The Majority Socialists were in a difficult position. The Independents claimed—and with right—that they had "made the revolution." The preponderance of brute force was probably, so far as Berlin alone was concerned, on their side. In any event they had a support formidable enough to compel Scheidemann and his followers to make concessions to them. The three delegates from each party met again. The result of their deliberations was concessions on both sides. The Majority Socialists agreed to exclude bourgeois elements from the cabinet, but the Independents agreed that this should not apply to those ministers (war, navy, etc.), whose posts required men of special training—the so-called Fachminister. The Independents consented to enter the government without placing a time-limit on their stay or on its existence. Each party was to designate three "people's commissioners" (Volksbeauftragte), who were to have equal rights. The Independents stipulated further in their conditions (which were accepted):
"The political power shall be in the hands of the workmen's and soldiers' councils, which shall be summoned shortly from all parts of the empire for a plenary session.
"The question of a constituent assembly will not become a live issue until after a consolidation of the conditions created by the revolution, and shall therefore be reserved for later consideration."
The Independents announced that, these conditions being accepted, their party had named as members of the government Hugo Haase, Wilhelm Dittmann and Emil Barth. Dittmann had but recently been released from jail, where he was serving a short sentence for revolutionary and anti-war propaganda. He was secretary of the Independent Socialist party's executive committee, an honest fanatic and but one step removed from a communist. Barth was in every way unfit to be a member of any government. There were grave stories afloat, some of them well founded, of his moral derelictions, and he was a man of no particular ability. Some months later, and several weeks after he had resigned from the cabinet, he was found riding about Southern Germany on the pass issued to him as a cabinet member and agitating for the overthrow of the government of which he had been a part.
The Majority Socialists selected as their representatives in the government Friedrich (Fritz) Ebert, Phillip Scheidemann and Otto Landsberg, the last named an able and respected lawyer and one of the intellectual leaders of the Berlin Socialists.
When, at 5:00 P.M., the combined workmen's and soldiers' councils of Greater Berlin met in the Circus Busch, Ebert was able to announce that the differences between the two Socialist parties had been adjusted. The announcement was greeted with hearty applause. The meeting had a somewhat stormy character, but was more orderly than might have been expected. A considerable number of front-soldiers were present, and the meeting was dominated throughout by them. They demonstrated at the outset that they had no sympathy with fanatic and ultraradical agitators and measures, and Liebknecht, who delivered a characteristic passionate harangue, demanding the exclusion of the Majority Socialists from any participation in the government, had great difficulty in getting a hearing. The choice of the six "people's commissioners" was ratified by the meeting.
It is a striking thing, explainable probably only by mass-psychology, that although the meeting was openly hostile to Liebknecht and his followers, it nevertheless voted by an overwhelming majority, to "send the Russian Workmen's and Soldiers' government our fraternal greetings," and decided that the new German government should "immediately resume relations with the Russian government, whose representative in Berlin it awaits."
The meeting adopted a proclamation declaring that the first task for the new government should be the conclusion of an armistice. "An immediate peace," said this proclamation, "is the revolution's parole. However this peace may be, it will be better than a continuation of the unprecedented slaughter." [45] The proclamation declared that the socialization of capitalistic means of production was feasible and necessary, and that the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council was "convinced that an upheaval along the same lines is being prepared throughout the whole world. It expects confidently that the proletariat of other countries will devote its entire might to prevent injustice being done to the German people at the end of the war." [46] Following the adoption of this proclamation, the meeting elected a Vollzugsrat or executive council from the membership of the workmen's and soldiers' councils present. It was made up of twenty-eight men, fourteen workmen and fourteen soldiers, and the Majority and Independent Socialists were represented on each branch of the council with seven members. The twenty-eight men chosen were Emil Barth, Captain von Beerfelde, Bergmann, Felix Bernhagen, Otto Braun, Franz Buchel, Max Cohen (Reuss), Erich Däumig, Heinrich Denecke, Paul Eckert, Christian Finzel, Gelberg, Gustav Gerhardt, Gierth, Gustav Heller, Ernst Jülich, Georg Ledebour, Maynitz, Brutus Molkenbuhr, Richard Müller, Paul Neuendorf, Hans Paasche, Walter Portner, Colin Ross, Otto Strobel, Waltz and P. Wegmann. Captain von Beerfelde was made chairman of the soldiers' branch and Müller of the workmen's representatives on this council. Müller, a metal-worker by trade, was a rabid Independent Socialist, a fiery agitator and bitter opponent of a constituent assembly. It was largely due to his leadership and to the support accorded him by Ledebour and certain other radical members of the Vollzugsrat that this council steadily drifted farther and farther toward the Independent and Spartacan side and ultimately became one of the greatest hindrances to honest government until its teeth were drawn in December.
[ [45] Germany would have accepted almost any kind of peace in November. This is but one of many things indicating it.
[ [46] There is something both characteristic and pathetic in the German Socialists' confidence that the proletariat in the enemy countries would follow their example. The wish was, of course, father to the thought, but it exhibited that same striking inability to comprehend other peoples' psychology that characterized the Germans throughout the war.
The council, however, started out well. Its first act, following the Circus Busch meeting, was to order the Lokal-Anzeiger and the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung restored to their lawful owners, and this was done. The council formally confirmed the choice of the six Volksbeauftragte and established rules for their guidance. Neither the council nor the people's commissioners could claim to have their mandate from the whole Empire, but they assumed it. Revolutionary governments cannot be particular, and Berlin was, after all, the capital and most important city. There was, furthermore, no time to wait for general elections. The Circus Busch meeting had good revolutionary precedents, and some sort of central government was urgently necessary.