MORE ARRESTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 250, 3 August 1937, Page 5

MORE ARRESTS.

M. STALIN’S PURGE IN RUSSIA. / BISHOP, PRIESTS AND OFFICIALS. CUnited Press .Association —Copyright.) LONDON, August 1. The Moscow correspondent- of the “Daily Telegraph” says that Bela Kun, the former Communist dictator of. Hungary and recently a member of the Soviet secret service, is among the latest arrested in M. Stalin’s great purge, which the police are continuing with unprecedented secrecy. They are exploiting Maxim Gorki’s papers, impounded "on the day of his death, and other old files to augment denunciations and confessions. The victims are believed to include Moskvin, a prominent Third Internationalist who opposed M. Stalin’s new policy of fraternising with foreign Socialists, Chernoff (Commissar of Agriculture), Nathalia Satz (manageress of the famous Moscow children s theatre), Arosieff (head of the Department for Foreign Cultural Relations) whose wife was also arrested, Fechner (head of the department dealing with Scandinavia, the Baltic and Poland), and numerous officials of the Communist Party in Moscow, the Ukraine and elsewhere.

It is even rumoured that M. Jvrvlenko (Minister of Justice) has been arrested, while M. Neumann (M. Litvinoff’s chief assistant in dealing with Britain and other Western States) has mysteriously, taken leave. The Bishop of Nikiforov, 12 priests, and other members of religious organisations are among 30 arrested at Orel for allegedly using Church services to organise Fascism.