looking back

One hundred years ago, the Russian famine of 1921–1922 severely afflicted the Soviet Union, its effects lasting for years and claiming millions of lives.

International relief organizations such as the American Friends Service Committee sent extensive aid to the suffering areas. Jessica Granville-Smith Abt (known as Jessica Smith), Swarthmore Class of 1915, spent years in Russia as a Famine Relief Program worker with the AFSC.

Smith’s famine-relief work marked the beginning of her lifelong dedication to promoting Russian-American relations. She authored many books and articles, was an editor of and contributor to the New World Review for more than 40 years, served on the Board of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, and was awarded the Order of Friendship of the Peoples by the Soviet Union in 1977.

Smith’s professional work and personal associations placed her under long-term scrutiny from the U.S. government. She was summoned as a witness in a 1956 Senate inquiry in which she faced accusations of being a Communist propagandist. Both her first and second husbands, active participants in the Communist Party and Ware Group, were formally investigated as suspected spies. (Her second husband eventually confirmed the Ware Group’s covert status in his memoirs.)

Black-and-white profile portrait of Jessica Granville-Smith Abt, wearing a dress with her hair pulled back in a bun.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

In reference to Smith and another witness, Sen. James Eastland, chairman of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, asked whether there was “a weakness in our education system which would produce such distorted minds.”

Smith cited her Quaker education in both secondary school and college for nurturing her interest in peace activism. “I loved Swarthmore,” she said. “It was a terribly important influence on my life. It was there I became aware of the great need to work for peace, which has become my life work.”

Chloe Lucchesi-Malone,
Archives Technician,
Friends Historical Library