DVD: Mr. Jones

Mr. Jones is a deeply flawed film that attempts to portray the efforts of a Welsh journalist to uncover the truth about events occurring in the Soviet Union in the early 1930's. At this time much of the country but especially the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Volga region was experiencing a severe famine. The famine in the Ukraine became known as the Holodomor; a catastrophe in which millions of Ukrainian peasants were deliberately starved to death as a result of Stalin's policies. The Western media was complicit in this crime against humanity as they knew what was happening but failed to report on it.

The film opens with scenes of squealing pigs as they feed on a farm,dissolving quickly into scenes of George Orwell beginning work on his novel, Animal Farm. In a voice over, Orwell states, "...The world is being invaded by monsters, but I suppose you don't want to hear about that. I could be writing romantic novels, novels people actually want to read...But if I tell the story of the monsters through the talking farm animals, maybe then you will listen, then you will understand. The future is at stake, so please read carefully between the lines."

From this, the film moves to Gareth Jones, foreign adviser to David Lloyd George addressing his cabinet. Jones tells them about being on a plane with Hitler and Goebbels and thinking if the plane were to crash, the course of history of Europe would be changed. Jones believes the Reichstag incident (fire?) was a diversion and that Germany intends to expand into Poland. Goebbels told Jones that the Reich will last a thousand years. Jones is certain the next Great War has already begun. This is dismissed with much laughter. Jones is taken out of the meeting when a call from Russia comes in for him, but the line goes dead.

Later in his office, Jones listens to Stalin on the radio talking about how the Soviets are making grade strides in building their industrial capabilities. Jones is skeptical. His point to the Lloyd George cabinent was that in a war with Germany, England will need an alliance with Stalin. Ms. Stevenson, Lloyd George's secretary tells Jones that he has been let go. In his meeting with Lloyd George, Jones tells him that he needs someone who will tell him the truth about what's happening. He has no answer on the Soviet question but suggests that Lloyd George could send him to Moscow to interview Stalin.

Jones is able to obtain a press visa from the Soviet embassy in London. He contacts friend Paul Kleb to let him know he's coming to Moscow. Kleb tells him to talk to Walter Duranty about possibly interviewing Stalin and that he really needs to talk to him, that he's found something big, that it's worse than they thought. The line goes dead.

Jones arrives in Moscow where he is met by Duranty who gushes about the Soviets, telling him that they have achieved more in five years than England has in ten. He encourages Jones to go visit the Soviet factories and talk to the British engineers at Metro Vickers. Jones questions Duranty as to how Stalin is paying for his factories and Duranty indicates that "Grain is Stalin's gold." As they talk in Duranty's office, Gareth explains that he has no expectations about getting an interview but that he has many questions, such has how the Kremlin can pay for the widespread industrialization when they are broke. Duranty stuns Jones by revealing that Paul Kleb was killed three days earlier in a robbery outside the Metropol. 

At the Metropol, Jones learns his reservations are only for two nights, contrary to what he was told in England. He meets up with a group of journalists that include John Cushny and L.C. Thorton from Metro Vickers and Eugene Lyons from United Press. They take Jones to Duranty's party which features drugs, booze and plenty of debauchery.  At the party Jones learns that journalists are confined to Moscow. 

After leaving the party, Jones meets Duranty's "star" reporter, Ada. She tells him that Duranty is attempting to lure the Americans to invest in the Soviet Union, in order to move forward the revolution. Jones returns to Ada's apartment the next morning and learns that Paul Kleb was working on the Ukraine and was heading there when he was murdered. After leaving the Metropol, Jones gets a room at a hotel but shows up at Ada's apartment to use her typewriter. He tells her he's going to the Ukraine and to that end meets with a Soviet official - Litvinov?? who is duped into inviting Jones to tour the Ukraine. Ada gives Jones Paul Kleb's notebook and he sets out on his journey to the Ukraine by train with Litvinov. However, Jones disembarks well before their destination of Kharkiv and he begins his journey through the countryside.

Jones finds himself pursued by Soviet soldiers, encounters starving families, dead bodies, abandoned farms and villages and children who resort to cannibalism before being arrested by soldiers and thrown in jail. He is released on the condition that he does not report what he saw but Jones does report on what he saw in the Ukraine and is criticized and ostracized for it.

Discussion

It is always interesting to watch a film that attempts to portray historical events. Are the events portrayed with some accuracy? How much dramatic license is taken with history and how much sensationalism is injected into the story to engage viewers?   Mr. Jones tells the story of Welsh journalist, Gareth Jones whose journey into Soviet Russia and Ukraine in 1933 led to his stunning expose of  widespread famine raging throughout the entire country. It is a film that could have offered viewers a lens into these events but unfortunately, the film gets only the bare bones of the real story right. Viewers are left with misinformation and many inaccuracies about the people involved and the events as they occurred. 

To provide some balance, the following is a synopsis of Gareth Jones and how he came to uncover the famine in Soviet Russia, a famine most international correspondents were loathe to report.

Gareth Jones

Gareth Richard Vaughn Jones, was born in Barry, Glamorgan, Wales, on August 13, 1905, to Major Edgar Jones who was headmaster of the local school and Anne Gwen Jones. Gareth's mother worked from 1889 to 1892 in Russia as a tutor to the children of Arthur Hughes. The stories his mother told about her time in Russia left Jones with the desire to visit the country and learn the language. In 1926, he graduated from University College of Wale,  Aberystwyth with a degree in French and then later in with degrees in French, German and Russian from the Univeristy of Strasborough and Trinity College, Cambridge in 1930.

In 1931, Jones was hired by Dr. Ivy Lee of New York as a researcher for a book on the Soviet Union. This led to a trip to Soviet Russia with Jack Heinz II in the summer of 1931. A book was published anonymously that did mention that peasants in Russia and the Ukraine were starving due to the collectivization of farms. As the world sank deeper into the depression into 1932, Jones returned to England to work for David Lloyd George. By the fall of 1932, continued reports of widespread famine in the Soviet Union made Jones determined to return to the country to uncover the truth.

 In January and February of 1933, Jones first visited Germany where he not only met Adolf Hitler, newly appointed Chancellor of Germany, but was the first foreign journalist allowed to travel with new Chancellor on a flight to Frankfurt. In March, 1933 Jones set out from Germany to Soviet Russia.

At this time, most foreign journalists were not allowed to travel freely in the countryside. They were restricted to living in Moscow, but Jones was able to obtain a train ticket to Kharkiv, capital of the Ukraine. However, Jones got off the train near Belogrod in Russia. Travelling on foot, he journeyed through Russia and into the Ukraine, recording his observations in great detail in his diaries that are in existence today. People he met on this journey spoke of widespread hunger, death and indicated that conditions were even worse to the south, further into the Ukraine. Eventually Soviet officials caught up with Jones and he was put on a train to Kharkiv.  

Gareth Jones returned to Berlin in 1933, and his articles on the Soviet famine were published widely. They created a firestorm of controversy because they contradicted a series of articles New York Times reporter Walter Duranty's wrote, articles that won him a Pulitzer Prize. His prize was never revoked. Duranty was provided with many perks by the Soviet government and in return he wrote articles that covered up the failures of the Soviet collectivization plan, including the resultant widespread famine that killed millions.

Walter Duranty's article

Mr. Jones never really offers an accurate portrayal of the events surrounding Jones's trip to Soviet Russia in 1933 nor even his stunning expose of the famine in the country. At times it included people and events that have nothing to do with his story. For example, in the film's opening scenes, George Orwell is shown working on his novel Animal Farm. Gareth Jones did not meet or know George Orwell. And Orwell's novella, Animal Farm was not written at the same time as the events in the film but was authored in 1943 and 1944. By juxtaposing scenes of Orwell working on his novel, the movie implies that it was written contemporaneously.  

For a film portraying historical events, Mr. Jones offers no dates or timeline. It also incorporates many references without any context and misplaces others. For example, when Gareth Jone is riding on a train into the Ukraine he repeatedly questions the other passengers about Hughesovka, or Stalino. These references are connected to Jones but that is never made clear in the film. Hughesovka was named after Jones's grandfather who developed several industries in the area. In 1924 it was renamed Stalino. The film also misplaces a famous line attributed to Gareth Jones. He did not utter his prophetic line, " If this areoplane should crash, the whole history of Europe would be changed." to Lloyd George in a meeting but instead it was written as the lead sentence in his article about Hitler in 1933.

The film frequently states that Gareth Jones obtained an exclusive interview with Hitler and was determined to obtain the same sort of scoop with Stalin. However, Jones did not go to Russia to interview Stalin but to specifically investigate the many rumours of widespread famine that were being refuted or even ignored by the British and American press. In fact, Walter Duranty's articles which won him the coveted Pultizer Prize the year before, appeared to settle the question. But Jones was out to discover the truth for himself.

In the film Jones is aided by Ada, supposedly Duranty's "star". However, he never had a love interest in Russia. He was there to do a job. It's likely there was no Paul Kleb to give him a lead on where to go in the Ukraine. Gareth Jones knew what he needed to do in order to learn the truth.

Gareth Jones' stunning expose of the truth in Russia.

Jones's articles did not just focus on the famine in the Ukraine but instead reported on widespread famine throughout all of  Russia as well as the Ukraine. His article "Famine Rules Russia" suggested that the famine was the result of Stalin's Five Year Plan to industrialize Russia.  which destroyed "all that was best in Russia". His articles never cited carts of dead bodies or instances of cannibalism, like those portrayed in the film. But what he reported overall was in huge contrast to Walter Duranty's article only a year earlier. 

Gareth Jones was never arrested nor was he held in a Soviet jail. Instead he quietly left the country and returned to Berlin.

Director, Agnieszka Holland had the opportunity to produce a film that would inform an entire generation about Stalin, the reality of communism, the famine in Russia and the Ukraine that was caused entirely by policies of the Stalin government resulting in the death millions, as well as the coverup by Western journalists, desperate to keep on the good side of the communist regime. Instead, the film takes so much dramatic license with the real events, that the real story is mostly lost. This doesn't make the movie entirely without merit but viewers will be left wondering what is fact and what is fiction. Instead viewers should use it as a launching point for their own research, to learn more about what really happened. 

Information about Stalin's Five Year Plan can be found at the Library of Congress.

Readers can discover for themselves much more about Gareth Jones from a website his family maintains. His mother did considerable research after his diaries were discovered hidden under a stairwell in a suitcase.

The BBC website profile of Gareth Jones.

Image credits:

Gareth Jones: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/waleshistory/2010/03/gareth_jones_investigative_journalist.html

Walter Duranty and Gareth Jones article images: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/red-famine-anne-applebaum-ukraine-soviet-union/542610/