ARRESTS IN RUSSIA.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20262, 3 August 1937, Page 7

ARRESTS IN RUSSIA.

CONFESSIONS OF VIOTIMS. POLITICIANS AND CHURCHMEN. United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright. LONDON, August 1. Bela Kun, formerly Communist dictator of Hungary and recently a member of the Russian Secret Service, is among the latest number of arrested men in Stalin’s great purge, which the police are still continuing with unprecedented secrecy, says the Moscow correspondent of the Dally Telegraph. The purge is being conducted as the result of the exploitation of Maxim Gorki's papers, impounded on the day of his death, and by means of other olq files, augmented by denunciations and confessions of victims. Those arrested are believed to Include Moskvin, a prominent member of the Third (Communist) International, who opposed Stalin’s new policy of fraternising with foreign Socialists; Chernoff, Commis-jar of Agriculture; Xathalia Staz, manageress of the famous Moscow Children’s Theatre; Arosieff, head of the Department for Foreign Cultural Relations, whose wife was also arrested; Fechner, head of the Department dealing with Scandinavia, the Baltic States and Poland; also numerous officials of the Communist Party in Moscow, the Ukraine and elsewhere. A Mysterious Leave. It is rumoured that even M. Kry-1-nko, Minister of Jusiice, was arrested, while M. Neumann, who was Lltvinoff's chief assistant in dealings with Britain and other Western States, linn mysteriously taken leave. The Bishop of Nikiforoff, 12 priests and oilier religious personages were among- 30 people arrested at Orel on organ fife °Fa U^' n ° c,lul '°h services lo