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The German Revolution of 1918–1919, also known as the November Revolution (German: Novemberrevolution), was an uprising started by workers and soldiers in the final days of World War I. It quickly and almost bloodlessly brought down the German Empire, then in its more violent second stage, the supporters of a parliamentary republic were victorious over those who wanted a soviet-style council republic. The defeat of the forces of the far left cleared the way for the establishment of the Weimar Republic.
The key factors leading to the revolution were the extreme burdens suffered by the German people during the war, the economic and psychological impacts of the Empire's defeat, and the social tensions between the general populace and the aristocratic and bourgeois elite.[1][2]
The revolution began in early November 1918 with a sailors' mutiny centered at Kiel. Within a week, workers' and soldiers' councils were in control of government and military institutions across most of the Reich. On 9 November, Germany was declared a republic. By the end of the month, all of the ruling monarchs, including Emperor Wilhelm II, had been forced to abdicate.
On 10 November, the Council of the People's Deputies was formed by members of Germany's two main socialist parties. Under the de facto leadership of Friedrich Ebert of the moderate Majority Social Democratic Party (MSPD), the Council acted as a provisional government that held the powers of the emperor, chancellor and legislature. Most of the old imperial officer corps, administration and judiciary remained in place. The Council needed their expertise to resolve the crises of the moment and thought that handling them was more important than ousting many key government figures to ensure that the new democracy was firmly anchored against its opponents.[3]
The Council of the People's Deputies' immediately removed some of the Empire's harsh restrictions, such as on freedom of expression, and promised an eight-hour workday and elections that would give women the right to vote for the first time. Those on the left wing of the revolution also wanted to nationalise key industries, democratise the military and set up a council republic, but the SPD had control of most of the workers' and soldiers' councils and blocked any substantial movement towards their goals.
The split in the socialist parties erupted into violence in the last days of 1918, sparked by a dispute over sailors' pay that left 67 dead. On 1 January 1919, the far-left Spartacists founded the Communist Party of Germany. A few days later, protests resulting from the violence at the end of December led to mass demonstrations in Berlin that quickly turned into the Spartacist uprising. It was quashed by government and Freikorps troops with the loss of 150 to 200 lives. In the aftermath of the uprising, the Spartacist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered extrajudicially by the Freikorps.
Into the spring, there were additional violently suppressed efforts to push the revolution further in the direction of a council republic, as well as short-lived local soviet republics, notably in Bavaria (Munich), Bremen and Würzburg. They too were put down with considerable loss of life.
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The revolution's end date is generally set at 11 August 1919, the day the Weimar Constitution was adopted. The revolution, however, remained in many ways incomplete. A large number of its opponents had been left in positions of power, and it failed to resolve the fracture in the political Left between moderate socialists and communists. The Weimar Republic as a result was beset from the beginning by opponents from both the Left and – to a greater degree – the Right. The fractures in the German Left that had become permanent during the revolution made Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 easier than it might have been if the Left had been more united.[4]
Background
SPD and the World War
In the decade after 1900, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was the leading force in Germany's labour movement. With 35% of the national vote and 110 seats in the Reichstag elected in 1912, the Social Democrats had grown into the largest political party in Germany.[5] Party membership was around one million,[6] and the party newspaper Vorwärts attracted 1.5 million subscribers.[7] The trade unions had 2.5 million members who were affiliated with socialist unions.[8] In addition, there were numerous co-operative societies (for example, apartment co-ops and shop co-ops) and other organizations either directly linked to the SPD and the labour unions or at least adhering to Social Democratic ideology. Other major parties in the Reichstag of 1912 were the Catholic Centre Party (90 seats), the German Conservative Party (41), the National Liberal Party (45), the Progressive People's Party (41), the Polish Party (18), the German Reich Party (14), the Economic Union (8), and the Alsace-Lorraine Party (9).[5][9]
At the congresses of the Second Socialist International that began in 1889, the SPD had agreed to resolutions asking for combined action by socialists in the event of a war. Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the SPD, like other socialist parties in Europe, organised anti-war demonstrations during the July Crisis.[10] After Rosa Luxemburg as a representative of the left wing of the party called for civil disobedience and rejection of war in the name of the entire party, Friedrich Ebert, one of the two party leaders since 1913, travelled to Zürich with Otto Braun to save the party's funds from being confiscated.[11]
After Germany declared war on the Russian Empire on 1 August 1914, the majority of SPD newspapers, in contrast to the widespread enthusiasm for the war among the educated classes (the "Spirit of 1914"), were strongly anti-war, although some supporters invoked the fear of the Russian Empire as the most reactionary and anti-socialist power in Europe.[12] In the first days of August, those who supported the war saw themselves in agreement with the late August Bebel, who had died the previous year. In 1904, he had declared in the Reichstag that the SPD would support an armed defence of Germany against a foreign attack. In 1907 he even promised that he himself would "shoulder the gun" if it was to fight against Russia, the "enemy of all culture and all the suppressed".[13] German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg rejected plans by high-ranking military officials to dissolve the SPD at the start of the war[14] and exploited the anti-Russian stance of the SPD to procure the party's approval for it.
The party leadership and its deputies were split on the issue of support for the war: After Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August 1914, 96 deputies, among them Friedrich Ebert, agreed to approve the war bonds requested by the imperial government. Fourteen deputies, headed by the party co-leader, Hugo Haase, and including Karl Liebknecht, spoke out against the bonds but nevertheless followed party discipline and voted in favour.[15] The entire SPD membership in the Reichstag thus voted for the war bonds on 4 August 1914. Haase explained the decision that the party had made against his judgment with the words: "We will not let the fatherland alone in the hour of need!"[16] The Emperor welcomed the political truce among the Reichstag's parties (Burgfrieden), declaring: "I no longer know parties, I know only Germans!"[17]
Even Karl Liebknecht, who became one of the most outspoken opponents of the war, initially followed the line of the party that his father, Wilhelm Liebknecht, had co-founded: he did not defy his political colleagues and voted for the credits.[18] A few days later he joined the Gruppe Internationale (International Group) that Rosa Luxemburg had founded on 5 August 1914 with Franz Mehring, Ernst Meyer, Wilhelm Pieck and others from the left wing of the party, which adhered to the prewar resolutions of the SPD. From that group the Spartacus League (Spartakusbund) emerged on 1 January 1916.[19]
On 2 December 1914, Liebknecht voted against additional war bonds, the only deputy of any party in the Reichstag to do so.[20] Although he was not permitted to speak in the Reichstag to explain his vote, what he had planned to say was made public through the circulation of a leaflet that was deemed unlawful:[citation needed]
The present war was not willed by any of the nations participating in it and it is not waged in the interest of the Germans or any other people. It is an imperialist war, a war for capitalist control of the world market, for the political domination of huge territories and to give scope to industrial and banking capital.
SPD's split
As the war dragged on and the death toll rose, more SPD members began to question adherence to the Burgfrieden (the truce in domestic politics) of 1914.The dissatisfaction increased in 1916 when General Paul von Hindenburg replaced Erich von Falkenhayn as Chief of the General Staff and introduced the Hindenburg Programme. In order to double Germany's industrial production, especially of weapons and ammunition, the guidelines of German economic and war policy were to be determined by the Supreme Army Command (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL) rather than the emperor, chancellor or Reichstag. The Auxiliary Services Act as originally introduced by the OHL in December 1916 proposed full mobilisation and deployment of the workforce, including women, and the "militarisation" of labour relations. It met with such strong criticism, however, that the OHL had to agree to participation by trade unions and the Reichstag parties in the act's implementation. It accepted their demands for arbitration committees, the expansion of trade unions' powers and a repeal of the act at the end of the war.[21][22] Hindenburg and his subordinate Erich Ludendorff nevertheless continued to push towards subjugating civilian life as much as possible to the needs of the war and the war economy.
After the outbreak of the Russian February Revolution in 1917, the wartime's first organised strikes erupted in German armament factories in January 1918, with 400,000 workers going on strike in Berlin and around a million nationwide. The strike was organized by the Revolutionary Stewards (Revolutionäre Obleute), led by their spokesman Richard Müller.[23] The group emerged from a network of left-wing unionists who disagreed with the support of the war that came from the union leadership.[24] The American entry into World War I on 6 April 1917 threatened further deterioration in Germany's military position. Hindenburg and Ludendorff called for an end to the moratorium on attacks on neutral shipping in the Atlantic, which had been imposed after the Lusitania, a British ship carrying US citizens, was sunk off Ireland in 1915. Their decision, which became effective on 1 February 1917, signalled a new strategy to stop the flow of US arms and supplies to England and France in order to make a German victory possible before the United States entered the war as a combatant.[25] The Emperor tried to appease the population in his Easter address of 7 April by saying that he would replace Prussia's three-class franchise with secret, direct elections after the war, but the vagueness of the Emperor's promises only increased the workers' will to mount protests.[26]
After the SPD leadership under Friedrich Ebert expelled the opponents of the war from the party in March 1917, the Spartacists joined with revisionists such as Eduard Bernstein and centrist Marxists such as Karl Kautsky and founded the anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) under the leadership of Hugo Haase on 9 April 1917. After that point the SPD, which continued to be led by Friedrich Ebert, was officially named the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), although it was still generally referred to as the SPD.[27] The USPD demanded an immediate end to the war and a further democratisation of Germany but did not have a unified agenda for social policies. The Spartacus League, which until then had opposed a split of the party, made up the left wing of the USPD.[28] Both the USPD and the Spartacists continued their anti-war propaganda in factories, especially in armament plants.
End of the war
Russian Revolution
After the February Revolution in Russia and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II on 15 March 1917, the Russian Provisional Government, led as of 21 July 1917 by Alexander Kerensky, continued the war on the side of the Entente powers.[29] Russian society was severely strained by the opposing motivations of patriotism and anti-war sentiment. There was sizable support for continuing the war to defend Russia's honour and territory, but also a strong desire to remove Russia from the conflict and let the other countries of Europe destroy one another without Russian involvement.[citation needed]
The German government saw a chance for victory in the situation. To support the anti-war sentiment in Russia and perhaps turn the tide in Russia toward a separate peace, it permitted the leader of the Russian Bolsheviks, Vladimir Lenin, to pass in a sealed train car from his place of exile in Switzerland through Germany, Sweden and Finland to Petrograd. Within months of his return, Lenin led the 1917 October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks seized power from the moderates and withdrew Russia from the war. Leon Trotsky observed that the October Revolution could not have succeeded if Lenin had remained stranded in Switzerland.[30] The German government thus had an important influence in the creation of what would become the Soviet Union by putting Russia's socialist transformation decisively into the hands of the Bolsheviks, whereas in February it had been oriented toward parliamentary democracy.
In early and mid-1918, many people in both Russia and Germany expected that Russia would return the favour by helping to foster a communist revolution on German soil. European communists had long looked forward to a time when Germany, the homeland of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, would undergo such a revolution. The success of the Russian proletariat and peasantry in overthrowing their ruling classes raised fears among the German bourgeoisie that such a revolution could take place in Germany as well. The proletarian internationalism of Marx and Engels was still very influential in both Western Europe and Russia[31][page needed] and had had a sizable following among German workers for decades. There were quite a few German revolutionaries eager to see revolutionary success in Russia and have help from Russian colleagues in a German revolution.[citation needed]
The moderate SPD leadership noted that a determined and well-managed group of the Bolshevik type might try to seize power in Germany, quite possibly with Russian help, and they shifted their stance towards the Left as the end of the war approached. Otto Braun clarified the position of his party in a leading article in the Vorwärts of 15 February 1918[32] under the title "The Bolsheviks and Us" (Die Bolschewiki und Wir):
Socialism cannot be erected on bayonets and machine guns. If it is to last, it must be realised with democratic means. Therefore it is of course a necessary prerequisite that the economic and social conditions for socializing society are ripe. If this was the case in Russia, the Bolsheviks no doubt could rely on the majority of the people. As this is not the case, they established a reign of the sword that could not have been more brutal and reckless under the disgraceful regime of the Tsar.... Therefore we must draw a thick, visible dividing line between us and the Bolsheviks.[33]
In the month before Otto Braun's article appeared, another series of strikes had swept through Germany with the participation of over one million workers. During the strikes, the Revolutionary Stewards for the first time took action.[23] They were to play an important part in further developments. They called themselves "councils" (Räte) after the Russian "soviets". To weaken their influence, Friedrich Ebert, then the leader of the SPD and opposed to the strike, joined the Berlin strike leadership to try to prevent it from spreading and bring it to a speedy end.[34]
On 3 March 1918, the newly established Soviet government ended Russia's involvement in the war with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, negotiated with the Germans by Leon Trotsky. The settlement arguably contained harsher terms for the Russians than the later Treaty of Versailles would demand of the Germans.[35] The Bolsheviks' principal motivation for acceding to so many of Germany's demands was to stay in power at any cost amid the backdrop of the Russian Civil War. Lenin and Trotsky also believed at the time that all of Europe would soon see world revolution, and that bourgeois nationalistic interests as a framework to judge the treaty would become irrelevant.[citation needed]
With Russia out of the war, the German Supreme Command moved part of the eastern armies – about one million soldiers – to the Western Front.[36] It led most Germans to believe that victory in the west was at hand.[37]
Military collapse
After the victory in the east, the Supreme Army Command on 21 March 1918 launched its Spring Offensive in the west to try to turn the war decisively in Germany's favour, but by July 1918, their last reserves were used up, and Germany's military defeat became certain. The Allied forces scored numerous successive victories in the Hundred Days Offensive between August and November 1918 that cost the Germans their gains from the Spring Offensive. The arrival of large numbers of fresh troops from the United States was a decisive factor.[38]
On 29 September, the Supreme Army Command, at army headquarters in Spa, Belgium, informed Emperor Wilhelm II and Imperial Chancellor Count Georg von Hertling that the military situation was hopeless. General Ludendorff said that he could not guarantee to hold the front for another 24 hours and demanded that a request be sent to the Entente powers for an immediate ceasefire. In hopes of more favourable peace terms, he also recommended the acceptance of the main demand of American president Woodrow Wilson to put the imperial government on a democratic footing. This enabled him to protect the reputation of the Imperial Army and place the responsibility for the capitulation and its consequences squarely at the feet of the democratic parties and the Reichstag.[39][40] As he said to his staff officers on 1 October:
I have asked His Majesty to bring into the government those circles to whom we mainly owe it that we have come this far. ... Let them now make the peace that must be made. They should eat the soup they have served up to us![41]
His statement marked the birth of the "stab-in-the-back myth" (Dolchstoßlegende), according to which revolutionary socialists and republican politicians had betrayed the undefeated army and turned an almost certain victory into a defeat.[42] The Army's intent to protect itself and its future by shifting the blame to civilian politicians can also be seen in the autobiography of Wilhelm Groener, Ludendorff's successor:
It was just fine with me that the Army and Army Command remained as guiltless as possible in these wretched truce negotiations from which nothing good could be expected.[43]
Political reaction
Although shocked by Ludendorff's report and the news of the defeat, the majority parties in the Reichstag, especially the SPD, were willing to take on the responsibility of government. Chancellor Hertling objected to introducing a parliamentary system and resigned. Emperor Wilhelm II then appointed Prince Maximilian of Baden as the new imperial chancellor on 3 October. The Prince was considered a liberal and at the same time a representative of the royal family. Most of the men in his cabinet were independents, but there were also two members of the SPD. The following day, the new government offered the Allies the truce that Ludendorff had demanded, and on the fifth the German public was informed of the dismal situation that it faced.[44][45]
During October, President Wilson responded to the request for a truce with three diplomatic notes. As a precondition for negotiations, he demanded the retreat of Germany from all occupied territories, the cessation of submarine activities and (implicitly) the Emperor's abdication.[46] After the third note of 24 October, which emphasized the danger to international peace inherent in the power of the "King of Prussia" and the "military authorities of the Empire",[47] General Ludendorff changed his mind and declared the Allies' conditions to be unacceptable. He demanded the resumption of the war that he had declared lost only a month earlier. After his demand was refused, he resigned[48] and was replaced as First General Quartermaster by General Groener.
On 28 October, the Reichstag passed constitutional reforms that changed Germany into a parliamentary monarchy. Peace treaties and declarations of war required the Reichstag's approval, and the chancellor and his ministers were made dependent on the confidence of the parliamentary majority rather than the emperor.[49] Because the chancellor was also responsible for all of the emperor's acts under the constitution, the emperor's military right of command (Kommandogewalt) became the chancellor's responsibility and thus subject to parliamentary control.[50] As far as the Social Democrats were concerned, the October Constitution met all the important constitutional objectives of the party.[51] Ebert regarded the fifth of October as the birthday of German democracy. Since the Emperor voluntarily ceded power, he considered a revolution unnecessary.[52]
On 5 November, the Entente Powers agreed to take up negotiations for a truce, but after the third note, many soldiers and the general population believed that the Emperor had to abdicate to achieve peace. While the request for a truce was being processed, the Allies came to realise Germany's military weakness. The German troops had come to expect the war to end and were anxious to return home. They had little willingness to fight more battles, and desertions were increasing.[citation needed]
Revolution, first stage: fall of the Empire
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Sailors' revolt
While the war-weary troops and general population of Germany awaited the end of the war, the Imperial Naval Command in Kiel under Admiral Franz von Hipper and Admiral Reinhard Scheer planned to dispatch the Imperial Fleet for a last battle against the British Royal Navy in the southern North Sea. The two admirals intended to lead the military action without authorization.[53]
The naval order of 24 October 1918 and the preparations to sail triggered a mutiny among the sailors involved.[53] They had no intention of risking their lives so close to the end of the war and were convinced that the credibility of the new democratic government, engaged as it was in seeking an armistice with the Entente, would be compromised by a naval attack at such a crucial point in the negotiations.[54]
The mutiny began on a small number of ships anchored off Wilhelmshaven. Faced with the sailors' disobedience, naval command called off the offensive during the night of 29–30 October, arrested several hundred of the mutineers and had the ships return to port. On 3 November, police and soldiers confronted a protest march by the sailors towards the prison in Kiel where the mutineers were being held. The soldiers opened fire and killed at least nine protestors. The following day, workers in Kiel declared a general strike in support of the protest, and sailors from the barracks at Wik, north of Kiel, joined the march, as did many of the soldiers sent to Kiel to help control the protests.[53]
Faced with the rapidly escalating situation, Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, the naval commander in Kiel, released the imprisoned sailors and asked the protestors to send a delegation to meet with him and two representatives of the Baden government who had arrived from Berlin.[53] The sailors had a list of fourteen demands, including less harsh military punishment and full freedom of speech and the press in the Empire. One of the representatives from the Reich government, Gustav Noske of the Majority Social Democrats (SPD), calmed the immediate situation with a promise of amnesty, but by then Kiel was already in the hands of a workers' and soldiers' council, and groups of sailors had gone to nearby cities to spread the uprising.[55] Within days the revolution had spread across the western part of Germany.[53]
Spread of the revolution
By 7 November, the revolution had taken control in all large coastal cities – Lübeck, Bremen, Hamburg – and spread to Braunschweig, Cologne and as far south as Munich. There, Kurt Eisner of the radical Independent Social Democrats (USPD) was elected president of the Bavarian Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Council, and on 8 November he proclaimed the People's State of Bavaria.[56] King Ludwig III and his family fled Munich for Austria, where in the 12 November Anif declaration he relieved all civil servants and military personnel from their oath of loyalty to him, effectively abdicating the Wittlesbach throne.[57] By the end of the month, the dynastic rulers of all the other German states had abdicated without bloodshed.[58]
There was little to no resistance to the establishment of the councils. Soldiers by simple acclamation often elected their most respected comrades; workers generally chose members of the local executive committees of the SPD or USPD.[59] With the support of local citizens, they freed political prisoners and occupied city halls, military facilities and train stations. The military authorities surrendered or fled, and civic officials accepted that they were under the control of the councils rather than the military and carried on with their work.[60] Little changed in the factories except for the removal of the military discipline that had prevailed during the war. Private property was not touched.[61] The sociologist Max Weber was part of the workers' council of Heidelberg and was pleasantly surprised that most members were moderate German liberals. The councils took over the distribution of food, the police force, and the accommodation and provisions of the front-line soldiers who were gradually returning home.
The workers' and soldiers' councils were made up almost entirely of SPD and USPD members. Their program called for an end to the war and to the authoritarian monarchical state. Apart from the dynastic families, they deprived only the military commands of their power and privilege. There were hardly any confiscations of property or occupations of factories. The duties of the imperial civilian administration and office holders such as police, municipal administrations and courts were not curtailed or interfered with. In order to create an executive committed to the revolution and to the future of the new government, the councils for the moment took over only the supervision of the administration from the military commands that had been put in place during the war.[62]
Notably, revolutionary sentiment did not affect the eastern parts of the Empire to any considerable extent, apart from isolated instances of agitation at Breslau in Silesia and Königsberg in East Prussia.[citation needed]
Reactions in Berlin
Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the SPD, agreed with the chancellor, Prince Maximilian, that a social revolution had to be prevented and order upheld at all costs. In the restructuring of the state, Ebert wanted to win over the middle-class parties that had cooperated with the SPD in the Reichstag in 1917 as well as the old elites of the German Empire. He wanted to avoid the spectre of radicalisation of the revolution along Russian lines and was also worried that the precarious food supply situation could break down, leading to the takeover of the administration by inexperienced revolutionaries. He was certain that the SPD would be able to implement its reform plans in the future due to its parliamentary majorities.[citation needed]
Ebert did his best to act in agreement with the old powers and intended to save the monarchy. In hopes that the Emperor's departure and the establishment of a regency would save the constitutional monarchy that had been established on 28 October, the SPD called for Wilhelm's abdication on 7 November.[63] According to notes taken by Prince Maximilian, Ebert told him, "If the Emperor does not abdicate, the social revolution is unavoidable. But I do not want it, indeed I hate it like sin."[64]
Wilhelm II, still at his headquarters in Spa, was considering returning to Germany at the head of the army to quell any unrest in Berlin. Even when General Groener told him that the army no longer supported him, he did not abdicate.[65] The Chancellor planned to travel to Spa to convince Wilhelm personally of the necessity, but his plans were overtaken by the rapidly deteriorating situation in Berlin.[66]
Saturday, 9 November 1918: two proclamations of a republic
Instead of going to Spa to meet with the Emperor in person, Chancellor von Baden telephoned him on the morning of 9 November and tried to convince him to hand the throne over to a regent who would constitutionally name Ebert chancellor. After his efforts failed, Prince Maximilian, without authorization, announced to the public that the Emperor and the Crown Prince had renounced the thrones of the Empire and of the Kingdom of Prussia.[67] Immediately thereafter, following a short meeting of the cabinet, the Prince transferred the chancellorship to Friedrich Ebert, a move that was not allowed under the constitution.[68] Ebert quickly released a statement announcing the formation of a new "people's government" whose immediate tasks were to end the war as quickly as possible and to ensure a sufficient supply of food for the German people, who were still suffering under the impact of the Allied blockade. The statement ended with "Leave the streets! Keep order and peace!"[69]
The premature news of the abdication came too late to make any impression on the demonstrators. Nobody heeded the public appeals.[70] While having lunch in the Reichstag building, the SPD deputy chairman Philipp Scheidemann learned that Karl Liebknecht of the Spartacus League planned to proclaim a socialist republic. Scheidemann did not want to leave the initiative to the Spartacists and stepped out onto a balcony of the Reichstag building where he proclaimed a republic before the mass of demonstrators gathered there. Ebert, who believed that the decision about the future form of the government of Germany belonged to a national assembly of the people's democratically elected representatives, stormed angrily at Scheidemann for his spontaneous decision to announce a republic.[71] A few hours later, in the Berlin Lustgarten, Liebknecht proclaimed a socialist republic, which he reaffirmed from a balcony of the Berlin City Palace to an assembled crowd at around 4 pm.[72]
Ebert wanted to take the sting out of the revolutionary mood and to meet the demands of the demonstrators for the unity of the labour parties. He offered the USPD equal participation in the government and was ready to accept Karl Liebknecht as a minister. The USPD, at Liebknecht's insistence, demanded that elected representatives of the unions and soldiers have full executive, legislative and judicial control. The SPD refused, and negotiations got no further that day.[73]
Around 8 pm, a group of 100 Revolutionary Stewards from the larger Berlin factories occupied the Reichstag. Led by their spokesmen Richard Müller and Emil Barth, they formed a revolutionary parliament. Most of the participating stewards had been leaders during the strikes earlier in the year. They did not trust the SPD leadership and had planned a coup for 11 November independently of the sailors' revolt, but were surprised by the revolutionary events since Kiel. In order to take the initiative from Ebert, they decided to announce elections for the following day, a Sunday. Every Berlin factory was to elect workers' councils and every regiment soldiers' councils that were then to elect a revolutionary government from members of the two labour parties (SPD and USPD) that evening. The government would be empowered to execute the resolutions of the revolutionary parliament, since they intended to replace Ebert's function as chancellor.[74]
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