The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1934-07-17
NEWSPAPERS OPINION
PATRIOTISM AND TERRORISM

Abolition of RrIssias much-feared ogpu, Oh
State Secret Police Organization, just announced
NAV mr. NAV not mean the end of system CT
Government nv terror If it represents an actual
change of front, with a new dependence upon
conventional police and judicial systems, l. $
MOVE much to be welcomed. IT, however, it is SIM
ply a shifting of functions from he ogpu organ
ization to other departments and funcFonaries OIL
government it has less sifnihcance. AT present
it is impossible to know whether the change means
an actual relaxation of terror as an instrument
of nation policy or whether it is merely intended
as sop to foreign opinion, so generally shocked
by Ogpu methods.
Some evidence that it may be an empty ges-
ture is found in recent Soviet law which pre-
scrbes drastic penalties for citizens who flee across
the countrys frontiers and for members of their
families The law provides that any Soviet citizen
who fees abroad is liable to be executed or to be
imprisoned for ten years, in each case with coil
fscation of all his property The extreme penalty
is mandatory if the fugitive is in the armed forces
of the country.
Any member of the family of fugitive who is
proved to have known of his intention without H.
forming the authorities is liable to Imprisonment
for from five to ten years. The most extraordinary
feature of the law is that it condemns other adult
members of the fugitives family, even if they
knew nothing of his intention, if they are living
with him or are maintained by him, to five years
of exile sin remote regions of Siberia" and IN
simultaneous deprivation of the food cards which
assure the Soviet citizen his meager daily ration.
1t has been matter of common knowledge that
the OSpu often extorted Confessions" from Rus
slams who fell into it's hands by threatening the
lives or the security of their relatives or their
friends. Now this practice has received official
recognition it has been formally written into law
Taken in connection with the notorious Law Of
August Z, 1882, which makes possible infection Of
the death penalty for any theft of state property
this latest decree might reasonably arouse some
misgiving in the minds of admirers of the Soviet
government to just how advanced" regime
is which endeavors to restrain desertion and flight
among soldiers by threatening their innocent wives
and other relatives. This abolition of the Ogpu
does not appear to change any laws. 1t merely
places their enforcement in other hands.
| What makes the new law still more surprising
is that it accomplished by fanfare of edi-
torial articles in the Moscow newspapers exalting
it as means of intoxicating patriotism. There
may be some difference of opinion in western
democracies to what constitutes patriotism; but
there would be substantial agreement that it is
not something that can be inspired through ter.
rorism.
One of the highest tributes to patriotism in the
English language is Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
1t one compares the words and spirit of that ad-
dress with the text of the latest Soviet decree
one has an idea of the deep psychological gulf that
separates the democratic countries of western Eu.
rope and America from the Soviet Union, where
the sef-styled dictatorship of the proetariat i:
simply carrying on, often in extreme and
aggravated FORM the methods of ruthless repres
sion which characterized its Tsarist predecessor
Christian Science Monitor