the general opinion of all English observers, who have attended the trials of the victims of the Soviet purge, is that any halfcompetent English trial lawyer could easily tear down the whole structure of so-called evidence. It is suggested, however, that it would appear that the chief concern of the defence counsel is to prove that he is every bit as patriotic as the prosecutor and no less anxious to root out evil. It has been discovered by one or two rather enterprising trial lawyers that misguided attempts to put. up a genuine defence stamped counsel for the defence as a counter-revolutionary with a taste for martyrdom! Eugene Lyons, former manager of the United Press Moscow Bureau, who attended trials for six years, sums them up by saying that “the supposition that 16 men (at the fantastic trial and hasty execution of the Old Guard Bolshevists)—most of them highly intelligent and with personal histories of daring—confessed to heinous primes without even claiming extenuating circumstances, is too much of a strain on credulity,” and lie has come to the conclusion that a Moscow show trial is simply political propaganda designed to dramatise that guilt for the public; a display designed by the leaders to excite an apathetic population and overawe the people with the all-powerfulness of the Soviet leaders.