The Conversion Of Bertrand Russell

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 58, 2 August 1940, Page 4

The Conversion Of Bertrand Russell

RECENT issue of the New Statesman contains this note by Bertrand Russell, written from California: The news from Europe is unbearably painful. We all wish that we were not so far away, although we could serve no useful purpose if we were at home. Ever since the war began I have felt that I could not go on being a pacifist; but I have hesitated to say so, because of the responsibility involved. If I were young enough to fight myself I should do so, but it is more difficult to urge others. Now, however, I feel that I ought to announce that I have changed my mind, and I would be glad if you could find an opportunity to mention in the New Statesman that you have heard from me to this effect. The editor, a personal friend, calls it interesting but not (to him) surprising. Others will find it not merely surprising but sensational --the most sensational, touching, and significant thing of its kind the New Statesman has ever reported. No Englishman has ever argued against war with anything like Bertrand Russell’s inteliectual power. No one living has ever carried logic so far, or frankness so far, or seemed so secure in his fortress of pure reason. And now the whole fabric of his pacifism has collapsed. Although he still shrinks, because he is sixty-three, from urging others to fight, he would now, if he could, fight himself. It is as if Mr. Churchill joined the Peace Pledge Union and Lord ‘Halifax announced himself a Nazi. But it is not merely a sensation. It is a revelation-of the beastliness of Hitlerism on the one hand, and of the impossibility on the other hand of intellectual isolationism. When intellectual Christians like Lord Halifax and intellectual agnostics like Shaw and Bertrand Russell stand shoulder to shoulder with the man in the street unity is ‘no longer a word merely but a deeply moving reality. :