Evening star., 1937-07-03
RUSSIANS SEEING
SIBERIAN PRIESTS
IN CHURCH DRIVE
Press Reopens Attack.
| Many CIerics Reported
| Already Condemned.
RELIGIOUS ACCUSED
| OF SPY ACTIVITIES
Secret Police Chief Recounts Ger.
man Plot on Eife of Comintern
Head in 1886.
b. the Associated Press.


MOSCOW, July 3.-Russia's official
press began today a new drive against
religion, disclosing the arrest of
number Of priests and ministers in
Siberia and charging that churches
are in league with fasciSm and cap
ltalism in preparing for imperialist
wars
The Khabarovsk. Siberia newspaper
Pacific Star. which recently disclosed
the execution Of l3l alleged plotters,
SAID that arrested priests and min
listers at Vladivostok already had been
condemned"
Among those arrested. the paper
said. were Lutheran minister named
Reichvald and two priests of St.
llkhon's Church named Orlof and
Cheronny.
The paper charged the clerics were
spies who actively prepared plots
against Soviet officials and party rep.
resentatives."
Other Arrests Reported.
A number of members of conpre.
cations also were reported under
arrest
The newspaper Gudok charged in
a Thursday issue that the world
clergy is trying to stretch its paws
over the Soviet . 1t is known
that there are institutions training
preachers TO be sent to Russia. OF
course. under the guise of being
preachers, they are spies and diver
sionistS also"
Pravda, Communist party organ.
criticized party committee for no.
SuppreSslng priest who preached
1t was wrong to hate Germans and
japanese who believed in God.
The paper said priests engaged in
antl-Sovlet work in kalinin Province
recently.
Russian Secret Police Chief Ieonid
lakovsky meanwhile recounted an
elaborate plan to kill Georgi Dimitroff,
secretary general of the Communist
International. alleging that the plan
was plotted in 1886 at the orders of
Gestapo-German secret police
Dimitrof was to have been killed in
Leningrad, Zakovsky said in a further
elaboration of asserted spy activity in
the Soviet Union. Zakovsky Yesterday
disclosed that more than l20 accused
spies had been arrested and more than
70 'lquidated - liquidation usually
meaning execution).
Writing in the Communist Youth
newspaper, Komsomolskaya Prayda.
Zakovsky charged also that the Cath
olic clergy in White Russia carried
out an important espionage role on
behalf Of Poland" and said a restau-
rateur recently had been executed after
he confessed plotting to poison air
force officers, allegedly at the instruc-
ton Of Polish intelligence agents.
Police Chiefs Story.
OF the asserted Dimitrof assassina.
ton plot, the secret police chief re.
lated
A Bulgarian named Pavloff was to
have killed the Comintern head at q
supper party to which Dimitrof would
bS summoned ostensbly to report on
the international situation.
Pavlof confessed along with two
Other members OF the band
"Pavlof was a professional mur7
derer for the Bulgarian political po-
lice" Zakovsky said After failure of
the Reichstag trial IDimitroff was
cleared in the German fire episode of
1889 and Dimitroff's expulsion, Fas-
cisti in humiliation appealed to this
Macedonian terrorist for help.
He was contacted in Sofia and
sent to the Soviet republics with in
structions to kill Dmitrof He met
Dimitroff in Moscow, but conditions
were not favorable. Then he went to
Lenigrad, where he laid the plot to
aSsassinate Dimitroff and others of
the party in his apartment, after
which he was to escape abroad
through visa provided by one Of the
foreign consulates."
Zakovsky in his reference to Cath
olic clergy alleged that some had used
confessionals in order to enlist
er-revolutionaries on behalf of
Poland
All these priests were arrested, Ia
kovsky wrote. and he mentioned
liquidation" of one such group of
TO- They had organized to disrupt
traffic on key military railway in
the event of war he charged
The restaurateur, the secret police
chief avowed, had learned many i'm
portant aviation secrets while fra
ternizing with officers he planned to
kill. They we're patrons of his restau-
rant.