SECRET RESERVES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 253, 16 January 1928, Page 1

SECRET RESERVES

SOVIET HAS £20,000,000 TROTSKY REVELATIONS By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. RIGA, Saturday. It has been disclosed that Trotsky, at one of his meetings, made extraordinary revelations concerning the secret reserve funds of the Communist Party. He said that when Generals Deniken and Kolchak, leaders of the White Russians, were nearing Moscow, the whole of Russia was ablaze with revolt. Soviet departments, acting under Lenin’s instructions, * confiscated money, jewels and other valuables wholesale, from the proceeds of which a secret fund of £20,000,000 was formed, so that the leaders, in case of necessity, might be enabled to escape abroad to carry on the work of the party. Only Lenin and his intimates, such as Trotsky, Zinovieff and Kameneff, were aware of this fund. RAID BY STALIN The Bolsheviks- who survived duly consolidated their position, and the fund remained untouched in Lenin’s lifetime. Stalin raided the fund when the party became impoverished, and created many sinecures, including even commercial and semi-commercial organisations, by which Stalin’s friends and followers were enabled to thrive, and the system bolstered up.

Trotsky urged the workers to demand a full account of these secret funds. The revelations are stated to have produced a stunning effect in Russia. —A. and N.Z.