Constructive Spirit: Quakers in Revolutionary Russia by David McFadden and Claire Gorfinkel with an overview by Sergei Nitikin 240 pp., 35 original photographs $16.95 ISBN 0-9648042-5-5 Intentional Productions P0 Box 94814 Pasadena, CA 91109

Refugee and famine relief, reconstruction, moral witness and unlikely heroism in a time of great organizational and international political change, from 1916 to 1931.

The stories of the men and women who let their lives speak through the channel of the American Friends Service Committee are always uplifting. That of the volunteers who went to Russia, and later the infant Soviet Union, to relieve famine and help men, women and children rebuild their lives is especially so. The authors have done us a great service in putting together for the first time the complete story of this service of love in war and peacetime.

       Margaret Hope Bacon, Quaker Historian

In a solidly researched story, the authors describe the valor and success, particularly of two Quaker women of the American Friends Service Committee who provided refugee and famine relief and then reconstruction assistance to destitute communities in Russia during revolutionary times. The Quaker workers earned the respect and assistance of each successive dominant political force. Their experiences offer meaningful lessons to relief organizations and workers even today.

       Corinne B. Johnson,
       Director of International Programs
       for the American Friends ServiceCommittee
       from 1980 to her retirement in 1997

Constructive Spirit shows how intimately programs of relief and social change were linked during the early years of the AFSC. It makes a major contribution to understanding the history of Quaker relief activities and the patterns of American-Soviet relations.

       J. William Frost, Senior Research Scholar, Emeritus Jenkins Professor of Quaker History and
        Research and Director of the Friends Historical Libraiy, Swarthmore College.

Constructive Spirit gives one a strong and much-needed sense of appreciation for the contributions of selfless Quaker men and women in revolutionary Russia - and reminds us of those who have come before and since. Would that their efforts to promote cooperation and reconciliation had met with greater success!

       Thomas C. Kennedy, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Arkansas
       author of British Quakerism 1860-1 920: The Transformation of a Religious Community