9 minute read
Gareth Jones: saving the memories of millions forgotten and clashing with the deniers
It is important to preserve the existence of people who suffered greatly in the past, as well as those who are preserving the existence of others.
By Ken Maciej Starczewski
Every year on the fourth of November Ukrainians commemorate the anniversary of a tragedy that harmed them greatly, Holodomor. This year is going to be the 90th anniversary of Holodomor. It is important to remember that it happened and many people suffered, with a number estimated by the researchers to be between 3 to 5 million people that died during that period. However, many can easily forget about the person who contributed to exposing this atrocity to the World – Gareth Jones.
Introduction to the tragedy
It is important to explain what Holodomor is to understand this topic. “Holodomor” (ukr. To kill by starvation) is a man-made famine by Stalin and his Soviet State that caused millions of people to die of starvation and malnutrition. This happened as a result of Joseph Stalin’s new Five-Year Plan to industrialise the USSR as fast as possible by any means necessary during the period 1928-1932. To ensure that the plan would be successful, Stalin proposed “collectivization”. As Timothy Snyder wrote in Bloodlands: “Land, equipment, and people would all belong to the same collective farm, large entities that would (it was assumed) produce more efficiently”. Stalin’s idea was to forcefully take over the farms to increase the grain production, but also to support industrialization of the USSR. Many farmers and peasants lost their jobs and had to work in factories and due to one of the new policies of the Plan was that they had to work seven days a week. As such, the results of the Five-Year Plan were disastrous and caused widespread famines across the USSR during late 1920s and early 1930s. This was especially noticeable in Soviet Ukraine, where the production of grain was the highest. The Five-Year Plan not only destroyed peasants’ properties, but also later led to the worst famines in the USSR, where millions died due to starvation and malnutrition; it is still difficult to establish how many people died as a result of Stalin’s policies. Tens of millions of farm livestock were killed or forcibly taken away by the Soviet State, which led to the significant decrease of farm animals in the USSR. And one man, one journalist managed to expose all those atrocities to the World and brought international attention to this catastrophe – Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones.
Jones described USSR’s State as “the most brutal in the world” where people faced many problems such as scarcity of food, poverty, oppression and “misery among workers and 90% discontented
Gareth Jones’s background and first trip to USSR
Gareth Jones was a Welsh journalist, freelancer and Foreign Affairs Adviser to David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the time. His journalistic expertise focused on European foreign affairs, the rise to power of German Nazis and the state of Russian society and the tyranny of its government. In 1930 he travelled to Moscow and then to Ukraine in August 1930. What Jones saw there shocked and angered him. In the letter to his family he shared his shocking observations of the USSR State and people living there. Jones described USSR’s State as “the most brutal in the world” where people faced many problems such as scarcity of food, poverty, oppression and “misery among workers and 90% discontented”. This was Jones’s first trip to the USSR and Ukraine, which started Jones’s pursuit to learn more about the USSR, its terrible State and to finally discover the Soviet famines.
Jones condemned Stalin’s actions and collectivisation in the USSR, describing that this situation was present in every part of Russia: Volga, Siberia, White Russia, the North Caucasus, Central Asia. There was no bread, no food and people were mass starving.
Gareth Jones’s last trip to USSR, shocking discoveries and reveal to the World
In March 1933 Jones went on his last trip to Soviet Russia and Ukraine which was also adapted into a story in Mr Jones (2019). He travelled to Kaluga, 90 kilometres away from Moscow, and then began travelling by foot toward the borders of Soviet Ukraine. This allowed him not to raise any suspicion and travel safely. After writing very detailed observations in his diary and spending almost two weeks in Ukraine, Jones came back to Moscow to prepare to leave the USSR. On 29th of March 1933, when Jones arrived in Berlin, he held a press conference where he was able to present his discovery to an international audience of journalists about the widespread famine that was created by Stalin through his policies. Jones then wrote an article and published it in the New York Evening Post the same day, titled “Famine grips Russia”. Jones condemned Stalin’s actions and collectivisation in the USSR, describing that this situation was present in every part of Russia: Volga, Siberia, White Russia, the North Caucasus, Central Asia. There was no bread, no food and people were mass starving. Jones even compared the contemporary famine to the one from 1921 which was considered to be one of the worst to ever happen in Russia at that time. Jones then penned an article “Famine Rules Russia. The 5-year Plan Has Killed the Bread Supply” which was published two days later in The London Evening Standard, on 31st of March 1933. Jones wrote similar observations during his visit in the USSR which were complemented by various interviews with peasants and workers in different villages and cities. Jones believed that 96 percent of people from the USSR felt that Stalin’s Five-Year Plan destroyed Russian agriculture and the regions that heavily relied on it.
Walter Duranty – the Stalin’s apologist and the anti-journalist
It is important to know about a man who is known to be an anti-journalist figure who helped Stalin during his reign – Walter Duranty. He was an American journalist who contributed articles to The New York Times during the 1920s and 1930s. Many of his articles were downplaying the issues in the USSR as well as covering Stalin’s crimes. After Jones held the conference and published his articles, Duranty wrote a quick response. In his article “Russians Hungry, but not Starving” he defamed and slandered Jones and denied the man-made famine happening. While Duranty was denying the famine existing and many other issues the USSR was facing, he privately confessed multiple times to the British Embassy about possibly 10 million people in the USSR being dead due to the famine. In exchange for his service to the Soviet State, Duranty received luxurious food, car, sexual services from attractive women, parties and such from the Soviet government. Thankfully, nowadays Walter Duranty is regarded as a Stalin’s apologist and The New York Times describes him as “one of the worst reporters”. Walter Duranty is a contrasting figure in comparison with Gareth Jones who pursued truth and impactful journalistic work, Duranty instead preferred conformity and profit regardless of casualties.
Maintaining the memory about the journalist
Gareth Jones continued his journalistic work until 1935 in Manchukuo where Jones, at the age of 30, was kidnapped by Chinese bandits and killed. It is rumoured to this day that he was killed by the Soviet NKVD. His legacy was continued by his late great niece and great nephew, Margaret Siriol Colley and Philip Colley, who made sure that Gareth himself won’t be lost to time. Till 2011, Siriol spent her life writing articles, books and his biography as well as maintaining a website dedicated to him, garethjones.org, to make sure he will not be forgotten and that the world will keep remembering him and his work. Together with his late brother, they helped the director Agnieszka Holland with writing the script for her biopic movie about Gareth Jones, Mr Jones.
Walter Duranty is a contrasting figure in comparison with Gareth Jones who pursued truth and impactful journalistic work, Duranty instead preferred conformity and profit regardless of casualties.
Conclusions
Jones’s passion for finding out troubles in places outside of England and endangering his life to then write truth about said problems, paints him as a true journalist and an inspiration to other people who strive to do journalistic work as well. His work allowed to preserve the existence of many people whose deaths and cries were supposed to be forgotten and silenced, to be heard about outside of the Soviet regime. He exposed Stalin’s crimes and man-made famine that plagued almost the whole Russia and many years later dubbed the famine in Soviet Ukraine as “Holodomor” (ukr. To kill by starvation). At the same time, it is important to preserve his existence by remembering what he did and who he was. Many important figures have been overlooked and barely remembered today. It should be our responsibility to remember people like Jones considering how much he contributed in his short life.
Supplementary Recommendations:
Mr. Jones (2019) - For a dramatized version of Gareth Jones’s discovery of Holodomor I highly recommend Agnieszka Holland’s Mr. Jones. It is not completely historically accurate retelling, but it is a very well done film that presents Jones’s struggles with exposing the truth to the public and discovering man-made starvation with his own eyes.
Garethjones.org – for archives of articles, books, Jones’s diary and his family members’ writings visit garethjones.org. I highly recommend this website to the interested as well as researchers and academics.
More Than a Grain of Truth – the biography of Gareth Jones’s life written by his late great niece and great nephew, Margaret Siriol Colley and Philip Colley. It is a very detailed biography of his short life that preserved the memory of his existence. I highly recommend this book to those who watched the movie and would like to learn more about Gareth Jones and his life.
