Review by Rae West. 24 April 2021; a few updates 13 April 2023.
Feinberg and Kasrils helped with this book too, thirty years later, as Perkins says in his introduction. His notes recapitulate Russell's life, as it appeared to some conventional thinkers in about 2000. ('A Lifelong Fight for Peace, Justice, and Truth' — '... one of the twentieth century's greatest philosophers'. Only J K Galbraith, and Rotblat the Jewish physicist and, no doubt, liar, are quoted on the cover blurb. Perkins' high praise of Russell, entirely typical of the absurdly high praise Jews give to their sidekicks, is a bit embarrassing.) I estimate this book is at least three times the length of Dear Bertrand Russell, and I think was produced by word processing or print-on-demand technology. The letters were typed into their computer storage, one at a time, by a woman (of course). They are almost all in date order. Russell wrote about 400 such letters, we are told. In view of his vast output, I thought at first this must be wrong, but given roughly an epistolatory span of 80 years, we get about five a year, or roughly one every ten weeks, which seems about right. About 300 have been selected for publication here. Perkins' book's index is of course revelatory: War Crimes, German is one. There's nothing on Freemasons. Letters [189] and the following discuss Christianity, but with nothing on its symbiosis with Christianity and Islam, though I suppose this is asking a lot. At the time, the British or (((British))) Empire was a serious force in the world, but it's not even indexed. Russell was ambivalent about it, at one moment referring to it as something no honest person could support, and at another something vital to Britain. Sigh; there's no way to easily assess Russell's opinion and the evidence he relied on, if any.
Ray Perkins, Jr. is credited with only one other book, Logic and Mr. Limbaugh, which has a brief comment 'Anything that teaches a valuable lesson about fallacious reasoning and at the same time pokes fun at a ridiculous man has to be great!', on a secular website. Google, now, says he is, or was, professor of philosophy, emeritus, at Plymouth State University and vice chairman of the Bertrand Russell Society.
Intellectual changes in the 20 years since publication.
Since 2000, the Internet has facilitated the spread of ideas, so much so that widespread censorship has followed, which seems likely to go further. Russell belonged to a non-digital world of fairly expensive books, slow mail by today's standards, with opaque editorials, unquestioned decisions, company-owned newspapers, and top-down film, radio and TV structures.
That has changed enormously, both for evil—it's far easier to mass-produce lies, frauds, and myths than it was; and for good—exposure, if not easy, is at least possible. The turnover of liars has increased hugely; people such as the Dimblebys could have an entire lifetime spreading Jewish lies, but I doubt if this could be possible, now.
Some attitudes have changed: I doubt whether most people would accept Perkins' description of Cyrus Eaton as a 'philanthropist', any more than Soros is a 'philanthropist'. Many people now understand that Jews are full of hate; perhaps Perkins, based in Illinois then, will be caught in riots, or fake riots.
Perkins was unaware of any of this in 2000. His book almost represents the last gasp of a fading system. Perkins and Russell knew nothing of:
- Nuclear issues. It's now clear that nuclear weapons and power were frauds.
- Jewish issues. The Talmud can at least be mentioned now, and there are some few expert critics. The whole of Jews and history is being expanded in all senses. Their interactions with Christianity and Islam are better known.
- Banking, and the Federal Reserve owned privately by Jews, is by now almost a public subject. Russell seems to have had no idea about this, despite knowing John Maynard Keynes.
- Wars and Profits. Like almost everyone not in the know, Russell had no idea that some people wanted war because they profited from it, not just in the simple sense, but in taking over assets, forcing previous owners to hand them over, and taking over currencies. And Jews hated 'goyim'. Russell was wedded to a traditional view, deploring deaths of young people.
- Propaganda control by ownership of all forms of media was not really felt. Russell shows indignation at newspaper lies, when he finds them, but shows no awareness of the depths of deceit. His exchange of letters with the New York Times (in War Crimes in Vietnam; I haven't compared them with Perkins' book) shows that Russell never realised that Jews consistently lie. Systematic, long-term lies, were not known to him. He was for example indignant at the almost incredible foolishness of 'statesmen' setting the stage for the Second World War. But he had no idea it was deliberate.
- Russell knows nothing of science frauds: the Hiroshima supposed atom bomb, the Jewish basis of Freud, the moon landings, medical and drug frauds, are unknown to him.
- The parts played by Jews in the World Wars and the takeover of Russia were not understood by Russia, and even more so, if possible, Jews in Japan and China were even less known.
Perkins' failed to anticipate anything like this. He simply reiterates mistakes.
Perkins' logical book on Limbaugh is a perfect example. Perkins assumes that logic is the way to identify mistakes. This of course is part of the 'secular' outlook of Jews, who say they are anti-Christian while keeping completely silent about Jews. (South Place Ethical Society in London is another perfect example). In fact, truth needs accurate foundations. No system of pure logic can reveal that the Coronavirus 'pandemic' is a fraud based on errors.
Teaching thinking is a set of reviews on books of the 'logical thinking for you' type. I'd guess they are out of fashion now, replaced entirely by Jew rants.
Russell's letters reveal failure to grasp Jewish policies. His letters are very long, as befits someone regarded as very intelligent. The result is that he was often disregarded, or regarded as a farceur, as he said Mrs Webb viewed him. He often strains to clear up some point or another, often quoting from several sources to show how right he was. For example, in letter [126] Britain's Bomb - Can We Defend Ourselves? Russell wrote '... I am amazed to find that the British Government is so completely ignorant of things known to all well-informed persons'. His information was supplied by Jews such as Herman Kahn.
There was probably not much option, but in a world with millions of people all acting is assorted ways, Russell showed something like tunnel vision. Where other people could see the Church of England had lots of money and could pay vicars for life, Russell could only see their creed was largely nonsense. Another problem is that most of his letters are in reaction to some events which he has only picked up from the media. I don't think there is any subject he originated: was China being quietly corrupted by Jews into 'Communism' for example? He must have disliked some of the Monarchy's actions; did he say anything? As regards India, he mentions Gandhi, freedom, and independence, standardised clichés. There's no indication here about the history of India, the various East India Companies, or the wartime Bengal famine. He seems not to have investigated Jews and opium wars. On France, he, or perhaps Perkins, is disappointing: he accepted the 'French Revolution' myths, had no sensible comment on 'Franco-Russian' alliances, and never sorted out the Jewish undercurrents in north Africa and Dien Bien Phu and the rest of it.
Generally, Russell was reactive, not proactive. He got onto bandwagons: suffragettes, for example, Freud, belief in the love of war—he gave a striking description of the start of the Great War, but did not appreciate the facts of hired actors. I think (but may be wrong) that the Vietnam invasion may have been to conceal war in China, but Russell would not have looked into that possibility. His attitude to the announcement of the supposed atom bombing of Hiroshima was another example. As an obvious extension of this principle, Russell nearly always followed the Jewish vocabulary: the "Russian Revolution", mention of Baruch but only as proposals on the supposed nuclear issues, [230] the JFK unexamined 'assassination', McCarthyism as a bad thing, supposed nuclear spy cases.
Probably, British people born in Victorian times believed what they were told, that they ruled the waves. The output from Oxbridge believed they had achieved a summit of learning. I think Russell believed the maths he'd studied was a peak; his subsequent work embroidered it. Just as Bachelors of Divinity thought they understood religion, and Oxbridge philosophers believed they'd read every important book.
I think his character gave little space for appreciation of others, whose lives he did not penetrate. He often refers to a person in the news by a simple label: a Nazi, a pacifist, a Buddhist, a militarist, a communist, a socialist. This seems to have debarred him from identifying Jewish secret liars; an obvious example is Jews calling themselves 'communists'.
With complicated events, he was doomed not to be successful: in the 'Cuba Crisis', Russell didn't know that Castro was a Marrano Jew, with presumably no desire that Cubans should be rich; or that the US had a base in Cuba; or that the ships had no nuclear missiles—they had literally no nukes; or that the USA and USSR were both run by Jews.
An older example is Russell's essay The Ancestry of Fascism (1935?) which fails to grasp anything of Jews in Europe, money in the world, Jews as existing as a distributed nation, events in Italy ('fascism' being an Italian word), or secret co-operation between Jews and Freemasons.
But as far as I can tell Russell genuinely responded to the American genocide in Vietnam. It's no wonder he was surrounded by a guard of Jews. Even at his very advanced age, they must have worried.
Perkins of course has no interest in establishing truth; he's just another fake academic, much like a vicar in the Church of England, glad to be paid but uncreative, taking no moral position, and able only to do ordinary things. Whether he's a crypto-Jew, or just another shield for Jews to hide behind, I don't know. At the bottom of this page I include an email exchange, including Louis Greenspan and Charles Pigden, on the subject of Russell's reticence on Jews. (Perkins is not included, though this was in the late 1990s.)
Russell attracted an absorbent coating of Jews, who presumably controlled his information. Consider for example whether Isaac Deutscher, Jew supported of Stalin, would help Russell with the finer points of Jewish attitudes. Jewish penetration and saturation was and is so large that nothing can be assumed safely untouched. For example, here's an online post ten years after Perkins, wonderering if world population figures can be correct.
Russell's letters are the real interest, though of course they are disappointing to modern people in view of his subservience to, or collaboration with, Jews. They are much better than those in Dear Bertrand Russell. Some day I may examine them in more detail; they offer many lessons on the First and Second World Wars, the harm done to Europe, the Jewish damage to America and the USSR, but not China. Meanwhile, here are some notes.
Letter [14] is a long reply to someone called Sorley, in 1915, who made much of atrocity stories in the ‘Bryce Report’ which was later apologies for, by Lloyd George, but of course not punished. An interesting letter which indirectly shows that Russell had not the slightest idea of the possibilities of gain, asset stealing, currency control, large-scale deaths. One has to concede that Jews think of little else, which can put them ahead.
[32] is Russell's smuggled letter to President Wilson, requesting US war to help Europe. He begins by praising Lincoln—Russell believed the free-the-slaves idea. Russell thought the British had fought long and hard for their freedoms; the facts about the 'Glorious Revolution' were outside his limits. He knew that Germany had not been invaded, and seemed strong, but never considered the possibility that the whole show was arranged. Much later, he compared Vietnamese resistance to that of his fellow countrymen who 'resisted Hitler's bombing'..
[50] 'The British Labour Party and Hitler' says it's all very well for Americans, a long way off and neutral, but that Party 'is anxious not to be hurried by indignation into support of war...' Russell has no understanding of the international Jewish underpinnings here; at the time, 1935, I think Hitler was being sold as 'socialist'.
[54] is a long letter on 'the Pacifist case'. Near its end, Russell says 'We are all descended from brigands', instancing William the Conqueror and Hengist and Horsa. (In Power, he said that if you go back far enough, everywhere was conquered at some point by a victor who held off everyone else. Characteristically, she supporting men, women, materials etc are subsumed under one man.) Russell's panorama of the past only goes back to about the 5th century, a tribute, I suppose, to weak archaeology and scholarship. He assumes the Normans were in essence one man, despite the evidence of detailed planning.
[68] Relief of the Russian famine may refer to Ukraine.
Letter [71] reveals that medicine has achieved some goals: he wrote several letters on contraception for women, which may be needed if she was 'medically unfit to produce another child.' One of his books instanced a vicar with a lot of children whose wife died in or after childbirth, as medically predicted. Incidentally, Russell took a swipe at someone who misread him on this point; Russell took a long, slow, sarcastic, swipe at him, which if of course understandable, but not very helpful.
[81] to [87] are collected together, on education, to ... the Rationalist Review, The Nation, Time and Tide, and The New Statesman and Nation. Perkins makes no comment on who funded these various things; no prizes for guessing. Topics include psycho-analysis (Russell says that Freud hid under cover of the duty of medical confidentiality), women and science, free speech, and so on. Of course there's nothing on Judaism and Jews! They may have learned something.
I was pleased to find that letter [93] confirmed that his grandfather, Russell the Prime Minister, helped repeal the Test and Corporation Acts which reduced the monopoly of the Church of England. See Bertrand Russell a dupe of Jews.
Letters [149] on Edward Teller, and [232] on Herman Kahn, suggest Jewish policy at the time was to fake or threaten nuclear war—there would be nuclear war, followed by world government, presumably of course Jewish. (The COVID fraud seems another try).
Letter [162] deals with Suez, Egypt, Britain, France, Israel.
Letter [252] says 7.8M Vietnamese were put into 'strategic hamlets'. [I don't find it convincing; how could nearly 8M people be put in barbed wire enclosures surrounded by moats etc?] It is rather astonishing that that war is so invariably not reported. Ten years after this book, we see questions about the airplanes shot down in Vietnam, supposedly with primitive weapons; was LBJ trying to waste money, indirectly supporting the Federal Reserve?
Probably the main aim was to instal a Jewish central bank. I think Jews planned to use barbaric Americans as a horror technique, maybe to help keep China down after Jewish conquest, but this is a guess.
[259] and [342]. Russell on the Thirty Years War. [251-2]' ... The fanaticism which made the Thirty Years' War possible and the mentality which allowed the War [sic] of the Roses to carry on for a half-century are present with us in the conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. ...' and [342] '... Devil theory, fanaticism, such as was practiced in the Thirty Years' War and evident in the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, Christians and Moslems, [sic] will eliminate life from the planet. The Russians are not devils. Their record is comparable to that of any other nation State, ...' Russell had no idea of the possibility of Jewish intervention.
The Thirty Years' War is supposed to have killed many in Europe; something like the number killed by the Black Death.
[267] 1966: 'The recent outcry [viz. in the Jewish media] in the United States is revealing. These pilots have chosen consciously to bomb civilian areas and, in doing so, have killed agonizingly thousands of people. Not only do they know their targets, but they are fully aware of the weapons they employ. These are weapons of sheer evil, including canisters containing ten thousand slivers of razor-sharp steel (the lazy dog), and napalm, which turns the victim into a bubbling mass. The vast bombardment of a small people, unable adequately to defend themselves against 650 sorties a week involving 1500 tons a day, is the supreme atrocity. [... and so on... Followed by list of some people in the War Crimes Tribunal, including many Jews—though not Kissinger!]
Against the Crime of Silence is available on archive.org, but in a restricted form
Looking at Russell on Americans who hate the word 'Empire' and regard England as an enemy. Part of the skill of Jews is the use of atrocity divide-and-rule. For example, US troops were told to commit atrocities against the Vietnamese, which they did with pleasure. Vietnamese to this day have hatred for whites—I doubt they know about the Jew connection. Maybe this will be used in USA against whites some time; the option is there. Similarly, Germans and British often have hatred for each other—a deliberate effect of the world wars, distracting away from the possibility that Jews will be suspected of controlling both sides.
Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell is in its way a fascinating book; like most people at the time, Russell is entangled in mythologies of the past and of the then-present. Present-day Americans, Russians, French, Chinese and others can see, with necessary imagination, how Russell was sucked in and moulded by the fantastic propaganda and money power of Jews and collaborator. Let's hope people will discover how to understand the genetic bases of these groups, decode their methods by logic and studying the past, and carry out a worldwide fight back against them.
Finally, some E-mails looking at Russell's Practice and Theory of Bolshevism. Late 1998. These are from russell-l, a group closed in May 2000. All emails (except for the first) unedited and unaltered, except for formatting and cutting of header info. I've colour-coded them in the hope of improving clarity.—RW
| Delivery-date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 02:48:39 +0100 From: Kenneth Blackwell [blackwk@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca] On Sun, 30 Aug 1998, Raeto West wrote:
KENNETH BLACKWELL |
| X-From: russell-l@informer1.CIS.McMaster.CA Mon Aug 31 07:54:38 1998 From: "Charles.Pigden" [charles.pigden@stonebow.otago.ac.nz] Re Leonard Woolf, It is clear that Leonard Woolf had to swallow a good deal of low-level casual anti-semitism from his Bloomsbury friends and even his wife. He claimed otherwise and obviously tried not to notice (after all, they WERE his friends and were too decent to be anti-semitic in any deep or serious sense). But he seems to have harboured some subconscious resentments. When Russell was revealed as making similar comments in his letters to those that Virginia had made his diaries this resentment boiled over in what was probably one of his last reviews. Re Russell. I think we have already remarked on the low-level, casual anti-semitism in Russell's early correspondence. About 1930 he seems to have decided that anti-semitism and other forms of racial and ethnic prejudice constituted a serious problem. Thereafter he was a campaigner against racial and ethnic prejudice, both in his writings and in his personal conduct. There is some good stuff about how to combat prejudice in oneself and others in 'The Importance of Keeping a Wide Horizon' (CPBR 10), NEW HOPES FOR A CHANGING WORLD and elsewhere and I believe Russell refused to join anti-semitic country clubs when invited to do so. (I'm not sure whether he cleaned up his act with respect to his private correspondence—perhaps Ray or Nick Griffin could tell us.). But the interesting question is what brought about the change. It was, of course, a change of emphasis not a change of fundamental doctrine. Russell had admired jews (Spinoza, Einstein) befriended jews (Horace Kallen, various students) and defended jews (Sheffer of Sheffer's stroke fame) before, and he was always proud of Lord John's record on jewish civil rights. But the change of emphasis was quite considerable. So what made him take the matter seriously? The rise of Nazism? A growing awareness of the importance of prejudice in American society? What?
Re BR's attitude to Bolshevism. Rae West writes:
Regards Charles Pigden |
| Delivery-date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 10:20:58 +0100 From: Louis Greenspan [greenspn@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca]
Dear Charles, |
| Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 09:57:38 -0400(EDT) From: "Charles.Pigden"
Dear Louis, '1. 'If you are at a party and someone begins to disparage the Jews, or any other race, do not let them get away with it. Remember that it is from such small beginnings that terrible persecutions grow. 2. If you share such a prejudice struggle against it. [There then follows some advice on how to conduct this struggle, together with the comment that Hitler has won a victory in making us 'race conscious'.] if you have such a prejudice that you are unable to conquer, at leastkeep it to yourself. Remember that other people less responsible than yourself may think dislike a reason for persecution.' I suspect that when Russell realized what dislike could lead to—including the mild social dislike manifest in his own asides, conversation and private correspondence—he was forced to reexamine his own attitudes. But it would be nice to have some more explicit documentary evidence. B. Do you think I am right about Leonard Woolf? He SAID that anti-semitism 'had not touched him personally and only very peripherally' (Letters p. 566) but I just don't believe it. There was plenty of low-level casual anti-semitism of the kind that characterized Russell's conversation and correspondence in the conversation, correspondence and diaries of the leading Bloomsberries. Of course, it was not SERIOUS in a certain sense. After all, LW himself was elected to the Apostles and Virginia married him. Nor was he the only Jew to be on intimate terms with the leading Bloomsberries. (Keynes chief disciple, Richard, Lord Kahn was jewish.) But I can't help thinking that the constant drip-drip of the low-level stuff must have hurt. (See the Letters p. 470 for details.) He could not take it out on on his wife or his friends so he took it out on Russell, accusing him of an 'aristocratic' anti-semitism, when the truth was that it was an anti-semitism shared by the upper middle-classes, including many of his closest associates. (Lest anyone misunderstand I should add that LW is one of my minor heroes. His autobiography is excellent.]
C. I look forward to your mooted article. |
| From: Self To: russell-l@informer1.cis.mcmaster.ca Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 21:41:42
Regards Rae |
| Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 02:04:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Nicholas Griffin [ngriffin@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca]
Charles Pigden asks about the occurrence of low-level anti-semitic remarks in Russell's later letters: From the 1930's on such references disappear (so far as I can remember, completely). It's also true that Russell and Peter refused to join an American club which would not admit Jews. I'm sure the rise of Nazism was the cause. |
| Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 07:43:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Kenneth Blackwell On Tue, 1 Sep 1998, Nicholas Griffin wrote:
Russell tells the club story in "Some Impressions of America" (RA1 220.018540), a typed essay of 1944-45 for which I have found no appearance in print: "Almost all English people, when they go to America, are amazed by the strength of anti-semitism. I could hardly believe it when I first discovered that there are hotels and summer camps which will not admit Jews. At one time I wanted to join a swimming club for the benefit of my children. I found one which seemed admirable, but when the management explained that no Jews were admitted, my principles forbade me to join. I failed to find one in my neighbourhood that would admit them." Patricia Russell protested in a letter to the editor of an old New York liberal daily in "`Juden Verboten'", PM, 8 Dec. 1942, p. 21. Guilt by association is a nasty device, but it is true that 20 days later BR was fired from the Barnes Foundation. There is a fair amount on the evils of anti-semitism in Vol. 22 of the Collected Papers. KENNETH BLACKWELL |
| Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 09:26:36 -0400 (EDT) From: "Richard A. Rempel" [rempelr@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca]
Dear Nick, |
| Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 11:50:07 -0400 (EDT) From: "Richard A. Rempel"
Dear Nick, |
| Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 12:14:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Kenneth Blackwell
On Mon, 31 Aug 1998, Raeto West wrote:
If BR put the emphasis on "Americanized", there will probably be parallels drawn in some of his public writings between Soviet Russia and the USA. KENNETH BLACKWELL |
| Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 02:47:55 -0400 (EDT) From: "Charles.Pigden" Two more remarks on Russell's 'Americanized Jews' comment and then, perhaps, we should have done. Rae West seems to think there is a puzzle about Russell's dropping the comment about Americanized Jews from his published account of the Bolsheviks. There is none. Although Russell was outspoken he did not feel the need to express every private opinion—let alone every raw reaction—in public. For example, in 1922 he held the Nietzschian view that all moral judgements are false. He reserved this opinion for his brethren in the Apostles. Since he had alredy been imprisoned for opposing the British Empire there was no need to bring more trouble down on his head by attacking the eternal moral verities. THE PRACTICE AND THEORY OF BOLSHEVISM was an attempt to convert the Left to a more critical view of the Bolshevik Revolution. It would have been an act of folly—not to mention downright rude—to needlessly offend potential Jewish readers. Another consideration may have influenced Russell. There WAS someone on the left who agreed with him and she was, quite literally, an Americanized Jew , namely Emma Goldman. (She was born in the Russian Empire and emigrated to the US as a teenager, but was deported back to Russia during the war.) Since her life was probably in danger during 1920, he would not have wanted to add anti-semitic insults to the injuries she was all too likely to sustain.. (Though he did not go as far as she would have liked, her autobiography makes it clear that he was the one member of the Labour delegation for whom she felt any respect.) As to the comment itself, did Russell have anyone specifically in mind? Ken obviously thinks it was Trotsky, but a much more likely candidate is Zinoviev. As head of Comintern and satrap of Petrograd, Russell is likely to have had more to do with Zinoviev than Trotsky who he only met once. Zinoviev was a flashy orator, but lacking in 'bottom' (indeed Trotsky thought him a coward). In his personal manners he resembled certain anti-semitic stereotypes that Russell would have been aware of. He was arrogant and bullying towards his subordinates and was prone to swanning around Petrograd surrounded by an entourage of bodyguards and prostitutes. (See Figges) Just the other day I was reading Hornung's RAFFLES: AMATEUR CRACKSMAN, which features a vulgar, bullying, arrogant south African millionaire named Reuben Rosenthal, who swans around London in the company of a retired pugilist and several ladies of easy virtue. Hornung is nothing if not an exploiter of the cultural stereotypes of the ruling classes. Under the circumstances Zinoviev was just the sort of person to arouse BR's visceral anti-semitism (visceral, because even then he was probably a bit ashamed of it.) The only snag is I don't think Zinoviev spent much time in America. All this, as Dick Rempel puts it, is explanation rather than excuse. Never let it be said that the subscibers to this list are a collection of hagiographers who avert their eyes from the darker side of Russell! Charles |
| Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 11:52:43 -0400 (EDT) From: "Raeto West" [prsjlv1n@hen.scotland.net] To: Multiple recipients of list [russell-l@informer1.CIS.McMaster.CA]
Both Ken Blackwell and Charles Pigden seem unable to understand the simple point I'm making. BR, who visited Russia, found a 'close tyrannical bureacracy' of 'Americanized Jews', an 'insolent aristocracy'. That's his opinion of what he found. Pigden seems to think BR was referring to perhaps a couple of men. Ken Blackwell seems to think a few more. But what BR wrote is perfectly clear (except for the possible doubt over the meaning of 'Americanized'). Why should he not mention this in his book? The only replies from russell-l seem to be that it would offend Jewish readers and be 'an act of folly', that it was a first reaction & not considered, and that it would be 'counter-productive'. But BR had little hesitation in offending other types of readers. Moreover there are possible philosophical/history of ideas implications, which BR often liked (cf. e.g. his comments on ex-Catholics and ex-Protestants). So why (part from possible rather concealed remarks e.g. on Solomon's riches) didn't he mention this? |
| Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 21:57:09 -0400 (EDT) From: "Charles.Pigden" OK Rae. Here is another reason for Russell NOT to say in public that Russia was run by an insolent aristocracy of Americanized Jews. IT WAS NOT TRUE. The Bolsheviks may have been an insolent aristocracy, but only a minority were Jewish. Though there was a disproportionate number of Jews in the higher echelons of the Party they never constituted the majority. Lenin's politbureau (if memory serves me correctly) consisted of Lenin himself, Stalin, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotsky. Only the last three were Jewish. And the proportion of Jews at lower levels in the Party hierarchy was LOWER than on the Politbureau and on Sovnarkom. In fact, the Party was not so much remarkable for its Jewishness as for the high proportion of leading members from the MANY ethnic and racial minorities, Jews, Latvians, Poles, Georgians etc. Only three members of Lenins's Polibureau were of authentic 'Great Russian' ancestry: Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. Stalin was a Georgian, and Lenin himself was a mixed bag with Kalmyck, Swedish, German and Jewish antecedents. (The Kalmyck predominates in his physionomy.) Why then did Russell tell Ottoline something that was not true? Because he was reporting his raw reactions rather than trying to give a sober acount of the facts. Let me suggest an analogy. Suppose I boldly go where no philosopher has gone before and give a seminar to the Englsih Department at my university. Afterwards I send a splenetic email to a friend: 'The whole place was crawling with post-modernists whose half-witted drivel made me want to vomit.' Subsequently I am invited to chair the academic audit panel for he English Department and end up writing the report. There is no mention of half-wittedness or vomiting and I either say nothing about post-modernism or blandly report that it is an influential view. (It turns out that the post-modernists were in a minority anyway. My prejudices agaisnt postmodernism and the fact that some of the local postmodernists have a propensity for self-advertisement made them stand out in my recollection of the seminar.) Instead of rantings about postmodernists my audit report is full of dull stuff about teaching evaluations, publications, assessment policies and so forth. Now, suppose too that I become (let us say undeservedly) famous and that my email correspondence is published. A latter-day Rae West notices the discrepancy between my email and my report. He starts a controversy on the Pigden-l list. Various people try to explain to him that a private email is one thing and a public document another, and that there is a difference between voicing one's raw reactions and giving a considered judgement. But the latter-day Rae is not satisfied. 'Pigden, who visited the English Department, found it to be 'crawling with post-modernists whose half-witted drivel made him want to vomit'.. That's his opinion of what he found. Why should he not mention this in his report? The only replies from Pigden-l seem to be that it would offend post-modernist readers and be 'an act of folly', that it was a first reaction & not considered, and that it would be 'counter-productive'. But Pigden had little hesitation in offending other types of readers (or indeed post-modernists on other occasions). Moreover there are possible philosophical/history of ideas implications, which Pigden often liked (cf. e.g. his comments on the Catholicsm of G.EM. Anscombe). So why (apart from rather concealed remarks e.g. on the 'influential voice of post-modernism') didn't he mention this?' Not to put to fine a point on it, wouldn't such a reaction from a latter-day Rae be GROTESQUELY SILLY? And aren't the similar remarks from the present-day Rae equally so? In fact, there IS a serious issue here which brings me to yet another reason for Russell to keep his comments about Americanized Jews to himself. Though they were always in a minority, there is no denying that there were a number of prominent Jews amongst the Bolshevik leadership. Their propensity for self-advertisement (I'm thinking of Trotsky and Zinoviev here) together with the anti-semitic prejudices of the age made them all the more noticeable. The result was that many of the Whites came to see Bolshevism (which was certainly an insolent, and indeed, a cruel aristocracy) as a Jewish conspiracy. Thus they took out their anger towards the Bolsheviks on the hapless and largely innocent Jews in the areas they controlled. (Only a minority of Bolshevks were Jews and only a minority of Jews were Bolsheviks.) There was a series of savage pogroms. The irony in this was that the leading Jewish BolshEvIks rejected their Jewish heritage and preferred to see themselves as revolutionaries, workers or cosmopolitan intellectuals rather than Jews The point was well put by a rabbi alluding to Trotsky's original and Jewish-sounding name of Bronstein. 'The Bronsteins are paying for the crimes of the Trotskys'. If Russell was aware of these facts (and I suspect he probably was) he had an excellent reason not to stress the Jewish element in the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, particularly when criticizing the Bolsheviks' tyrannical propensities. He would be stoking the flames of an anti-semitism which was already consuming numerous innocent lives. If Rae West does not consider himself answered by this I don't know what will satisfy him. Charles Pigden PS. My sources for all this information are the books we have already discussed on the list in connection with BR and the Bolsheviks: Pipes' THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION and RUSSIA UNDER THE BOLSHEVIK REGIME and Figes' A PEOPLE'S TRAGEDY: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 1891-1924, also Dmitry Volkogonov's biographies of Lenin and Trotsky. I haven't checked with the texts to verify my assertions but I have a pretty good memory for this sort of thing. Anyone interested should consult the indices of these books under such headings as anti-semitism, jews, pogroms etc. |
| Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 02:03:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Nicholas Griffin Dear Dick,
Ken's remark about the timing of Russell's dismissal from the Barnes Foundation and Peter's letter about anti-semitism is very interesting. Was Barnes known to be anti-semitic? Is anything known about the Foundation's attitude to Jews?
On Tue, 1 Sep 1998, Richard A. Rempel wrote:
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| Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 15:36:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Kenneth Blackwell ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 08:46:13 -0400 (EDT) Rae West writes:
In a letter to Ottoline BR writes that the Bolsheviks were an insolent aristocracy of Americanized Jews. THE PRACTICE AND THEORY OF BOLSHEVISM contains no such remarks. Rae West thinks this 'suppression' needs an explanation. Perhaps it does, but explanations of this 'suppresion' [sic; & others sic] are not hard to come by. There are plenty of good reasons why Russell might have chosen to 'suppress' this remark. 1. The remark was not true and Russell may have come to realise this. Though Jews were both numerous and prominent in the upper echelons of the Bolshevik Party they did not constitute a majority. For example, only three out of seven members of Lenin's Politbureau were Jewish. And the proportion of jews at the very top was higher than the proportion of Jews at the second and third levels. At the beginning of 1917 only 959 out of 23,600 Bolshevik Party members were Jews. (Se Pipes RR, p. 511 and RUBR, p. 113.) This is an important point becasue the 23,600 veterans consituted the core of the vastly expanded Party in 1919 and occupied all the senior positions. Less that 5% were Jews. But if Russell's remark was not true why did he make it? Because he was reporting his raw reactions which were fuelled by anti-semitic prejudice. This led him to inflate prominence into prevalence, a not uncommon failing. (Two Asian families buy houses in the street and suddenly its little India.) It probably did not help that some of the prominent Jews (eg Zinoviev) conformed to BR's anti-semitic stereotypes. When writing up his experieinces for publication, BR may well have decided that his initial reactions were somewhat exaggerated and that an insolent aristocracy CONTAINING many Jews is not the same thing as an insolent aristocracy COMPOSED of Jews. 2. Even if BR continued to believe that the Bolshevik leadership was largely Jewish, he had plenty of reasons to play this down in his published writings. His mission was partly to alert the Left to the evils of the Bolshevik Regime. To do this he had to adopt a tone of studied moderation. In particular he had to avoid anything that might sound like White propaganda since this would destroy his credibility with his intended audience. But it was the common cry of the Whites that the Bolsheviks WERE an insolent aristocracy of upstart (I don't know about 'Americanized') Jews, and that Bolshevism itself was a Jewish conspiracy. (Wild claims were made eg that of the 36 commissars resident in Moscow, all but Lenin were Jews. These claims were simply false.) If Russell wanted to persuade—especially if he wanted to persuade those on the Left—the last thing he needed was to come on like a rabid apologist for Kolchak or Denikin (Even if, on this point, he secretly agreed with them.) 3. He may not have wanted to needlessly offend Jewish readers with what would have sounded like anti-semitic cracks. 4. Remarks about 'Americanized Jews' may have seemed out of place given that one of his few anti-Bolshevik allies on the political Left was herself an Americanized Jew, namely Emma Goldman. 5. The belief that the Bolsheviks WERE an aristocracy of upstart Jews and Bolshevism a Jewish conspiracy was being used at the time to justify a series of horrific pogroms on the part of the Whites. (Figes estimates up to 150,000 dead. ) Russell's mild anti-semitic prejudices were as nothing to the virulence of White feeling. Like Russell, the Whites were inclined to conclude that because Jews were prominent in the Bolshevik Party, they must be prevalent. Unlike Russell they seemed to think that because most Bolsheviks were Jews, most Jews were Bolsheviks (or at least Bolshevik sympathisers) and should therefore be treated accordingly. If Russell knew about this—and I presume he did, though not perhaps the extent of the carnage—then he may have been reluctant to say anything that could be construed as excusing such crimes. 6. Russell's subsiduary [sic] purpose in writing THE PRACTICE AND THEORY OF BOLSHEVISM was to end Allied aid to the Whites. (He thought the Bolshevik excesses were partly due to the Civil War and that if the Civil War ended so would some of the excesses. Moreover, he thought the Civil War had to be ended to save Russia from economic catastrophe.) Parroting White propaganda by talking of an aristocracy of Americanized Jews would not have served this purpose. 7. Rae West seems to think that because Russell was outspoken, that he spoke his mind on every subject. (Or almost every subject) This is just a mistake. As I explained in a previous missive, Russell kept some of his opinions to himself or to a narrow circle of friends. In 1922 he was briefly a convert to what is now known as the error theory.. Nobody besides his Apostolic brethren knew about this till Alan Ryan published the paper in 1987. Everyone familiar wth the CPBR will be aware that Russell's book reviews, which usually end with some words praise no matter how faint, are often at odds with his virulent marginalia. Russell could be circumspect on occasion and was sometimes willing to moderate or even 'suppress' his opinions. His private thoughts were not always for public consumption. [Note: Russell in his Autobiography wrote: 'To say anything against Bolshevism was, of course, to play into the hands of reaction, and most of my friends took the view that one ought not to say what one thought about Russia unless what one thought was favourable. I had, however, been impervious to similar arguments from patriots during the War, and it seemed to me that in the long run no good purpose would be served by holding one's tongue. ...'—RW] Thus there is no problem explaining why Russell 'suppressed' his comments about 'Americanized Jews' especially as these comments probably did not express his considered opinion. Regards |
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 19:27:20 -0400 (EDT) I'm delighted that Charles Pigden will say no more on this topic—let's hope he means what he says. Since (e.g.) he used the expression 'Vietcong' I've resigned myself to the perhaps obvious fact that he has nothing to contribute. |