New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-09-04
bl Put to Death
In Petrograd by
Red Inquisitors
Agents of American Intelli-
gence Service Reported
Among Those Slain for
Conspiracy Against Soviet
Plotters Called Slayers
US. Engineer, Held Prisoner
for Months, Says Indus
trial Plants Are Near Ruin


ciated Press) Sixty one persons were
shot in Petrograd on August % after
being sentenced to death by the Cheka,
or Bolshevik incuisition, for active par
ticipation in the plot against the Soviet
government recently discovered in
Petrograd, says a wireless message
from Moscow to-day. Another version
Of the affair states that the victims lost
their lives battling with plotters, and
that they were, for the most part.
Cheka police agents.
Among those executed, according to
Moscow newspapers reaching this city,
there were believed to have been sew
eral persons accused by the Cheka of
being Russian agents of the American
Intelligence Service who crossed the
border into Russia from Terijoki, Fin
land.
Cheka Gains Power
Detailing the Cheka's revelations, the
Moscow Pravda says:
eThe Petrograd fighting organization
kept in close touch with other whits
agents in Petrograd. for instance the
organization acting under the flag of
the American Intelligence Service. The
Petrograd fighting organization had a
number of secret meeting places in
Petrograd and was in touch with cir
cles made up of former naval officers
who, after the Kronstadt revolt, began
building fighting units consisting of
groups of sailors from Kronstadt who
arrived in Finland Up to that time
il had been purely a spying organize
ton, selling political and economic
information to the Finnish general
staff and leading american imperi-
alists."
The results of these activities, &C.
be the strengthening of the Cheka,
which already are reported to be ar
resting many persons in Moscow in
connection with the alleged foreign
interventionist activities Anti-Soviet
observers in Riga to-day were of the
opinion that the Cheka exaggerated
their reports of the recent plot in
order to save their own power.
Plague of Worms Reported
A plague of worms is the latest Rus
sian calamity In the government of
Simbirsk, the heart of the Volga fam
inc region. An official Moscow wireless
dispatch says that in the Ardatov dis
trict of Simbirsk sswarm of worms
vegetation. The district land depart
ment has sent an agriculturist to aid
in fighting them. 1t is believed the
worms are a variety of caterpillar, RI
valing in destructiveness the grass
hoppers and locusts which destroyed a
large part of the poor crops in some
of the other famine-stricken sections
of Russia.
American food is continuing to move
into Russia from Riga speedily. Two
ships have been unloaded in two days
and another was being unloaded to-day.
The official Bolshevist Rosta agency
tells of extensive epidemics of scurvy,
typhus and cholera in the Tartar Res
public and pictures the general famine
situation as growing worse.
Industrial Plants Decaying
Industrial plants and machinery in
Russia are steadily disintegrating, de-
clared Royal C. Kelly, the American
engineer who was prisoner in Mos
COW for many months, who arrived here
to-day On his way to America.
buildings are painless and rotting
and industrial machinery is rusting,''
Mr.. Kelly declared, while narrating to
the correspondent his vicissitudes
since leaving New York in May, 1919.
Mr.. Keely said he saw no appreciate
general Improvement in the industrial
situation in Moscow over the period
between September, 1919, and May
1920, before his arrest by the Soviet
government officials. Before his arrest
he said he had travelled throughout
Russia in a special car and had in
spected many industrials, and that he
had informed Nikolai Lenine, the So
Wet Premier, in personal letters that
the situation was terrible.
Mr.. Keely related how, when he left
New York on May "a, 1919, with Pro.
fessor G. v. Lomonosoff, former head
of the Russian railway mission to the
United States, the latter turned to him
as they were passing the Statue oil
Liberty and remarked:
Good By to Liberty
Here's where you say good by &c
your liberty"
"He was joking" said Mr.. Keely, "'bu,
developments proved the truth of his
statement"
Upon arriving in Russia in Septem
Der. 1919, Mr.. Keely said. he was in
vited to inspect every sort of industry
and he found conditionss so hopeless
from his viewpoint that he asked per
mission to leave. This YES frequentl,
postponed, he said. and finally he lief
Moscow on May z, 1920, only to be ar
rested as he arrived on May 12 near