All_seventeen accused, Including Karl Radek, the noted Soviet author, and M. Sokolnikoff, former Ambassa~ dor in London, pleaded guilty to-day when another mass trial of former high Soviet oMclals opened before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court.
The men are Usble to the death penalty.
The atmosphere was tense as the clerk Inboriously read the lengthy charges.
The court room was densely crowded, while guards patrolled the surrounding streets, As in the former trial, Leon Trotsky, the exiled Bolshevik leader, though again absent, emerged as the chief accused, "The indictment charged all the accused with being implicated in a plot engineered by Trotsky to destroy the Soviet regime with the help of Germany, Poland and Japan, Tt alleged that Trotsky carried on negotiations In Berlin. with Herr Rudolph Hess, Herr Hitler's debut who agreed,.'in case of war, that Radek's group should engage military sabotage and espionage under instructions from the German General Star Radek was charged, with organiz~ which would The Trotsky centre was the group which Kameneff and -Zinovieft were alleged to have been involved and for which they paid the death penalty Inst year.
The reserve centro, it was alleged, also. plotted to allow Japan the use of Saghalien all in ease of war with Amorlea and to facilitate the Japanese conquest of China, ho Indictment also charged the accused with espionage and terrorism and with attempting to reintroduce capitalism in Russia.
Besides MIN, Redek and Sokolnikoft, the accused "Include M, Platakoff, formerly Assistant People's Commis: sar of Heavy Industries; M, Muralov, People's Commissar for Agriculture from 1990. to 1934; M. Serebriakov, former chief of the Chinese Eastern Railway; and M. Drobal te witness who turned state evidence at the tial of the German engineer, Herr Stickling, last November—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.