Abstract

In the later years of his life, Bertrand Russell’s civil and political commitment was conditioned by ideals such as anti-imperialism, world federalism and civil disobedience. He criticized the imperialism of France and the United Kingdom (during the Suez Crisis), of the Soviet Union (on the occasion of the Hungarian Revolution), and of the United States (during the years of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam War). Indeed, the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Revolution convinced him of the need of a “World Federationµ to overcome the absolute sovereignty of nation-states, the main cause of international anarchy. In this way Russell applied Hobbesian contractualism in the Kantian sense and implicitly espoused the theory of The Federalist (1788) developed by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. It was not by chance that he hoped for an institutional reform of the United Nations, since the Security Council could not become a world government in nuce due to the power of veto of its member states. Equally relevant was his support for the Gandian-inspired civil disobedience adopted by the “Campaign for Nuclear Disarmamentµ and the “Committee of 100µ. This practice appeared to him more effective than constitutional methods, a matter of tactics and strategy more than a matter of principle