Did Russell  Really Advocate Preventive War Against the USSR?
 

 Abstract:  Many commentators hold that Bertrand Russell's long-held position in favor of peace was contradicted by his statements concerning threats of war against the USSR during the period 1945-50. Especially after 1947, when the USSR rejected the US proposal for international control of nuclear energy, Russell's comments both in public and in private were highly critical of the Soviets. The question of Russell's advocacy of a preventive war has been raised by Russell's biographers from Clarke to Monk, and in a debate in the journal Russell between Ray Perkins, Jr. and Douglas Lackey. This paper argues that Russell did not in fact advocate a preventive war against the USSR, still less a nuclear one, despite comments he made which have been interpreted as "bellicose", such as his 1947 pamphlet for the New Commonwealth, his 1948 letter to Walter Marseille and his 1949 address to students at the Westminster School. Part of the answer involves the distinction between "advocacy" and "threat", already raised in the Perkins-Lackey debate, and for which a modified analysis will be provided in this paper. I will also examine Russell's attitudes towards the USSR as revealed in his letters to Gamal and Gerald Brennan, identify problems in his use of analogies between the immediate pre-war and post-war situations, and situate his statements in the context of the non-absolute pacifism which he consistently defended.

Did Russell Advocate Preventive Atomic War Against the USSR In the Period from 1945-50? *

A. Russell's Theses on World Peace, 1945-50: *

B. What Russell Said: 1945-50 *

In the course of my research on Russell’s views on war and peace, I came upon the 1947 exchange of letters with Einstein, a missed opportunity for collaboration which was set right eight years later with their joint statement against nuclear world war. Their reconciliation was possible because of their shared adherence to the philosophy of non-absolute pacifism, while their divergence was based on differing analyzes of the danger posed by the Soviet Union in the five years following World War II. Just how far Russell would go to oppose the Soviet Union during that period is the subject of this paper.

The matter has been discussed by all biographers of Russell from Clark to Monk, and was the subject of a debate in the pages of the journal Russell between Douglas Lackey and Ray Perkins, Jr. to which I will return later in this paper. The subject is rendered more note worthy not only because of the perceived inconsistency of a noted pacifism advocating war— and atomic war at that—, but also because of the numerous occasions at which Russell denied having advocated such a position, then recognized that, in a way, he had.

My claims are the following: (a) Russell’s position with respect to the USSR during the period 1945-52 was wholly consistent with the philosophy of non-absolute pacifism which he shared with Einstein; (b) Russell did not advocate preventive war, in the sense of making a call for immediate war; rather he proposed a conditional threat in order to achieve a goal other than war, in agreement to a large extent with the analysis made by Perkins; (c) Russell’s public position was occasionally colored by his personal feelings of antagonism to the totalitarian system of communism, attitudes which are made most clear in his letters to Gamal and Gerald Brennan; (d) Russell’s denial of having advocated preventive nuclear war were consistent with his public statements, and not an attempt to cover up his motivation, contrary to the claims of Clark and Monk.

From 1945 through to 1950 Russell’s public positions focused on a number of key issues, which I identify as follows:

(1) Necessity for world government as a means to preserve world peace: If war is to be permanently prevented, there must be the establishment of an international government with a monopoly over atomic weapons and all other significant means of destruction, including bombers, destroyers and the like which are capable of delivering both atomic and major conventional weapons.

(2) Danger of nuclear world war and mass extinction: Once both the US and USSR have nuclear weapons, war between them would be catastrophic for the human race and could lead to its annihilation; consequently efforts have to be made to avoid an arms race (until 1949); or thereafter efforts must be made to hold the line against small aggressions that could embolden the USSR to seek significant expansion of its sphere of influence, this latter leading to world nuclear war.

(3) Critique of appeasement and isolationism as leading to war: In the immediate post-war situation it was important to avoid the key mistake of the immediate pre-war years, when appeasement of Germany by Britain, and the impression that the United States would stay out of a European war fostered, rather than prevented war, by giving Nazi Germany the impression that it had a free hand to commit aggression.

(4) Critique of the Soviet Union as a threat to Western Civilization: The Soviet Union had replaced Nazi Germany as the main enemy of Western civilization, through its illiberal policies toward intellectuals, its totalitarian control of its own population and expansion into Eastern Europe, and through its parties in the western democracies which acted as its "fifth columns".

(5) Necessity to force Soviet adhesion to world government and European peace: The Soviet Union must be pressured to ultimately acquiesce to world government and I the meantime, to accept international control of nuclear energy, and to refrain from provocative acts towards Western Europe aimed at subversion or outright aggression.

(6) Threat of force, including war, to gain Soviet compliance. The use of the threat of war to force Russian compliance is a tactical means to promote the strategic goal (5) above. Moreover, this strategic goal is itself subordinated to Russell’s basic principle, one that has not yet been mentioned, and which is so fundamental that I will list it as the 0^th thesis: that of non-absolute pacifism.

(0) Principle of non-absolute pacifism (in two parts): This theory was one Russell held at least as early as the First World War, and which he formulated most clearly during the Second. He shared this theory with at least one other significant intellectual of his day, Albert Einstein, who, though a life-long pacifist, also supported the Second World War.

(a) Pacifism as a secular, political rejection of war: Wars, especially wars between civilized countries, are to be rejected and opposed. Moreover, given the means of destruction provided by modern science and technology, from aerial bombardment (World War I) to atomic bombs (World War II) and the probable use of hydrogen bombs (World War III?), the consequent slaughter and destruction are all the more unacceptable. This opposition to war is independent of religious belief and calls for the political opposition to the participation of one's own and other governments in war. Although secular and political, Russell’s pacifism was not absolute, as the next point makes clear.

(b) Pacifism as non-absolute: Not all wars are to be rejected, however. Exceptionally, a war may be supported if its object is to defeat an enemy which threatens civilization and life itself. Such a case arose with the Nazis in the Second World War, and on Russell's view (but not Einstein's) a similar threat was posed by the USSR immediately after World War II.

On this view, Russell was right in claiming that in the later 1940s he did not advocate war, though he certainly both considered it and threatened it. What he did advocate was an international authority or world government with a monopoly on the major forms of force and a mandate to use that force in order to prevent future world wars, a principle at the core of his non-absolute pacifism. In addition, by the mid 1950s, he advocated (and personally participated) in conferences and campaigns aimed at nuclear disarmament and world peace. Thus we need to distinguish between three types of specific statements which Russell made:

(1) Advocacy of international government with a monopoly of force:: From 1945 on Russell included in all of his articles appeals or advocacy for world government with sufficient armed forces and a monopoly of the most destructive weapons, including nuclear ones, to prevent a rogue power from launching a world war. By the mid-1950s, Russell favored a mass campaign for disarmament once both powers had the capability to wage mutually destructive nuclear world war through the possession of both A- and H-bombs

(2) Threat of war as a pressure tactic. From 1945-50 Russell publicly proposed on numerous occasions that the Western Powers threaten the USSR with the menace of war to both prevent Soviet aggression against Western Union, and to force the USSR to accept the internationalization of atomic energy, with the ultimate aim the participation of Russia in some form of world government. Russell had the least difficulty admitting this point when later reminded of it, since a threat is a tactical means of accomplishing a goal, and is subordinated both to strategy, and to the principle which defines the ultimate objective.

(3) Consideration of preventive war: Russell in 1945-48 considered in private letters the advisability of a preventive war against the USSR. From just before the end of the Second World War, Russell saw the focus of danger shifting from one form of totalitarianism (the Nazi form) to another (the communist, Stalinist form). Later, in 1948-49, he was even led to consider the advisability of a limited bilateral atomic war, an option once the USSR had begun an atomic arms race with the USA, but before it was able to produce a sufficient quantity of weapons to engage in global conflict at its choosing. But he did no more than consider these options, even if his private formulations (in letters and conversations) also indicated, as one would expect in a letter, a degree of wish or desire on his part.

In what follows I therefore consider it important to distinguish among the following elements of Russell’s thinking:

(i) World peace as the ultimate principle, in order to create a world where wealth previously addressed to means of destruction would be refocused to projects of social value, contributing to life and happiness, rather than death and unhappiness..

(ii) World government as the strategic goal in order to control all major weapons of war, including nuclear ones, and enforce non-aggression among member-states.

(iii) Threat of force, including war, as a tactical means in order to dissuade the Soviet Union from aggression and an arms race.

The relationship among these three propositions for Russell was that (iii) was a tactic to achieve (ii), which was in turn a strategy to achieve (i); this latter was the whole point of the exercise. As a result, individual statements by Russell, especially including those purporting to advocate preventive atomic war against Russia, have to be evaluated, not as isolated statements but as propositions within the context of a theory including the above three elements.

In order to evaluate the import of Russell’s statements about war with the Soviet Union during the period 1945-50, I will examine a typical essay intended for the general public from each of the years of the period under consideration. As some of this material has been analyzed previously, and is included for the sake of comprehensiveness, I will emphasize in my oral presentation the 1947 and 1948 papers, which have received less attention but which are, I believe, the most significant. Russell wrote extensively and repeatedly on the international situation; what follows is a selection of some of the more relevant statements he made on the threat of war towards the USSR (Italics are added for emphasis):

In October 1945 Russell wrote an article for Calcavade entitled "Peace or Atomisation". Although the article dealt with the danger of atomic war, Russell also focused on other issues, such as the importance of providing relief for German refugees, and the need to combine socialism and democracy. The editors asked him to follow up with a further elaboration of a point he had made concerning the formation of a Confederation of Nations to ensure world peace. Russell responded with the article entitled "Humanity's Last Chance", The proposal, elaborated in four points, called for the creation of a "Confederation of nations" under the lead of the US, which would serve as the embryo of a world government, with its own armed forces, a monopoly over nuclear weapons and the means of inspection and sanction to enforce compliance with its peaceful goals. In the short term, since the United States would not accept the limitations on its sovereignty implied by this type of alliance Russell proposed a "bloc" led by the United States, with the US retaining its control of nuclear weapons, and adherents to the bloc renouncing their right to the same.

What would happen to a power that refused to join this bloc? Here Russell reverted to the "exception clause" of his non-absolute pacifism, allowing that such a confederation "may be compelled to resort to war if it finds somewhere an opposition which cannot be peacefully overcome, but which can be defeated without a completely exhausting struggle." Such a war would be justified only if the international government on whose behalf it was waged had the characteristics of the "Western democracies", and if it were waged against a Nazi-type tyranny. This is a statement of preference, not a call or advocacy of a specific action:

The article "The Atomic Bomb and the Prevention of War" which appeared in 1946 in the magazine Polemic is an interesting one, since it was reproduced both in the generally progressive and critical Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the overtly anti-communist Plain Talk. This article is of particular interest as it sets out Russell’s basic position early in the period under consideration. Russell noted that if war occurs in the next few years, it will probably lead to an American victory, since the USSR doesn’t yet have atomic weapons. If war occurs once the USSR is armed with atomic bombs, then it could lead to the end of life on the planet. He reiterated his well known thesis that if war is to be permanently prevented, there must be the establishment of an international government with the monopoly over atomic weapons and all other significant weapons. He then continued that in the democratic countries a campaign in this sense addressed to public opinion might be successful, but that due to the absence of a free press in communist countries, public opinion could not be directly addressed. The rulers of the Soviet Union have to be the objects of such a campaign, which cannot be one of concessions (appeasement):

Russell, while still arguing for peace through world government, had allied himself with the anti-communist right, including the New Commonwealth movement, headed by Winston Churchill, for which Russell wrote a pamphlet and delivered public lectures. Russell’s anti-communism was not new: he had been a severe critic of Marxism from the 1890s on, when he observed and rejected the views of the German social-democrats. His visit to the Soviet Union in the early 1920s convinced him that communism was antagonistic to the individual and intellectual liberties that he cherished. The Stalin period in the USSR reinforced his view of the evil of communism. Russell made his position most succinctly in a series of numbered theses concluding his 1947 pamphlet, Towards World Government, the content of which was delivered on behalf of the New Commonwealth in Holland and Belgium in the autumn of 1947.

The key fact, which marks the transition from basic assumptions to specific conclusions is given in point 4 – the Baruch proposal for the international control of atomic energy. This sets the stage for a series of conclusions, formulated as hypotheticals given their reference to future events. It is here that Russell talks of the need for diplomatic pressure on Russia (point 6), the failure of which would lead to war (point 7), which would be less destructive if earlier rather than later (point 8). Point 9 is of interest for Russell’s reversion to the "war to end war" thesis: if war against Russia were to occur and its outcome were to be creation of a world government, then this world government would suffice to end war. Russell concludes with the choice between world peace and the happiness of mankind, or further unhappiness through unending war (point 10). This question of war and peace, Russell held, is the key issue for humanity.

The 1948 article, "Outlook for Mankind", not to be confused with a 1947 article of the same name in The Listener, appeared in Horizon. Like the preceding pamphlet, its logical structure as a hypothetical theory is crucial to its comprehension. Significantly, he began: "Let us begin by enumerating the logical possibilities, without regard to the question whether they are probable or desirable." (p. 238). Russell distinguished six possibilities, three of which involved no world war, and three of which did, as follows:
 

Logical Possibility	Probability	Desirability
A. If there is no World War
1. "Russia may convert the Capitalist world, and a Communist empire extend over the whole earth."	Highly improbable, though the Soviet leadership seem to consider it likely.	Highly undesirable.
2. "Russia may revert to Capitalism, and take to willing co-operation with the West."	So improbable as not to be worth further consideration.	--Not stated.-- Elsewhere, Russell criticized both capitalism for lack of economic justice, and communism for lack of political democracy. The ideal solution would be socialism with democracy.
3. "Each side may concede to the other a definite sphere, and the world may be divided as the medieval world was divided, between Christendom and Islam, perhaps with occasional minor conflicts as inconclusive and peripheral as the Crusades."	Unlikely, because Soviet leaders do not believe in "genuine peace between Capitalism and Communism"	(1) Most preferable. Should be adopted if both sides were sane. Although such a policy might lead to trade rupture between East and West, it would preserve peace for a long time.

Logical Possibility	Probability	Desirability
B. If there is World War
4. "America may be victorious and establish an American world empire."	Believed most probable outcome by the Americans.	(2) Second most preferable. "Beyond a time of appalling disaster there is a hope, on this hypothesis, of a real solution of the world's troubles."
5. "Russia may be victorious and establish a Communist world empire"	Russians believe they could win, but both Americans and Russell consider this unlikely.	(3) Undesirable, but preferable to a draw. Soviet victory would lead to the world being made a "prison"; a new Dark Age, from which progress would be slow though possible.
6. "The war may end in a draw, after which presumably, each side will prepare for the next bout; or, Possibly, they may belatedly revert to the third possibility, as was done at the Peace of Westphalia after the Thirty Years' War."	--Not stated--	(4) "Most dreadful of the six possibilities", since although life likely would not be exterminated in the next war, the following (fourth) world war with improved bacteriological and atomic weapons would likely lead to the end of human and animal life. "Therefore, if war breaks out in some near future, we must not wish to see it ended indecisively, however horrible it may be."

Russell’s analysis uses the basic logical categories of implication, possibility and probability (likelihood), as well as preferences. His theory considers possibilities both if war does not break out, and if it does. He then considers both the probability of each case, both from the subjective point of view of the disputants and his own evaluation. The three non-war cases are all judged unlikely: A1 conversion of capitalist world to communism without a war, is "highly improbable", A2, reversion of Russia to capitalism without a war is "so improbable I shall waste no time on it", while A3, division of the world into spheres of influence, is judged "unlikely". That leaves the three war possibilities as more probable, though Russell never says that they are inevitable. Russell’s crystal ball was not as good as he might have hoped, as A3 did come to pass, as the result of a combination of peaceful coexistence and mutual assured destruction combined with test ban, non-proliferation and arms limitation treaties. On the other hand, Russell’s efforts on behalf of all of the above, with the obvious exception of the MAD strategy, were notable in the years that followed. But Russell’s model is not merely a logical/probabilistic one, it is also incorporates an important element of preferences:

In 1949 Russell addressed the students of Westminster School on behalf of the New Commonwealth; the verbatim report of his talk, and third person summaries of his responses to questions were published in the Nineteenth Century. His essential point, again formulated in the disjunctive and in the conditional, was:

As late as 1950, Russell maintained his hostility to the USSR, exemplified by the article "Is the Third World War Inevitable" (1950), published in World Horizon, an independent international magazine endorsed by the UN. The article opens with an historical analysis of current world tensions, focusing in particular on the appeal made by the communists to poor countries, and the consequent need for the America to support their growing prosperity. Because of the Soviet view on the inevitability of war between communism and capitalism, Russell stated: "I do not believe that any genuine entente with the Kremlin is possible" (p. 8) and went on to propose a series of measures including a strengthened Western defense, to contain the USSR. Russell went so far as to say:

Russell did not mince his words in public about the USSR. In his 1945 speech to the House of Lords on the situation in Central Europe (he made another speech on the atomic bomb as well), Russell stated in respect to the problem of German refugees and the treatment of Germans in the eastern zone: "The Russians, and the Poles with Russian encouragement have, I regret to say, adopted a policy of vengeance, and have so far as I am able to discover, committed atrocities very much on the same scale and of the same magnitude as those of which the Nazis were guilty." In 1948, in his "Outlook for Mankind" article referred to above, he described the world after a Soviet victory in war as "a prison, where the non-Russian population would be engaged in slave labour under conditions of extreme hardship" (1948, p. 241). But his personal feelings towards communist Russia were more extreme.

Russell’s intense dislike for Stalinist Russia was evident in his personal letters, particularly those to his close confident Gamal Brennan and her husband, Gerald. Writing from Trinity College to Brennan just two days after VE day, Russell was gloomy and pessimistic about the future:

Within a month, however, Russell was slightly more upbeat. On Oct. 6, 1945 he wrote to Brennan, indicating that he could not meet with him as planned, for which he was "profoundly disappointed", but that he and his wife Peter (Patricia Spence) have urgent business in meetings of the "movement to get Germany food." And he continued, indicating the first glimmer of personal satisfaction in his life at the time: "Although it is hard to have to miss a moment of happiness, it is comforting to have found something to that is important, and in which results can be attained." (Russell to Brennan, 6 Oct. 1945, BRA) Moreover, the political climate in England was now more to his liking, given the rising anti-Russian attitude of the government: "I am glad that disagreements with Russia have come into the open, and relieved to find that the present Govt. at least as anti-Russian as Churchill." Russell expected that some concrete action might come: "The only hope is definiteness now." (ibid)

By the end of the year, Russell announced that his philosophical work is back on track, with a plan for next work or "big book"—Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (published in 1948)—which he characteristically situates between the two external events that most disturb him: the danger of atomic war, and the plight of German civilians: "Yes, I found the map for my new book, and am busy writing it in the intervals between atomic bombing and starving Germans." (Russell to Brennan, 15 Dec. 1945). Working is the only way he finds to deal with a cruel world, made crueler by the actions of the Soviet Union: "Being busy is the only way to endure this beastly world. I hate the Soviet government too much for sanity." (Russell to Brennan, 15 Jan. 1946).

Russell’s thoughts in the year 1945 were therefore quite bleak and pessimistic, with his anger, —indeed his hatred—directed at the Soviet Union in particular. His personal views mellowed to some extent by the end of 1946, to the point that he could state to Brennan in the fall of 1946: "I hope you are right that we have taken too black a view of Russia, & I begin to think perhaps you are." (Russell to Brennan, 30 Nov. 1946). And by 1947, it was especially the problem of atomic weapons that prompted his most anguished comments: "I have to broadcast about the atomic bomb on Saturday. Whenever I am compelled to think about it I become more or less insane." (Russell to Brennan, 5 March 1947).

Thus, Russell’s inner feelings—as opposed to his public statements—on world affairs, as bared to a close confident with whom he also discussed his failing marriage in quite explicit terms, can be traced in some detail, especially for 1945-47. He has clearly stated, particularly in 1945, his intense hatred for the Soviet Union, coupled with an admonition that he cannot publicly advocate what he privately hoped for: a preventive, even nuclear war against the USSR. It is in this context that we can understand the most controversial of his subsequent letters, this time to an academic with whom he had no personal relations.

This summary is interesting, both for its emphasis on the obligation Russell felt to change his political views as the world changed, and for his continued insistence on distinguishing between threatening and advocating war. Indeed, we have seen that while Russell may have personally desired a preventive war, he felt that he could not and should not publicly advocate for that. Rather, his public position was that the Soviet Union should be pressured into participating in the international control of atomic energy, using the threat of war to apply that pressure. This was a conditional statement of the form: If the Soviet Union does not accept the international control of atomic energy, she should be pressured to do so by the threat of war. This is different from the direct advocacy of war, which is more of the form: Because the Soviet Union does not accept the international control of atomic energy, war should be declared.

The charge that Russell did in fact advocate war with the USSR is based in large part on a letter to Dr. Marseille, who had sent Russell a paper outlining plans for compulsory inspection of Russian atomic energy plants. Russell noted that compulsory inspection, presumably without Russian pre-approval, "would be, legally, an act of war, and would be so viewed by the Soviet government." Russell’s main concern, however, was with the possibility of Russian aggression in Western Europe:

Russell’s personal views, as distinct from his public positions, can also be ascertained through an examination of his comments and letters to Rupert Crawshay-Williams, a neighbour in Wales with whom Russell formed a very close friendship (along with their wives) from his return to England in 1944 up to his death in 1970, a period of a quarter century. Moreover, Crawshay-Williams was able to develop his own views on Russell, providing insights from the point of view of an intimate, but independent friend.

During the period 1945-48, Russell often socialized with the Crawshay-Williams in the company of Arthur Koestler and his wife, and Humphrey (Hugh) Slater; both Koestler (best known as the author of the anti-Stalinist novel Darkness at Noon, along with other literary and cultural works) and Slater, a journalist had been members of the Communist Party and left as anti-communists, reinforcing Russell’s own anti-communism. Crawshay-Williams describes himself as the most tolerant towards the Soviet Union (as an "anti-anti-communist). A number of Crawshay-Williams’s comments on Russell are highly relevant to understanding his personal views on the Soviet Union. When in the heat of debate in a small group of friends, Russell would shift from a more dispassionate analysis to a somewhat personal exaggeration. Typical is a debate over the comparison between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union:

Nonetheless, Crawshay-Williams’s description of Russell during the 1947-48 period (after the rejection by the Soviet Union of the Baruch proposal) highlights the conditional nature of his proposal to use threat of force, including the atom bomb: "Russell’s counter-argument [to Crawshay-Williams’s] was that the threat alone would probably suffice and that in any case the issues at stake were so enormous that a large risk must be taken." (p. 28).

Much has been made of Russell’s anti-Soviet declarations in the period from 1945-47 through to the early 1950s, especially his advocacy of threatening war against the USSR. To biographers such as Ronald Clark and Ray Monk, the position has been judged dubious for two reasons. In the first place it seems to be in contradiction with Russell’s later opposition to war, both subsequently as evidenced in the Russell-Einstein resolution of 1955 and further anti-war activities, and antecedently, including Russell’s pacifism during World War I and the inter-war period. The second involves Russell’s denials (and subsequent retractions of his denials) that he had ever urged the use of the threat of war against Soviet Russia. This latter point is of little philosophical consequence, though of interest for biographers who are attempting to plumb the depths of Russell’s psyche. It is also secondary with respect to the reasons he made the threats in the first place. Ray Monk, in the recently released second volume of his biography of Russell notes: "From the very beginning these articles had a bellicosity that contrasted markedly with the pacifist views he had expressed in the 1930s." Although Monk correctly notes that Russell’s position was consistent with his long held view on the necessity for a world government with a monopoly of force, he fails to see that Russell had come to view the American post-war role as leader of the Western allies as constituting, at least ab initio, such a world government. Moreover, the Soviet refusal to participate in the American proposals for control of atomic energy were seen by Russell in a context of Soviet expansionism (in Eastern Europe), which if extended to Western Europe, would constitute an attack on civilization which Russell judged as sufficient to apply the exception clause in his version of "dedicated" pacifism.

One way to distinguish between threat and advocacy is to analyze the former as a conditional or hypothetical statement, where the consequent occurs only if the antecedent is satisfied. Such a statement is of the form "If antecedent A then consequent B". This is the type of statement Russell readily admitted to making, eg: If the Soviet Russia continues to reject the Baruch proposal, then she should be threatened with war. However, an advocacy statement is categorical, or imperative, taking the form of "Do action A because of situation B", where B has already occurred, leaving only the realization of A to be accomplished, e.g: A preventive war against the Soviet Union should be launched, because she plans to occupy Western Europe. Russell, as a logician of some note, was careful (in general) about the use of implication to indicate conditional statements, and it is a mistake to attribute to him advocacy in the imperative, categorical mode when what he clearly states is hypothetical.

A third category is needed to fully analyze Russell’s views: that of consideration. Consideration of a plan of action involves admitting that plan as an option among a variety of possible or likely courses of action, without necessarily threatening it (conditionally) or advocating it (unconditionally). Consideration is optional and facultative and takes the form: Consider the advisability of A (option), given B (circumstances): Consider a preventive war with Russia as an option, given her continued refusal to submit to international inspection of her nuclear plants. In comparative form, the three types of statements are as follows:
 

Threat	conditional, hypothetical	If A (antecedent), then B (consequent)
Advocacy	categorical, imperative	Do A (action) because of B (cause)
Consideration	optional, facultative	Consider A (option) given B (circumstances)

Russell believed that he was making statements of the threatening (conditional, hypothetical) sort, rather than those of the advocacy (categorical, imperative) kind. This is confirmed, at least for his public pronouncements, through the use of conditionals in his 1947 statement Towards World Government and other subsequent texts. Advocacy is not appropriate in the case of Russell’s statements for one further reason. Normally, advocating a policy presupposes that one has the ability to carry out the policy advocated. But Russell, despite his good relations with the Labour Government then in power, was not a minister in the government or an advisor capable of having his plans put into action. In this respect, even his private statements, which still allowed for changes to occur in Soviet behavior, were considerations rather than advocacy of war, and I will use the term "consideration" in what follows.

This problem of conditional/unconditional statements has been the object of a lively debate in the pages of Russell between Ray Perkins, Jr. and Douglas Lackey. Ray Perkins, Jr. has proposed an analysis of three types of statements Russell was believed to have made, based on the core statement, "We ought to wage war against the Soviets unless they agree, under threat of war, to international controls". This core statement is then modified as a type-1 statement by the addition at the end of the sentence of the modifier "and they will probably agree", and a type-2 statement by the addition of the phrase "and they will probably not agree". Perkins argues that Russell’s public claims were of type-1, which presumes likely Soviet compliance, without the need to carry out the threat, rather than of type-2, which would require war action. Moreover, he states that Russell’s letter to Marseille was, exceptionally, of type-2, and that Russell’s subsequent embarrassment over having this private letter brought to public attention explains his inconsistent denials of having ever threatened Soviet Russia with war, including statements of type-1.

Douglas Lackey has criticized this paper, and argued that Perkins’ analysis rests on the distinction (which Perkins made in passing) between conditional and unconditional threats of war are untenable for moral purposes. Lackey claims that this distinction fails because the concept of unconditional preventive war is vacuous, since all intentional actions have associated with them conditions for their application, including so-called unconditional ones. He also criticized Lackey’s use of the probability codicil to distinguish between type –1 and type-2 sentences, noting that too much emphasis has been placed on the agent’s subjective evaluation of the probability of compliance with the threat by the threatened party, excluding from consideration the objective probability.

But the distinction between conditional and unconditional statements does not fall because of their common characteristic of presupposing intentionality, and thereby, conditions. In the former case, whether the agent intends the action to actually occur depends on future conditions not yet realized, whereas in the latter case, the conditions have already been realized, and all that is left to do is to accomplish the action. Compare the unconditional statement "I will knock your hat off with a bat" with the conditional statement "If you continue to ridicule my paper, I will knock your hat off with a bat." The former statement has certain conditions associated with its actualization: that you and I are in proximity, that I have a bat, that you have a hat, etc. But these formal conditions are trivial compared to the material condition in the latter statement: that you ridicule my paper. In the absence of our physical proximity, my bat and your hat, neither action can possibly occur; but in addition, in the absence of your ridicule of my paper the knocking off of your hat by my bat will not actually occur, and this makes a very real difference to the future state of your head. There is a choice in one case, but not in the other. So Perkins analysis is justified on this key point, which is closely related to the "advocacy" vs "threat" distinction made in this paper.

Lackey’s critique of Perkins on the problem of probability is more successful. Attributing probabilities to unique historical events is a notoriously tricky matter, and it appears to be just as difficult to assign an objective probability to an historical act actually occurring as it is to evaluate the subjective probability that the agent assigns to the likelihood of the action. But Russell’s viewpoint is only partially based on his evaluation of probabilities, whether objective or subjective; what is of equal importance, especially in his 1948 article "Outlook for Mankind" is his serialization of preferences, with war not the first and foremost of them. It would therefore be more useful to analyze Russell’s views in terms of preferences, perhaps using decision theory, rather than in terms of probabilities.

Russell believed that he was making statements of the threatening (conditional, hypothetical) sort, rather than those of the advocacy (categorical, imperative) kind. This is confirmed, at least for his public pronouncements, through the use of conditionals in his 1947 statement Towards World Government, as well as in preceding and subsequent texts. Moreover, this is a meaningful distinction, because of the asymmetry of time reference: the conditional statement refers to incompleted future events as antecedents for a proposed action, and the unconditional statement refers to completed past events as causes for the action to be undertaken. It should be noted, however, that a threat can lead to advocacy, or as Russell noted in a later discussion on this topic: "I thought then, and hoped, that the Russians would give way, but of course you can’t threaten unless you’re prepared to have your bluff called."

Nonetheless, the logical distinction between threat and advocacy remains valid. Moreover, as pointed out by R. M. Hare and others, we may threaten to do something which we do not actually advocate or wish to see happen, as when a parent threatens to a child with the direst punishment if she ventures out alone into the middle of the road and into oncoming cars. The point of this threat is not to actualize the consequent, but to avoid the antecedent; and this seems to have been the intention and is clearly the result of threats of the sort Russell wished to see formulated and delivered to the Soviet Union. As a result, we can further distinguish the form of a threat from that of advocacy as follows, with

A=Russia invades Western Europe, or A=Russia engages in an arms race

B=The West will use force against Russia.

A threat is based on modus-tollens, as follows:

If Russia does A, then the West will do B.

But the West should take actions to persuade Russia that B is not in her interest.

Therefore, we hope (or expect) that Russia will not do A.

Advocacy should be formulated more directly, in terms of modus ponens:

If Russia does A, then the West will do B.

Russia has done A.

Therefore, the West will (must) do B.

Neither the term "threat" nor that of "advocacy" cover statements of the sort Russell made to the Brennans and to Crawshay-Williams in 1945-50, and which appear as well in the letter to Marseille in 1948. Russell’s statements were certainly unconditional, but they were not meant to advocate any course of action (as he explicitly stated to Brennan). I suggest the neutral term "consider", since Russell was expressing a personal opinion which he was submitting for evaluation by the reader of his letter. A letter, after all, is not a public pronouncement, and serves a very different function – that of testing a friend or colleague’s reaction to your ideas, and above all, of expressing your personal feelings on a subject, often in a way that would be inappropriate in public, and hence embarrassing when revealed.

On this view, Russell was right in claiming that in the later 1940s he did not advocate war, though he certainly both considered it (in private letters) and threatened it (in public statements). What he did advocate was an international authority or world government with a monopoly on the major forms of force and a mandate to use that force in order to prevent future world wars, a principle at the core of his non-absolute pacifism for which he campaigned throughout his life. In addition, by the mid 1950s, he advocated (and personally participated) in conferences and campaigns aimed at nuclear disarmament and world peace.

Russell’s shift by the mid 1950s to a policy based on advocacy for a campaign against nuclear world war directed at both the US and the USSR was based on changes in the international arena. Russell’s antagonism towards the Soviet Union, and his related threats and considerations of war with respect to it, continued through 1950, as a typical article from that year (referred to above) indicates. But as of 1949, evidence began to accumulate of Russia’s non-aggressive stance towards Western Europe and its disinclination, despite regional provocative acts by itself and its satellites, to provoke a world war. By May of 1949, the Berlin crisis had all but been resolved. The USSR, rather than provoking armed conflict, instead backed down, allowing resupply of the city by normal routes (though the airlift continued for some time to build up a stock for any future crisis). Russell himself had gone to Berlin at the request of British authorities during the blockade, and addressed troops engaged in the air lift. The Soviet Union had certainly "misbehaved" in blockading West Berlin; but unlike Russell’s hypothetical scenario of the time, it did not escalate the matter into war with the West. The West had met the Russian provocation, and the Soviets had relented.

The Korean War, which began in June 1950 pitted Soviet allies (North Korea, eventually aided by China) against a Western coalition (under the umbrella of the United Nations) led by the US and including Britain and Canada. Still, there was no indication of Soviet intent to attack Western Europe, and it was there that Russell’s main concern lay. Nor did the conflict escalate into a world war or threaten to do so, at least not on the communist side. If anything, it was Gen. Macarthur, subsequently dismissed by Truman, who favored escalation of the war to China, and it was he who provoked and was surprised by the Chinese "volunteers" who joined the conflict. By the end of the Korean War in July 1953, the Soviet threat seemed to recede just as in the United States right-wing anti-communism led by Senator Joseph McCarthy was on the upswing. Russell followed with evident disapproval his campaign, from McCarthy’s declaration that hundreds of communists were active in the US state department (Feb. 1950) to his downfall during the hearings over his charges of communist infiltration in the army (April, 1954). Complicating the whole matter was the acquisition of atomic bombs by the USSR, in 1949 and the US decision to push forward with the development of the hydrogen bomb; by the mid 1950s both superpowers were armed with sufficient nuclear bombs to devastate each other and the world. As Russell later noted in his Autobiography:

Russell’s problem was a pronounced tendency for his statements about threatening the USSR to be taken out of their theoretical framework, stripped of their logical qualifications, and removed from their historical context. The theoretical context was Russell’s non-absolute pacifism. The logical qualifications involved either the use of disjunction to indicate at least two possibilities – such as Russian compliance or rejection of Western demands – or the use of implication to indicate the conditional nature of the threat – the consequent being called for only when the antecedent condition was met. The international context framed Russell’s tactical comments as contigent, historically specific considerations, which naturally shifted as power relations and the arms race changed. I will focus on just a few of the incidents as they follow a similar pattern.

Since Russell’s letters to the Brennan’s and to Marseille were unpublished at the time, the most controversial declaration was the one Russell made at the Westminster School. This led to the first controversy, with Russell denouncing the reporting as "communist-inspired". Worse yet for Russell’s image were the comments made in the highly respected New Statesman and Nation, to which Russell had contributed in the 1930s. In the Nov. 18, 1950 issue, "Critic" made the following only partly facetious comment:

In 1952 Russell was interviewed by the Fleet Street Forum, an organization of journalists interested in problems of war and peace; the interview was published as a booklet of 34 pages. Russell at that time judged the likelihood of war as "six-to-four" that it would occur; in other words " I think war is rather more probable than not" (p. 15). The Soviet Union remained a problem:

Nonetheless, he did admit that upon occasion, the US was also at fault: " Sometimes it is Russia that is more warlike, and sometimes it is the United States that is more warlike." (p. 17). ." In the long term, as he had consistently asserted, nuclear weapons must be internationalized, but in the short term the key was a balance of arms, so that neither side could be assured of victory: If a war is to be avoided, that balance must continue, with each side kept in doubt as to who would be likely to win." (p. 18)

Immediately following this, Russell replied to the question of the relationship between these statements and his previous statements " demanding that the West should send the Russians an ultimatum that they should either toe the line or have an atom bomb dropped on them." The interviewer continued, " Will you tell us whether you were mis-reported and, if not, what accounts for the slight difference between that line and the one you now advocate?" (p. 18). Russell responded, contextualizing the comment to the Russian rejection of the Baruch proposal, and using the term "bully" to describe the intended action:

The second point to note is that Russell, in the second part of the exchange admits that you have to entertain the possibility of putting your threat into action "to have your bluff called"; but this only indicates even more clearly that for Russell his words were in the nature of a threat (or "bluff"), and not a direct call to action. This is reinforced by the preceding words that Russell both believed and hoped that the Russians would cooperate.

The controversy did not go away, of course, and in the May 28, 1959 issue of the Listener, a reader, Winthrop Parkhurst, mentioned precisely these two quotes. He continued with a quote from Russell’s October 17, 1953 letter to the Nation denying that he had considered the threat of preventive war: "The story that I supported a preventive war against Russia is a Communist invention." (quoted, p. 937. Parkhurst then quoted from Russell’s 1958 letter to The Saturday Review to the effect that "I thought, at that time, that it would be worth while to bring pressure to bear upon Russia, and even, if necessary to threaten war on the sole issue of the internationalizing of atomic weapons". Parkhurst then concluded with the comment that Russell was in contradiction: "Mr. Russell may not like to explain how, having formerly advocated preventive war, he can charge a reporter with writing a slanderous report of such advocacy." (ibid). Russell responded, moving from the term "advocacy" to "threat" as follows:

1. He admitted that his having "at one time favoured a policy of threats against Soviet Russia which might have led to war" did not "accord" with his 1953 letter to the Nation, stating "that I had never advocated such a policy".

2. He claimed that he had "completely forgotten that I had ever thought a policy of threat involving possible war desirable", the fact of which was brought to his attention by Marseille in 1958.

It is possible to make sense of all this only on the hypothesis that Russell had in 1953 forgotten that he had favored a policy of threats, but recognized that even at that, he was still right in denying that he had advocated a preventive war. Why Russell would have forgotten this matter in 1953 remains a mystery.

Russell returned to this issue in a document which he dictated to his wife Edith Russell on August 6, 1960, and which was the basis for a document, written in the third person, and sent to Russell’s publisher Sir Stanley Unwin, entitled "Bertrand Russell’s Work for Peace". In a portion of the document formulated in the first person, and in Edith Russell’s hand, Russell stated:

Russell provided his last private comment on the matter in 1962. At that time he was queried by a school boy who had refused to join the Cadet Corps, as a protest against war for which he was inspired by Russell’s writings and example. The young man, Christopher Perry, stated: "The other day I became involved in an argument with a Commander of the Navy and he advises me not to believe anything Bertrand Russell has to say because soon after the war he advocated war with Russia, then H-bomb-less', which is inconsistent with the present cause." (undated letter of June 1962). Russell responded, pointing out that his views changed as the underlying circumstances that prompted those views themselves changed: "Of course, I have changed my views on things. In ninety years events have changed as well.". He then continued:

Russell’s final public comment on the problem was in vol. 3 of his Autobiography. Once the Soviet Union rejected the Baruch proposals, Russell admitted that "in late 1948, I suggested that the remedy might be the threat of immediate war by the United States on Russia for the purpose of forcing nuclear disarmament upon her." He added: "My chief defence of the view I held in 1948 was that I thought Russia very likely to yield to the demands of the West." (III, p. 7). He continued: