SOVIET MASS TRIAL.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20107, 10 December 1930, Page 11

SOVIET MASS TRIAL.

-—«. REPLIES TO BRITISH ] PROTESTS. BROADCAST op hostile PROPAGANDA. V'-r.ITISn OFFICIAL WIHELESS.) ■ Tlc-eived December 9th, 5.5 p.m.) r , IiUGBY, December 8. -tho Foreign Secretary (Mr A. Ilcn- ' c ' r, '' Qn )> replying to a lutgo number of questions in the House of Commons as to the reply received to the protest to the Soviet Government against reflec t-ons on iiis Majesty's Government made during the Moscow conspiracy trial, read a translation of the reply "i the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Afii'irs. Tho reply says that the Soviet Government has not expressed its views on references to the alleged participation of British circles in the intervention plans which were made by the accused in their depositions and evi- , denee. It claims that Ihe Court could not deprive the accused of the right to any evidence or confessions that they considered were necessary, nor could the Public Prosecutor avoid basing his indictment upon them. It adds that the Court devoted almost no attea tion to tho matter. Asked if a reply had been received to representations to the Soviet Government respecting anti-British propaganda in a Moscow broadcast of Tucsday, December 2nd, Mr Henderson said that the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs had made a verbal statement to tho effect that tho broadcast wa? \ from a station not under the control of the Soviet Government, but under the control of the Council of Trades Unions. The Soviet Commissar added that at the time when the Central Council was given the right to broadcast no messages of this nature were contemplated, and in consideration of the British Foreign Secretary's declaration as to the undesirability of such broadcasts in future it would be impressed on the Council of Trades Unions that no such messages should be transmitted, i ! FOREIGN STATESMEN. HANGING IN EFFIGY PLANNED. i i Received December !ith, 7 p.m.) MOSCOW, December 8. As soon us the "commutations of sentences were announced at Leningrad, the Soviet ordered the dismantling of gallows opposite the Winter Palace, where Communist youths had proposed to hang effigies of M. Briaud, 11. Poincare, Sir I-lenri Deterding, and Mr Winston Churchill simultaneously with the executions at Moscow. PROCEEDINGS REGARDED AS FARCE. LONDON PRESS COMMENTS. (Received December 9tb, 11.30 p.m.) LONDON. December ij. The fact that the death sentences in tho Soviet trial have been commuted alter ail lias persuaded most people that it was a gigantic t'arce. The ".Morning Post's" diplomatic Currespon lent says: "It is obvious that the trial was staged for internal political purposes. It was essential to give the ignorant peasantry and gullible proletariat soma valid reason for the obvious failure of the live years' plan for industrialisation " Tho "Dailv Express" says: "<So ends the bi'jgest burlesque on justice etaged in our time. The whole thing has been a put-up job." FRENCH PRESS COMMENT. (Received December 10th, 3.15 a.m.) PARIS, December 9. "Lc Temps" says:—"The Moscow trial prompts the question, Why do the civilised nations maintain diplomatic relations with a Power using such methods of systematically abusing ordinary international regulations'? Experience showed the Powers that relations with Russia only facilitated Bolshevik propoganda." DEATH SENTENCES COMMUTED. SOVIET EXECUTIVE'S DECISION. MOSCOW, December 8. The Soviet Central Executive has commuted the deatli sentences on Ramzin, Larichev, Charnovslty, Kalinikoff, and Feclotov to 10 years, and reduced the other sentences to eight years. Explaining the reasons for commuting tho sentences, the Central Executive, in a communique, says: "The convicted persons not only repented of their crimes, but by their testimony disarmed the counter-revo-lutionary organisation acting as agent for interventionist circles ruling in bourgeois France. The Soviet cannot be guided by the mere desiro for revenge. particularly in relation to confessed and repentant criminals who have been rendered harmless."