RECRUITS FOR RED ARMY

Taranaki Daily News, 30 November 1926, Page 7

RECRUITS FOR RED ARMY

RUSSIA SEEKS OFFICERS CAMPAIGN IN ENGLAND HIGH SALARIES OFFERED By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, Nov. 28. The Dispatch states that the Soviet is secretly offering salaries of £lOOO to £l5OO yearly, and other inducements, to unemployed and discontented British ex-officers, principally gunnery, ; aviation and gas experts, to join the Red Army’s headquarters at Moscow, where a sort of foreign legion, based on a recruiting campaign, is conducted, quite apart from the activities of the Soviet missions abroad. This is doubtless the outcome of the decree, signed by Trotsky’s deputy, Skiliansky, ordering agents to encourage the enlistment of foreign nationals by every means in their power. The result has been whispered approaches to ex-officers' in the drawing rooms of Mayfair, the hotels of Chelsea and the eoffee houses of Soho. An ex-regular officer informed the Dispatch: “A Soviet agent, aware that I have been an outspoken critic of the War Office and also the author of a confidential memorandum on gunnery instruction, intimated that I would be paid a substantial sum in Paris, where a coutraet would be signed for the purpose of evading the Foreign Enlistment Act. Two essentials were to speak English and be unmarried.” The Dispatch learns that 100 Englishmen are serving in Russia, but the pay docs not exceed £4OO yearly'. They are liable to all kinds of unpleasantness if they return to Britain. .One of the Soviet’s most prominent air experts is an Englishman. The Soviet is principally using British and Italian aircraft, but. the chemical warfare is chiefly in the hands of Germans. The Soviet badly needs staff officers, the Czarist school having been almost entirely wiped out.