I first became aware of Gareth Jones when I purchased a copy of the Dictionary of Welsh Biography from Griff's bookshop in the early 1970s. In a volume chock a block with forgettable nonconformist preachers his entry stood out. Nowadays he's much better remembered than he was back then, the subject of a movie and a useful tool of anti-Russian propaganda.
None of this is Mr Jones's fault of course, read his actual work and you'll find nothing about a planned genocide of the Ukrainian people, rather he reported what he saw, a famine that affected all of the wheatlands, from Ukraine, through Russia and into Kazakhstan.
Now some facts -
Western Ukraine, the heartland of Ukrainian nationalism and the main proponent of the genocide myth was not even part of the Soviet Union at the time of the famine, it belonged to Poland.
Famine was not unusual in Russia and Ukraine during the Tsarist and early Soviet period. This was caused by natural problems of climate and disease and the rather primitive holdings and methods of the peasantry. The Soviet solution was American inspired mechanisation and consolidation of land into collective farms. In reality this turned out to be rather successful and the only famine subsequent to that of 1931/1932 was one in the late 1940s.
Agronomists agree that the failed harvest of 1931/1932 was the result of natural causes, although the Soviet reaction certainly greatly exacerbated the subsequent famine as it affected the steppe. Grain was confiscated from the agricultural areas to feed the cities and the so-called kulaks, the class of richer peasants were persecuted and often deported. In part this was a reaction to hoarding for profit, something that has happened in every famine in history.!
The idea that the famine was a deliberate attempt at genocide directed at the Ukrainian population by the Russians was born out of World War Two German propaganda. It seems to have become an article of faith for many in the West who are uninterested in alternative, more realistic narratives.
