MASS TRIAL OF RUSSIANS

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 342, 25 January 1937, Page 5

MASS TRIAL OF RUSSIANS

PLOT ALLEGED. TROTSKY’S WORK. Seventeen Prisoners Pleaded Guilty. Press Association —Copyright. Moscow, January 23. When the mass trial of the seventeen prisonrs, accused of plotting against the Soviet rule, opened to-day there was a tense atmosphere. AH the defendants pladed guilty. Karl Radek, Piatakov, Serebriakov, a former chief of the Chinese Eastern Railway, and Grigori Sokolnikov waived their right of counsel. The others were all represented by leading attorneys. The indictment alleges that the prisoners were implicated iq *‘a vast plot, engineered by Trotsky, to destroy the Soviet regime and to help Germany, Poland and Japan.” It also alleged that Trotsky and Herr Hess, one of Hitler’s lieutenants, had reached an agreement for "Germany to obtain important concessions to exploit the Soviet natural resources in the event of war and for Radek’s group to engage in military sabotage and espionage under instructions from the German general staff.” The First Witness. Piatakov described the deliberate wastage of stores and machinery, valued at several millions of pounds, in dozens of factories, which he was able to organise as assistant commissar of industry. Piatakov gave evidence that Shestov brought a letter from -Trotsky giving him instructions to kill Stalin and his closest comrades as soon as possible. Piatakov detailed the instructions given to Serebriakov regarding his activities. in the Caucasus, the Ukraine, the Urals, and in Siberia. He also declared that he established close contact with Bukharin who, al though exonerated at the Zinoviev trial, was recently removed from the editorship of Ivestia, but whose reported arrest was not confirmed. Piatakov, in addition, implicated Bukhartzev, Izvestia’s correspondent at Berlin, and Izvestia’s Rome correspondent tor arranging the visits of Trotsky supporters and the transmision of letters on Radek’s instructions. Karl Radek, giving evidence, admitted his participation in a plot to kill Kirou, Stalin’s lieutenant, who was assassinated in 1934. Radek, like Piatakov, admitted writing insincere articles attacking Kamenev. Vishinsky asked whether Radek was aware that terrorism was punishable by death. Radek replied with a shadow of a smile, “i have no knowledge of the criminal code.” Vishinsky declared grimly, “You’ll know it when the trial is ended.” Radek, amid laughter, retorted. “Then I shall not know it for long.” Bukhartzev, in evidence, said that he knew the guilty purpose of Piatakov’s visits which he had arranged. Sokolnikov gave evidence admitting his guilt. The judge intimated that the names of high .German officials Who were allegedly finally to approve of Trotsky’s arrangements with Herr Hess would be reserved for a secret session.