Russell’s Attitude Towards War

Abstract

April 3, 2010 (11:17 am) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE2902\russell 29,2 050 red.wpd 178 Reviews RUSSELL’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS WAR Stefan Andersson stefankarlandersson@live.com Laura Slot. Consistency and Change in Bertrand Russell’s Attitude towards War. Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2008. Pp. 96. isbn: 978-90-8890-00-37. ¤24,95. us$44.00. April 3, 2010 (11:17 am) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE2902\russell 29,2 050 red.wpd Reviews 179 This book was originally submitted as a master’s thesis at the Department of History, School of Arts and the Humanities at Utrecht University in August of 2007. The only diTerence between the thesis and the book is that some illustrations have been added and that the pagination has changed. The book is freely available online through http://www.sidestone.com. In the Preface Slot says: “Many comments on Russell by historians had to do with either consistency or change in his political attitude. In this thesis I attempt to grasp the more fundamental motivation for his theories, mentality and action during each of the three major wars of the twentieth century” (p. 9). The purpose of this thesis is to analyze which elements in Russell’s attitude towards war have been consistent, which have been subject to change, and for what reasons. Three periods are being discussed in a comparative perspective: the First World War (1914–30), the Second World War (1930–45) and the Cold War (1945–70). Russell’s writings are categorized in these periods. Every chapter elaborates Wve themes: (1) Russell’s ethics, (2) his relation to the public, (3) his political activities , (4) his stance towards national and international politics, and (5) his ideas on peace and the future. In criticism, one can wonder why Slot didn’t begin with Russell’s attitude towards the Boer War and let the Wrst part of her thesis end with the outbreak of the Great War. However, in the Wrst chapter “At War with the War: 1914– 1930” she does mention that Russell supported the English cause to begin with, until he had his experience of “mystic insight” in the beginning of 1901, when he became a pro–Boer and a PaciWst within Wve minutes, which sounds like quite a paradoxical accomplishment to me. Anyway, Slot quotes a very interesting letter to Miss Rinder from 30 July 1918. Russell starts with raising the question: “Is it not odd that people can in the same breath praise ‘the free man’s worship’ and Wnd fault with my views on the war?” (Auto. 2: 88). Slot then goes on to quote the following parts of the letter: The free man’s worship is merely the expression of the paciWst outlook when it was new to me…. How could any one, approving the free man’s worship, expect me to join in the trivial self-righteous moral condemnation of the Germans? … There is a possibility in human minds of something mysterious as the night-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong as Death, a mystic contemplation, the “intellectual love of God”. Those who have known it cannot believe in wars any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give to others what has come to me in this way, I could make them too feel the futility of Wghting. But I do not know how to communicate it: when I speak, they stare, applaud, or smile, but do not understand. (Slot, pp. 20–1) It would have been good if Slot had tried to established by quotations from Russell exactly what he meant with “the paciWst outlook” when it was new to him, and used that as a point of reference to decide how and why he later modiWed April 3, 2010 (11:17 am) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE2902\russell 29,2 050 red.wpd 180 Reviews his initial convictions. A page earlier she refers to Russell’s article “The Ethics of War” from 1915, where he diTerentiated among four types of war: (1...