Russian Outrages and British Socialists The Labour Party and the
Trades Union Congress have not been behindhand in condemning outrages committed by Nazis in Germany. It is satisfactory to find that their executives have been equally emphatic in condemning the "summary executions " in Russia, which have swiftly and without the least show of legal justice followed the murder of Kirov. In the statement which they have issued they declare themselves to be " profoundly shocked and alarmed by the reprisals, and record their opinion that arrested persons should be afforded full facilities for proper legal defence in a public trial." It was appropriate and timely that the Socialist representatives of political and industrial Labour in this country should enter their protest. It was im- possible for our Government to pass any official criticism upon matters of purely domestic concern in Russia, though it cannot be indifferent to such evidences of barbarism displayed by a country recently admitted to the League of Nations. But the Labour organizations are under no such constraint, and they have done the right thing in showing that British Socialists, no less than other Britons, are disgusted as much by the ruthlessness of a Communist Government as by that of a Nazi Government.
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