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Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones

1905-1935.

“There is no bread” – “We are waiting for death,”

Gareth Jones’ fascinating but tragically brief story commences in 1868 when Czar Alexander II invited John Hughes, a Welshman from the mining district of South Wales, to prospect for iron ore and coal in the Donetz Basin in order to establish the steel industry in Russia.  From this enterprise grew Hughesovka, which today has become the great city of Donetsk in Ukraine.

Fifteen years later a son was born to Annie Gwen. His name was Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones.  With Gareth at her knee she recounted the stories of the three memorable years spent in ‘South Russia’ and this inspired him to study the language with a view to make his own pilgrimage to that thriving, industrial town in the Donetz Basin.

In Barry, South Wales, Gareth attended the local school where his father, Major Edgar Jones was the headmaster. From there he gained a scholarship to Aberystwyth College where he spent four years, including a gap of two years at the Université de Strasbourg. In 1926 he achieved an Entrance Exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge. Welsh was his mother tongue, but he wrote his articles mainly in English. At University he gained First Class Honours in French, German and particularly Russian and he was fluent in these languages.  By the time he left University, he was, for his age, an authority on the Soviet Union, its culture, its language and its history.

He had hoped in 1927 to make his first visit to Ukraine, but this was thwarted owing to the Arcos Affair, diplomatic relations having been cut off with the Soviet Union. Instead he worked as a stoker on a coal-carrying ship to spend the summer in Riga, Latvia, hoping to practice his Russian. There he stayed in the house of a noble, but impoverished Russian lady.

In 1930 Gareth commenced his employment as Foreign Affairs Adviser to David Lloyd George, the former Prime Minister in the Great War, one of the signatories of the acrimonious Treaty of Versailles.  In the summer, during his employ with the eminent man, Gareth was able to undertake his first visit to Russia and Ukraine. (Ukraine was usually referred to as Russia in the West).  He was shocked at what he saw and on reaching Berlin he wrote one of his most important letters – significant in the fact that he would write the truth to his parents.  He was horrified to find things had so changed from his mother’s time in the town.  Written from Berlin it revealed already a desperate situation in Ukraine

Berlin, Near the Station for Saxony, 12.30 p.m. Wednesday. August. 26^th, 1930.

Hurray! It is wonderful to be in Germany again, absolutely wonderful.  Russia is in a very bad state; rotten, no food, only bread; oppression, injustice, misery among the workers and 90% discontented.  I saw some very bad things, which made me mad to think that people like [deleted] go there and come back, after having been led round by the nose and had enough to eat, and say that Russia is a paradise.  In the South there is talk of a new revolution, but it will never come off, because the Army and the O.G.P.U. (Soviet Police) are too strong.  The winter is going to be one of great suffering there and there is starvation.  The government is the most brutal in the world.  The peasants hate the Communists.  This year thousands and thousands of the best men in Russia have been sent to Siberia and the prison island of Solovki.  People are now speaking openly against the Government.  In the Donetz Basin conditions are unbearable.  Thousands are leaving.  I shall never forget the night I spent in a railway station on the way to Hughesovka.  One reason why I left Hughesovka so quickly was that all I could get to eat was a roll of bread –and that is all I had up to 7 o’clock.  Many Russians are too weak to work.  I am terribly sorry for them.  They cannot strike or they are shot or sent to Siberia.  There are heaps of enemies of the Communist within the country.

Never the less great strides have been made in many industries and there is a good chance that when the Five-Years[sic] Plan is over Russia may become prosperous.  But before that there will be great suffering, many riots and many deaths. …

On Gareth’s return to Britain he was invited to Bron-y-De, Churt, home of the Welsh politician and former Prime Minister, Lloyd George for the weekend. Among the guests were Seebohm Rowntree who had encouraged Lloyd George to bring in his reform acts of the Old Age Pension (1908) and the National Insurance Act (1911) and Lord Lothian, later to be British Ambassador to the U.S.A. in 1939.  The latter introduced him to Geoffrey Dawson of The Times who published Gareth’s first three major articles, The Two Russias.  Gareth was now only just 25 years old.

Soon afterwards the Russian expert, Sir Bernard Pares, Gareth’s mentor recommended him to Ivy Lee who was considered to be the founder of public relations.  Gareth joined him in May 1931 and within a month of arriving in New York, the father of Jack Heinz II of the Heinz organization invited Gareth to take young Jack for a six weeks tour of the Soviet Union and Ukraine. In order to avoid hunger, and possibly as a commercial enterprise, Jack left with a bag bulging with the ‘57 Varieties’ including stocks of tins of Heinz baked beans!

On their travels the pair visited the great new dam on the Dnieper River. While in Dneiperstroi Gareth called at a German Commune where one peasant said: “They sent the Kulaks away from here and it was terrible.  We heard in a letter that ninety children died on the way - ninety children from this district.” … An old man with a cap on the back of his head came up and greeted them: “We are starving. Look what they give us - nothing! nothing!  How can we live with nothing in our dvor?  And we can’t say anything or they’ll send us away as they did the others.  All are weeping in the villages today, little brother.”[i]

Among the people Jack and Gareth met in Moscow were Walter Duranty who was charming to everyone, Louis Fischer, Maurice Hindus and also Lenin’s widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya and Karl Radek. Gareth was to write three more articles for The Times, ‘The Real Russia’.  He kept a series of diaries about their visit and Jack Heinz published a book anonymously, entitled Experiences in Russia-1931, based on these diaries.

 Gareth wrote the Foreword:

With a knowledge of Russia and the Russian language, it was possible to get off the beaten path, to talk with grimy workers and rough peasants, as well as such leaders as Lenin’s widow and Karl Radek.  We visited vast engineering projects and factories, slept on the bug-infested floors of peasants’ huts, shared black bread and cabbage soup with the villagers - in short, got into direct touch with the Russian people in their struggle for existence and were thus able to test their reactions to the Soviet Government’s dramatic moves.

In 1932 owing to the Depression Gareth left the employ of Ivy Lee and returned to his old boss “The Chief” where unbeknown to many he researched secret material for Lloyd George who was writing his War Memoirs.  In the autumn of that year news was slowly reaching London that there was famine in Ukraine.  A party of British journalists had toured the U.S.S.R that summer, one of whom was Prof. Jules Menken.  Menken wrote three articles published in October in the Economist, following which he and Sir Walter Layton, the editor were called to the Soviet Embassy and reprimanded by the Ambassador Maisky for the content and that it ‘painted too black a picture’.[ii]

Gareth’s letter to his parents in October 1932:

On Friday I had exceptionally interesting talks on Russia which bears out what I have said.  The first was with Prof. Jules Menken (London School of Economics) a very well known economist.  He was appalled with the prospects: what he had seen was the complete failure of Marxism.  He dreaded this winter, when he thought millions would die of hunger.  He had never seen such bungling and such breakdowns.  What struck him was the unfairness and the inequality.  He had seen hungry people one moment and the next moment he had lunched with Soviet Commissars in the Kremlin with the best caviar, fish, game and the most luxurious wines.  I have got heaps of facts from the Press which confirms there is a severe crisis.  The harvest is a failure: there is shelter lacking for 1,000,000 head of cattle; potato plans have broken down; in July only 40% of the grain collecting plan was carried out.  The peasants are refusing to give up the grain.  There the Soviet Press at least is honest about the situation. 

Menken is the sort of man one would expect to be impressed with Russia.  He is the man who wrote the articles in the Economist.  He has asked me to dine with him a week Wednesday at the Reform Club.  He was so impressed by the failure in Russia that he feared the régime might collapse.  Menken says there is already famine in the Ukraine.

This meeting with Menken prompted Gareth to write two articles entitled “Will There be Soup” published in The Western Mail.  Gareth had lunch with Walter Eliot, the Minister of Agriculture, with Kingsley Martin, Editor of the New Statesman, a left-leaning political magazine who had been to the Ukraine in the summer and with other politicians. It should be noted that the British Government was well aware of the situation in Ukraine.

In the early part of 1933 Gareth left the employment of David Lloyd George to join the staff of The Western Mail in April. He wrote for the newspaper a series of articles called ‘A Welshman Looks at Europe’. Gareth was present in Leipzig on a very historic occasion; January 30, 1933. Adolph Hitler had been made Chancellor and on February 23, 1933 Gareth was to fly with the dictator. He wrote these words in The Western Mail, one of Gareth’s many notable predictions:[iii]

 With Hitler Across Germany:   If this aeroplane should crash the whole history of Europe would be changed.  For a few feet away sits Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany and leader of the most volcanic nationalist awakening which the world has seen.

After returning quickly to London to give two lectures Gareth arrived in Moscow on March 5^th. He briefly met Malcolm Muggeridge and then planned his journey to Ukraine. Despite journalists being banned from going there, he stocked food, bought from the Torgsin store, in his knapsack and travelled with the peasants, hard-class to Ukraine from a station on the outskirts of the capital, Moscow en route to Kharkiv.  

Alighting from the train on the border of Ukraine Gareth walked along the railway track talking to the peasants as he passed them. He stayed overnight in their homes. What he saw was heart-rending – starving peasants and children with bloated stomachs.  He recorded all in his small diaries, still in our possession, and he noted what he saw in these.  The peasants had the same story. “There is no bread.  We haven’t had bread for over five months.  A lot are dying. The first village had no more potatoes left and the store of beetroot was running out.”  They all said: “The cattle is dying.  We used to feed the world and now we are hungry.  How can we sow when we have few horses left?  How will we be able to work when we are weak from want of food? In one village all bread had gone two months ago, and potatoes just run out and there was only … Beetroot.” One woman said, “We are looking forward to death.”[iv]

Everywhere was the cry “There is no bread” – “We are waiting for death,” 

 “In the South 20% of the population have died of hunger,” said a young worker and in some parts 50%. They are murdering us.” There is seed in this village. Cattle decrease is disastrous.    There used to be 200 cattle.    Now 6 horses and cattle down by tremendous amount.” Another entry: “Queues of 7,000 stand.  They begin to queue at 3-4 o’clock in afternoon to get bread the next morning at seven.  It is freezing – many degrees of frost.” “There is no bread and there will be no bread today.” Shouts angry peasants also there. “But citizens there is no bread” “How long here?” Gareth asked a man. “Two days.”  Leaving Karkiv it was the sight of the starving homeless boys, some dying of typhus, which most affected Gareth.[v]

Of significance is a cryptic diary entry about Ukrainian Nationalism - in Welsh he wrote, “Dyn  mwyaf pwysig (very important man)”.  “Russification and Centralisation policy – new edict in last month.    Skrypnik, the Commissar for Education has been removed (now in Gosplan) was for Ukrainian rights. He was accused over Ukrainisation.  He was removed at the beginning March.”[vi]  Shums’ki’s name was also mentioned. [vii]

 From the Soviet Union his letters home were brief and non-committal but, relieved to be at last in civilization, he reached Danzig on March 26, 1933, and at the home of his friend, Reinhard Haferkorn in Danzig, he immediately wrote to his parents:

“The Russian situation is absolutely terrible, famine almost everywhere, and millions are dying of starvation.  I tramped for several days through villages in the [sic] Ukraine XE "Ukraine" , and there was no bread, many children had swollen stomachs, nearly all the horses and cows had died and the people themselves were dying.  The terror has increased tremendously and the G.P.U. has almost full control.  It was a disgrace to arrest the six engineers, two of whom I know.” [viii]

 On his arrival in Berlin, Gareth immediately gave a press announcement of his arduous, but soul-searching journey and it was published by H.R. Knickerbocker in the New York Evening Post, ‘Famine Gripping Russia, Millions Dying’[ix] on March 29^th, followed at once by similar accounts in British newspapers including the Manchester Guardian and other newspapers world-wide. 

In quick response on March 31^st the now well-known, infamous rebuttal by Walter Duranty appeared in the New York Times, ‘Russians Hungry but not Starving’[x] where he attacked Gareth directly stating: “And here are the facts: Since I talked to Mr. Jones I have made exhaustive inquiries about this alleged famine situation. … There is serious food shortage throughout the country.  … There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation, but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.”

Gareth was to receive this article and he replied to the New York Times on May 13^th:[xi] “On my return from Russia at the end of March, I stated in an interview in Berlin that everywhere I went in the Russian villages I heard the cry; ‘There is no bread, we are dying,’ and that there was famine in the Soviet Union, menacing the lives of millions of people.

“Journalists, on the other hand, are allowed to write, but the censorship has turned them into masters of euphemism and understatement.  Hence they give “famine” the polite name of ‘food shortage’ and ‘starving to death’ is softened down to read as ‘widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.’” Gareth concluded his letter by congratulating “the Soviet Foreign Office on its skill in concealing the true situation in the U. S. S. R.?”

On his return to Britain Gareth wrote at least 20 articles describing the harrowing situation and of the famine in Ukraine and the Soviet Union and these appeared in the Daily Express, The Western Mail and The Financial News.  In the Daily Express[xii] there is a heart-breaking description of what he had seen in Ukraine:

In one of the peasant’s cottages in which I stayed we slept nine in the room. It was pitiful to see that two out of the three children had swollen stomachs. All there was to eat in the hut was a very dirty watery soup, with a slice or two of potato, which all the family and in the family, I included myself ate from a common bowl with wooden spoons.

Fear of death loomed over the cottage, for they had not enough potatoes to last until the next crop. When I shared my white bread and butter and cheese one of the peasant women said, ‘Now I have eaten such wonderful things I can die happy.’ I set forth again further towards the south and heard the villagers say, "We are waiting for death."

Many also said, "It is terrible here and many are dying, but further south it is much worse. Go down to the Poltava region and you will see hundreds of empty cottages. In a village of three hundred huts only about a hundred will have people living, in them, for the others will have died or have fled, but mainly died.

No further articles written by Gareth appeared in Britain after April 20.  One of his last articles was Goodbye Russia[xiii].  It is unknown whether Gareth expected the tirade of denigration, humiliation and denial that were to flood in the wake of his press release from Berlin, his newspaper articles and that in The New York Times published Walter Duranty’s denial of Famine.

In March, six British engineers working for Metro-Vickers had been accused of espionage and were imprisoned in the Lubyanka.  The accusation of these men and their trial, the Metrovik Affair was used as a smoke screen to divert from the famine. The press officer, Constantine Oumansky called the Moscow correspondents together for Vodka and zakuski and those who wished to attend the trial were persuaded, to their shame, to brand Gareth a liar.  Reporting on ‘The Show Trial’ was of prime importance to these journalists as the need to re­main on friendly terms with the censors was a compelling professional necessity. To quote Eugene Lyons in his book Assignment in Utopia published in 1937:  “The throwing down of Jones was as unpleasant a chore as fell to any of us in years of juggling facts to please dictatorial regimes - but throw him down we did, unanimously and in almost identical formulas of equivocation.… We admitted enough to soothe our consciences, but in roundabout phrases that damned Jones as a liar.”[xiv] 

Even Malcolm Muggeridge used Gareth’s anecdote of throwing a piece of orange peel in the spittoon in his 1934 book, Winter in Moscow.  Gareth was cruelly treated, and assigned to the back woods.  Never again would he able to use his expertise and the vast knowledge that he had acquired about the country for which his mother had felt so much affection. He realised that he would never be able to return to the country about which he knew so much.

Further ignominy was imposed on him. On April 8^th in London, A.J.Sylvester, David Lloyd George’s secretary was called to the Soviet Embassy. The Ambassador, Ivan Maisky informed him that Gareth had been placed on the blacklist of the Secret Police and that he had been accused of espionage by Maxim Litvinov.[xv] Litvinov and the former Liberal Prime Minister were friends. In fact Gareth had written a letter to Lloyd George that included an interview with Litvinov, the Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissar. This letter, reporting the young Welshman’s experiences in the U.S.S.R. and Ukraine ended with words, ‘I am amazed at your admiration for Stalin.’[xvi] Lloyd George appeared to ignore Gareth forever afterwards, despite in the past having affectionately referred to him as “My Dear Boy”.  The British Intelligentsia whom Gareth had known in London ostracized him. The Times did not publish, any of his articles despite having originally promised to do so..  Interestingly, Geoffrey Dawson, the editor was friendly with Stanley Baldwin, the de facto Prime Minister and Neville Chamberlain, the prime appeaser of Nazi Germany. The well-known Soviet apologist, Bernard Shaw called the Communist Regime “Utopia”. Was the growing policy of appeasement by the British Government was perhaps behind the silencing of Gareth? It seems that the threat posed by National Socialism and the newly appointed Chancellor of Germany, Adolph Hitler, as well as the fear of Japan with its designs of incursion into China that took precedence over the fate of the starving Ukrainians.

Though many of those, who knew Gareth, had decried his exposure of the famine, he felt vindicated following a visit to his friends, the Haferkorns, in Danzig.  There, he met the German Consul from Kharkiv who privately confirmed Gareth’s Soviet observations and he informed his parents on Sunday May 28, 1933. [xvii]

… The German Consul in Kharkoff and his wife thought that my Russian articles gave a wonderful picture, but that it was really much worse than I described it.  Since March it has got so much worse that it is horrible to be in Kharkoff.  So many die, ill and beggars.  They are dying off in the villages, he said, and the spring sowing campaign is catastrophic.  The peasants have been eating the seed.  To talk of a bumper crop, as Molotoff did, was a tragic farce, and he only said that to keep their spirits up, but nobody believed Molotoff.  Many villages are empty.  The fate of the German colonists is terrible, in some villages 25% have died off and there will be more dying off until August.  In August, he said there would be an epidemic of deaths because hungry peasants would suddenly eat so much as to kill themselves.

The last British reference to Gareth’s famine exposure for almost seventy years appeared on August 28, 1933. The Western Mail XE "Western Mail"  obtained a report from Dr. Schiller XE "Schiller:Otto" , agricultural expert at the Germany Embassy in Moscow.’[xviii]

Cardinal Innitzer striking confirmation ‘of Mr. Gareth Jones’s revelations in the Western Mail & South Wales News of the famine conditions in Russia is provided by the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, who has issued the following appeal to the world:  "No attempts at denial can flow hide the fact that hundreds of thousands - yes, millions men and women have in the last few months perished of hunger in Soviet Russia. 

Hundreds of tragic letters from the famine areas of Soviet Union, especially from the Ukraine and North Caucasus, point to this, and eye-witnesses about whose authority there can be no doubt have depicted terrible details of the tragedy which is in progress in Russia.  …The Englishman, Gareth Jones also confirms this.

Gareth somehow obtained a few of these tragic letters and he quoted a portion in his letter of support for Malcolm Muggeridege published in the Manchester Guardian.  This extract from ‘Bruder in Not’ was from a  tragic German woman in the Caucasus dated Wohldenfuerst, 24.4.1933:[xix]

... Why do we suffer so much? Winter is over. Very heavy restrictions were made in December, and this resulted in us becoming helpless and destitute. December, January, February, for three whole months we were tortured, and now we have to starve to death if no one helps us. Bread was taken from us, grain, everything that we call corn; different types of seeds, vegetables, everything was collected and taken away by the State. All the potatoes, meat, eggs and dairy products. We have nothing! Oh Lord, where can we find help, who will pity us? Oh dear uncle, please find help for us unhappy people. Oh, pity us. Oh brothers and sisters, may the Lord put this letter into your hands. Please put your hands together to save us from starvation. Oh, help, help, please, please! Soon I will no longer exist, soon the flood of death will wash over me, I will die soon, Oh Word (of the Lord)! Soon I will be carried away! Oh uncle, please, please send us alms, even just a little piece. Oh, if only I had some corn bread, I would always be thankful and would praise the Lord for ever. In eternity we will take your hands and thank you. ...

Gareth needed time to recover, from what must having been a very deep disappointment, in the warmth of his family home.  He spent a period ‘in the wilderness’ writing delightful stories about rural Wales, about Ireland, unemployment and the Depression and later a few more about Germany published in the Western Mail.  From then on however he and his work were to be forgotten by history for almost 70 years.

On October 26, 1934 Gareth left Britain on the S.S Manhattan bound for New York.  He arrived in time for the Congressional Elections.  In the offices Herald Tribune he met Ralph Barnes, a former Moscow Correspondent who heralded him as a ‘leading journalistic figure’.  Gareth at last was acclaimed.[xx]

Gareth spent three months in the U.S.A.  January 1^st was a significant day as he had been invited to Randolph Hearst’s Ranch, St. Simeons.  Hearst requested him to write of his experiences in Russia and Ukraine and these were published in Hearst’s syndicated newspapers on January 12^th, 13^th and 14^th 1935.  Unbeknown to Gareth, Hearst was to continue with anti-Soviet stance and there followed a great deal of controversy.[xxi]

Gareth left for the Far East on January 18^th on the S.S. President Monroe first for Hawaii and then on to Japan on the S.S. President Coolidge. There he met and interviewed some of the most important politicians of the time; The Foreign Affairs Spokesman, Amô Eliji, The Naval Minister, Admiral Osumi Mineo, Shidehara Kijuro who became Prime Minister in 1945, Matsuoka Yosuke who took Japan out of the League of Nations, The Former Minister of War, the firebrand, General Araki Sadao and The Minister of War, General Hayashi Senjuro. In Tokyo Gareth stayed in the same apartment as Gunther Stein who turned out to be a Soviet Agent.[xxii]

Gareth spent five months touring the Far East in what is known today as the Pacific Basin questioning the views from experts and persons in the countries he visited as to the designs of the Japanese Government and Japan’s desire for territorial expansion.  The full story of this period of his life can be found in book, A Manchukuo Incident.  Eventually Gareth arrived in Beijing where he was invited by Baron von Plessen and with Dr Herbert Müller, to the meeting of the Mongolian Princes. Gareth was the only person to be afforded an interview by the Mongol leader Prince Teh Wang. Following this gathering, the curious journalist, Gareth wished to investigate the designs of the Japanese.  He had read in The Times that a town on the border of Manchukuo, Dolonor was at the centre of Japanese military activity – a place he wished to visit. Though reluctant it was possible that Müller was persuaded by a third party to take Gareth there as the German refers to this having happened in his later statement of events. Müller was found later to be a Soviet secret agent - or possibly even a double one. [xxiii] The pair were loaned a vehicle from a company called Wostwag which was a trading company in furs and a cover for the O.G.P.U (former KGB).  Arriving in Dolonor on July 25, 1935 they discovered between 15 - 40,000 Japanese troops massing and about 200 armed vehicles in preparation for invasion.  Soon they were apprehended by the Japanese and finally after 24 hours allowed to go. According to Gareth they were told there were either two ways, but Müller stated there were three ways back to Kalgan, (Zhanqjiakou)[xxiv] the capital of Chahar. The Japanese army stated that one way was safe but that bandits infested the other route. The following day the pair were captured by these bandits and held for a ransom of 100,000 Mexican Dollars.  Within two days Müller was released on the pretext that he would fetch the ransom. Following Müller’s release the bandits were passed on to another band – a hundred strong and Gareth was held by them remaining in captivity - alone - for 16 days. On the eve of his thirtieth birthday Gareth was murdered. Officially, the ransom for his release was forthcoming from the Chahar government, but according to H.K.Barrett of the Hong Kong Critic the same government, had informed the Central Government of China in Nanking that it’s Treasury was empty. [xxv]

There is still no conclusive evidence as to the motive for Gareth’s murder and there remain many unanswered, and possibly unanswerable, questions.  Was it a vendetta by Stalin because of Gareth’s exposure of the famine in Ukraine? Were the Soviets afraid that Gareth was being used as a decoy by the Japanese and as an excuse to invade Inner Mongolia and thereby rescue him from the bandits? The Japanese had already invaded Manchuria, naming it Manchukuo and had designs on further territorial expansion. There had been on-going disputes on the Japanese-Siberian border since 1905 and the Soviets feared incursion into their territory. 200,000 Soviet troops were stationed on the border at the expense of the Five-Year Plan. The Japanese had wished to ‘Strike North’ to gain more colonial provinces. Chang Hsueh-liang, the Governor, had lost his province, Manchuria to the Japanese and as deputy Commander-in-Chief to Chiang Kai-chek, was in position to muster troops to follow the bandits. Following de-militarization the Chinese were in a weak position and could not defend their land and may have killed Gareth to prevent an invasion.  It is possible there was collusion between the Soviets and the Chinese, each in fear of an invasion of Chahar. Or it might just have been the bandits in fear of their lives as the militia were in pursuit.  As it was Gareth’s death may have prevented an invasion of north China in 1935.  Two years later the Japanese did invade and it culminated in the terrible atrocities known as the Rape of Nanking.   It remains in the realms of speculation as to why Gareth was murdered while in the hands of the bandits. Whatever the truth, whether by design or accident, the Japanese covert plan to invade Inner Mongolia was thwarted by Gareth’s untimely death.[xxvi]

            To quote R.T .Barrett: of The Hong Kong Critic in the article ‘The Heart of Things’:[xxvii]

It is quite obvious that efforts were made to create another international incident. The life of a gallant young Englishman, who had already dared to expose the hell-black villainy of the Russian government in concealing a famine, and dooming millions to death, rather than cease export of grain, and call for foreign aid, was nothing to ‘commercial interests at home’.

He was pursuing that task out East, as he had pursued it in Russia, and he was one of those who knew too much”.

So with Gareth’s death in 1935 a great journalist was silenced. The memory of this young Welshman only became possible when in 1990 we cleared the family house in Barry, South Wales and I rescued the articles, diaries and letters that he had written to his family.  His mother, Annie Gwen Jones had treasured Gareth’s rich legacy and carefully saved them for posterity.  Thanks to the efforts of my son Nigel Colley many of these articles are now publicly available at www.garethjones.org

                        Gareth’s death was a tragic loss to his parents, Major and Mrs Edgar Jones, to the Principality of Wales, to the Ukrainian Community and to the world at large.

*****

These articles are published with deep gratitude to Gareth’s mother, Mrs Annie Gwen Jones who saved them for posterity coupled with that of his father, Major Edgar Jones.

Margaret Siriol Colley

Main sources:  More Than a Grain of Truth by Margaret Siriol Colley, Published by  Nigel Colley, Newark, England, 2005, 448 pages.

Gareth Jones: A Manchukuo Incident by Margaret Siriol Colley, Nigel Colley, Newark, England, 2001, 290 pages.

The Papers of Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones:  Privately owned and the Archives of the National Library of Wales.

 www.garethjones.org

 www.margaretcolley.co.uk

 www.margaretcolley.co.uk/annie_gwen_jones.htm