the Moscow trial has come to the end which was expected, and though all the twenty tone defendants have not been sentenced to that death which it was said before the trial commenced was inevitable, the three who have escaped that penalty will in all probability be! little better off. M, Vyshinsky was content thal Rakovsky and Bessonov should have only. twenty-five years imprisonment, but the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. have sought (0 demonstrate the judicial nature of their functions by adopting his suggestions with some modifeations. Pletniev who was one of those who M. Vyshinsky thought should die has been saved. On him has been passed the sentence of twenty-five years, while Rakovsky will go to prison for twenty and Bessonov. for fifteen: If it were desired by these variations to prove to the world at large that the proceed Ings at Moscow were indeed a trial, it should be apparent to everyone that while that impression might be created within the boundaries of Russia, it will certainly not be made outside. The more the reports of the trial are studied, even in the lengthy reports of the Tass News Agency. the more is it demonstrated that there! was in effect no trial, but a piece of tragic play acting for which the script had been prepared long in advance and the actors carefully coached) in their roles. Krestinsky did go outside the: "book" for a while, but he was speedily brought back to his lines, and the only other defendant ho appears to have made a similar attempt, amely Bukharin, was permitted to carry with his denials. That these trials, which come! along with what appears to be a permanent) regularity, are. designed for the purpose of cloaking the defects of the present system government, has been advanced with some plausibility, for nothing could have been simpler} than quietly to have disposed of these men in tone of the murky chambers of the Ogpu.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.