Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-05-14
To KILL
SOVIET CHIEFS
!. LUR|D STORIES
Bold Attempts to Stay
Lenine and Trotzky
Always Went Awry.
of Secret Police
Tells Of Organized
Murder Detachments.

Moscow, May 13-(By The Associ-
ated Press).-Particulars of the at
tempts to assassinate Premier Lenine
and Leon Trotzky in 1918 have just
been revealed in a pamphlet which has
been published here by NJ. Semenoff-
Fasilieff, formerly head of the fighting
detachment of the social revolutionary
party, organizer of the attempted as
s~assination and now an agent of the
cheka. or secret police.
1t was owing to Semenoff's %revela-
tons and charges that a number of
members of the social revolutionary
party and other suspects were arrest
ed and imprisoned by the state politi-
cal department and also that members
of the central executive committee of
the social revolutionary party are now
about to be tried before a bolshevist
tribunal.
Trials Evoke Protests
The announcements that these trials
We're about to be held has evoked nu-
merous protests from the socialist
party of Sweden. of which Premier
Branting is the head. and also from
the Amsterdam and Vienna interna-
tionales. and Arthur Henderson. head
of the British labor party. The at
tempts to assassinate Lenine and
Trotzky were the signals for the so
called bolshevist red terror" which
cost Russia thousands of lives.
Lenine and TrotZky escaped. but two
ntbor hnISbaviE officials Nj EnInIop
sky, commissar of the press affairs.
and NJ. Ouritzky,. commissar Of cleo
lions. were murdered.
SemenOff, who is now supposed to
be in the service of the cheka, tells in
his pamphlet of the military and fight
ing activities of the social revolution
airy party in Russia in 1917 and 1918.
and %denounces well known persons of
the opposition parties, nan of whom
have been in the cheka prisons for
nearly two Or three years.
SemenOff says that in the beginning |
of 1913 it was decided to remove"
Lenine and Trotzky in Moscow and
G. f. Zinovieff, president of the third
internationale. Volodarsky and Ourit-
ky in Petrograd. 1t was first re-
solved to kill Lenine and Trotzky by
administering poison in their food or
cNhNhbS up q phsoitidh WIN Sllouiu
inoculate them with an infectious dis
ease.
This plan, however. was abandoned
owing to some difficulties of a tech
meal character.
New Attempts Fail
A new plan to kill them by shooting
was arrived at after prolonged discus
sion and full arrangements were made.
Both Lenine and Trotzky were watch
ed for a long time as to their move
nents and habits. Lenine was over
when he left a workman's meet
ng at a factory outside the town and
shot at with poisoned bullets by a revo-
.utiOnary, Fanny Kaplan.
The attempts upon Trotzky failed.
He was several times ambushed at the
Moscow railway terminus at the time
If the departure of his train but at the
'ery last minute he always changed
lis mind and went from a different
than the one fixed beforehand.
)ne attempt on his life ended by de-
'alllng one of his trains to Kazan in :,
which he, however, was not present.
Money Raised /
Appropriations of money from pri- !
ate persons, as well as soviet %institu- ,
ions. were organized by the fighting 7,
attachments as means to carry on their I
york. |
Their chief aim. however. was TO
revent the Germans from carrying off 4
he gold paid to them by the bolshe- t
lists under the Brest-Litovsk treaty. 4
he plan was to derail the train which
arried the gold to the border. The h
thanks to the assistance of p
no. QiIu-oH-pnon made oil
rrangements. For the purpose of de-
ailing they selected a billy spot sew
al miles from Moscow. But the en- q
inc driver failed to slow down the "
'ain to allow the attempt to take place o
was prearranged. Ii
Sent to Varsow !"
In the summer of 1920. at the time '
[ the war with Poland. Semenoff. the e
who at that time was a Il
.ember of the minority section of the a
'cial revolutionary party, offered the r.
:ryices of his little group for disor- II
work at the rear of the Pol p
h army. The cheka helped him to a
It through the front but he was soon 81
rested and under the threat of capt.
II punishment was sent to the Var Il
wv fortress. d
Semenoff then wrote to Gen. Boris W
a%vinkOff, formerly Russian minister of e,
ar and a member of the central ex- fc
'utive committee of the social rev0- n,
tionary party, and thanks to Savink- is
rs influence Semenoff was set free. Il
is time for di~sorganizatiOn work in II
Wet Russia. In December of 1920. in
left Poland for Russia o,
arged with the task of killing Len IN
e. But Semenoff betrayed S~avinkoff he
ID instead of carrying out his mis- til
m, he went with a report to the II,
cto r.