OF A MAJOR TORY FRAUD

ICTTED LOUISI The Zinoviev Letter was the focus for a capitalist press campaign to prevent the Labour Party from coming to power. In fact the men behind the forgery were not only the propaganda barons of Fleet Street but staft in the Tory controlled Foreign Office. The result was that many overshot the mark.

The Letter was in fact forged in Berlin earlier in 1924 with the deliberate intention of trying to smash any trade treaty between Britain and the USSR. Berlin was the leading European centre for the activities of the circles of professional anti-communists who plotted and planned in a desperate attempt to bring about the downfall of the Soviet regime by any possible means.

The letter was drafted by an Alexis Bellegarde, a brilliant linguist, virulent anti-Bolshevik and a later employee of British Intelligence. It was largely as a result of the revelations of Bellegarde's widow in 1956 that it was possible to uncover all the main details of the fraud.

Bellegarde was assisted in his task by Alexander Gumansky another devoted anti-communist and member of the large émigré Russian community resident in the Berlin of the 1920s. The forging actually took place-on notepaper stolen from the Soviet Embassy in Berlin -in the third floor apartment of. 117 Eisenacherstrasse in the Charlottenburg district.

After the job was done the forgery was passed onto the Polish government who seized on it, knowing it to be a fake, as part of their efforts to crush the young Soviet regime.

General Paciorkowski was the key man in this stage of the operations. A few embellishments were made to document which was then passed on to British intelligence.

The man who almost certainly picked it up from the Poles and brought it to London was Captain Sydney Reilly, a leading spy in the service of British intelligence and a close friend of Churchill.

As a British agent he had established himself as a member of the Soviet government and was later condemned to death in absentia for his part in an attempt on Lenin's life. The tone of his anti-Bolshevism may be judged from the following despatch:

'Here in Moscow there is growing to maturity the archenemy of the human race ... monsters of crime and perversions ... Here the foulest, most monstrous and most obscene passions gibber and swagger in the seats of governReilly passed on the letter— which he certainly knew to be forgery—-to Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, a key figure in the direction of British intelligence.

But A week before the General Election, in October 1924, the alleged Zinoviev letter was published and the first ever Labour government fell. Top: members of that government. Left to right: J. H. Thomas, Ramsay MacDonald PM, Arthur Henderson Home Secretary. Above : Conrad Donald in Thurm, former British spy and the vital link between Conservative party, the Foreign Office and the Secret Service. publication of the forgery, Reilly also contacted his old friend and former British spy Conrad Donald im Thurm.

It was im Thurm who was to be the vital link between the Conservative Party, the Foreign Office and the Secret Service.

Im Thurm, also noted in City circles for his anti-Soviet views, educated at Radley, was director of the London Steamship and Trading Corporation, known as the Russian Volunteer Fleet.

Im Thurm, being

of the letter's contents (he never actually saw a copy, then approached Guy Kinderwhich owned the remnants of the fleet of merchant vessels sley, Conservative MP for Hitchin, and contacted the Conservative Party treasurer, Lord Younger, who agreed to pay pay £7,500 for the letter, to be given to Reilly (whose identity was not apparently disclosed to the Conservative leader) for his services in helping to ensineer the defeat of the Labour government.

But the 'Daily Mail', the most determined anti-working-class paper in the preceding weeks, also obtained its own copy.

It got it from Vice Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, war-time director of Naval Intelligence, later Conservative MP and the Party's Principal Agent.

His source was, in turn, Sinclair who had worked for him during the war and who claimed he was convinced that the Labour government was about to wind up the intelligence service.

A key man in the conspiracy was Mr J. D. Gregory, head of the Foreign Office Russian Department, an anti-communist with many friends in Russian émigré circles. It was Gregory, with the agreement of his Foreign Office chief, Sir Eyre Crowe, who released the forgery and drafted the letter of complaint to the Russians. In doing so Gregory ignored or altered many of MacDonald's corrections to the original draft.

Gregory was later to be sacked from the Foreign Office when, in 1928, in connection with a case involving currency deals, it was revealed that he had used his access to Foreign Office cables to speculate in French francs.

Despite Baldwin's protestations that he always believed the letter to be genuine, all the top Tories were part of the conspiracy along with their Civil Service and police friends.

The Toriac actahliched a fake Cabinet Committee of inquiry into the event after the Tories had won the election chaired by the Foreign Secretary which found 'no foundation' to Labour charges that the letter was a forgery.

And when Gregory's dismissal threatened to reopen the manadal 1030 D_1.1...: une stanudl In 1940, Dalawin produced a signed statement from im Thurm, a mixture of downright lies and misleading statements, which was used by Baldwin to avoid any inquiry into the conduct of the Civil Service.

And im Thurm was duly rewarded.

He was paid his £5,000 out of the personal account of Lord Davidson, then Conservative chairman.

The money was paid to Major Joseph Ball, director of Conservative publicity who transmitted the money to im Thurm. Whether the latter actually paid Reilly not known.

Thus the Red Letter was over.

It had done its work in securing the election of a Conservative government at a vital time.

Not only did it show the cunning and deception which the Tories have always displayed against their opponents. It also revealed the weakness and perfidy of the Labour leaders whose reformism left them utterly prostrate before the conspiracy.

1972 is certainly not 1924. No doubt the working class today will be on the look-out for any such attempted frameups. The Zinoviev letter should be a serious warning to every worker now engaged in battle against the Heath government.

Above: Peasants in a village. Below: Velasco proclalming land-reform laws. uUrO The Investment and Commercial Bank, based in Split, Yugoslavia, is in serious trouble. To put it crudely, the bank has been issuing credit like a drunken sailor on a spree, without any funds to back it up.

As a result, its debts to the National Bank of Yugoslavia now amount to the staggering total of 675 million dinars. This is only marginally less than £20m.

At a meeting earlier this month, the bank's management declared that the main reasons for the troubles , "lay in mistaken business policy, objective factors playing only a secondary role'.

It will take until the end of 1973 to pay off the debt to the National Bank, despite 'tremendous efforts' by other Dalmatian enterprises to smooth the management's task.

The bank's insolvency, however, has created big problems Dalmatian industry. The cut-back in credit facilities means that all new construction has been indefinitely postponed. i, Tuesday Augus BA Only contracts which have already started are being carried through. These include a hydroelectric station on the river Cetina at Orlovac, an aluminium combine at Sibenik and a hydrated alumina works at Obrovac.

An index of the severity of the crisis is the close interest being taken by President Tito in the bank's affairs. Last week he met Dr Ivo Perisin, president of the Croatian executive council, Ante Jurevic, president of the Split municipal party organization and Jaksa Milicic, president of the Split council.

Tito was told about the restrictions on investment and informed that new investments would not be undertaken until the economic situation had improved and the economy was stabilized.

He reportedly showed 'special interest' in the Industrial and Commercial Bank's problems. Perisin told him a great wave of investment in tourist buildings had taken place in Split and this had led to the bank's difficulties.

Following great efforts, he added, the bank had now begun to function normally