at "the sensational lies of the press, actuated by the rotten system of capitalism, sowing panic and hatred, and playing cynically with the lives of millions of men, through mere financial considerations or delirious pride"; his contemptuous words for those whom he calls "the jockeys of his country"; his clear perception of all responsibilities;[1] his foreknowledge of the domesticated attitude which would be adopted in case of war by the Social-democratic party of Germany, to whom he showed, as in a mirror (at the Amsterdam Congress in 1904) their haughty weakness their lack of revolutionary tradition, their want of parliamentary strength, their "formidable powerlessness";[2] of the attitude which certain leaders of French Socialism, too, and amongst others Jules Guesde, would maintain in the conflict between the great States of Europe;[3] and, looking even beyond the war, his premonition of the consequences, near and remote, national and international, of this conflict of nations.
How would he have acted had he lived? The
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