OGPU CONTROL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20365, 24 July 1934, Page 5

OGPU CONTROL.

Officer’s Power Feared by Stalin. “THE STRONG MAN.” Will Stalin presently have to embark on a Hitler “ purge ” of the Soviet forces? It is said that the Captain Roehm of the Russian drama is Yagoda, an Ogpu leader who aspires to be the Ogpu leader. The Moscow correspondent of the “Daily Express” the story: Stalin, dictator of Soviet Russia, is trying desperately to get the Ogpu, the dreaded secret police force, abolished. But he is unlikely to succeed. llis motive is fear. The rumours that, now that Russia no longer has enemies to fear, the Ogpu is to go have been levived by Stalin since the death of Menzhinskv., the Ogpu chief. Here in Moscow’, however, the men in power expect Yagoda to carry on the reign of terror. And Yagoda, the only high Government official not on good terms with the dictator, is the man whom Stalin fears. Menzhinskv was the power behind Stalin. He signed 35,000 death warrants. But men say he was less bloodthirsty than is Yagoda. Yagoda is “locum tenens ” Ogpu chief. Till recently he was vice-president. Twice during the past two years Stalin had him “sacked.” Twice he came back, strong as ever, proving that the.Ogpu is stronger than the Central Executive Committee. For their orders not to reinstate Yagoda were ignored. Each time Yagoda was removed from office disturbances broke out among the Ogpu. • Even Menzhinsky was unable to suppress them. Now Yagoda is again on top, and Stalin knows it. Yagoda is the “strong man” of the moment. And Stalin does not like strong men. He fears them.

Son of a political exi’e in Siberia, who was banished by the Tsarist Secret Police, Yagoda was brought up as a 100 per cent revolutionary.- terrorist. To stop him from becoming head of the Ogpu, Stalin and the Central Executive Committee have worked out a plan for its reorganisation—if they fail to get it dissolved.