A top-view of the GroES/GroEL bacterial chaperone complex model
In molecular biology, molecular chaperones are proteins
that assist the conformational folding or unfolding of large proteins
or macromolecular protein complexes. There are a number of classes of
molecular chaperones, all of which function to assist large proteins in
proper protein folding during or after synthesis, and after partial denaturation. Chaperones are also involved in the translocation of proteins for proteolysis.
The first molecular chaperones discovered were a type of assembly chaperones which assist in the assembly of nucleosomes from folded histones and DNA. One major function of molecular chaperones is to prevent the
aggregation of misfolded proteins, thus many chaperone proteins are
classified as heat shock proteins, as the tendency for protein aggregation is increased by heat stress.
The majority of molecular chaperones do not convey any steric
information for protein folding, and instead assist in protein folding
by binding to and stabilizing folding intermediates until the
polypeptide chain is fully translated.
The specific mode of function of chaperones differs based on their
target proteins and location. Various approaches have been applied to
study the structure, dynamics
and functioning of chaperones. Bulk biochemical measurements have
informed us on the protein folding efficiency, and prevention of
aggregation when chaperones are present during protein folding. Recent
advances in single-molecule analysis have brought insights into structural heterogeneity of chaperones,
folding intermediates and affinity of chaperones for unstructured and
structured protein chains.
Functions of molecular chaperones
Many chaperones are heat shock proteins, that is, proteins expressed in response to elevated temperatures or other cellular stresses. Heat shock protein chaperones are classified based on their observed molecular weights into Hsp60, Hsp70, Hsp90, Hsp104, and small Hsps. The Hsp60 family of protein chaperones are termed chaperonins,
and are characterized by a stacked double-ring structure and are found
in prokaryotes, in the cytosol of eukaryotes, and in mitochondria.
Some chaperone systems work as foldases: they support the folding of proteins in an ATP-dependent manner (for example, the GroEL/GroES or the DnaK/DnaJ/GrpE
system). Although most newly synthesized proteins can fold in absence
of chaperones, a minority strictly requires them for the same. Other
chaperones work as holdases: they bind folding intermediates to prevent their aggregation, for example DnaJ or Hsp33. Chaperones can also work as disaggregases, which interact with aberrant protein assemblies and revert them to monomers. Some chaperones can assist in protein degradation, leading proteins to protease systems, such as the ubiquitin-proteasome system in eukaryotes. Chaperone proteins participate in the folding of over half of all mammalian proteins.
Macromolecular crowding may be important in chaperone function. The crowded environment of the cytosol can accelerate the folding process, since a compact folded protein will occupy less volume than an unfolded protein chain. However, crowding can reduce the yield of correctly folded protein by increasing protein aggregation. Crowding may also increase the effectiveness of the chaperone proteins such as GroEL, which could counteract this reduction in folding efficiency. Some highly specific 'steric chaperones' convey unique structural
information onto proteins, which cannot be folded spontaneously. Such
proteins violate Anfinsen's dogma, requiring protein dynamics to fold correctly.
New functions for chaperones continue to be discovered, such as bacterial adhesin activity, induction of aggregation towards non-amyloid aggregates, suppression of toxic protein oligomers via their clustering, and in responding to diseases linked to protein aggregation and cancer maintenance.
Human chaperone proteins
In human cell lines, chaperone proteins were found to make up ~10% of the gross proteome mass, and are ubiquitously and highly expressed across human tissues.
Chaperones are found extensively in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), since protein synthesis often occurs in this area.
Endoplasmic reticulum
In
the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) there are general, lectin- and
non-classical molecular chaperones that moderate protein folding.
There are many different families of chaperones; each family acts to aid protein folding in a different way. In bacteria like E. coli,
many of these proteins are highly expressed under conditions of high
stress, for example, when the bacterium is placed in high temperatures,
thus heat shock protein chaperones are the most extensive.
A variety of nomenclatures are in use for chaperones. As heat
shock proteins, the names are classically formed by "Hsp" followed by
the approximate molecular mass in kilodaltons;
such names are commonly used for eukaryotes such as yeast. The
bacterial names have more varied forms, and refer directly to their
apparent function at discovery. For example, "GroEL" originally stands
for "phage growth defect, overcome by mutation in phage gene E, large
subunit".
Hsp10/60 (GroEL/GroES complex in E. coli) is the best characterized large (~ 1 MDa) chaperone complex. GroEL (Hsp60) is a double-ring 14mer with a hydrophobic patch at its opening; it is so large it can accommodate native folding of 54-kDa GFP in its lumen. GroES
(Hsp10) is a single-ring heptamer that binds to GroEL in the presence
of ATP or ADP. GroEL/GroES may not be able to undo previous aggregation,
but it does compete in the pathway of misfolding and aggregation. Also acts in the mitochondrial matrix as a molecular chaperone.
Hsp70 (DnaK in E. coli) is perhaps the best characterized small (~ 70 kDa) chaperone. The Hsp70 proteins are aided by Hsp40 proteins (DnaJ in E. coli),
which increase the ATP consumption rate and activity of the Hsp70s. The
two proteins are named "Dna" in bacteria because they were initially
identified as being required for E. coli DNA replication.
It has been noted that increased expression of Hsp70 proteins in the cell results in a decreased tendency toward apoptosis.
Although a precise mechanistic understanding has yet to be determined,
it is known that Hsp70s have a high-affinity bound state to unfolded
proteins when bound to ADP, and a low-affinity state when bound to ATP.
It is thought that many Hsp70s crowd around an unfolded
substrate, stabilizing it and preventing aggregation until the unfolded
molecule folds properly, at which time the Hsp70s lose affinity for the
molecule and diffuse away. Hsp70 also acts as a mitochondrial and chloroplastic molecular chaperone in eukaryotes.
Hsp90 (HtpG in E. coli)
may be the least understood chaperone. Its molecular weight is about 90
kDa, and it is necessary for viability in eukaryotes (possibly for
prokaryotes as well). Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) is a molecular
chaperone essential for activating many signaling proteins in the
eukaryotic cell.
Each Hsp90 has an ATP-binding domain, a middle domain, and a dimerization
domain. Originally thought to clamp onto their substrate protein (also
known as a client protein) upon binding ATP, the recently published
structures by Vaughan et al. and Ali et al. indicate that client proteins may bind externally to both the N-terminal and middle domains of Hsp90.
Hsp100 (Clp family in E. coli) proteins have been studied in vivo and in vitro for their ability to target and unfold tagged and misfolded proteins.
Proteins in the Hsp100/Clp family form large hexameric
structures with unfoldase activity in the presence of ATP. These
proteins are thought to function as chaperones by processively threading
client proteins through a small 20 Å (2 nm) pore, thereby giving each client protein a second chance to fold.
Some of these Hsp100 chaperones, like ClpA and ClpX, associate with the double-ringed tetradecamericserine protease
ClpP; instead of catalyzing the refolding of client proteins, these
complexes are responsible for the targeted destruction of tagged and
misfolded proteins.
Hsp104, the Hsp100 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is essential for the propagation of many yeast prions. Deletion of the HSP104 gene results in cells that are unable to propagate certain prions.
Bacteriophage
The genes of bacteriophage (phage) T4 that encode proteins with a role in determining phage T4 structure were identified using conditional lethal mutants. Most of these proteins proved to be either major or minor structural
components of the completed phage particle. However among the gene
products (gps) necessary for phage assembly, Snustad identified a group of gps that act catalytically
rather than being incorporated themselves into the phage structure.
These gps were gp26, gp31, gp38, gp51, gp28, and gp4 [gene 4 is
synonymous with genes 50 and 65, and thus the gp can be designated
gp4(50)(65)]. The first four of these six gene products have since been
recognized as being chaperone proteins. Additionally, gp40, gp57A, gp63
and gpwac have also now been identified as chaperones.
Phage T4 morphogenesis is divided into three independent pathways: the head, the tail and the long tail fiber pathways as detailed by Yap and Rossman. With regard to head morphogenesis, chaperone gp31 interacts with the bacterial host chaperone GroEL to promote proper folding of the major head capsid protein gp23. Chaperone gp40 participates in the assembly of gp20, thus aiding in the
formation of the connector complex that initiates head procapsid
assembly.Gp4(50)(65), although not specifically listed as a chaperone, acts
catalytically as a nuclease that appears to be essential for
morphogenesis by cleaving packaged DNA to enable the joining of heads to
tails.
During overall tail assembly, chaperone proteins gp26 and gp51 are necessary for baseplate hub assembly. Gp57A is required for correct folding of gp12, a structural component of the baseplate short tail fibers.
Synthesis of the long tail fibers depends on the chaperone protein gp57A that is needed for the trimerization of gp34 and gp37, the major structural proteins of the tail fibers. The chaperone protein gp38 is also required for the proper folding of gp37. Chaperone proteins gp63 and gpwac are employed in attachment of the long tail fibers to the tail baseplate.
History
The investigation of chaperones has a long history. The term "molecular chaperone" appeared first in the literature in 1978, and was invented by Ron Laskey to describe the ability of a nuclear protein called nucleoplasmin to prevent the aggregation of folded histone proteins with DNA during the assembly of nucleosomes. The term was later extended by R. John Ellis in 1987 to describe proteins that mediated the post-translational assembly of protein complexes. In 1988, it was realised that similar proteins mediated this process in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The details of this process were determined in 1989, when the ATP-dependent protein folding was demonstrated in vitro.
Clinical significance
There are many disorders associated with mutations in genes encoding chaperones (i.e. multisystem proteinopathy) that can affect muscle, bone and/or the central nervous system.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born at Ravenscroft, a country house in Trellech, Monmouthshire, on 18 May 1872, into an influential and liberal family of the British aristocracy. His parents were Viscount and Viscountess Amberley. Lord Amberley consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding. Both were early advocates of birth control at a time when this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley, a deist, asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather. Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings later influenced Russell's life.
Russell had two siblings: brother Frank (seven years older), and sister Rachel (four years older). In June 1874, Russell's mother died of diphtheria, followed shortly by Rachel's death. In January 1876, his father died of bronchitis after a long period of depression. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the care of paternal grandparents, who lived at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. His grandfather, former Prime Minister Earl Russell, died in 1878, and was remembered by Russell as a kind old man in a wheelchair. His grandmother, the Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the central family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth.The Countess was from a Scottish Presbyterian family and petitioned the Court of Chancery
to set aside a provision in Amberley's will requiring the children to
be raised as agnostics. Despite her religious conservatism, she held
progressive views in other areas (accepting Darwinism and supporting Irish Home Rule), and her influence on Bertrand Russell's outlook on social justice and standing up for principle remained with him throughout his life.
Russell's adolescence was lonely and he contemplated suicide. He
remarked in his autobiography that his interests in "nature and books
and (later) mathematics saved me from complete despondency;" only his wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide. He was educated at home by a series of tutors. When Russell was eleven, his brother Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid, which he described in his autobiography as "one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love".
During these formative years, he also discovered the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Russell wrote: "I spent all my spare time reading him, and learning him
by heart, knowing no one to whom I could speak of what I thought or
felt, I used to reflect how wonderful it would have been to know
Shelley, and to wonder whether I should meet any live human being with
whom I should feel so much sympathy." Russell said that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about the validity of Christian religious dogma, which he found unconvincing. At this age, he came to the conclusion that there is no free will and, two years later, that there is no life after death. Finally, at the age of 18, after reading Mill's Autobiography, he abandoned the "First Cause" argument and became an atheist.
Russell began his published work in 1896 with German Social Democracy,
a study in politics that was an early indication of his interest in
political and social theory. In 1896 he taught German social democracy
at the London School of Economics. He was a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
At the age of 29, in February 1901, Russell underwent what he called a "sort of mystic illumination", after witnessing Whitehead's wife's suffering in an angina attack. "I found myself filled with semi-mystical feelings about beauty and with a desire almost as profound as that of the Buddha
to find some philosophy which should make human life endurable",
Russell would later recall. "At the end of those five minutes, I had
become a completely different person."
In 1910, he became a lecturer at the University of Cambridge,
Trinity College, where he had studied. He was considered for a
fellowship, which would give him a vote in the college government and
protect him from being fired for his opinions, but was passed over
because he was "anti-clerical", because he was agnostic. He was
approached by the Austrian engineering student Ludwig Wittgenstein,
who started undergraduate study with him. Russell viewed Wittgenstein
as a successor who would continue his work on logic. He spent hours
dealing with Wittgenstein's various phobias
and his bouts of despair. This was a drain on Russell's energy, but
Russell continued to be fascinated by him and encouraged his academic
development, including the publication of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1922. Russell delivered his lectures on logical atomism, his version of these ideas, in 1918, before the end of World War I.
First World War
Russell served on the National Committee of the No-Conscription Fellowship, shown here in May 1916 (back right).
During World War I, Russell was one of the few people to engage in active pacifist activities.
In 1916, due to his absence of allegiance to the war effort, he was
dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914. He later described this, in Free Thought and Official Propaganda, as an illegitimate means the state used to violate freedom of expression. Russell championed the case of Eric Chappelow, a poet jailed and abused as a conscientious objector. Russell played a part in the Leeds Convention in June 1917, a historic event which saw well over a thousand "anti-war socialists" gather; many being delegates from the Independent Labour Party and the Socialist Party, united in their pacifist beliefs and advocating a peace settlement. The international press reported that Russell appeared with a number of Labour Members of Parliament (MPs), including Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden, as well as former Liberal MP and anti-conscription campaigner, Professor Arnold Lupton. After the event, Russell told Lady Ottoline Morrell that, "to my surprise, when I got up to speak, I was given the greatest ovation that was possible to give anybody".
His conviction in 1916 resulted in Russell being fined £100
(equivalent to £7,100 in 2023), which he refused to pay in the hope that
he would be sent to prison, but his books were sold at auction to raise
the money. The books were bought by friends; he later treasured his
copy of the King James Bible that was stamped "Confiscated by Cambridge Police".
A later conviction for publicly lecturing against inviting the
United States to enter the war on the United Kingdom's side resulted in
six months' imprisonment in Brixton Prison (see Bertrand Russell's political views) in 1918 (he was prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act) He later said of his imprisonment:
I found prison in many ways quite
agreeable. I had no engagements, no difficult decisions to make, no fear
of callers, no interruptions to my work. I read enormously; I wrote a
book, "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy"... and began the work
for "The Analysis of Mind". I was rather interested in my
fellow-prisoners, who seemed to me in no way morally inferior to the
rest of the population, though they were on the whole slightly below the
usual level of intelligence as was shown by their having been caught.
While he was reading Strachey's Eminent Victorians chapter about Gordon he laughed out loud in his cell prompting the warder to intervene and reminding him that "prison was a place of punishment".
Russell was reinstated to Trinity in 1919, resigned in 1920, was
Tarner Lecturer in 1926 and became a Fellow again in 1944 until 1949.
In 1924, Russell again gained press attention when attending a "banquet" in the House of Commons with well-known campaigners, including Arnold Lupton, who had been an MP and had also endured imprisonment for "passive resistance to military or naval service".
G. H. Hardy on the Trinity controversy
In 1941, G. H. Hardy wrote a 61-page pamphlet titled Bertrand Russell and Trinity (published later as a book by Cambridge University Press with a foreword by C. D. Broad)
in which he gave an authoritative account of Russell's 1916 dismissal
from Trinity College, explaining that a reconciliation between the
college and Russell had later taken place and gave details about
Russell's personal life. Hardy writes that Russell's dismissal had
created a scandal since the vast majority of the Fellows of the College
opposed the decision. The ensuing pressure from the Fellows induced the
Council to reinstate Russell. In January 1920, it was announced that
Russell had accepted the reinstatement offer from Trinity and would
begin lecturing in October. In July 1920, Russell applied for a one-year
leave of absence; this was approved. He spent the year giving lectures
in China and Japan. In January 1921, it was announced by Trinity that
Russell had resigned and his resignation had been accepted. This
resignation, Hardy explains, was voluntary and was not the result of
another altercation.
The reason for the resignation, according to Hardy, was that
Russell was going through a tumultuous time in his personal life with a
divorce and subsequent remarriage. Russell contemplated asking Trinity
for another one-year leave of absence but decided against it since this
would have been an "unusual application" and the situation had the
potential to snowball into another controversy. Although Russell did the
right thing, in Hardy's opinion, the reputation of the College suffered
with Russell's resignation since the 'world of learning' knew about
Russell's altercation with Trinity but not that the rift had healed. In
1925, Russell was asked by the Council of Trinity College to give the Tarner Lectures on the Philosophy of the Sciences; these would later be the basis for one of Russell's best-received books according to Hardy: The Analysis of Matter, published in 1927. In the preface to the Trinity pamphlet, Hardy wrote:
I wish to make it plain that
Russell himself is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for the
writing of the pamphlet.... I wrote it without his knowledge and, when I
sent him the typescript and asked for his permission to print it, I
suggested that, unless it contained misstatement of fact, he should make
no comment on it. He agreed to this... no word has been changed as the
result of any suggestion from him.
Between the wars
In August 1920, Russell travelled to Soviet Russia as part of an official delegation sent by the British government to investigate the effects of the Russian Revolution. He wrote a four-part series of articles, titled "Soviet Russia—1920", for the magazine The Nation. He met Vladimir Lenin
and had an hour-long conversation with him. In his autobiography, he
mentions that he found Lenin disappointing, sensing an "impish cruelty"
in him and comparing him to "an opinionated professor". He cruised down
the Volga on a steamship. His experiences destroyed his previous tentative support for the revolution. He subsequently wrote a book, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, about his experiences on this trip, taken with a group of 24 others
from the UK, all of whom came home thinking well of the Soviet regime,
despite Russell's attempts to change their minds. For example, he told
them that he had heard shots fired in the middle of the night and was
sure that these were clandestine executions, but the others maintained
that it was only cars backfiring.
Russell's lover Dora Black, a British author, feminist
and socialist campaigner, visited Soviet Russia independently at the
same time; in contrast to his reaction, she was enthusiastic about the Bolshevik revolution.
The following year, Russell, accompanied by Dora, visited Peking (Beijing) to lecture on philosophy for a year. He went with optimism and hope, seeing China as then being on a new path. Other scholars present in China at the time included John Dewey and Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian Nobel-laureate poet. Before leaving China, Russell became gravely ill with pneumonia, and incorrect reports of his death were published in the Japanese press. When the couple visited Japan on their return journey, Dora took on the
role of spurning the local press by handing out notices reading "Mr.
Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is unable
to give interviews to Japanese journalists". Apparently they found this harsh and reacted resentfully. Russell supported his family during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of physics, ethics, and education to the layman.
Bertrand Russell in 1924
From 1922 to 1927 the Russells divided their time between London and Cornwall, spending summers in Porthcurno. In the 1922 and 1923 general elections Russell stood as a Labour Party candidate in the Chelsea constituency,
but only on the basis that he knew he was unlikely to be elected in
such a safe Conservative seat, and he was unsuccessful on both
occasions.
After the birth of his two children, he became interested in education, especially early childhood education. He was not satisfied with the old traditional education and thought that progressive education also had some flaws; as a result, together with Dora, Russell founded the experimental
Beacon Hill School in 1927. The school was run from a succession of
different locations, including its original premises at the Russells'
residence, Telegraph House, near Harting, West Sussex. During this time, he published On Education, Especially in Early Childhood.
On 8 July 1930, Dora gave birth to her third child Harriet Ruth. After
he left the school in 1932, Dora continued it until 1943.
In 1927 Russell met Barry Fox (later Barry Stevens), who became a known Gestalt therapist and writer in her later years. They developed an intense relationship, and in Fox's words: "...for three years we were very close." Fox sent her daughter Judith to Beacon Hill School. From 1927 to 1932 Russell wrote 34 letters to Fox. Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell.
Russell's marriage to Dora grew tenuous, and it reached a
breaking point over her having two children with an American journalist,
Griffin Barry. They separated in 1932 and finally divorced. On 18 January 1936, Russell married his third wife, an Oxford undergraduate named Patricia ("Peter") Spence, who had been his children's governess since 1930. Russell and Peter had one son, Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, 5th Earl Russell, who became a historian and one of the leading figures in the Liberal Democrat party.
Russell returned in 1937 to the London School of Economics to lecture on the science of power. During the 1930s, Russell became a friend and collaborator of V. K. Krishna Menon, then President of the India League, the foremost lobby in the United Kingdom for Indian independence. Russell chaired the India League from 1932 to 1939.
Second World War
Russell's political views changed over time, mostly about war. He opposed rearmament against Nazi Germany.
In 1937, he wrote in a personal letter: "If the Germans succeed in
sending an invading army to England we should do best to treat them as
visitors, give them quarters and invite the commander and chief to dine
with the prime minister." In 1940, he changed his appeasement
view that avoiding a full-scale world war was more important than
defeating Hitler. He concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of
Europe would be a permanent threat to democracy. In 1943, he adopted a
stance toward large-scale warfare called "relative political pacifism":
"War was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme
circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils."
Before World War II, Russell taught at the University of Chicago, later moving on to Los Angeles to lecture at the UCLA Department of Philosophy. He was appointed professor at the City College of New York
(CCNY) in 1940, but after a public outcry the appointment was annulled
by a court judgment that pronounced him "morally unfit" to teach at the
college because of his opinions, especially those relating to sexual morality, detailed in Marriage and Morals (1929). The matter was taken to the New York Supreme Court by Jean Kay who was afraid that her daughter would be harmed by the appointment, though her daughter was not a student at CCNY. Many intellectuals, led by John Dewey, protested at his treatment. Albert Einstein's
oft-quoted aphorism that "great spirits have always encountered violent
opposition from mediocre minds" originated in his open letter, dated 19
March 1940, to Morris Raphael Cohen, a professor emeritus at CCNY, supporting Russell's appointment. Dewey and Horace M. Kallen edited a collection of articles on the CCNY affair in The Bertrand Russell Case. Russell soon joined the Barnes Foundation, lecturing to a varied audience on the history of philosophy; these lectures formed the basis of A History of Western Philosophy. His relationship with the eccentric Albert C. Barnes soon soured, and he returned to the UK in 1944 to rejoin the faculty of Trinity College.
Russell participated in many broadcasts over the BBC, particularly The Brains Trust and for the Third Programme,
on various topical and philosophical subjects. By this time Russell was
known outside academic circles, frequently the subject or author of
magazine and newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer opinions
on a variety of subjects, even mundane ones. En route to one of his
lectures in Trondheim, Russell was one of 24 survivors (out of 43 passengers) of an aeroplane crash in Hommelvik in October 1948. He said he owed his life to smoking since the people who drowned were in the non-smoking part of the plane. A History of Western Philosophy (1945) became a best-seller and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life.
In 1942, Russell argued in favour of a moderate socialism, capable of overcoming its metaphysical principles. In an inquiry on dialectical materialism, launched by the Austrian artist and philosopher Wolfgang Paalen in his journal DYN, Russell said: "I think the metaphysics of both Hegel and Marx plain nonsense—Marx's claim to be 'science' is no more justified than Mary Baker Eddy's. This does not mean that I am opposed to socialism."
In 1943, Russell expressed support for Zionism:
"I have come gradually to see that, in a dangerous and largely hostile
world, it is essential to Jews to have some country which is theirs,
some region where they are not suspected aliens, some state which
embodies what is distinctive in their culture".
In a speech in 1948, Russell said that if the USSR's aggression continued, it would be morally worse to go to war after the USSR possessed an atomic bomb
than before it possessed one, because if the USSR had no bomb the
West's victory would come more swiftly and with fewer casualties than if
there were atomic bombs on both sides. At that time, only the United States possessed an atomic bomb, and the
USSR was pursuing an aggressive policy towards the countries in Eastern
Europe which were being absorbed into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. Many understood Russell's comments to mean that Russell approved of a first strike in a war with the USSR, including Nigel Lawson, who was present when Russell spoke of such matters. Others, including Griffin,
who obtained a transcript of the speech, have argued that he was
explaining the usefulness of America's atomic arsenal in deterring the
USSR from continuing its domination of Eastern Europe.
Just after the atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Russell wrote letters, and published articles in newspapers from 1945
to 1948, stating clearly that it was morally justified and better to go
to war against the USSR using atomic bombs while the United States
possessed them and before the USSR did. In September 1949, one week after the USSR tested its first A-bomb, but
before this became known, Russell wrote that the USSR would be unable
to develop nuclear weapons because following Stalin's purges only
science based on Marxist principles would be practised in the Soviet
Union. After it became known that the USSR had carried out its nuclear bomb tests, Russell declared his position advocating the total abolition of atomic weapons.
In 1948, Russell was invited by the BBC to deliver the inaugural Reith Lectures—what was to become an annual series of lectures, still broadcast by the BBC. His series of six broadcasts, titled Authority and the Individual, explored themes such as the role of individual initiative in the
development of a community and the role of state control in a
progressive society. Russell continued to write about philosophy. He
wrote a foreword to Words and Things by Ernest Gellner, which was highly critical of the later thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein and of ordinary language philosophy. Gilbert Ryle refused to have the book reviewed in the philosophical journal Mind, which caused Russell to respond via The Times. The result was a month-long correspondence in The Times
between the supporters and detractors of ordinary language philosophy,
which was ended when the paper published an editorial critical of both
sides but agreeing with the opponents of ordinary language philosophy.
In the King's Birthday Honours of 9 June 1949, Russell was awarded the Order of Merit, and the following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. When he was given the Order of Merit, George VI
was affable but embarrassed at decorating a former jailbird, saying,
"You have sometimes behaved in a manner that would not do if generally
adopted". Russell merely smiled, but afterwards claimed that the reply "That's right, just like your brother" immediately came to mind.
In 1950, Russell attended the inaugural conference for the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-funded anti-communist organisation committed to the deployment of culture as a weapon during the Cold War. Russell was one of the known patrons of the Congress until he resigned in 1956.
In 1952, Russell was divorced by Spence, with whom he had been very unhappy. Conrad, Russell's son by Spence, did not see his father between the
time of the divorce and 1968 (at which time his decision to meet his
father caused a permanent breach with his mother). Russell married his
fourth wife, Edith Finch, soon after the divorce, on 15 December 1952. They had known each other since 1925, and Edith had taught English at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, sharing a house for 20 years with Russell's old friend Lucy Donnelly.
Edith remained with him until his death, and, by all accounts, their
marriage was a happy, close, and loving one. Russell's eldest son John
suffered from mental illness, which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and his former wife Dora.
In 1962 Russell played a public role in the Cuban Missile Crisis: in an exchange of telegrams with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev assured him that the Soviet government would not be reckless. Russell sent this telegram to President Kennedy:
YOUR ACTION DESPERATE. THREAT TO
HUMAN SURVIVAL. NO CONCEIVABLE JUSTIFICATION. CIVILIZED MAN CONDEMNS IT.
WE WILL NOT HAVE MASS MURDER. ULTIMATUM MEANS WAR... END THIS MADNESS.
According to historian Peter Knight, after JFK's assassination, Russell, "prompted by the emerging work of the lawyer Mark Lane
in the US ... rallied support from other noteworthy and left-leaning
compatriots to form a 'Who Killed Kennedy committee' in June 1964,
members of which included Michael Foot MP, Caroline Benn
(wife of Tony Benn MP), the publisher Victor Gollancz, the writers John Arden and J. B. Priestley, and the Oxford history professor Hugh Trevor-Roper." Russell published a highly critical article in The Minority of One weeks before the Warren Commission report was published, setting forth 16 Questions on the Assassination. Russell equated the Oswald case with the Dreyfus affair
of late 19th-century France, in which the state convicted an innocent
man. Russell also criticised the American press for failing to heed any
voices critical of the official version.
Bertrand Russell was opposed to war from a young age; his opposition
to World War I was used as grounds for his dismissal from Trinity
College at Cambridge. This incident fused two of his controversial
causes, as he had failed to be granted fellow status which would have
protected him from firing, because he was not willing to either pretend
to be a devout Christian, or at least avoid admitting he was agnostic.
He later described the resolution of these issues as essential to freedom of thought and expression, citing the incident in Free Thought and Official Propaganda,
where he explained that the expression of any idea, even the most
obviously "bad", must be protected not only from direct State
intervention but also economic leveraging and other means of being
silenced:
The opinions which are still
persecuted strike the majority as so monstrous and immoral that the
general principle of toleration cannot be held to apply to them. But
this is exactly the same view as that which made possible the tortures
of the Inquisition.
Russell spent the 1950s and 1960s engaged in political causes primarily related to nuclear disarmament and opposing the Vietnam War. The 1955 Russell–Einstein Manifesto
was a document calling for nuclear disarmament and was signed by eleven
of the most prominent nuclear physicists and intellectuals of the time. In October 1960 "The Committee of 100" was formed with a declaration by Russell and Michael Scott,
entitled "Act or Perish", which called for a "movement of nonviolent
resistance to nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction". In September 1961, at the age of 89, Russell was jailed for seven days in Brixton Prison for a "breach of the peace" after taking part in an anti-nuclear demonstration
in London. The magistrate offered to exempt him from jail if he pledged
himself to "good behaviour", to which Russell replied: "No, I won't."
From 1966 to 1967, Russell worked with Jean-Paul Sartre and many other intellectual figures to form the Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal to investigate the conduct of the United States in Vietnam. He wrote many letters to world leaders during this period.
Early in his life, Russell supported eugenicist
policies. In 1894, he proposed that the state issue certificates of
health to prospective parents and withhold public benefits from those
considered unfit. In 1929, he wrote that people deemed "mentally defective" and
"feebleminded" should be sexually sterilised because they "are apt to
have enormous numbers of illegitimate children, all, as a rule, wholly
useless to the community." Russell was also an advocate of population control:
The
nations which at present increase rapidly should be encouraged to adopt
the methods by which, in the West, the increase of population has been
checked. Educational propaganda, with government help, could achieve
this result in a generation. There are, however, two powerful forces
opposed to such a policy: one is religion, the other is nationalism. I
think it is the duty of all to proclaim that opposition to the spread of
birth is appalling depth of misery and degradation, and that within
another fifty years or so. I do not pretend that birth control
is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. There
are others, which, one must suppose, opponents of birth control would
prefer. War, as I remarked a moment ago, has hitherto been disappointing
in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more
effective. If a Black Death
could be spread throughout the whole world once in every generation
survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.
On 20 November 1948, in a public speech at Westminster School,
addressing a gathering arranged by the New Commonwealth, Russell
shocked some observers by suggesting that a preemptive nuclear strike on
the Soviet Union
was justified. Russell argued that war between the United States and
the Soviet Union seemed inevitable, so it would be a humanitarian
gesture to get it over with quickly and have the United States in the
dominant position. Currently, Russell argued, humanity could survive
such a war, whereas a full nuclear war after both sides had manufactured large stockpiles of more destructive weapons was likely to result in the extinction of the human race. Russell later relented from this stance, instead arguing for mutual disarmament by the nuclear powers.
In 1956, before and during the Suez Crisis,
Russell expressed his opposition to European imperialism in the Middle
East. He viewed the crisis as another reminder of the pressing need for
an effective mechanism for international governance, and to restrict
national sovereignty in places such as the Suez Canal
area "where general interest is involved". At the same time the Suez
Crisis was taking place, the world was also captivated by the Hungarian Revolution
and the subsequent crushing of the revolt by intervening Soviet forces.
Russell attracted criticism for speaking out fervently against the Suez
war while ignoring Soviet repression in Hungary, to which he responded
that he did not criticise the Soviets "because there was no need. Most
of the so-called Western World was fulminating". Although he later
feigned a lack of concern, at the time he was disgusted by the brutal
Soviet response, and on 16 November 1956, he expressed approval for a
declaration of support for Hungarian scholars which Michael Polanyi had cabled to the Soviet embassy in London twelve days previously, shortly after Soviet troops had entered Budapest.
In November 1957 Russell wrote an article addressing US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev,
urging a summit to consider "the conditions of co-existence".
Khrushchev responded that peace could be served by such a meeting. In
January 1958 Russell elaborated his views in The Observer,
proposing a cessation of all nuclear weapons production, with the UK
taking the first step by unilaterally suspending its own nuclear weapons
programme if necessary, and with Germany "freed from all alien armed
forces and pledged to neutrality in any conflict between East and West".
US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles replied for Eisenhower. The exchange of letters was published as The Vital Letters of Russell, Khrushchev, and Dulles.
Russell was asked by The New Republic,
a liberal American magazine, to elaborate his views on world peace. He
urged that all nuclear weapons testing and flights by planes armed with
nuclear weapons be halted immediately, and negotiations be opened for
the destruction of all hydrogen bombs,
with the number of conventional nuclear devices limited to ensure a
balance of power. He proposed that Germany be reunified and accept the Oder-Neisse line
as its border, and that a neutral zone be established in Central
Europe, consisting at the minimum of Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia,
with each of these countries being free of foreign troops and
influence, and prohibited from forming alliances with countries outside
the zone. In the Middle East, Russell suggested that the West avoid
opposing Arab nationalism,
and proposed the creation of a United Nations peacekeeping force to
guard Israel's frontiers to ensure that Israel was prevented from
committing aggression and protected from it. He also suggested Western
recognition of the People's Republic of China, and that it be admitted to the UN with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
He was in contact with Lionel Rogosin while the latter was filming his anti-war film Good Times, Wonderful Times in the 1960s. He became a hero to many of the youthful members of the New Left.
In early 1963, Russell became increasingly vocal in his disapproval of
the Vietnam War, and felt that the US government's policies there were
near-genocidal. In 1963, he became the inaugural recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, an award for writers concerned with the freedom of the individual in society. In 1964, he was one of eleven world figures who issued an appeal to Israel and the Arab countries to accept an arms embargo and international supervision of nuclear plants and rocket weaponry. In October 1965, he tore up his Labour Party card because he suspected Harold Wilson's Labour government was going to send troops to support the United States in Vietnam.
Final years, death and legacy
Plas Penrhyn in PenrhyndeudraethRussell on a 1972 stamp of India
In June 1955, Russell had leased Plas Penrhyn in Penrhyndeudraeth, Merionethshire, Wales and on 5 July of the following year it became his and Edith's principal residence.[125]
Russell published his three-volume autobiography in 1967, 1968, and 1969. He made a cameo appearance playing himself in the anti-war Hindi film Aman, by Mohan Kumar, which was released in India in 1967. This was Russell's only appearance in a feature film.
On 23 November 1969, he wrote to The Times newspaper
saying that the preparation for show trials in Czechoslovakia was
"highly alarming". The same month, he appealed to Secretary General U Thant
of the United Nations to support an international war crimes commission
to investigate alleged torture and genocide by the United States in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The following month, he protested to Alexei Kosygin over the expulsion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the Soviet Union of Writers.
On 31 January 1970, Russell issued a statement condemning
"Israel's aggression in the Middle East", and in particular, Israeli
bombing raids being carried out deep in Egyptian territory as part of
the War of Attrition, which he compared to German bombing raids in the Battle of Britain and the US bombing of Vietnam. He called for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-Six-Day War
borders, stating "The aggression committed by Israel must be condemned,
not only because no state has the right to annexe foreign territory,
but because every expansion is an experiment to discover how much more
aggression the world will tolerate." This was Russell's final political statement or act. It was read out at the International Conference of Parliamentarians in Cairo on 3 February 1970, the day after his death.
Russell died of influenza, just after 8 pm on 2 February 1970 at his home in Penrhyndeudraeth, aged 97. His body was cremated in Colwyn Bay on 5 February 1970 with five people present. In accordance with his will, there was no religious ceremony but one
minute's silence; his ashes were later scattered over the Welsh
mountains. Although he was born in Monmouthshire, and died in Penrhyndeudraeth in Wales, Russell identified as English. Later in 1970, on 23 October, his will was published showing he had
left an estate valued at £69,423 (equivalent to £1.4 million in 2023). In 1980, a memorial to Russell was commissioned by a committee including the philosopher A. J. Ayer. It consists of a bust of Russell in Red Lion Square in London sculpted by Marcelle Quinton.
Lady Katharine Jane Tait, Russell's daughter, founded the
Bertrand Russell Society in 1974 to preserve and understand his work. It
publishes the Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin, holds meetings and awards prizes for scholarship, including the Bertrand Russell Society Award. She also authored several essays about her father; as well as a book, My Father, Bertrand Russell, which was published in 1975. All members receive Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies.
Bangladesh's first leader, Mujibur Rahman, named his youngest son Sheikh Russel in honour of Bertrand Russell.
Marriages and issue
In 1889, Russell, at 17 years of age, met the family of Alys Pearsall Smith, an American Quaker five years his senior, who was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia. He became a friend of the Pearsall Smith family. They knew him as "Lord John's grandson" and enjoyed showing him off.
He fell in love with Alys, and contrary to his grandmother's
wishes, married her on 13 December 1894. Their marriage began to fall
apart in 1901 when it occurred to Russell, while cycling, that he no
longer loved her. She asked him if he loved her, and he cruelly replied that he did not.
Russell also disliked Alys's mother, finding her controlling and cruel. A
lengthy period of separation began in 1911 with Russell's affair with Lady Ottoline Morrell, and he and Alys finally divorced in 1921 to enable Russell to remarry.
During his years of separation from Alys, Russell had affairs
(often simultaneous) with a number of women, including Morrell and the
actress Lady Constance Malleson. Some have suggested that at this point he had an affair with Vivienne Haigh-Wood, the English governess and writer, and first wife of T. S. Eliot.
In 1921, his second marriage was to Dora Winifred Black MBE (died
1986), daughter of Sir Frederick Black. Dora was six months pregnant
when the couple returned to England.
This was dissolved in 1935, having produced two children:
Lady Katharine Jane Russell (1923–2021), who married Rev. Charles Tait in 1948 and had issue
Additionally, Russell was temporarily registered as the birth father
of Dora Russell’s daughter, Harriett Ruth Barry (1930-2024), but this
was reversed at some point and Harriett’s father was correctly
registered as American journalist Griffin Barry. Dora Russell also gave
birth to a son by Griffin Barry in 1932, Roderick Barry (1932-1983).
Though the Russell marriage was an open one, the Barry children’s births
led to a dissolution of the marriage and Russell divorced Dora. Russell
did continue to be involved in both Barry children’s lives, though not
closely.
Russell's third marriage was to his student Patricia Helen Spence (d. 2004) in 1936, with the marriage producing one child:
Russell's third marriage ended in divorce in 1952. He married Edith
Finch in the same year. They remained married at the time of his death
in 1972; Finch died in 1978.
Titles, awards and honours
Upon his brother's death in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell of Kingston Russell, and the subsidiary title of Viscount Amberley of Amberley and of Ardsalla. He held both titles, and the accompanying seat in the House of Lords, until his death in 1970.
On ethics, Russell wrote that he was a utilitarian in his youth, yet he later distanced himself from this view.
For the advancement of science and protection of liberty of expression, Russell advocated The Will to Doubt, the recognition that all human knowledge is at most a best guess, that one should always remember:
None of our beliefs are quite true;
all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error. The methods of
increasing the degree of truth in our beliefs are well known; they
consist in hearing all sides, trying to ascertain all the relevant
facts, controlling our own bias by discussion with people who have the
opposite bias, and cultivating a readiness to discard any hypothesis
which has proved inadequate. These methods are practised in science, and
have built up the body of scientific knowledge.
Every man of science whose outlook is truly scientific is ready to admit
that what passes for scientific knowledge at the moment is sure to
require correction with the progress of discovery; nevertheless, it is
near enough to the truth to serve for most practical purposes, though
not for all. In science, where alone something approximating to genuine
knowledge is to be found, men's attitude is tentative and full of doubt.
Religion
Russell described himself in 1947 as an agnostic or an atheist: he found it difficult to determine which term to adopt, saying:
Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods,
speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an
Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in
regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line.
For most of his adult life, Russell maintained religion to be little more than superstition
and, despite any positive effects, largely harmful to people. He
believed that religion and the religious outlook serve to impede
knowledge and foster fear and dependency, and to be responsible for much
of our world's wars, oppression, and misery. He was a member of the
advisory council of the British Humanist Association and the president of Cardiff Humanists until his death.
Political and social activism occupied much of Russell's time for
most of his life. Russell remained politically active almost to the end
of his life, writing to and exhorting world leaders and lending his name
to various causes. He was a prominent campaigner against Western
intervention into the Vietnam War in the 1960s, writing essays and books, attending demonstrations, and even organising the Russell Tribunal in 1966 alongside other prominent philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, which fed into his 1967 book War Crimes in Vietnam.
Russell argued for a "scientific society", where war would be
abolished, population growth would be limited, and prosperity would be
shared. He suggested the establishment of a "single supreme world government" able to enforce peace, claiming that "the only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation". He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.
Russell also expressed support for guild socialism, and commented positively on several socialist thinkers and activists. According to Jean Bricmont and Normand Baillargeon, "Russell was both a liberal and a socialist,
a combination that was perfectly comprehensible in his time, but which
has become almost unthinkable today. He was a liberal in that he opposed
concentrations of power in all its manifestations, military,
governmental, or religious, as well as the superstitious or nationalist
ideas that usually serve as its justification. But he was also a
socialist, even as an extension of his liberalism, because he was
equally opposed to the concentrations of power stemming from the private ownership of the major means of production, which therefore needed to be put under social control (which does not mean state control)."
Russell was an active supporter of the Homosexual Law Reform Society, being one of the signatories of A. E. Dyson's 1958 letter to The Times
calling for a change in the law regarding male homosexual practices,
which were partly legalised in 1967, when Russell was still alive.
He expressed sympathy and support for the Palestinian people and was critical of Israel's
actions. He wrote in 1960 that, "I think it was a mistake to establish a
Jewish State in Palestine, but it would be a still greater mistake to
try to get rid of it now that it exists." In his final written document, read aloud in Cairo three days after his death on 31 January 1970, he condemned Israel as an aggressive imperialist
power, which "wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it
has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis
of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice
of the previous aggression." In regards to the Palestinian people and refugees,
he wrote that, "No people anywhere in the world would accept being
expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the
people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would
tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland
is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East."
Russell advocated for a universal basic income. In his 1918 book Roads to Freedom, Russell wrote that "Anarchism
has the advantage as regards liberty, Socialism as regards the
inducement to work. Can we not find a method of combining these two
advantages? It seems to me that we can. [...] Stated in more familiar
terms, the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a
certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to
all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger
as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced –
should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which
the community recognizes as useful...When education is finished, no one
should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should
receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free."
In "Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday" ("Postscript" in his Autobiography),
Russell wrote: "I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal
and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful,
for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more
mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be
created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and
envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I
believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken".
Freedom of opinion and expression
Russell supported freedom of opinion and was an opponent of both censorship and indoctrination. In 1928, he wrote:
The
fundamental argument for freedom of opinion is the doubtfulness of all
our belief... when the State intervenes to ensure the indoctrination of
some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in
favour of that doctrine ... It is clear that thought is not free if the
profession of certain opinions make it impossible to make a living.
In 1957, he wrote: "'Free thought' means thinking freely ... to be
worthy of the name freethinker he must be free of two things: the force
of tradition and the tyranny of his own passions."
Education
Russell
has presented ideas on the possible means of control of education in
case of scientific dictatorship governments, of the kind of this excerpt
taken from Chapter II "General Effects of Scientific Technique" of "The
Impact of Science on society":
This subject will make great
strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific
dictatorship. Anaxagoras maintained that snow is black, but no one
believed him. The social psychologists of the future will have a number
of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of
producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results
will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is
obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination
begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and
repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that
snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I
anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise
and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe
that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them
believe it is dark grey. Although this science will be diligently
studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The
populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated.
When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been
in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its
subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. As yet there
is only one country which has succeeded in creating this politician's
paradise. The social effects of scientific technique have already been
many and important, and are likely to be even more noteworthy in the
future. Some of these effects depend upon the political and economic
character of the country concerned; others are inevitable, whatever this
character may be.
He pushed his visionary scenarios even further into details, in Chapter
III "Scientific Technique in an Oligarchy" of the same book, stating as an example:
In future such failures are not likely to occur where there is
dictatorship. Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a
very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs
that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of
the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all
are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government
will tell them that they are so.
Selected works
Below are selected Russell's works in English, sorted by year of first publication:
1935. Religion and Science. London: Thornton Butterworth
1936. Which Way to Peace?. London: Jonathan Cape
1937. The Amberley Papers: The Letters and Diaries of Lord and Lady Amberley, with Patricia Russell, 2 vols., London: Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press; reprinted (1966) as The Amberley Papers. Bertrand Russell's Family Background, 2 vols., London: George Allen & Unwin
1940. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
1945. The Bomb and Civilisation. Published in the Glasgow Forward on 18 August 1945
1946. A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day New York: Simon and Schuster
1948. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. London: George Allen & Unwin
1949. Authority and the Individual. London: George Allen & Unwin
1950. Unpopular Essays. London: George Allen & Unwin
1951. The Impact of Science on Society. London: George Allen & Unwin
1951–1969. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 3 vols., London: George Allen & Unwin. Vol. 2, 1956
1952. New Hopes for a Changing World. London: George Allen & Unwin
1953. Satan in the Suburbs and Other Stories. London: George Allen & Unwin
1954. Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories. London: George Allen & Unwin
1954. Human Society in Ethics and Politics. London: George Allen & Unwin
1956. Portraits from Memory and Other Essays. London: George Allen & Unwin
1956. Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901–1950, edited by Robert C. Marsh. London: George Allen & Unwin
1957. Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects, edited by Paul Edwards. London: George Allen & Unwin
1957. Understanding History and Other Essays. New York: Philosophical Library (reprint of earlier essays)
1958. The Will to Doubt. New York: Philosophical Library (reprint of earlier essays)
1959. Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare. London: George Allen & Unwin
1959. Wisdom of the West: A Historical Survey of Western Philosophy in Its Social and Political Setting, edited by Paul Foulkes. London: Macdonald
1960. Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind, Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Company
1961. The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, edited by R. E. Egner and L. E. Denonn. London: George Allen & Unwin
1961. Fact and Fiction. London: George Allen & Unwin
1961. Has Man a Future? London: George Allen & Unwin
1963. Essays in Skepticism. New York: Philosophical Library (reprint of earlier essays)
1963. Unarmed Victory. London: George Allen & Unwin
1965. Legitimacy Versus Industrialism, 1814–1848. London: George Allen & Unwin (first published as Parts I and II of Freedom and Organization, 1814–1914, 1934)
1965. On the Philosophy of Science, edited by Charles A. Fritz, Jr. Indianapolis: The Bobbs–Merrill Company
1967. War Crimes in Vietnam. London: George Allen & Unwin
1969. Dear Bertrand Russell... A Selection of his Correspondence with the General Public 1950–1968, edited by Barry Feinberg and Ronald Kasrils. London: George Allen and Unwin
Russell was the author of more than sixty books and over two thousand articles. Additionally, he wrote many pamphlets, introductions, and letters to the editor. One pamphlet titled, 'I Appeal unto Caesar': The Case of the Conscientious Objectors, ghostwritten for Margaret Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Hobhouse, allegedly helped secure the release from prison of hundreds of conscientious objectors.
His works can be found in anthologies and collections, including The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, which McMaster University began publishing in 1983. By March 2017, this collection of his shorter and previously unpublished works included 18 volumes, and several more are in progress. A bibliography in three additional
volumes catalogues his publications. The Russell Archives held by
McMaster's William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections possess over 40,000 of his letters.
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