Bertrand Russell's Thoughts On Pacifism: Origins And Development

In the course of his long life, Bertrand Russell established himself not only as a prominent thinker but also as a social activist. He is widely known as an intellectual passionately dedicated to the peace movement of 20th century. This study is an attempt to narrate and analyze the origins and development of his thoughts on pacifism.The years before the outbreak of World War I was an embryonic stage of Russell's pacifist thoughts. Russell came from a liberal aristocratic family. He lost his parents when he was very young. The mental trauma as well as the experience of childhood under the education of his grandmother became the inducement of his psychological Conversion during 1901, which was a turning point of his intellectual development. After that Russell became increasingly concerned about the peace movement to which he passionately devoted himself. Meanwhile, Russell debated with his friend and was made to rethink about Imperialism and partly abandoned it.Russell started to look for the causes of World War I while the fanaticism for war of the ordinary population shocked him greatly. He considered the human natural reasons as the primary ones. Things ought to be done to restrain the possessive impulse and develop the creative impulse to eliminate the causes of war within human nature. Therefore long period of reform in social, economical and educational structure is needed till the establishment of the conditions for the permanent peace.Russell's non-absolute pacifism was eventually established during the mid-1930s and 1945. He supported the policy of appeasement in 1930s and claimed to approve the war against Nazi Germany. It will be fruitful to understand his non-absolute pacifism through the research on this chapter of history.Russell positively practised his philosophy of non-absolute pacifism and for a time became notorious. However, he advocated nuclear disarmament in the last years of his life and made great efforts to avoid nuclear warfare which would inevitably lead to the extermination of human being.The apparent inconsistency of Russell's attitudes towards the issue of war and peace deserve deep research and objective evaluation.