"Nest of Murderers"

A 19-year-old high school youth fired a revolver six times, in Warsaw, last week, and threw the Soviet Government into a state of such excitement that the official Soviet newspaper Isvestia soon accused Chancellor of the British Exchequer Winston S. Churchill of directing a secret band of assassins pledged to exterminate Soviet officials. Isvestia added, explanatorily: "London is a nest of murderers." Soviet War Minister Clemence Voroshilov declared: "The British maintain a band of murderers and brigands in our country." What banal and sordid crime provoked these flamboyant charges?

Into the Central Station at Warsaw glided a long sleeping -car train from Berlin. It bore Comrade* A. P. Rosengolz, expelled Soviet Charge d'Affaires to Great Britain, who was en route last week back to Moscow (TIME, May 13). Stepping from the train, M. Rosengolz was greeted warmly by Comrade Peter Lazarevitch Vojkov, Soviet Minister to Poland, very generally believed to be an official who signed the death warrants of the late Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Arm in arm, the two Comrades entered the station buffet, ordered tall glasses of steaming tea. The train would wait an hour, then carry them both on to Moscow. . . .

Half an hour later MM. Rosengolz and Vojkov were pacing up and down the platform deep in talk. Suddenly a youth accosted them. He was a high school student of Vilna . . . Boris Kovenko, he _ said. Would Soviet Minister Vojkov please grant him a passport to enter Russia? He had applied often at the Soviet Legation, but had been refused for no reason that he could understand. Would not the Soviet Minister grant his request? . . .

Comrades Rosenholz and Vojkov, thus interrupted, resumed their walk without replying to Boris Kovenko. He, snubbed, drew a revolver and fired at M. Vojkov. The Soviet Minister whipped out his own revolver, but sagged to the ground before he could wound Boris Kovenko, who continued methodically to empty all six chambers of his revolver into the crumpled body of M. Vojkov. When two policemen sprinted up, the assassin carelessly surrendered his revolver, saying only: "I killed Vojkov. ... I acted from idealistic motives."

Two newspapers frankly condoned the murder. At Vilna, Poland, home city of Murderer Kovenko, the White Russian newspaper Novaia Rossia appealed for contributions wherewith to retain able defense attorneys in his behalf. Immediately the Polish Government suppressed Novaia Rossia, placed the editor in jail. In London Lord Rothermere's violently anti-red Evening News declared: "The slain man (Vojkov) signed the death warrants of Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian Imperial family. By Vojkov's assassination at the hand of a royalist, retribution has come to one of the chief perpetrators of one of the foulest murders in history."

Meanwhile at Warsaw, President Ignatz Moscicki of Poland personally telegraphed to Chairman Michael Ivanovitch Kalinin of the Union Central Executive Committee,-- at Moscow:

"Very deeply shocked and indignant over the outrageous murder of M. Vojkov. I beg you to be good enough to accept this expression of my most sincere condolences."

The Polish Government officially despatched a note of similar tone to the Soviet Government. What would Moscow reply?*

Because the Soviet Government is not strong enough to risk military operations against militant little Poland, the Soviet note to Warsaw last week breathed only very hot air. The Polish Government was "held responsible" for the murder of Comrade Vojkov --but Poles knew that that would mean nothing unless real threats should follow. To prevent this, the Polish Government made a great show of arresting possible "accomplices" of the murderer. Five well-known "White Russians" were jailed at Warsaw, 29 at Vilna; and although it was not shown last week that they knew anything whatever of the crime, the fact that they were undoubtedly in jail eased the tension between Russia and Poland materially. Then came a startling new development.

In Moscow, at 2 a. m. (41 hours after the murder), the Soviet Government suddenly released a proclamation figuratively aimed over the head of Poland squarely at Great Britain.

This document, probably without precedent in the annals of nations nominally at peace, read:

"In connection with the heartless murder of Comrade Vojkov this government considers it necessary to publish a number of other facts clearly characterizing the work of the British government and its vassal agencies in the territory of the Soviet Union. . . . Early in the summer of 1925 . . . Sidney George Reilly, a well-known English investigator, captain in the royal aviation corps . . . was wounded and arrested by frontier guards while attempting to cross the Finland-Soviet frontier illegally. . . .

"Mr. Reilly testified later that he came to the Soviet Republic for the special purpose of organizing plots and riots. Moreover, Mr. Reilly testified that . . .Winston Churchill, one of the most responsible ministers of the British King, personally gave him instructions for organizing terrorist and other acts. His written and signed testimony is in the hands of our government. His evidence led to further arrests which confirmed his testimony."

The Soviet proclamation then cited a long list of "plots" allegedly fomented by British agents, notably one "Gurevitch, son of a tradesman and also chief of a bourgeoisie detachment of Boy Scouts [who] organized a plot against Comrades Rykov and Stalin."*

Furthermore: "At the end of May, in Leningrad, a fireproof warehouse for explosives was set on fire. The Esthonian superintendent of the building was working under the orders of Esthonian agents of the British government. Previously the factory of Dubrovka near Leningrad was set on fire. A Finn was the incendiary working under the orders of Finnish agents of the British government."

The Soviet proclamation concluded: "Thus, it is quite evident that the British government is rapidly preparing for war against the Soviet Republic and endeavoring by every measure and means to violate the peaceful laboring men and peasants of our country.

"The government therefore orders the state political control to adopt decisive measures to guard the country from spies, incendiaries, murderers and their Tsarist and white allies."

This final threat had teeth; for the Soviet Secret Police struck, immediately, at "White Russians" in Russia.

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.