Lecture on War and Propaganda

Abstract

January 11, 2013 (7:57 pm) C:\WPdata\TYPE3202\russell 32,2 062 red.wpd 1 Russell to P. Russell, 15 April 1939, ra2 710, box 8.19 (as with the other letters cited). 2 See, for example, Which Way to Peace? (London: Michael Joseph, 1936), Ch. 4. 3 “Sees War in 1939, U.S. as Dictator”, Detroit News, 9 April 1939, p. 12. 4 “Munich Rather Than War”, The Nation 148 (4 Feb. 1939): 173–5. russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 32 (winter 2012–13): 170–4 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631; online 1913-8032 LECTURE ON WAR AND PROPAGANDA Bertrand Russell introduction by michael d. stevenson After lecturing at the University of Chicago during the 1938–39 academic year, Bertrand Russell moved to California in March 1939 with his wife, Patricia (“Peter”), and son Conrad and accepted a three-year appointment at ucla. He then immediately embarked on a little-known speaking tour. Russell left California by train during the night of 31 March/1 April, and he lectured in Baton Rouge (la), Nashville (tn), Cleveland and Dayton (oh), Baltimore, New London (ct), Boston, Saratoga Springs (ny), Philadelphia, and New York City before returning to the West Coast beginning 24 or 25 April. Although Russell wrote Peter during the tour that he was “sick of pontiWcating ”,1 his lecture topics reveal his keen interest in international aTairs. Three primary topics dominated Russell’s speeches. First, he addressed the positive and negative role the us might play in global political and military matters. On the one hand, Nazi Germany might be contained and war averted if the us Wrmly asserted it would intervene on the side of Hitler’s opponents in any future war. This form of collective security that Russell frequently espoused by early 1939 marked a shift in his thinking on paciWsm, since he had rejected the utility of collective security between 1936 and 1938.2 On the other hand, America’s decision to remain completely neutral might result in a European conXict that would destroy all participants and allow the us to emerge as the “dictator of the world”,3 although Russell often argued as well that America might play a positive role in rebuilding an international governance system after a war in Europe if it remained neutral. Second, Russell continued to publicly support British appeasement policies. His most detailed defence of Chamberlain’s conduct at Munich had been published in February 1939,4 and he repeated this view to audiences during his tour, most notably in a vigorous debate with Maurice Hindus in Baltimore on 12 April. Chamberlain, Russell proclaimed, was a sincere man “activated by a guid- January 11, 2013 (7:57 pm) C:\WPdata\TYPE3202\russell 32,2 062 red.wpd Lecture on War and Propaganda 171 5 “Chamberlain Is Defended by Lord Russell”, The Sun, Baltimore, 13 Apr. 1939, p. 24. 6 “Dictators Doomed, Russell Declares”, Nashville Tennessean, 6 Apr. 1939, p. 13. ing motivez—zthe desire to preserve the peace of the world”,5 and he repeated his belief that Britain should stay out of any European war against Germany, a paciWst stance about which he expressed private reservations during the tour. The third focus of Russell’s lectures involved the modern use of propaganda. He had been keenly interested in propaganda since the start of World War i, largely focusing on its malignant uses by governments. But as World War ii approached, Russell had developed a much more nuanced view of propaganda in Which Way to Peace? and Power that identiWed its traditional baleful form while promoting the positive application of propaganda in the press and in educational settings to encourage free thought and diversity of opinion. Russell fully expounded his views on modern propaganda at several tour stops. In Nashville on 5 April, for example, he informed an audience at Vanderbilt University that irrational propaganda would be one of the leading factors in the downfall of totalitarian European states. In Germany, the subjugation of scientiWc truth to Nazi ideology had caused the mass exit of scientists. “In 25 years”, Russell maintained, “this will mean that their engines of war will...