TROTSKY PLOT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 204, 29 August 1936, Page 9

TROTSKY PLOT

A FURTHER ARREST ATTACHE IN LONDON BETRAYED BY MAN NOW DEAD 4 By Telegraph—Press Association—CopyrigMj LONDON, Aug. 27. It is confirmed from Moscow that General Putna, Soviet military attache in London, who was recently recalled to Moscow, lias been arrested on a. cnarge of complicity in the Trotsky plot. His betrayer, Dricser, former bodyguard to Trotsky, was among the sixteen who were shot on Monday. The Evening News says that representatives of lhe Ogpu recently arrived unexpectedly at the Soviet Embassy in London, inspected the private papers of General Kutna and his staff, and took away two hags of documents. General Futna left London ostensibly to participate in a j»olitical and military conierence in Moscow. His wile, not finding her husband at Victoria Station on the day he should have returned, telegraphed to Moscow to inquire. Subsequently she packed up and told her friends that her husband was ill and that she was joining him. Soviet agents since then have been inquiring into General Futna’s association with Russian refugees. Drieser, at the trial, alleged that General Putna met Trotsky abroad in 1932, entered into an active contract with him, and conveyed a message to Smirnoy instructing him in the organisation of terrorist groups. Madame Sokolnokov, wife ot the former Ambassador to London (who was implicated by the confessions of those shot last Monday), has been expelled from the Communist Party.

SIR W. CITRINE’S COMMENT PUZZLED AT BRUTALITY LONDON, Aug. 27. Sir W. Citrine, in a speech at the literary luncheon, expressing puzzlement at the brutal crushing of the only opposition in Russia belore consideration of the new Constitution, said that he could not believe that Tomsky, whom he met in Moscow, stood for personal terrorism. “I cannot believe that the great revolutionary figures ever tied themselves to such an antiquated doctrine. 1 have no faith in the confessions which were extracted by means not properly disclosed.”