OVERVIEW 1931

In the spring of 1931 Gareth Jones joined 'Ivy Lee and Associates' in Wall Street, New York. Ivy Lee was the entrepreneur to such organisations as Rockefeller, Chrysler and Standard Oil. Gareth was to research Russia to enable Ivy Lee to write a book about the country. Gareth had only been with Lee two months before he was invited to accompany Jack Heinz II to the Soviet Union for an extended trip of six weeks. In the latter part of the journey the pair visited Ukraine, saw for themselves the miserably plight of the peasants and stayed in a bug infested cottage. They saw the great dam at Dneiper-stroi, and visited Kiev and Kharkov.

They met Walter Duranty, Maurice Hindus, author of Humanity Uprooted, Louis Fischer who had written a book called Why Recognize Russia and Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya. On this occasion Gareth did not write many articles, though Jack Heinz used Gareth's diary notes as a basis for his book which he published on his return - Experiences in Russia* - 1931. A Diary. [anonymously written by Heinz] and for which Gareth penned the Preface:

"...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 [Secretary of the Communist International]. We visited vast engineering projects and factories, slept on the bug-infested floors of peasants' huts, shared black bread and cabbage soup - 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. It was an experience of tremendous interest and value as a study of a land in the grip of a proletarian revolution."

Gareth returned to Wall Street where he stayed until the spring of 1932. The world was in the midst of a great Depression which had hit the USA very severely and a number of Lee's staff were made redundant due to the financial climate at that time. Gareth returned to the employ of David Lloyd George.

 * N.B.  As was the convention of that time, please note that "Russia" was used to describe all areas of the USSR including Ukraine.  It is also of historical importance that many of the victims outside of Ukraine were Ukrainians, that were expelled by the earlier Lenin regime.  Also note that many victims within the borders of Ukraine included ethnic Germans and Russians.