Evening star., 1936-08-19
Trotzky and Secret Police of
Germany Charged With
Aiding in Plans to Over
throw Government.
FIVE SOVIET LEADERS
MARKED FOR MURDER
Prosecutors Name Reich Agent as
Go-Between in Conspiracy to
Organize Reign of Terror and
Cause International Furore.
| Prisoners Accuse Each Other.
4v the Associated Press.

ev the Associated Press.
MOSCOW, August 19.-Sixteen &C
eused Trotzky conspirators pleaded
guilty in open court today to Soviet
government charges they had plotted
to seize power through an organized
reign of terror in which Dictator
Josef Stain and other heads of the
state would have been killed.
Prosecutors, at the opening Of the
trial, charged the plot was directly
organized by Leon Trotzky, famous
Bolshevist exile, and that the plotters
hoped for international complications,
which would pave the way for over
throw of the government.
The German Gestapo (secret police)
also was charged with direct partici-
patton in the plot.
Wrangled Among Themselves.
The story Of how the counter-revo-
autionarieS, all of whom face possible
sentence of death before firing
squad, wrangled among themselves for
the honor" of shooting Stain was
unfolded at the dramatic session.
Calmly, almost with an air of bore
dom, G.. Evdokimoff, former chair
man of the Leningrad Soviet, told the
court how the terrorists entered the
home of Gregory zinovieff, alleged
leader of the conspiracy, to decide who
would kill Stain.
"Zinovieff said the honor belonged
TO his group, not the ones sent into
Russia by Trotzky, and he won the
argument" Evdokimof testified.
The reason Stain was not killed,
he said, was zinovieff's general
Wishywashiness."
Cross-examination Of the witnesses
brought out the story that Stain
twice escaped assassination.
Chief Aide Murdered.
| The first time was during the killing
bf Sergei M. Kiroff, the dictator's chief
aide, at Leningrad on December l.,
1884. The second time was during the
Comintern Congress Of last July, in
Moscow.
Zinovieff was asked by the prosecutor
II he organized the terrorists.
/ Eyes" he replied.
''Did you plot the Kiroff death?"
"Yes."
did you organize the plan to kill
etaIn?"
"Yes. am guilty of every charge
IN the indictment"
Franz Weitz, still at large, was
named by prosecutors as the German
agent who acted as go-between Ber-
lin and Fritz David, one of the pris-
oners, who, it was alleged, was to
have killed Stain at the Comintern
Congress.
Admits Attending Congress.
! David admitted attending the con-
gress as a delegate, but said he was
unable to get close enough to shoot
Stain. He was alleged to have come
to the Soviet Union with a Honduran
passport and $4,000 kroner check
given him by Trotzky's son.
F., Trotzky himself is in Norway.
! All the 16 defendants refused coun-
Gel and said they would defend them
selves. But hardly had the session
opened when Zinovieff. former high
Bolshevik leader, accused as one of
the masters Of the conspiracy, rose
and declared:
II am fully guilty!"
! His colleagues, including Leon Karn-
eneff, also a one-time Communist
aeader, ousted by Stain, followed, al
though T. 5mirnotf and E. Holzmann,
two of the lesser defendants, pleaded
guilty, with reservations, and said they
were not involved in the actual at
tempt to kill the leaders.
Those marked for death, in addition
to Stain, included Klementi Voroshi-
loft, commissar Of war; Lazarus M.
Kaganovich, chairman of the ALL
Union Peasants Congress and COM
missar for railways; Gregory K. Or
oonikidze, commissar Of heavy indus
try, and the head Of the COMMUNIST
party in the Ukraine, Postisheff.
Zinovief and Kameneff, who. with
the others. are expected to receive the
death penalty, already are serving
prison sentences for activities in con-
nection with an alleged plot against
the government in 1884.
The Soviet press, awaiting detailed
enumeration of charges against the l6,
continued assertions that five of the
agents allegedly connected with the
blot gained entrance to Russia with
passports forged by the German secret
police.
The five, it was charged, entered the
country on orders Of Trotzky.
The former revolutionary zealot,
who forged q path from poverty in
New York to great power in the Soviet
regime and lost 1t after differences