PIOT AGAINST SOVIET

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 918, 11 March 1930, Page 9

PIOT AGAINST SOVIET

INTELLECTUALS TRIED ON REVOLT CHARGE FILM AND BROADCAST United P.A. — By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, Sunday. The trial has been commenced at Kharkov, Russia, of 45 intellectuals, including 20 of the most prominent scholars and scientists in the Ukraine. The defendants are charged with engineering a counter revolution. The trial is being conducted in the Opera House amid a blaze of publicity. Tens of thousands of people are to be given an opportunity of seeing and hearing the proceedings, for they are being filmed and broadcast by wireless. It is alleged that the 45 accused persons were the ringleaders in a conspiracy to free the Ukraine from the yoke of the Soviet. They are charged with preparing for an armed revolt in the coming spring and with discussing plans to assassinate Stalin, general secretary of the Communist Party, and Voroshiloff, Commissar of the Army and Navy. It is stated that the accused received funds for their purpose from Poland and from Russians in Paris and Berlin. Professor Serge Jefremow, head of the Ukranian Academy of Science, is accused of being the leader of the conspirators and of using the academy as headquarters. In addition to numerous members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, the Ogpu (Russian secret police) arrested in the months August-November last year four bishops of the Ukrainian National Autokefalian Church, and about 30 clergymen belonging to that Church. The Ogpu also arrested among the villagers in the provinces a number of adherents of the Ukrainian Autokefalian Church. Altogether 200 persons were arrested in Kieff, and about 2,000 in the provinces. Al. Alexander Shulgin, president of the Chief Council of Ukrainian Exiles, in an appeal to the League of Nations and the United States against the persecution of intellectuals in the Ukraine, stated that the “Red Terror” was assuming a ferocity unknown since the terrible years 1920-22, and that Ukrainion culture had been destroyed.

GERMANY WARNS SOVIET BRITAIN’S ACTION FOLLOWED BERBIN, Sunday. Following the example of Britain, Germany has notified her intention of holding the Soviet Government responsible for the activities of the executive of the Third (Communist) International. It Is understood that the Foreign Minister, Dr. Curtius, has informed the Russian Ambassador that the German Government makes no distinction between the utterances and actions of the International and those of the Soviet Russian Government and will hold the latter responsible for the utterances and actions of the former.