STALIN’S TYRANNY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 July 1938, Page 7

STALIN’S TYRANNY

ALLEGED REVELATIONS BY FUGITIVE PREPARATIONS FOR WAR ON JAPAN. SOVIET CHIEF’S METHODS AGAINST RIVALS. TOKIO, July 3. “I am a traitor to Stalin, but never to the Fatherland,” said Lushkov, former Chief of State of the Far Eastern Political Department of Soviet Russia, in an alleged signed statement to the Domei News Agency today. Lushkov, who is alleged to have fled to Manchukuo to escape the purge in Russia, declared in his statement that Stalin was preparing for war against Japan, and had concentrated 400,000 men and 2000 war planes east of Lake Baikal in Southern Siberia. Ninety submarines are also stated to have been concentrated at Vladivostok. The statement added that Stalin was assisting China to engage Japan in a war of exhaustion, after which Russia would attack Japan. Lushkov admitted collaborating in Stalin’s terrorism resulting in the massacre - of thousands, but said that he had repented. He alleged that Stalin had fabricated the intrigues featured in the recent trials in order to I liquidate rivals and undesirables. In these trials the accused were shockingly tortured until they deposed according to requirements. Dissatisfaction with Stalin’s activities was widespread in Russia, concluded the statement.

DANGER SCENTED HINT TAKEN IN GOOD TIME. ESCAPING THE EXECUTION SQUAD. (Recd This Day, 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, July 3. Lushkov scented personal danger in May, when Marshal Blucher, Comman-der-in-Chief of the Far Eastern Red Army, after a visit to Moscow, reprimanded him, after which his secretary was recalled to Moscow. Lushkov decided to escape the execution squad and sent his wife to Moscow, so that she could go to Poland, while he contrived to reach Manchukuo. After his wife’s departure, Lushkov left Habarovsk, ostensibly on a tour of inspection of the Soviet-Manchukuo frontier. When he received a telegram from his wife, indicating that she was safe in Poland, he ordered a rearrangement of the frontier guards, and, taking advantage of the confusion resulting from it, crossed the border in a dense fog on June 13 and surrendered to the Japanese. He is now in Tokio. He is under detention, but is being treated well.