NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 April 1929, Page 6

NEWS BY MAIL.

AIOSCOW SPLIT

RIGA., Lativa Alareh 6,

Four prominent Soviet Commissars hare announced themselves leaders of the new Opposition against Stalin, the virtual dictator of Russia and the man who sent Trotsky, the former Commissar for War, into exile. They are Bukharin, until recently Stalin’s henchman ; Rykolf, President of the Council of People’s Commissaries; Kalinin, President of the Council of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee; and Tomsky. Bukharin (as foreshadowed recently) resigns the editorship of tlie Aloseow official Communist Party organ Pravda and also resigns from the Communist Internationale. The new Bight (or Opposition) Party is in favour of granting an opportunity for a complete change in the Communist policy towards the peasants, a more stringent control of the workers, and the development of private trade. Stalin, who retains c ntrol of the Communist Party, is reported to be negotiating with the Right group liefore the approaching meeting of the Central Executive Committee. Voroshilov, the commander of U’o Bed Army, has also joined the Rigid group.

’ESCAPED OSTRICH

LONDON, March 10

Policemen at Crawford-place, Alarylebone, AY., police station were called out last niglit to deal with an escaped ostrich, called Oswald, which was more than eight feet high. For neaU'lv half an hour they struggled with the bird before they could truss it up and fasten it in the wooden ease from which it had broken loose.

The ostrich was being conveyed in a van from a stud farm at Cheshunt, Buckinghamshire, to an animal dealer’s store in Tottenham Court-road, W., when it was found to have worked its head out of tlie back of the wooden case. Then with hammer-like "blows with its feet it kicked away the boarding and jumped to the street. - / When the driver tried to catch hold of it. tlie bird threw him to the ground. * Policemen who heard the noise rushed out to deal with the bird and one of them grappled with it, retained his hold till other policemen and civilians came to his help.

The. struggle was watched by hundreds of people.

RED ARMY UNREST

RIGA, March 21

The extent to which anti-Soviet tendencies were affecting the Russian Army was revealed during the troubles in Aloseow during October and November last year.

The statement was vehemently do. nied at the time by Reds in this country, but how comptetcly it was justified is shown ’by • the following translation of an article by Yoroshiloff, tlie Russian People’s Commissar for War, which appeared in the official organ Izvestya on February 23:

On the eve of the eleventh anniversary of the Red Army (February 1929) we were once again in a panic. The year just passed was a year of difficulties not only for the party hut also for the country. These internal difficulties did not pass without serious consequences even in the Army. They gave birth to a number of unhealthy incidents both among the rank and file of the Red Army and among the officers. . . Tn quarrelling over the policy of a single command introduced at that time the officers have also criticised the whole direction of the army, and particularly the political direction of Hie armed forces.

M’lie Revolutionary W ar Soviet of the U.S.S. has had -to show special consistency and Bolshevik bearing in order to liquidate the dangerous state of friction inside the army without any loss of fighting capacity, as well as without any loss to the organisation of the armed forces.