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The Spartacist uprising (German: Spartakusaufstand), also known as the January uprising (Januaraufstand) or, more rarely, Bloody Week, was an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the German revolution that broke out just before the end of World War I. The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the supporters of the provisional government led by Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which favored a social democracy, and those who backed the position of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by the Bolsheviks in Russia. The government's forces were victorious in the fighting. The uprising began with mass demonstrations and strikes called by the parties of the radical left to protest the dismissal of Berlin's chief of police. Taken by surprise at the size of the turnout and the protestors' spontaneous occupation of newspaper buildings and printing companies, the leaders of the left were unable to agree on how to proceed. As a result, the uprising remained largely without direction. The government responded with military force, including several paramilitary Freikorps units, retook the buildings that had been occupied and violently suppressed the uprising. The death toll was roughly 150–200, mostly among the insurgents. The most prominent deaths were those of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who were executed extrajudicially on 15 January, almost certainly with the at least tacit approval of the MSPD-led government. The party's involvement hampered its position throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, although quashing the uprising allowed elections for the National Assembly to take place as scheduled on 19 January 1919. The Assembly went on to write the Weimar Constitution that created the first national German democracy. The uprising took its popular name from the Marxist Spartacus League (Spartakusbund), which Luxemburg and Liebknecht founded in 1914. When the KPD was established on 1 January 1919, the Spartacus League became part of it. Some historians, such as Heinrich August Winkler and Sebastian Haffner, consider the name to be misleading because the Spartacists (KPD) had not wanted, planned or led the revolt. Background and causes On 10 November 1918, the Council of the People's Deputies under the co-leadership of Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party (MSPD) and Hugo Haase of the more left-wing Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) was formed as a provisional government following the collapse of the German Empire at the end of World War I. It had three representatives each from the MSPD and USPD. The Supreme Army Command (OHL) implicitly recognized the Council the same day in the secret Ebert-Groener Pact in which Wilhelm Groener, Quartermaster General of the German Army, assured Chancellor Ebert of the loyalty of the armed forces. In return, Ebert promised to take prompt action against leftist uprisings and leave military command with the officer corps. The MSPD leadership sought a rapid return to "orderly conditions" by means of elections to a national constituent assembly which would democratically determine Germany's future form of government. The USPD, the Revolutionary Stewards and parts of the working class wanted to continue working towards their revolutionary goals of nationalizing property, stripping power from the military and establishing a council republic. On 1 January 1919, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht founded the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Because of the unhappiness of many workers with the course of the November Revolution, other left-socialist groups joined in the party's foundation. The Revolutionary Stewards, however, after deliberations with the Spartacists, decided to remain in the USPD. Luxemburg presented her founding program on 31 December 1918. In it she noted that the Communists could never take power without the clear support of the majority of the people. On 1 January she again urged that the KPD participate in the planned elections for a constituent assembly, but she was outvoted. The majority hoped to gain power by continued agitation in the factories and pressure from the streets. On 23 December, a dispute arose over back pay owed to the People's Marine Division (Volksmarinedivision), which had been assigned to protect the provisional government in Berlin. In an attempt to force payment, the sailors took Otto Wels (MSPD), the military commander of Berlin, hostage. The following day, when the three MSPD members of the Council of the People's Deputies ordered Berlin's police chief, Emil Eichhorn (USPD), to use the security forces under his command to free Wels, he refused. Ebert then had the Army called in and ordered it to use deadly force against the People's Navy Division in what came to be known as the 1918 Christmas crisis. Wels was freed, but eleven men from the People's Marine Division and 56 from the Army were killed. On 29 December, the three USPD representatives on the Council resigned in protest. The MSPD representatives then appointed two MSPD members to replace them. After that the USPD no longer saw the Council as a legitimate interim government. MSPD majorities in the workers' councils agreed to Ebert's wish to dismiss Police Chief Eichhorn, whom he now considered unreliable, but the USPD and KPD interpreted Eichhorn's dismissal as an attack on the revolution. This became the immediate trigger of the uprising. Uprising Mass demonstrations and general strike On 4 January, the day Eichhorn was dismissed and replaced by Eugen Ernst of the MSPD, the executive committee of the Berlin USPD and the Revolutionary Stewards decided to hold a demonstration on the following day. The 5 January demonstration took on a scale that exceeded all their expectations. During its course, armed demonstrators occupied the printing plants of the Social Democratic newspaper Vorwärts and the Berliner Tageblatt, as well as several publishing houses' buildings, a printing plant and a telegraph office. The leading members of the Revolutionary Stewards, the USPD and the KPD met on the evening of 5 January to decide how to proceed. Most of those present supported the occupation of the Berlin newspaper district and were in favor of taking up the fight against the Social Democratic government. Liebknecht had been "whipped into a state of revolutionary euphoria" by the size of the demonstration and the false report that all regiments in and around Berlin were on their side, whereas Luxemburg continued to oppose revolutionary actions. Only two spokesmen for the Revolutionary Stewards, Richard Müller and Ernst Däumig, spoke out against the course of action. While both in principle supported a second revolution against the Council of People's Deputies, they considered the timing premature and tacticall.... Discover the Henning Kohler popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Henning Kohler books.