Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/135

 certainty. The proletariat is not suffciently strong for there to be a certainty of peace, nor is he weak enough for there to be a fatality of war. In this state of indecision and this unstable equilibrium of forces, human action can do much. The formidable part of the unknown is not alarming for us Socialists alone. It is fearful also for those who would rashly let loose wars of which no one to-day can predict the political consequences, the internal rebounds."

Jaurès fully recognized that while the education of the peoples in the direction of peace and of friendly international relationships could only be expected to proceed slowly, the relationships of the Governments of the Great Powers was uneasy and menacing in the highest degree. He had always regarded the alliance of France with Russia with apprehension. France he thought was always controlled by and never controlled Russia; she was led therefore into dangerous actions which she would never have undertaken alone. In the early days of the understanding between the two countries he became afraid that France might be led at the tail of Russia into those wars of "adventure" in the Far East which he regarded as wrong and foolish. And meanwhile "internally Tzarism, exploited by our governors against the revolutionary tradition of France, increased the strength