The Politics of Relief: American Quakers and Russian Bolsheviks, 1917-1921
Author(s)
McFadden, David W.
Abstract
Examines the complicated negotiations made by American Quakers to offer relief to Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1921. Though Quakers had offered relief to Russians as early as 1656, the onset of World War I in 1914 accelerated Quaker intervention. Despite the wartime and revolutionary chaos in Russia, Theodore Rigg and Esther White remained there until the spring of 1919 working with both Bolsheviks and the Tolstoyan Peregovtsy Society to help feed children. After negotiations with British Quakers and Bolsheviks, Arthur Watts and Anna Haines began organizing food delivery to Russia. American Quakers remained in Soviet Russia until 1927.
