swiftly the second fortnight until the fighting with the Spartacists in January. Thereafter a month of rapid return to the point where it was before the explosion, a point reached with the formation of the Coalition Government by the National Assembly on February 13. Indeed the Government of Scheidemann only differed from that of Max von Baden in being one degree more to the left, a development which was due in any case apart from the revolution.

The German revolution is peculiar in having reached its highest point at once and in having then relapsed to where it started from without any positive reaction. This in itself suggests that it was due in its origin to external forces—propaganda from Russia on the one side and pressure from us on the other. Our military and naval pressure broke first the prestige then the power of Kaiserism and Militarism, while the Russian precedent gave the forces of rebellion and revolution a practical example how to express themselves in co-ordinated councils of workmen and soldiers—the Soviet system. We knocked German Kaiserism out of the saddle, and Russia gave German Socialism a leg up. And that's why it went so far so fast.

That's also why it never got anywhere. For it came to power before it developed its own personalities and policies, and it had, therefore, to put its trust in pre-revolutionary politicians. The Council system had no time to produce leaders—men with enough confidence in their own position and enough character to impose themselves on the permanent officials. The Central Council—the true revolutionary Executive—and the Congress of Councils—the true revolutionary Legislature—never got any power. It was all monopolised by the People's Commissioners, who were not really a revolutionary institution at all, but an ordinary Provisional Government of parliamentarians. And though they nominally held their mandate from the Congress of Councils a majority of them considered themselves as trustees for a Constituent Assembly. Such parliamentarians could work well enough with the permanent officials, and, indeed, welcomed their assistance. Whereas the councils, of course, came into violent collision with them.

Where the council system prevailed, as in the army, it made a real revolution, and broke the officer caste until the Frei-Corps replaced the conscript army. But the workmen were not so drastic in the civil service as were the soldiers in the cadres, and they allowed the parliamentarians to spare the Amalekite. Only the political heads of departments were replaced by Social Democrats; and, in one case I know, a revolutionary Minister allowed his predecessor, out of courtesy, to keep his official residence. This was, of course, all very nice, but it meant that the old machine was not broken up, nor even brought under control. The result was that a coalition between the mere reformers among the commissioners and the civil servants was enough to counter-balance the more revolutionary commissioners and the councils; until finally external circumstances determined the deadlock in favour of the former.

The German revolution never took its Bastille in the Wilhelmstrasse. The sentries set by the Soldiers' Councils at the doors of the Government offices, who loudly demanded your pass and only looked foolish if you ignored them, were symbolic of the failure of the German revolution. So insignificant were these sentinels of revolution that no one saw the significance when they were finally replaced by steel-helmeted Frei-Corps mercenaries last April. By the first week of December it had become evident that the course of events was leading away from the Congress of Councils to the Constituent Assembly, and away from social revolution to political reconstruction. The Central Council that should have been the driving-wheel of the Socialist engine was becoming no more than a drag shoe on the old State coach.

Before the German revolution was a month old—that is, by the end of the first week of December—it was entering its second phase, in which the Parliamentary Commissioners having ousted the proletarian councils from control, then divided among themselves into reformers and revolutionaries. And at the end of the second phase, early in January, we find that the reformers have ousted the revolutionaries.

This came about thus. The German Social Democratic Party was professedly revolutionary. Its political attitude had been traditionally one of refusal of all co-operation or even compromise with the imperial political system. On this negative basis it had been possible to combine in a common front comrades of very different points of view and of political thought. But this superficial solidarity could not stand the strain of the war. A sense of patriotism carried one section—the Majority Socialists—first into countenancing and then into supporting the Government; while pacifist sentiment against war in general, and this war in particular, carried the minority into more obstinate opposition. This finally split the party much as it split our Labour Party. The Majority Social-Democrats moved towards the Government, while the Government towards the end of the war came to meet them. Until finally the Ministry of Prince Max of Baden, that ended the war, not only represented the Reichstag majority, but also the Majority Social-Democrats.

When Prince Max went down in the revolution, he remitted the reins of government to Ebert and Scheidemann. They, knowing that alone they could not rule the whirlwind, called in the Minority Social-Democrats—the Independents, offering them equal representation in the Cabinet, then called the People's Commissaries, and in the Central Council. This arrangement was ratified by the Congress of Councils, though very perfunctorily, as it was considered only a provisional makeshift.

Now, while the Social-Democrats of the Majority were just parliamentary reformers, the Independents of the Minority, Haase and Kautsky, were revolutionaries. Liebknecht was a radical revolutionary who would not come into the Coalition. Consequently, whereas Ebert and Scheidemann considered themselves as merely Commissioners to prepare a Constituent Assembly, the Independents considered themselves Commissaries for the Congress of Councils. The former considered the revolution was probably unnecessary, and in any case had done its work in preparing the way for universal suffrage and a united Germany. The latter considered that the revolution had only begun, and could only do its work through the Soviet system and a general socialisation.

The first serious difference came over the Poles, with whom the Independents had practically concluded an arrangement which was, however, upset by Landsberg, a Jew from Posen, one of the People's Commissaries. Then came serious differences over German policy towards the Entente. The Independents were in favour of admitting culpability in the war crisis, Belgium, submarine warfare, etc., and of accepting such liability as might be shown to be equitable, while frankly discussing such assets as could be realised in payment. This the Majority rejected, preferring a negative policy of passive inaction. But the final breach came over internal policy and the use of force against the revolutionaries, the Communists, who were trying to force the revolution out of the rut of parliamentary reform into which it was slipping.

This Communist Left, commanded but not controlled by Liebknecht, was working for a second revolution in alliance with Russian agents. Its fighting faction, that called itself "Spartacus"—with the accent on the second syllable—was strong in the industrial districts of the centre and west, among the sailors in the coast towns, and in