This is a chapter in World Peace Efforts Since Gandhi,
which is published as a book.
For ordering information, please click here.
Click below to see and hear the article on Bertrand Russell.
Life and hope for the world
are to be found only in the deeds of love.
Bertrand RussellIf war no longer occupied men's thoughts and energies,
we would, within a generation,
put an end to all serious poverty throughout the world.
Bertrand Russell, The Future of MankindEither man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.
Bertrand RussellWar can only be abolished
by the establishment of a world government.
Bertrand RussellI favor the complete prohibition of all nuclear weapons.
Bertrand Russell, Common Sense and Nuclear WarfareThe time has come, or is about to come,
when only large-scale civil disobedience,
which should be nonviolent,
can save the populations from the universal death
which their governments are preparing for them.
Bertrand RussellFor love of domination we must substitute equality;
for love of victory we must substitute justice;
for brutality we must substitute intelligence;
for competition we must substitute cooperation.
We must learn to think of the human race as one family.
Bertrand RussellThe survival of democracy
depends on the renunciation of violence
and the development of nonviolent means
to combat evil and advance the good.
A. J. MusteOnly the nonviolent can apply therapy to the violent.
A. J. MusteThere is no way to peace; peace is the way.
A. J. Muste
One of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century,
Bertrand Russell,
was an active pacifist, who spent considerable
energy working for world peace,
especially in his eighties and
nineties.
Bertrand Russell was born in England on May 18, 1872,
and he died on February 2, 1970.
Both of his parents died while
he was a small child,
and he was raised by his grandmother Russell.
Bertrand was well educated and was an outstanding
student at Trinity
College, Cambridge.
In addition to his expertise in mathematics
and philosophy
he studied and lectured on economics and political
science.
Although he believed that the intellect maintained his
sanity,
he considered the emotions and passions fundamental in
human life.
He married four times.
His skeptical attitudes and
questioning of authority and popular tradition
made him seem scandalous
to many people.
Russell earned his reputation as a distinguished thinker
by
his work in mathematics and logic.
In 1903 he published The
Principles of Mathematics and by 1913 he and
Alfred North
Whitehead had published the three volumes of Principia Mathematica.
Although Russell was an analytic rationalist all of his life,
he did have a significant mystical experience in 1901
which influenced
his values for the rest of his life.
In his Autobiography he
described what happened.
Suddenly the ground seemed to give way beneath me,
and I found myself in quite another region.
Within five minutes I went through
some such reflections as the following:
the loneliness of the human soul is unendurable;
nothing can penetrate it except the highest intensity
of the sort of love that religious teachers have preached;
whatever does not spring from this motive is harmful,
or at best useless;
it follows that war is wrong,
that a public school education is abominable,
that the use of force is to be deprecated,
and that in human relations one should penetrate
to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that.1
The usually skeptical Russell called it a "mystical illumination;"
for a while he felt he could sense people's inmost thoughts;
he
became closer to his friends; he changed from an imperialist to
a pacifist
and sided with the Boers against Britain;
for a time
his analytic mind was swept away by ecstatic feelings about beauty,
an intense interest in children, and the desire to found a philosophy,
as the Buddha had done, to make human life more endurable.
During the First World War Russell's pacifism challenged British
society.
In July 1914 he collected signatures from fellow professors
for a statement
urging England to remain neutral in the imminent
war.
When the British were swept into the war and 90% of the population
favored the
fighting and killing, Russell was horrified and reassessed
his views of human nature.
In a letter to the London Nation
for August 15
he criticized the pride of patriotism which
promotes mass murder.
Bertrand Russell was not an absolute pacifist.
He explained that the use of force is justifiable when it is ordered
according to law
by a neutral authority for the general good
but
not when it is primarily for the interest of one of the parties
in the quarrel.
One solution, then, was for an international organization
backed up by force to keep the peace.
Another solution he suggested
was passive resistance.
If this was intelligently adopted by the
whole nation with as much courage
and discipline as was being
shown in the war, then the national life
could be better protected
with far less carnage and waste.
In 1916 Russell began to work for the No Conscription Fellowship;
he became its chairman when all of the original committee had
gone to prison.
He wrote a leaflet to defend the case of Ernest
Everett,
who had refused military service.
When six men were arrested
for distributing the leaflet,
Russell wrote to The Times declaring
he was its author.
Russell was accused of hampering recruiting,
and as his own attorney
he explained that the case of a conscientious
objector could hardly
influence someone who is considering volunteering.
He cited the English tradition of liberty, but he was convicted
nonetheless.
When he refused to pay the fine, the authorities
preferred
confiscating some of his possessions to putting him
in prison.
This conviction, however, prevented him from getting
a passport to visit America.
Russell felt that the more policemen
and officials they could occupy
with the innocent work of monitoring
their pacifist activities,
the less men would be available for
the "official business of killing each other."
After Wilson's re-election in 1916, Russell wrote an open letter
to the President which Katherine Dudley smuggled across the Atlantic.
He appealed to the United States Government
to make peace between
the European governments.
He wrote,
If the German Government, as now seems likely,
would not only restore conquered territory,
but also give its adherence to the League to Enforce Peace
or some similar method of settling disputes without war,
fear would be allayed,
and it is almost certain that an offer of mediation from you
would give rise to an irresistible movement
in favour of negotiations.2
Russell's speeches to munitions workers in South Wales
were
inaccurately reported by detectives, and the War Office
forbade
Russell from entering prohibited areas.
In January 1918 an article
by Russell appeared in a little weekly
newspaper called The
Tribunal suggesting that American soldiers
were likely to
be used as strike-breakers in England,
because they had been employed
in that way in the United States.
This statement was backed up
by a Senate Report.
For this, Russell was sentenced to prison
for six months.
He spent the uninterrupted time cheerfully writing.
During the war Russell published several books on politics,
war, and peace.
Principles of Social Reconstruction was
released in America as Why Men Fight.
In this work Russell
began with the idea that the passions of war
must be controlled, not by thought alone,
but by the passion and desire to think clearly.
Reason by itself is too lifeless.
Wars can be prevented by a positive
life of passion.
Impulse must not be weakened but directed "towards
life
and growth rather than towards death and decay."
Russell
suggested that the excessive discipline of impulse not only
exhausts
vitality but often results in impulses of cruelty and destruction;
this is why militarism is bad for national character.
He recommended
therefore active pacifism with the
impulse and passion to overcome
the impulses of war.
Great courage and passion are necessary to
face the
onslaught of the hostile public opinion of a nation.
Three forces for life are love, constructiveness, and joy.
Russell believed that there must be strong action to assure
international justice by a "Parliament of the nations."
War can be prevented if the great powers
firmly
determine that
peace shall be preserved.
They could establish diplomatic methods
to settle disputes
and educational systems to teach the horrors
of killing rather than admiration for war.
Peace can only be permanently
maintained by a world federation
with the civil functions of a
state - legislative, administrative, and judicial -
and an international
military force.
This authority would legislate, adjudicate, and
enforce international laws,
but would not interfere with the internal
affairs of nations.
Pragmatically he suggested that at any given
time we ought to support
the best direction of movement available
in the situation.
This direction can be determined by applying
the two principles of liberty and reverence.
In other words, the
freedom of individuals and communities
ought to be encouraged,
but not at the expense of others.
Russell replied to the War Office's restriction of his movement
in the book Justice in War Time.
He refused to surrender
his spiritual liberty and declared that
they could not prevent
him from discussing political subjects,
although they could imprison
him under the Defense of the Realm Act.
In the book he delineated
the evils of war - the young men killed and maimed,
the atrocities
to non-combatants, the poverty of economic and social conditions,
and the spiritual evils of hatred, injustice, falsehood, and conflict.
He traced the theory of nonresistance held by Quakers and Tolstoy,
and he imagined what might happen if England used nonresistance
and noncooperation with the invaders as a means of defense.
First
there would be no justification at all for aggression.
England
would be giving up its empire and
therefore
could not be accused
of oppressing anyone.
Even if Germans did invade,
what could they
do if all the officials refused to cooperate?
Would they really
shoot or imprison them all?
If the population refused to obey
any German orders, they would not learn German
nor serve in the
army nor even work to pay taxes or supply products.
Russell noted
that this would require courage and discipline.
The most the Germans
could do would be to take away
the empire and withhold food while
demanding tribute.
For Russell, the empire was not a source of pride,
and its
self-governing parts could do the same thing.
Demanding tribute
is like the highwayman who says, "Your money or your life."
Just as a reasonable man would hand over his money rather than
be shot,
a reasonable nation ought to give tribute rather than
resist by force of arms.
Primarily the rich would lose by this
because the poor would have to retain
enough to be able to work
and supply the means of tribute.
It is unlikely that this tribute
would be more than the cost of fighting the war.
Many deaths and
the moral degradation of war would be avoided.
Russell suggested
that it takes more courage and discipline to practice nonresistance
than it does to kill out of fear.
Thus militarism is caused by
"cowardice, love of dominion, and lust for blood."
Even
though nonresistance is a better defense than fighting,
the more
likely solution to the threat of war is the establishment of world
government.
In Political Ideals Russell discussed the need for an
international government
to secure peace in the world by means
of effective international law.
Just as police are needed to protect
private citizens from the use of force,
so an international police
can prevent the lawless use of force by states.
The benefit of
having law rather than international anarchy will give
the international
government a respected authority
so that states will no longer
feel free to use aggression.
Then a large international force
will become unnecessary.
Roads to Freedom includes a section where Russell pointed
out
the capitalistic factors which promote war.
First is the desire
of finance to exploit the resources of undeveloped countries.
Second, large newspapers require capital and promote capitalistic
interests.
Third, capitalists like power and expect to command
others.
Nevertheless, Russell did not recommend abolishing capitalism
as a means to peace.
However, he did recommend abolishing the
private ownership of land and capital
as one necessary step toward
peace.
Writing in 1918, he supported the idea of the
League of
Nations and international cooperation.
He asserted that no idea
is as practical as the brotherhood of man.
Again he emphasized
the need for a world government and national disarmament.
While visiting China in 1920, Russell fell ill and was treated
by John Dewey.
Dewey was moved by a statement that Russell made
while he was delirious - "We must make a plan for peace."3
In 1922 Russell was intending to go to a Congress in Italy,
but
Mussolini informed the organizers of the Congress that,
while
no harm was to be done to Russell,
any Italian who spoke to him
was to be assassinated.
Naturally Russell decided to avoid the
country he felt Mussolini was defiling.
In 1923 Russell prophesied
that without a world government,
it would be impossible to preserve
civilization for another century.
He declared the fundamental
principle that the rights of a nation against humanity
are no
more absolute than the rights of an individual against the community.
In 1931 Russell applauded Einstein's statement
recommending that
pacifists refuse military service.
Like Einstein, Russell decided
not to adhere
to absolute pacifism in the face of the Nazi threat.
Russell published Which Way to Peace? in 1936.
He criticized
isolationism and encouraged international law and government
with
an international armed force to prevent war.
He could not imagine
Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin voluntarily renouncing national power.
He also felt that England would not consent until after the disaster
of war
and that the United States would be reluctant unless Washington
was in control.
He cited Denmark as a successful example of national
pacifism.
Russell indicated that the three obstacles to disarmament
are fear, pride, and greed.
In 1937 he wrote a mock obituary of
himself and described how
he escaped to a neutral country before
the Second World War broke out,
because he thought sensible people
stay out of the way
while lunatics are employed in killing each
other.
However, when the war came, Russell believed that Nazi
Germany
had to be fought for human life to remain tolerable.
The development of nuclear weapons caused Bertrand Russell
deep concern.
In November 1945 he gave a speech in the House of
Lords warning that
atomic weapons were going to be made more destructive
and cheaper.
Understanding nuclear physics, he explained how a
hydrogen bomb
with much more explosive force could work.
He predicted
that soon the Russians would have bombs
as destructive as those
of the United States.
He recommended that nuclear weapons be under
international control,
and he supported the Baruch Plan for an
International Atomic Development Authority.
Such great danger
did he see if Russia and other nations developed atomic weapons
that during this period when the United States was the only nuclear
power
he advocated that the US ought to force the Russians to
accept a world government
under American leadership, even by going
to war against Russia if necessary.
He believed that the only
cause worth fighting for was world government.
He compared this
policy to the alternative of waiting until the Russians
had atomic
bombs and choosing between a nuclear war and submission.
Russell
never liked Communism, but his anti-Communism
was moderated with
the death of Stalin.
McCarthyism's restriction of civil liberties
and the Bikini test in 1954 gradually
led
Russell to consider
the United States a greater threat
to unleash nuclear war than
the Russians.
In 1950 Bertrand Russell was given the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The last twenty years of his life were primarily devoted to warnings
about the nuclear danger, advocacy of world government,
and the
active work of peacemaking and protesting about policies of war.
He believed that world government was the
only alternative to
the disaster of nuclear war.
People and nations must become willing
to submit to international law.
New Hopes for a Changing World
is an
optimistic view of how to solve world problems.
He suggested that happiness depends on harmony with other people.
The problem in forming a world government is that the nations
are not yet
willing to give it enough power to be effective.
Yet
war is inevitable as long as different sovereign states
try to
settle their disagreements by the use of armed force.
Russell
expressed the hope that if the west with its superior strength
does not go to war, after a while the Russians may become
less
suspicious and begin to have friendly relations,
which eventually
could open the way to world government.
Then both countries could
be spared the expense of armaments,
could benefit from reciprocal
trade,
and could escape the threat of nuclear destruction.
On March 1, 1954 the Bikini test of the H-bomb made it clear
that this weapon
is about one thousand times more powerful than
the A-bomb.
The radioactive fallout also proved to be deadly.
Russell suggested that all fissionable raw material be owned by
an international authority.
International inspectors ought to
make sure that no nation
or individual has access to fissionable
raw material.
On December 23, 1954 Russell made a broadcast over
the BBC on "Man's Peril."
He spoke not as a Briton or
European but as a human being.
He recommended that some neutral
countries form a commission of experts to report
on the destructive
effects of a war using hydrogen bombs and that they submit this
report to the governments of the great powers so that they
could agree
that a world war could not serve the purpose of any
of them.
Russell pleaded,
There lies before us, if we choose,
continued progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom.
Shall we instead choose death
because we can not forget our quarrels?
I appeal as a human being 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.4
Russell followed this address by drafting a statement for scientists
to sign.
He sent it to Einstein and was disappointed
when he heard
the news of Einstein's death.
However, as one of his last acts,
the great scientist
had sent Russell a letter agreeing to sign.
This Russell-Einstein Manifesto was also signed by a
Communist
scientist and several Nobel Prize winners.
The Parliamentary Association for World Government in August
1955
invited representatives from every country, including four
from the Soviet Union.
Russell moved a resolution that urged the
world's governments to realize and to
acknowledge publicly that
their purposes cannot be advanced by world war.
Russell addressed
an open letter to Eisenhower and Khrushchev in November 1957,
asking that they make an agreement with each other on some points
in which the interests of Russia and America are the same.
Russell
proposed the following:
first, since the continued existence of
the human race is paramount,
neither side should incite war by
trying for world dominion;
second, the diffusion of nuclear weapons
to other countries must be stopped;
third, lessening hostility
could lead to immense savings on armament expenditures;
and fourth,
by respecting each other's rights and using argument instead of
force,
fears of collective death could be diminished.
Bertrand Russell was one of the main organizers
of the Pugwash
Conferences of Scientists.
At the first meeting in 1957 three
committees were formed -
one on the hazards of atomic energy, one
on the control of nuclear weapons,
and one on the social responsibilities
of scientists.
One of the achievements of the Pugwash movement
was the eventual
agreement on at least a partial Test-ban Treaty.
Russell considered this only a slight mitigation of the dangers.
Russell was also the President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND),
which worked for the unilateral disarmament of Britain
and the expulsion of US bases from her soil.
Russell was also expressing his views on television in 1959
and in the books
Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare and
Has Man a Future?
Nuclear warfare imperils mankind as a
whole and therefore is to be treated
like an epidemic and not
be entangled in the conflicts of power politics.
As a mathematician,
Russell knew that as long as nuclear war is a possibility,
its
probability over time is increased.
He quoted Linus Pauling's
estimates of the hundreds of thousands of birth defects
and embryonic
and neo-natal deaths likely if tests were continued.
The steps
toward peace include the abolition of nuclear tests,
the solving
of differences without the threat of war,
complete disarmament
of nuclear weapons and a reduction of conventional forces,
appointment
of a Conciliation Committee with representatives
from the powers
and neutrals, the prohibition of foreign troops on any territory,
and
the establishment of a Federal International Authority with
armed force to prevent war.
Russell cautioned that the armed force
should be in units of mixed nationalities
and under the command
of officers from neutral countries.
A federal constitution would leave the nations
autonomous in
regard to their own internal affairs.
The international court
must have the same authority as national courts.
To those who
fear the tyranny of a world government, Russell responded that
there would be more real freedom in the world under effective
law and that
in large modern governments it is fairly easy to
maintain civilian control over the military.
Technical advances
have not only made international anarchy infinitely more dangerous,
but also the facility of world cooperation is now more available.
Eventually, for the sake of a stable world, greater economic equality
and opportunity must be granted to the poorer peoples of the world.
Education ought to be global in scope and perspective.
Also the
increase of population must be brought under control.
Peace movements
in every country ought to work together in spite of minor differences.
At the age of 88 Russell came to believe that a more radical
strategy was needed,
and he resigned from the CND to plan actions
of
civil disobedience through the Committee of 100.
A sit-down
demonstration took place at a US Polaris Base in which 20,000
people
attended a rally, and 5,000 sat down and risked arrest.
On August 6, 1961 ("Hiroshima Day") they met at Hyde
Park,
and Russell illegally used a microphone.
He was arrested
and convicted of inciting the public to civil disobedience;
his
sentence was commuted to one week.
Russell wrote eloquent leaflets
and gave speeches for these and other demonstrations
urging that
the seriousness of nuclear peril justified nonviolent civil disobedience
against the offending governments which are
"organizing the
massacre of the whole of mankind."
In October and November of 1962 Bertrand Russell acted as a
peacemaker
in two very serious international crises, even though
he was only a private citizen.
When President Kennedy ordered
the naval blockade of Cuba to stop any Russian ship
from carrying
missiles to the island, Russell issued a press statement, which
began,
"It seems likely that within a week, you will all be
dead to please American madmen."5
Russell hoped there would
be large demonstrations of protest,
and he noted that the most
impressive was in New York,
where Michael Scott and A. J. Muste
spoke to ten thousand.
On October 23 Russell sent a telegram to
Kennedy, calling his action
"desperate" and a "threat
to human survival" without justification
and pleading that
he end the madness.
To Khrushchev he telegraphed an appeal that
he not be provoked
but seek condemnation of US action through
the United Nations.
On
the next day Premier Khrushchev publicized a long letter in reply
to Mr. Russell
assuring him that the Soviet government would not
be reckless
as the Americans had been in their pre-election excitement.
Russell then telegraphed Khrushchev thanking him for his "courageous
stand for sanity"
and asking him to hold back the ships
so
that the Americans could come to an agreement.
He also telegraphed
Kennedy to urge him to negotiate.
Khrushchev ordered some ships to turn away and allowed others
to be inspected;
Russell praised the Soviet Premier for this magnanimous,
unilateral act.
In another press statement Russell argued that
the US blockade was illegal and immoral
even though he believed
nuclear bases to be intolerable in Cuba or anywhere.
How would
America respond if the Russians or Chinese blockaded Formosa?
Khrushchev offered to dismantle the nuclear bases in Cuba
if the
United States would guarantee that it would not invade Cuba.
This
Cuban fear was obviously valid, since the US
had already tried
to invade once at the Bay of Pigs.
When Kennedy cabled Russell
about the "secret Soviet missiles"
and the Russian "burglars,"
Russell pointed out that they had not been secret,
that even if
they had been long-range, which they were not,
the US and USSR
already had enough long-range missiles and submarines
to destroy
each other, and that the Russians were not burglars any more than
Americans in Britain and western Europe;
actually the Americans
were contemplating "burglary."
Russell wired Kennedy, asking him to accept inspection by the
United Nations
and to remove
US missiles in Turkey as an exchange.
This would show America's
stand for peace.
He cabled Dr. Castro, requesting that he accept
the dismantling
and UN inspection in exchange for the pledge not
to be invaded.
Russell sent a long letter to Khrushchev, suggesting
further steps toward peace,
such as the abandonment of the Warsaw
Pact.
He telegraphed UN Secretary General U Thant,
asking him
if he would arbitrate and inspect bases.
Castro wanted U Thant
to mediate in Cuba,
but the US refused to discuss the Guantanamo
base
or accept UN inspectors of Florida camps.
In the face of
US intransigence to trading bases in Turkey,
Russell telegraphed
Castro and Khrushchev, urging them to dismantle the bases,
since
even the insane American blackmail is preferable to catastrophe.
Although he was no lover of Communism, in this instance
Russell
commended Khrushchev for his wisdom and courage
but criticized
Kennedy for violating the UN Charter and
perverting the Monroe
Doctrine into the idea that
if the US does not like the form of
government of a western hemisphere state
and is threatening to
attack it, then no outside power ought to try to help it.
In November 1962 Russell was similarly involved in mediating
the border dispute between China and India in Kashmir.
In numerous
telegrams to Nehru and Zhou Enlai, Russell urged a cease-fire
and withdrawal so that negotiation and arbitration could settle
the conflict.
He also urged President Sukarno of Indonesia and
U Thant to help mediate.
In this situation India, which as a neutral
nation, had so often pleaded
for peaceful relations, seemed to
be overcome by war hysteria,
and thus Russell found that the nation
for which he had the most sympathy
again was being the most unreasonable.
This time Zhou Enlai exercised wisdom and thanked Russell for
his peacemaking efforts.
Reflecting on these two crises, Russell reiterated the danger
of brinkmanship
and the need for nuclear disarmament, since nuclear
weapons
only offer the options of complete submission or annihilation.
The value of an unarmed and reasonable mediator made it easier
for Khrushchev
and others to make concessions without damaging
their pride as much.
Russell hoped that these crises might help
discredit the western belief
that all Communists are wicked, and
all anti-Communists are virtuous.
These situations and many others
indicate the need for world government
and strong international
law so that disputes can be peacefully decided in courts.
The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation was formed in 1963.
He
worked to free political prisoners in over forty countries.
Russell
began publishing articles criticizing the unofficial war in Vietnam.
He explained how the French, Japanese, British, and Americans
had prevented
the Vietnamese people from obtaining their independence
for the sake of imperialism and capitalistic exploitation.
He
described the atrocities that had been perpetrated
by puppet governments
of the west and American "advisors."
By mid-1963 there
were already about 160,000 dead, 700,000 tortured and injured,
400,000 imprisoned, 31,000 raped, and 1,000 temples destroyed;
46 villages had been attacked with poisonous chemicals,
and 8,000,000
villagers were in 6,000 concentration camps.
He felt the time
for protest was overdue.
By 1965 the numbers had increased, and
in a speech criticizing the
British Labor Party's foreign policy,
Russell tore up his Labor Party membership card.
He complained
that visas the Peace Foundation had requested
for three members
of the National Liberation Front (NLF) had been refused.
In January 1966 Bertrand Russell wrote "Peace Through
Resistance to US Imperialism,"
in which he warned that peace
could not be obtained merely by requesting
the United States to
behave better, because a powerful system is based on
continued
exploitation and an increasing scale of military production.
He
suggested,
A united and co-ordinate resistance
to this exploitation and domination must be forged.
The popular struggle of oppressed people will remove
the resources from the control of US imperialism
and in so doing, strengthen the people of the United States itself,
who are striving first to understand
and second to overcome the cruel rulers
who have usurped their revolution and their government.
This, in my view, is the way to create a secure peace,
rather than a tenuous and immoral acquiescence in US domination,
which can neither work nor be tolerated by humane men.6
Russell backed up his vituperative criticism of US policies
with numerous facts and figures.
He gave four reasons why the
United States must be compelled to withdraw from Vietnam.
First,
the US war crimes in Vietnam had been amply documented.
Second,
the US had no right to be there;
only a puppet ruler and a few
ambitious Vietnamese generals wanted them there.
Third, US claims
of "halting aggression" were absurd since the Geneva
agreements
had arranged for unification of Vietnam through election,
which the US had blocked.
Fourth, the US must not be encouraged
to think that aggression pays.
On May 24, 1966 Bertrand Russell
spoke over NLF radio to
American soldiers to explain to them the
injustice of their involvement.
Since the US was continuing to
drop three million
pounds of bombs daily on North Vietnam,
Russell
called for an international War Crimes Tribunal
in keeping with
the principles of the Nuremberg trials.
The Tribunal convened
in November 1966 to announce that
it would prepare evidence of
crimes in the following five areas:
1. aggression violating international treaties;
2. using gas and chemicals as experimental weapons;
3. bombing hospitals, sanatoria, schools, dikes and other civilian areas;
4. torturing and mutilating prisoners;
5. pursuing genocidal policies, such as forced labor camps, mass burials,
and other techniques of extermination in South Vietnam.
Distinguished individuals from various countries agreed to
join the Tribunal.
The War Crimes Tribunal met in Sweden and Denmark
and became
independent of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.
The proceedings of the Tribunal were published in Against the
Crime of Silence,
and in the introduction Russell wrote
War crimes are the actions of powers
whose arrogance leads them to believe
that they are above the law.
Might, they argue, is right.
The world needs to establish and apply certain criteria
in considering inhuman actions by great powers.
These should not be the criteria convenient to the victor,
as at Nuremberg, but those which enable
private citizens to make compelling judgments
on the injustices committed by any great power.7
Russell was now 95.
He continued to work for peace to the end,
and his last political statement
was a condemnation of Israel's
aggression sent to the International Conference
of Parliamentarians
in Cairo in February 1970.
Click below to see and hear the article on A. J. Muste.
Abraham Johannes Muste was born in Zeeland of the Netherlands
on January 8, 1885;
his family brought him to the United States
at the age of six
and raised him in Michigan as a Calvinist.
He
graduated from Union Theological Seminary
in New York in 1909
and married that year.
He was ordained a minister, but during
World War I
his pacifist convictions and ideas led to his resignation.
Moving to Boston in 1918, Muste formed a Comradeship of pacifists
and began to observe the labor situation at the Lawrence textile
mills.
He felt that during the war the pacifists had not risked
their lives,
but the strike was an opportunity to see if nonviolence
really works.
Muste raised money for the strikers and was soon
made the
executive secretary of the strike committee for 30,000
strikers.
A. J. placed himself at the head of the picket line
and was beat to exhaustion by the police and arrested.
Several
weeks into the strike, the police tried to provoke violence
by
lining up machine guns and having a labor spy urge the strikers
to overcome them.
Muste suggested that the strikers take the following
courageous action:
I told them, in line with the strike committee's decision,
that to permit ourselves to be provoked into violence
would mean defeating ourselves;
that our real power was in our solidarity
and our capacity to endure suffering
rather than to give up the fight for the right to organize;
that no one could “weave wool with machine guns;”
that cheerfulness was better for morale than bitterness
and that therefore we would smile
as we passed the machine guns and the police
on the way from the hall to the picket lines around the mills.
I told the spies, who were sure to be in the audience,
to go and tell the police and the mill managements
that this was our policy.8
This speech was greeted by cheers, and they went out, laughing
and singing.
Later Muste's room was broken into by a strong-arm
squad, but he was not there.
A colleague of his was taken out
into the country,
beat terribly, and left senseless in a ditch.
After fifteen weeks the workers were weakening.
Muste and the
leaders successfully urged them to stay out for a week longer,
but they decided they would not pressure them after that.
Muste
was leaving town to report their failure to the union headquarters
when he was contacted by management to arrange
a settlement granting
the strikers' demands.
Muste served as general secretary of the
Amalgamated Textile
Workers for over two years.
Strikes occurred somewhere almost
every week.
From 1921 to 1933 he was the educational director
of Brookwood Labor College.
During the Depression he worked with
the labor movement,
the Unemployed Leagues, the Workers Party,
the sit-down strikes,
and the forming of the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO).
Muste helped start the Conference for Progressive
Labor Action (CPLA),
which offered a radical alternative to the
Communist Party.
In 1936 he helped organize a strike of the Goodyear
Tire workers in Akron, Ohio;
this was the first time the sit-in
tactic was used in the American labor movement.
Also in 1936 A.
J. gave up his Trotskyism and returned to Christian pacifism
for
the rest of his life, saying that God is love,
and "Love
is the central thing in the universe."9
Love, he felt, must
be carried into every aspect of family life, race relations,
labor
movement, political activity, and international relations.
In 1940 A. J. Muste published Non-violence in an Aggressive
World
outlining a Christian pacifist approach to revolution
in a war-torn world.
He described the interrelationships of the
three revolutionary reform movements
to which he was committed
in the fields of religion, economics, and politics -
namely Christianity,
socialism, and democracy.
He urged a pacifist revolution, which
will enlighten minds and redirect wills.
With unity and solidarity
among the workers and using nonviolent methods,
Muste predicted
there will be less economic and social
dislocation than in most
revolutions.
He criticized the totalitarian repression, terrorism,
and conformity of some
post-revolutionary regimes, and he called
instead for democratic and brotherly life.
Although he considered
struggling against injustice by any means to be nobler than
cowardice,
Muste's experience in the labor movement led him to believe that
violence was always self-defeating, whether it was resorted to
by workers
or by employers using open or covert violence or by
agents of the state.
The oppressed will make surer and faster progress
if they eschew violence and depend,
as they do mainly depend in their organizing and strike activities,
on their solidarity, courage, capacity for suffering and sacrifice,
and on non-cooperation where injustice becomes extreme.10
Instead of using national armies, Muste saw the need for an
international police force.
A political federation built on fair
economic arrangements will be held together
by mutual benefits,
making armies unnecessary.
He pointed out that there is a necessary
connection between democracy and nonviolence;
when external force
is used, freedom is lost.
Racism and nationalism, which promote
war, are destructive to democracy,
corrupting the external and
internal relations of a country.
Imperialism in foreign policy
likewise causes injustice and oppression at home
as well as abroad
through the "crushing burden of militarism and totalitarian
war."
Muste advocated unilateral disarmament, pointing out
how reluctant people are to fight and kill in a war.
How could
they be led to slaughter a helpless population?
"With much
less effort than is required to put a nation on a war-basis,
it
could be organized to meet, confuse, and rout
an invader with
nonviolent noncooperation."11
He concluded that pacifism
is based on love and fellowship
and treating one's neighbor as
oneself; our resources for living this life of love
have hardly
been tapped at all so far.
In an essay on "The World Task of Pacifism" in 1941
Muste declared that
as long as people believe that war is a solution
to social problems,
then human resources will be devoted to
"forging
diabolically effective instruments of slaughter and destruction."12
Once this delusion has been dispelled, then a new order will be
built.
He noted that Gandhi's campaigns in India were giving the
world an example
of how nonviolence could be used on a massive
scale.
In another essay that year Muste suggested the following:
Christian realism would lead us to renounce war preparation
and war as obviously suicidal;
to offer to surrender our own special privileges;
to participate in lowering tariff walls,
in providing access to basic resources
on equitable terms to all peoples;
to spend the billions we shall otherwise squander
on war preparations, and war,
for the economic rehabilitation of Europe and Asia,
for carrying a great “offensive” of food, medicine, and clothing
to the stricken peoples of the world;
and to take our full share of responsibility
for building an effective federal world government.13
In 1942 Muste suggested that the United States enter into negotiations
with all the nations in the war with the following proposals:
1. The US will help build a federal world government;
2. the US will invest billions for the economic rehabilitation of Europe and Asia;
3. "no attempt shall be made to fasten sole war guilt
on any nation or group of nations;"
4. subject nations such as India, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Denmark, Norway,
France, Belgium, and Holland must be granted full self-determination;
5. "all peoples should be assured of equitable access
to markets and to essential raw materials;"
6. to further democracy the US should provide decent housing,
adequate medical and hospital service, and equal educational facilities
for all its people, "including Negroes and Orientals;"
7. the US must repudiate racism and call on Germany
and other countries to do the same; and
8. drastic reduction of armaments by all nations
should move all rapidly to an economy of peace.
As early as 1943 Muste recommended the use of nonviolent methods
to bring an end to Jim Crow practices of racial discrimination.
He was Executive Secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation
(FOR)
from 1940 until 1953, and he influenced civil rights leaders
such as
James Farmer and Bayard Rustin, who were FOR staff members.
In 1942 they founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
Martin
Luther King, Jr. and others were also influenced
by Muste's nonviolence
philosophy and tactics.
During the war he gave moral support to
conscientious objectors,
and in 1947 he sponsored a session of
draft-card burning.
He responded to Einstein's "Emergency
Appeal" in 1946 by urging scientists
to become conscientious
objectors by refusing to work on military projects.
Einstein accepted
this view and later said, "Noncooperation in military matters
should be an essential moral principle for all true scientists."14
Muste refused to pay Federal income tax from 1948 on.
After the
war he completely rejected Communism, but during the McCarthy
period
Muste spoke out for the civil rights of Communists.
He
called for the cessation of hostilities in Korea,
urged the United Nations to stop acting
as a war agency,
advocated that the US abandon war and adopt nonviolence,
and he promoted the spirit of pacifism.
Muste helped organize and participated in many direct action
campaigns.
In 1955 he joined Dorothy Day and others in refusing
to take cover in a New York civil defense drill.
On August 7,
1957 he participated in a vigil protesting
nuclear weapons tests
near Las Vegas, Nevada.
The following year he was an advisor in
the project
of sailing the Golden Rule into a bomb-test
area.
He chaired the "Walk for Peace Committee" which
included
the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the
Catholic Worker,
the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Peacemakers,
the War Resisters League (WRL),
and the Women's International
League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
For the Committee for Nonviolent
Action (CNVA) Muste coordinated
the Omaha Action project and was
arrested
as one of the trespassers at the Mead Missile Base.
He
considered nuclear war politically irrational,
morally indefensible,
and a hideous atrocity.
Even preparation for such a war is a degradation
of mankind.
Neither the aims of Communism nor those of Christian
democracy
can be advanced or even salvaged after a nuclear war.
He referred to threatening the obliteration of an enemy people
as an extreme mental sickness.
The real enemy is war.
In December 1959 Muste traveled to Africa to help coordinate
a protest
against French nuclear bomb tests in the Sahara.
Meanwhile
the Peace Walk had gone from San Francisco to Moscow.
About 80,000
leaflets were distributed in the Soviet Union;
the demonstrators
spoke to meetings of several hundred people every night.
Muste
felt national barriers had been transcended in favor of a common
humanity.
In 1961 an experimental World Peace Brigade was formed
at a conference
in
Beirut, Lebanon, under the direction of Muste,
Michael Scott, and Jayaprakash Narayan.
A training center for
nonviolent action was established in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Muste hoped this was a beginning toward realizing
Gandhi's concept
of a world peace army (Shanti sena).
In the summer of 1962
the World Peace Brigade and others,
such as the CNVA, CND, and
the Committee of 100,
sponsored the voyage of Everyman Ill
to Leningrad to protest Soviet nuclear testing.
In the early Vietnam War era Muste was able to help bring together
a broad-based coalition of groups to protest.
He helped to establish
the policy of refusing to accept
the co-sponsorship of organizations
that support war, military build-up, or violence,
although any
individual accepting nonviolent discipline could participate.
In 1965 over 50,000 people paraded down Fifth Avenue in New York.
Again in this war he suggested that the United States withdraw
its forces and disarm.
To young men facing conscription he always
recommended "holy disobedience."
In 1966 Muste met with
anti-war Buddhist and Catholic leaders in Saigon.
In January 1967
he met with Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi
to try to find ways to end the
war.
Muste died seventeen days later.
He was honored in New York
at the march
of the Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam.
1. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell 1872-1914,
p. 234.
2. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell 1914-1944, p.
24.
3. Ibid., p. 181.
4. Quoted in "Bertrand Russell and the Peace Movement"
by Ralph Schoenman in
Bertrand's Russell's Philosophy,
p. 239.
5. The Life of Bertrand Russell by Ronald W. Clark, p.
596.
6. War Crimes in Vietnam, p. 99-100.
7. Quoted in "Bertrand Russell and the Peace Movement: Liberal
Consistency of Radical
Change?" by Edward F. Sherman in Bertrand's
Russell's Philosophy, p. 262-263.
8. "Sketches for an Autobiography" in The Essays
of A. J. Muste, p. 70.
9. "Return to Pacifism" in The Essays of A. J. Muste,
p. 201.
10. Non-violence in an Aggressive World by A. J. Muste,
p. 118.
11. Ibid., p. 159.
12. "The World Task of Pacifism" in The Essays of
A. J. Muste, p. 223.
13. "Where Are We Going?" in The Essays of A. J.
Muste, p. 250.
14. Quoted in Ban the Bomb: A History of SANE by Milton
Katz, p. 8.
This is a chapter in World Peace Efforts Since Gandhi,
which is published as a book.
For ordering information, please click here.