legislative powers upon the six Commissioners of the People, fixing the date of the elections for the National Assembly for Jan. 19 1919- The Berlin Executive Board was thus put out of action. It continued, indeed, to make attempts to get into power again, but without success.
Meanwhile the Extremist group on the left wing of the Inde- pendent Socialists had seceded and had formed a party of their own called the Spartacus League, the more prominent leaders of which were Dr. Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and Daumig. This Spartacus League rejected the principle of democracy, and advocated a " dictatorship of the proletariat " in the form of a Soviet Republic on the Russian model. The Russian Bolshevik, Radek, was present at the meeting at which the League was founded, and was welcomed as the representative of Bolshe- vik Russia. The League at once organized a violent cam- paign conducted by every conceivable method against the Council of Commissioners of the People, preaching a second revolution against them. Already on Dec. 5 there had been collisions between a mass demonstration of the Spartacists and some military detachments. On Dec. 24 a regular battle began for the possession of the imperial castle, occupied by the Spartacists, and for the neighbouring imperial stables, which they also held. The Government sent troops against the in- surgents, who chiefly consisted of former members of the Sailors' Division, formed during the first days of the Revolution in Berlin. The castle and the stables were stormed by the troops after a sanguinary struggle; there were heavy losses on both sides. The sailors were finally compelled to lay down their arms on a promise of immunity from punishment.
The Independent Socialist members of the Council of Com- missioners of the People, Barth, Dittmann and Haase, had during the fighting adopted a very ambiguous attitude. After the capitulation of the insurgents they resigned office on the ground that the revolutionary Government ought not to have employed troops against the rebels. Their places in the Council of Commissioners were taken by the Majority Socialists Noske and Wissel, the first-mentioned of whom had done very good service in putting a stop to the naval mutiny at Kiel at the be- ginning of the Revolution. On Dec. 20 Dr. Solf resigned his post as Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, and was replaced by the minister at Copenhagen, Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau.
In Prussia, too, the Revolution had resulted in upsetting the central organization of that state. On Nov. 12 a Prussian Min- istry, composed of Social Democrats and Independent Social- ists, was formed. It took the curious form of a kind of dyarchy running through the whole of the departments, one minister being presumably appointed to watch and check the other. The presidency was held conjointly by the Social Democrat Hirsch and the Independent Socialist Strobel, with equal rights. The Upper House and the Chamber of Deputies were dissolved. The only minister of the old regime who remained in office was the Minister for Railways, Breitenbach, but he retired on Nov. 26 and was succeeded by the ministerial director of that depart- ment. The Minister of Justice, Spahn, was replaced by a couple of Socialist lawyers, Rosenfeld and the highly cultured and gifted Wolfgang Heine; the Majority Socialist Dr. Sudekum was made Minister of Finance. The maddest appointment was that which was made to the Ministry of Public Worship and Education, where, alongside of the moderate Majority Socialist Haenisch, the Independent Socialist Adolf Hoffmann was in- stalled, a man known by the nickname " Ten Commandments Hoffmann," because he was fond of introducing in his speeches passages from the Bible, although he had left the Church and did not profess any religion. Hoffmann was not proficient either in speaking or in writing the German language; he could neither open his lips nor take up his pen without perpetrating solecisms and grammatical blunders, to say nothing of the fact that he had not the slightest idea of the administration of schools or churches. His action was in keeping with his qualifications and was absolutely reckless; he never even informed his Majority Socialist colleague Haenisch of the autocratic ordinances which he issued. He straightway abolished the contribution of the
State to the expenditure of the Church, and decreed that in- struction in history should henceforth only be given from Social Democratic text books. He likewise abolished all religious instruction. There was soon a storm of indignation against Hoffmann in all scholastic circles, so that his colleague Haenisch had to revoke all Hoffmann's decrees. Irritated at this, Hoffmann resigned, after having taken care to draw his salary from the funds of the Ministry for several months in advance. There was a still worse state of things in the former duchy of Brunswick, where the president of the state was a tailor named Merges, while the Minister of Public Worship was a washerwoman.
The year 1919 opened with sanguinary disturbances. The Spartacus League under the leadership of Dr. Liebknecht had made elaborate preparations for a fresh insurrection. In the first days of January, mass demonstrations of the Spartacus League began in Berlin with the participation of large numbers of the Independent Socialists. The Majority Socialists called upon their adherents to assemble for counter-demonstrations in the Wilhelmstrasse and the Wilhelmsplatz, the quarter in which the Government offices were situated. Collisions at once took place in this district, but there was no bloodshed. It was not till Jan. 5 that the real rising commenced. The adherents of the Spartacus League, who were amply provided with rifles and machine-guns, first occupied the so-called " newspaper quarter " of Berlin, in particular the offices of the great non-Socialist journals, and also the great building of the Majority Socialist organ Vorwarts. They then tried to force their way into the Wilhelmstrasse. The Government had at its disposal only a small and diminishing number of troops. If the Spartacists had pressed their attack home with greater energy, it would have been easy for them to occupy the Government offices and to expel the Government. They were, however, intimidated by the sight of a handful of soldiers, who had occupied the approaches to the Wilhelmstrasse with machine-guns, and although there were various shooting affrays they did not venture upon any real assault. The Cabinet now entrusted one of its members, Noske, who had taken over the Ministry of National Defence (Reichswehrministerium), with the task of procuring troops. Noske, with the assistance of Gen. von Luttwitz, collected in the western suburbs of Berlin all the troops that were available in the neighbourhood of the capital. Some new formations were also organized; they were mostly recruited from officers of the former German army. With these troops Gen. von Luttwitz marched into Berlin, and a bloody struggle began, which lasted several days and finally resulted in the defeat of the Spartacists. Some of the newspaper offices had to be besieged for days and even bombarded with artillery, before the Spartacists who were holding them would surrender. There was a great deal of isolated fighting, and frequently there was firing from the roofs of the houses. A warrant for the arrest of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who were at the head of the insurrection, was is- sued. Liebknecht was arrested on Jan. 16 in a Berlin suburb where he was in hiding, and was taken to the Eden hotel, where Gen. von Luttwitz had established his headquarters. When the prisoner was being transported from the hotel to Moabit prison, he was shot by his military guards as he was making an attempt to escape. 1
His associate, Rosa Luxemburg, had a similar fate. She, too, was arrested, and was conducted to the Eden hotel. When she was about to be transported thence to prison, she was felled by a soldier with the butt end of his rifle. Seriously injured and unconscious, she was placed in a motor-car, where another soldier shot her through the head. The motor-car rapidly con- veyed her body to the neighbouring Landwehr Canal, into which it was flung. Several weeks elapsed before the body was found Her funeral, like Liebknecht's, was attended by large crowds of their Spartacist followers. The murderer of Rosa Luxemburg was subsequently brought to trial, and was condemned and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. Altogether there were
1 The Independent Socialists and the Communists afterwards persisted in maintaining, on the ground of some contradictory medi- cal evidence, that Liebknecht was shot in cold blood.
