  Contingent or conditional pacifism qualifies such an uncompromising condemnation of violence and warfare. Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, for example, were both supporters of the war against Nazi Germany, despite the fact that each considered himself to be a pacifist. Russell identified his position as what he called “relative political pacifism” (Russell 1943). Russell uses the word “relative” to describe the contingent nature of the commitment to peace: one’s commitment to pacifism depends upon or is relative to the nature of the war. Relative pacifism means, for Russell, “that very few wars are worth fighting, and that the evils of war are almost always greater than they seem to excited populations at the moment when war breaks out” (Russell 1943, 8). Russell calls his position “political” because his emphasis is on war and political institutions, not on a personal commitment to nonviolence. 