Council of People’s Representatives

Calling itself the Council of People’s Representatives, the government derived its authority from the Workers and Soldiers Council, which claimed to speak for Germany and the German Republic but in truth had been elected rather arbitrarily by the factories and regiments of Berlin alone. Ebert was determined to…

…chancellor, became chairman of the Council of Peoples’ Commissars, a body dominated by Majority Socialists who were opposed to revolution. His first act was to strike a bargain with the high command. Hindenburg would retain his command, and Ebert would resist the revolution. This had already lost its mass appeal…