Anti-Jewish pogroms would have taken place in Ukrainia, if the plans of the so-called Industrial Party had materialized, according to statement made yesterday by Engineer Victor Alexeyev Laritcheff, one of the eight leaders of the Industrial Party now on trial in Moscow for plotting against the Soviet government.
“Our ideal was a united and undivided Russia with a military dictatorship. We had intended to land an army of twenty thousand Cossacks in order to provoke an uprising in Ukrainia,” Laritcheff said in his testimony. “And also pogroms on Jews,” someone shouted loudly, arousing public attention in the court-room.
The possibility of anti-Jewish pogroms coming as a result of the plotted intervention and Ukrainian uprising, especially a march of the Cossacks, was discussed in the lobby of the court during intermission.
The Jews of Soviet Russia are watching the trial with tremendous interest, especially because the highly respected Jew, Aron Sokolovsky, is implicated in the plot. Sokolovsky, although not a Communist, is one of the most important economists in the country.
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