After reading a DK article on Ukraine that mentioned the Holodomor, frustrated by my ignorance, I decided to watch Mr Jones, a 2019 historical movie thriller on Prime Video (also free on Hulu, etc.).
Gareth Jones is a Welsh linguist, journalist and UK foreign advisor who tries to interview Stalin about his exaggerated economic success and eventually tries to write the truth about Stalin’s tragic famine. The foreign correspondents are confined to Moscow, surveilled and coerced into lying on behalf of Stalin’s regime. Even after leaving, Jones finds it extremely difficult to get the world to recognize the extent of the human suffering in Ukraine.
Jones is a historic figure, as is the NYT’s ‘man-in-Moscow’ Walter Duranty. George Orwell, another character in the film, was so thoroughly disgusted by Stalin’s failed policies, lies and corruption, that he wrote his first real political book, Animal Farm, likely calling the farmer ‘Jones’ as a nod to his friend Gareth.
Since the movie focuses obviously on Jones, some historical background helps. The Soviets had a massive famine in 1921-23, but were ironically saved from starvation by Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover who sent food relief to demonstrate American superiority over Lenin. Ten years later, communism delivered another famine, after successful farms were seized and worked by inexperienced laborers.
Stalin also wanted to crack down on Ukrainianian nationalism, so he targeted the ‘kulaks’ (successful farm owners) in Ukraine specifically, and viciously. Holodomor literally means ‘to kill by starvation’. Impossible production quotas were imposed, all grain was sent to cities, and starving farmers (and farm animals), being less productive, were then arrested for sabotage (or eaten). Many Ukrainian kulaks were taken to gulags in Siberia to die. Kharkiv and Kiev Oblasts suffered much more starvation than other areas, despite similar conditions.
The movie doesn’t describe Stalin’s series of cruel, disastrous policies that caused the Holodomor, but it does explain why the story initially failed to reach the American public. Turns out, authoritarians trying to suppress the truth and flood media with lies isn’t new.
Stalin was determined not to reveal his Terror-Famine to the world. In addition to the secret police oppression, he turned up the propaganda effort to eleven. Stalin brought western visitors to Potemkin villages to ‘prove’ there was no famine. His census records were falsified. And he paid and coerced people around the world to lie, even killing those who told the truth. In many cases, the liars lived out their lives without consequences, even keeping their Pulitzer Prize despite taking dictation from a dictator.
To this day, people still struggle to get the truth. The word ‘famine’ was not officially used in Ukraine to describe what happened until after documents were released in the late 1980’s. Academics argue it was due to both drought and rain. Some blame ‘low morale’. Some try to argue there’s insufficient evidence to prove that Stalin did this deliberately. But last year a comprehensive report, studying centrally planned acts like withholding tractors from Ukraine, detailed how 92% of the famine deaths in Ukraine are explained by systematic government acts against Ukraine. Gorbachev’s memoir says almost half his Ukrainian village starved to death in 1933.
As an overeducated American who once visited Russia (but not yet Ukraine), I’m embarrassed and frustrated by my ignorance, especially given how important Ukrainian grain is to the world today, how Ukrainians are once again being forced into camps in Russia, and how evil, Russian-origin misinformation continues to circulate widely. So I recommend the movie.