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Commissar Menjinsky of the Secret Police was able to announce later in the week: "In view of the open transition to terrorism and destructive struggle by monarchist and white guardist elements acting from abroad on instructions and with funds from foreign intelligence services, the . . . state political department has passed death sentences on 20 persons, and the sentences have been carried out."
Of the 20 "Whites" executed last week, one was the aged Prince Alexander Meshinsky, who returned to Russia not long ago and was promptly jailed "as a hostage," on a charge of "entering Russia to plot uprisings." Another was alleged would-be-assassin Gurevitch (see above) specifically convicted of "attempting to bomb Comrade Nikolai Bukharin in the State Opera House." A third visitor was Editor Vladimir Evreinov, entrusted with editing the fiscal reports of the Soviet State Bank. He was put to death "for being an agent of Sir Robert Hodgson, head of the British Mission to Russia" (now withdrawn).
At London Sir Robert Hodgson said last week: "The charges of the Soviet Government are fantastic and without foundation. . . . Vladimir Evreinov was in touch with the British Mission; but I was particularly careful not to encourage relations with him, since his Tsarist antecedents rendered him suspect to the Soviet police. . . Any 'confessions' produced by the Soviet police must be treated with the gravest mistrust. . . . They employ the most abominable methods to wring 'admissions' from their victims. . . ."
What did Josef Stalin, the quiet, cold, impersonal Dictator of Russia have to say last week, amid so much crimination and recrimination? Did he think with War Minister Klementi E. Voroshilov: "War with Great Britain is now inevitable?"
Interviewed, M. Stalin said imperturbably:
"The immediate situation is grave and menacing. ... It is only by adopting a superhuman attitude of patience like that the late President Wilson assumed when he uttered the phrase, 'America is too proud to fight,' that we can save humanity, including ourselves, from a terrible catastrophe. . .
"England tempts us to strike. . . .
"We shall be patient and the English policy will suffer a new defeat. . . .
* When a diplomatic representative or even a mere citizen of a "great power" is done to death within the confines of a "minor nation" it is customary for a huge indemnity to be exacted. When U. S. Consul Robert W. Imbrie was killed by a totally irresponsible mob of fanatics in Teheran, Persia, after he had taken a picture of one of their number (TIME, July 28, 1924 et seq.), the U. S. exacted a check for $60,000 from the Persian Government. This was considered a ridiculously low figure by British diplomats whose Government exacted $2,300.000 in gold from the Egyptian Government (TIME, Dec. 1, 1924), when the forcibly installed British Inspector-General of the Egyptian Army, Sir Lee Stack, was murdered by Egyptian students. *Respectively "Premier" and "Dictator" of Soviet Russia.