Evening star., 1938-03-01
Red House.Cleaning.

Red HOuse-Cleaning.
If the Soviet Union is that paragon Of
unity and strength proclaimed by Stain
when the new constitution" was pro-
mulgated a few weeks ago, his latest
move is mighty poor evidence Of the
fact Tomorrow at Moscow begins the
latest and greatest of the long series Of
Russian treason trials which have stag
gered the worlds imagination and rocked
the Communist state to its foundations.
Twenty-one accused include names that
have stood for everything eminent and
honorable in the Soviet land-medical
scientists Of high repute. a former
premier, the one-time editor of the
oficial newspaper, the erstwhile rank
ing diplomat, men lately at the head Of
leading government departments, and
occupants Of sundry key positions.
If President Roosevelt were suddenly
to announce that the Department Of
Justice had decided, after exhaustive
G-men Investigations, to place on trial
for grave offenses against the Republic
DR.. Simon Flexner of the Rockefeller
Institute, the Mayo brothers and DIR.
Harvey Gushing, and named as their CO.
conspirators ALI Landon, Walter Lipp-
mann, j. Edgar Hoover, Henry L. stim-
son, Julius Klein, Governor McNutt, Lew
Douglas and Chester C. Davis, there
would be some remote American parallel
to the all-star cast which Stain has
just chosen for the new juridical tragi-
comedy he is about to stage in pursuit
of his ruthless campaign against
"Trotskyism."
In a blanket indictment which must
embrace almost every count in the Red
criminal code-murder, espionage, sabo-
tage and high treason to name only the
most heinous offenses alleged-there
will be hailed into court for public trial
DR.. Levin, former chief of the Kremlin
hospital; DR.. Kazakoff, noted endocri-
nologist, and Prof. Pletneff, famous heart
specialist. They are accused of plotting
and accomplishing the 'nefarious mur-
ders' of Russias most celebrated mod
ern novelist, Maxim Gorky. and the
heads of the Secret Police and the first
Five Year Plan. In the dock with the
medical dignitaries will sit former
Premier Alexei Rykoff and Nikolai
Bukharin, first editor of the government
organ, 1zvestia. Other defendants are
Rakovsky, former Ambassador to France
and leading Soviet diplomat, and half
dozen former commissars of foreign
trade, agriculture, finance, timber in
dustry and consumers co-operatives.
No less astounding than the elite cali
Der of the prisoners is the nature of the
accusations they face. Pilloried en-
masse as the "conspirative Right
Trotzykist bloc" they are charged with
having organized "on the instructions of
foreign intelligence services of countries
hostile to the U. 8. S. r., for espionage,
destruction and terrorism to rupture
Soviet military power, to provoke armed
attacks looking to detachment from
Russia of the Ukraine, Armenia, Aber-
badjan. Georgia and the Siberian mari
time provinces and finally to overthrow
the Socialist regime at Moscow and re-
store the power of capitalism and the
bourgeoisie."
II impending proceedings run true to
form, the world will presently be re-
galed with hair-raising tales and amaz-
ing Confessions" designed to show how
stalinism, pure as the driven snow, has
had to fight for Its idealistic existence
against monstrous foreign conspiracy.
able to ensnare and corrupt men who
only yesterday were the flower Of Soviet
theology and dedicated their lives to its
propagation.
The walls Of the Kremlin doubtless
will reverberate with discriminating "evi-
dence" trotted out or trumped up, to add
corroborative detail to an otherwise bald
and unconvincing indictment. But it
will hardly obliterate the conviction
that Stain is really engaged in nothing
but another ruthless crusade to crush
opposition. The new purge will heighten
world opinion, too, that internal condi-
tions must be far more desperate than
anybody suspected, and that a gigantic
smoke-Screen and more firing SQUADS