small awareness of that which promotes them. I must confess that I am deeply
troubled. I fear that human beings are intent upon acting out a vast deathwish
and that it lies with us now to make every e?ort to promote resistance to the
insanity and brutality of policies which encompass the extermination of
hundreds of millions of human beings.
In this country we are having a much greater success than seems evident
in the United States, although it is obvious that protest in the United States
requires far greater courage and dedication than its equivalent here. None-
theless; I am hopeful that the e?ect of our minority resistance may grow
and ?nd a co-ordinated international expression. We are holding a great
demonstration at the Air Ministry in Whitehall involving civil disobedience
this coming September 9th, and I shall be taking part in the physical
demonstration itself. I believe that men are starved for an answer to the
terror and that they will respond if their sense of helplessness can be
overcome.
I am sincerely grateful to you for your kindness in writing and I wish you
earnestly success in your great work.
With my good wishes and respect
Bertrand Russell
trafalgar square 605From The Observer, May 13, 1962
???? ??? ???? ?? ???????? ??????
by
Bertrand Russell
There are both advantages and disadvantages in being very old. The dis-
advantages are obvious and uninteresting, and I shall say little about them.
The advantages seem to me more interesting. A long retrospect gives weight
and substance to experience. I have been able to follow many lives, both of
friends and of public characters, from an early stage to their conclusion.
Some, who were promising in youth, have achieved little of value; others
have continued to develop from strength to strength through long lives of
important achievement. Undoubtedly, experience makes it easier to guess to
which of these two kinds a young person is likely to belong. It is not only the
lives of individuals, but the lives of movements that come, with time, to form
part of personal experience and to facilitate estimates of probable success
or failure. Communism, in spite of a very di?cult beginning, has hitherto
continued to increase in power and in?uence. Nazism, on the contrary, by
snatching too early and too ruthlessly at dominion, came to grief. To have
watched such diverse processes helps to give an insight into the past of
history and should help in guessing at the probable future.
To come to more personal matters; it is natural for those who are energetic
and adventurous to feel in youth a very passionate and restless desire for
some important achievement, without any clear prevision of what, with luck,
it may be. In old age, one becomes more aware of what has, and what has not,
been achieved. What one can further do becomes a smaller proportion of
what has already been done, and this makes personal life less feverish.
It is a curious sensation to read the journalistic clichés which come to be
fastened on past periods that one remembers, such as the ‘naughty nineties’
and the ‘riotous twenties’. Those decades did not seem, at the time, at all
‘naughty’ or ‘riotous’. The habit of a?xing easy labels is convenient to those
who wish to seem clever without having to think, but it has very little relation
to reality. The world is always changing, but not in the simple ways that such
convenient clichés suggest. Old age, as I am experiencing it, could be a time of
very complete happiness if one could forget the state of the world. Privately, I
enjoy everything that could make life delightful. I used to think that when I
reached old age I would retire from the world and live a life of elegant culture,
reading all the great books that I ought to have read at an earlier date. Perhaps
it was, in any case, an idle dream. A long habit of work with some purpose
that one believes important is di?cult to break, and I might have found
elegant leisure boring even if the world had been in a better state. However
that might have been, I ?nd it impossible to ignore what is happening.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 606Ever since 1914, at almost every crucial moment, the wrong thing has
been done. We are told that the West is engaged in defending the ‘Free
World’, but freedom such as existed before 1914 is now as dim a memory as
crinolines. Supposedly wise men assured us in 1914 that we were ?ghting a
war to end war, but it turned out to be a war to end peace. We were told that
Prussian militarism was all that had to be put down; and, ever since, militar-
ism has continually increased. Murderous humbug, such as would have
shocked almost everyone when I was young, is now solemnly mouthed by
eminent statesmen. My own country, led by men without imagination and
without capacity for adaptation to the modern world, pursues a policy
which, if not changed, will lead almost inevitably to the complete extermin-
ation of all the inhabitants of Britain. Like Cassandra, I am doomed to proph-
esy evil and not be believed. Her prophecies came true. I desperately hope
that mine will not.
Sometimes one is tempted to take refuge in cheerful fantasies and to
imagine that perhaps in Mars or Venus happier and saner forms of life exist,
but our frantic skill is making this a vain dream. Before long, if we do not
destroy ourselves, our destructive strife will have spread to those planets.
Perhaps, for their sake, one ought to hope that war on earth will put an end to
our species before its folly has become cosmic. But this is not a hope in which
I can ?nd any comfort.
The way in which the world has developed during the last ?fty years has
brought about in me changes opposite to those which are supposed to be
typical of old age. One is frequently assured by men who have no doubt of
their own wisdom that old age should bring serenity and a larger vision in
which seeming evils are viewed as means to ultimate good. I cannot accept
any such view. Serenity, in the present world, can only be achieved through
blindness or brutality. Unlike what is conventionally expected, I become
gradually more and more of a rebel. I was not born rebellious. Until 1914, I
?tted more or less comfortably into the world as I found it. There were evils –
great evils – but there was reason to think that they would grow less. Without
having the temperament of a rebel, the course of events has made me grad-
ually less and less able to acquiesce patiently in what is happening. A minor-
ity, though a growing one, feels as I do, and, so long as I live, it is with them
that I must work.
From Mrs Roosevelt
55 East 74th Street
New York City
September 22, 1960
My Lord
I am most grateful to you for taking part with me in our television
trafalgar square 607program on British defence policy in London. It was a lively and exciting
discussion and I feel the result was satisfying.
Sincerely
Eleanor Roosevelt
From and to Max Born
Haus Filser
Freibergstrasse
Obersdorf (Allg?u)
Germany
12.7.51
Dear Professor Russell
Your book A History of Western Philosophy which I never had time to read at
home has accompanied me on my holiday journey and given me so much
pleasure that I take the liberty to write to you a few words of thanks.
I confess that before putting the book into my suitcase I asked a few of my
philosophical friends in Scotland about it, and was warned not to read it as it
would give me a distorted picture of the actual men and events. When I was,
a few weeks ago, in G?ttingen I discussed your book with one of the local
philosophers and found a still stronger negative attitude, based mainly on
your treatment of Plato and of the German idealistic school. This encouraged
me greatly to read your book. For I have been tortured at school with Plato,
and I have always thoroughly disliked German metaphysics, in particular
Hegel. Thus I decided to read your last chapter ?rst, and as I wholeheartedly
agreed to your own philosophy, I started cheerfully with page 1 and con-
tinued reading with ever increasing fascination and pleasure until I reached
your moderate, though decided refutations of some of the modern schools of
‘subjectivistic madness’. I was myself once a pupil of Edmund Husserl but
found his ‘phenomenology’ unsatisfactory and its modern version by
Heidegger rather disgusting. I suppose you found it not worth while to
mention it.
My son and his wife who are with us on this journey share my admiration
for your work and have gone so far to call their new-born boy Max Russell
combining thus my name with yours.
On my way out I stayed a week with Niels Bohr at Copenhagen and had
some most interesting talks with him on the philosophical foundations of
quantum theory.
Yours sincerely
Max Born
the autobiography of bertrand russell 608Marcard str. 4
Bad Pyrmont
18 March, 1958
Dear Professor Russell
I have read Khrushchev’s long declaration in the New Statesman. I ?nd
it just as depressing as the letter from Dulles published some weeks ago.
The commentary by Kingsley Martin that these fellows are amazingly
similar in their mental make-up is quite correct. One could just as well
call them Khrushless and Dullchev, and, what they believe in, not an ideol-
ogy, but an idiotology. I wonder whether you will write a summary
containing your impressions of this exchange of opinions which you have
originated.
Meanwhile we ‘Eighteen’ here are involved in the ?ght against rocket and
nuclear armament of West-Germany. Von Weizs?ecker is in Pugwash and will
be back on April 17th when we meet again on the Rhine.
I have stirred up another ugly matter, concerning space travel, which is
used by the military party to camou?age the expensive development of
rocket missiles. All newspapers, the radio, the cinemas are full of this a?air
and I have a lively time. The great majority of the people are on our side but
the Government (Adenauer, Strauss) are clever and use all means.
Yours sincerely
M. Born
Plas Penrhyn
22 March, 1958
Dear Dr Born
Thank you very warmly for your letter of March 18 which expressed
feelings exactly similar to mine as regards Khrushless and Dullchev and what
you so aptly call their idiotology. I am sending my re?ections on this matter
to the New Statesman where they will be published shortly.
I wish you all success in your campaign about space travel.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell
Plas Penrhyn
25 November, 1961
Dear Max Born
Before it is too late for any of us to say anything, I wish to tell you that I feel
for you a profound admiration, not only for your intellect which I have
respected for forty years, but for your character of which my knowledge is
more recent. I have found in you a kind of generosity and a kind of freedom
from self-assertion which is very rare even among those whom, on the
trafalgar square 609whole, I admire. You appear to me a man possessed of nobility – unfortunately
a rare quality.
Forgive me for writing so openly, but what I have said is said in profound
sincerity.
Yours very sincerely
Bertrand Russell
The following statement launched the Committee of 100 in the autumn of 1960
ACT OR PERISH
A call to non-violent action
by Earl Russell and Rev. Michael Scott
We are appealing for support for a movement of non-violent resistance to
nuclear war and weapons of mass extermination. Our appeal is made from a
common consciousness of the appalling peril to which Governments of East
and West are exposing the human race.
DISASTER ALMOST CERTAIN
Every day, and at every moment of every day, a trivial accident, a failure to
distinguish a meteor from a bomber, a ?t of temporary insanity in one single
man, may cause a nuclear world war, which, in all likelihood, will put an end
to man and to all higher forms of animal life. The populations of the Eastern
and Western blocs are, in the great majority, unaware of the magnitude of the
peril. Almost all experts who have studied the situation without being in the
employment of some Government have come to the conclusion that, if pres-
ent policies continue, disaster is almost certain within a fairly short time.
PUBLIC MISLED
It is di?cult to make the facts known to ordinary men and women, because
Governments do not wish them known and powerful forces are opposed
to dissemination of knowledge which might cause dissatisfaction with
Government policies. Although it is possible to ascertain the probabilities by
patient and careful study, statements entirely destitute of scienti?c validity are
put out authoritatively with a view to misleading those who have not time for
careful study. What is o?cially said about civil defence, both here and in
America, is grossly misleading. The danger from fall-out is much greater than
the Authorities wish the population to believe. Above all, the imminence of
all-out nuclear war is ignorantly, or mendaciously, underestimated both in
the statements of politicians and in the vast majority of newspapers. It is
the autobiography of bertrand russell 610di?cult to resist the conclusion that most of the makers of opinion consider
it more important to secure defeat of the ‘enemy’ than to safeguard the
continued existence of our species. The fact that the defeat of the ‘enemy’
must involve our own defeat, is carefully kept from the consciousness of
those who give only a ?eeting and occasional attention to political matters.
ACTION IMPERATIVE
Much has already been accomplished towards creating a public opinion opposed
to nuclear weapons, but not enough, so far, to in?uence Governments. The
threatening disaster is so enormous that we feel compelled to take every
action that is possible with a view to awakening our compatriots, and ulti-
mately all mankind, to the need of urgent and drastic changes of policy. We
should wish every parent of young children, and every person capable of
feelings of mercy, to feel it the most important part of their duty to secure for
those who are still young a normal span of life, and to understand that
Governments, at present, are making this very unlikely. To us, the vast scheme
of mass murder which is being hatched – nominally for our protection, but
in fact for universal extermination – is a horror and an abomination. What we
can do to prevent this horror, we feel to be a profound and imperative duty
which must remain paramount while the danger persists.
CONSTITUTIONAL ACTION NOT ENOUGH
We are told to wait for the bene?cent activities of Congresses, Committees,
and Summit meetings. Bitter experience has persuaded us that to follow such
advice would be utterly futile while the Great Powers remain stubbornly
determined to prevent agreement. Against the major forces that normally
determine opinion, it is di?cult to achieve more than a limited success by
ordinary constitutional methods. We are told that in a democracy only lawful
methods of persuasion should be used. Unfortunately, the opposition to
sanity and mercy on the part of those who have power is such as to make
persuasion by ordinary methods di?cult and slow, with the result that, if
such methods alone are employed, we shall probably all be dead before our
purpose can be achieved. Respect for law is important and only a very pro-
found conviction can justify actions which ?out the law. It is generally admit-
ted that, in the past, many such actions have been justi?ed. Christian Martyrs
broke the law, and there can be no doubt that majority opinion at the time
condemned them for doing so. We, in our day, are asked to acquiesce, pas-
sively if not actively, in policies clearly leading to tyrannical brutalities com-
pared with which all former horrors sink into insigni?cance. We cannot do
this any more than Christian Martyrs could acquiesce in worship of the
trafalgar square 611Emperor. Their steadfastness in the end achieved victory. It is for us to show
equal steadfastness and willingness to su?er hardship and thereby to per-
suade the world that our cause is worthy of such devotion.
TOWARDS WORLD PEACE
We hope, and we believe, that those who feel as we do and those who may
come to share our belief can form a body of such irresistible persuasive force
that the present madness of East and West may give way to a new hope, a
new realisation of the common destinies of the human family and a
determination that men shall no longer seek elaborate and devilish ways of
injuring each other but shall, instead, unite in permitting happiness and co-
operation. Our immediate purpose, in so far as it is political, is only to
persuade Britain to abandon reliance upon the illusory protection of nuclear
weapons. But, if this can be achieved, a wider horizon will open before our
eyes. We shall become aware of the immense possibilities of nature when
harnessed by the creative intelligence of man to the purposes and arts of
peace. We shall continue, while life permits, to pursue the goal of world
peace and universal human fellowship. We appeal, as human beings to
human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do
so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies before
you but universal death.
The following is the text of my lea?et ‘On Civil Disobedience’
??????? ?? ????? ????????????
On April 15th, 1961, Earl Russell addressed the ?rst Annual Conference of the
Midlands Region Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in Birmingham.
In putting the case for Civil Disobedience, Earl Russell makes a balanced
appeal for nuclear disarmament in the interests of humanity, and his words
will be of interest to all who support the Campaign and to those whose
minds are open to rational persuasion.
Friends
My main purpose this afternoon is to set out the case for non-violent civil
disobedience as one of the methods to be employed in combating the nuclear
peril. Many people believe that this method is not likely to achieve its pur-
pose, and some have moral objections to it on principle. Most of them will
admit that non-violent civil disobedience is justi?ed when the law demands
the individual concerned to do something which he considers wicked. This is
the case of conscientious objectors. But our case is a somewhat di?erent one.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 612We advocate and practise non-violent civil disobedience as a method of
causing people to know the perils to which the world is exposed and in
persuading them to join us in opposing the insanity which a?ects, at present,
many of the most powerful Governments in the world. I will concede that
civil disobedience as a method of propaganda is di?cult to justify except in
extreme cases, but I cannot imagine any issue more extreme or more over-
whelmingly important than that of the prevention of nuclear war. Consider
one simple fact: if the present policies of many great powers are not radically
changed, it is in the highest degree improbable that any of you here present
will be alive ten years hence. And that is not because your peril is exceptional.
It is a universal peril.
‘But’, objectors will say, ‘why cannot you be content with the ordinary
methods of political propaganda?’ The main reason why we cannot be con-
tent with these methods alone is that, so long as only constitutional methods
were employed, it was very di?cult – and often impossible – to cause the
most important facts to be known. All the great newspapers are against us.
Television and radio gave us only grudging and brief opportunities for stating
our case. Politicians who opposed us were reported in full, while those who
supported us were dubbed ‘hysterical’ or were said to be actuated by personal
hostility to this or that politician. It was very largely the di?culty of making
our case known that drove some of us to the adoption of illegal methods. Our
illegal actions, because they had sensational news value, were reported, and
here and there, a newspaper would allow us to say why we did what we did.
It was a most noteworthy fact that not only was our demonstration of
February 18th very widely reported in every part of the world but, as an
immediate consequence, all sorts of newspapers – both here and abroad –
demanded and printed statements of our case which, until then, they would
have rejected. I think also that the spectacle, even in photographs, of so very
many serious people, not looking like freaks as newspapers had said we did,
caused a widespread belief that our movement could not be dismissed as an
outbreak of hysterical emotionalism.
Both popular and o?cial ignorance of the main facts concerned has begun
to grow less, and we hope that, in time some members of the Government,
and perhaps one or two great newspapers may acquire some knowledge as to
the terrible problems about which they light-heartedly dogmatise.
Some of our critics who oppose non-violent civil disobedience on prin-
ciple say that we rely upon bullying and not upon persuasion. Alas, we are
very far removed from being strong enough to bully anybody; and, if we ever
were strong enough, present methods would have become unnecessary. I will
take as typical of the arguments of our opponents a letter in The Guardian of
March 29th from the Bishop of Willesden. You may think it rash to oppose a
Bishop on a moral issue, but – greatly daring – I will attempt the task. The
trafalgar square 613Bishop says that our demonstrations are intended to force our views upon the
community, rather than merely to assert them. He has not, himself, experi-
enced, as we have, the di?culty of asserting anything loud enough to be
heard when all the major organs of publicity are combined in an attempt to
prevent our case from being known. Non-violent civil disobedience, accord-
ing to the Bishop, is a use of force by a minority to compel the majority to
submit. This seems to me one of the most far-fetched and absurd arguments
that I have ever heard. How can a minority of unarmed people, pledged to
non-violence, impose their will against all the forces of the Establishment
backed by public apathy? The Bishop goes on to say that such methods can
lead to anarchy or dictatorship. There have, it is true, been many instances of
minorities acquiring dictatorship. The Communists in Russia and the Nazis in
Germany are outstanding examples. But their methods were not non-violent.
Our methods, which are non-violent, can only succeed by persuasion.
There are two arguments which are often employed against non-violent
civil disobedience. One is that it alienates people who might otherwise be
supporters, and the other is that it causes dissension within the anti-nuclear
movement. I will say a few words about each of these. I have no wish what-
ever to see non-violent civil disobedience adopted by all opponents of nuclear
weapons. I think it is well that organisations both practising and abstaining
from non-violent civil disobedience should exist to suit di?erent tempera-
ments. I do not believe that the existence of an organisation practising non-
violent civil disobedience prevents anybody from joining an organisation
which does not. Some may say that they are deterred by distaste for fanatical
extremists, but I think these are all people who would in any case ?nd
something to deter them. I think, on the contrary, that our movement has a
vigour and magnetism which attracts large numbers who might otherwise
remain indi?erent.
As for dissensions, they, I agree, are regrettable, but they are totally unneces-
sary. There is no reason why societies practising di?erent techniques should
not exist side by side without ?nding fault with each other. I think this has
come to be recognised. I have, for my part, a very great admiration for what the
??? has done and I hope its work will continue to prosper. But I think the
work of those who believe in non-violent civil disobedience is at least equally
valuable, especially while to the newspapers it has the attraction of novelty.
Many people say that, while civil disobedience may be justi?ed where
there is not democracy, it cannot possibly be right where everybody has a
share of political power. This sort of argument is one which is wilfully blind
to very obvious facts. In practically every so-called democratic country there
are movements similar to ours. There are vigorous movements in the United
States. In Canada they are not far from acquiring power. Naturally the move-
ment in Japan is very powerful and very convinced. Moreover, take the
the autobiography of bertrand russell 614problem of people under 21. If the Governments have their way, these people
will all be slaughtered without having any legal means of giving weight to
their wish to survive. Consider, again, the way in which opinion is manu-
factured in a nominally democratic country. Great newspapers belong to rich
and powerful people. Television and radio have strong reasons for not o?end-
ing the Government. Most experts would lose their position and their income
if they spoke the truth.
For these reasons the forces that control opinion are heavily weighted upon
the side of the rich and powerful. Those who are neither rich nor powerful
can ?nd no ways of counter-balancing this over-weight except such as the
Establishment can decry with the support of all who pro?t by the status quo.
There is in every great modern State, a vast mechanism intended to prevent
the truth from being known, not only to the public, but also to the Govern-
ments. Every Government is advised by experts and inevitably prefers the
experts who ?atter its prejudices. The ignorance of important public men on
the subject of nuclear warfare is utterly astounding to those who have made
an impartial study of the subject. And from public men this ignorance trickles
down to become the voice of the people. It is against this massive arti?cial
ignorance that our protests are directed. I will give a few instances of this
astonishing ignorance:
The Daily Mail in a report on civil defence stated that fall-out decays rapidly
once it is down on the ground and that, therefore, people who had taken
refuge in shelters would not have to stay there very long. As a matter of fact, to
take only two of the most dangerous ingredients of fall-out – Strontium 90
has a half life of 28 years and Carbon 14 has a half life of 5,600 years. These
facts make it seem as if people would have to stay in the shelters as long as
from the building of the Pyramids to the present day.
To take a more important example, the Prime Minister recently stated
