The Great Ukrainian Famine

In March 1933 after his visit to Germany, Gareth went again to the Soviet Union to investigate earlier reports he had heard of famine and starvation.

He travelled to Ukraine where correspondents had been forbidden to go. His diaries (see window case display) describe graphic accounts of the terrible famine which caused millions of deaths. Gareth was unusual as a journalist at the time travelling hard-class on the trains, walking between villages and actually speaking to people.

Later, on his return to Berlin on 29^th March 1933, hew issued his famous press release, which was published in many newspapers, including the Manchester Guardian and the New York Evening Post.

Gareth was alone at the time of all the journalists to report the famine in such shocking detail. He had revealed the truth about the wanton cruelty of Stalin’s Collectivisation. Although he might have expected recriminations in Britain, there was not one single pro-Soviet denial article or letter in the press in the UK.

On March 31^st 1933, however, in the New York Times, Walter Duranty, the leading US Correspondent in Moscow, vigorously denied that there was any famine in the Soviet Union.

Gareth’s brave report on the famine was the high point of his short career. He was banned from ever visiting the Soviet Union again and did no more foreign reporting.