Bertrand Russell Quotes
The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.
Russell, Bertrand. In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays. George Allen & Unwin, 1935, p. 107.
The “Blue Shirts” were so called because of the color of the shirts that the young fascist thugs of the Nationalists wore in China—a color later adopted by the communists for dress. European Fascists tended to have young thug “enforcement” type battalions which were named for the color of their shirts: “Brown Shirts” in Germany, “Black Shirts” of the Fascist movement in England. Ironically, the Red Scare after WWII, convinced American leaders to support Chiang (who called himself and his party the “nationalists”) who was a deep admirer of fascism himself. Chiang’s version of Fascism which combined European type Fascism with traditional Asian warlordism and corruption alienated the majority of the Chinese peasants. America was forced to choose between Chiang led corrupt Nationalist fascists, and Mao led communists. We chose Chiang, but Mau and the Communists won. Chiang’s forces then seized Taiwan and this was the only part of China that did not go communist. After Chiang’s death, the island mini-nation became less fascist and more democratic, and by the 1990’s became a full-fledged democracy.
This quotation is important because there are some who believed that the professional German Soldiers did not respect Hitler and his murderous policies. This quotation shows that at least publicly Donitz had no problem extolling Hitler above all others. After the war Donitz was found guilty of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare and using thousands of slave laborers in his shipyards. He was sentenced to 10 years, one of the lightest sentences if the German War Crimes Trials.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS was a British polymath, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. Bertrand Russell was one of the most influential and widely known intellectual figures of the twentieth century. In 1950 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his extensive contributions to world literature and for his “rationality and humanity, as a fearless champion of free speech and free thought in the West.“
