Council of the People's Deputies
인민대표평의회
The revolutionary provisional government of Germany from 10 November 1918 to 13 February 1919. Formed during the November Revolution by three members each of the Majority Social Democrats (MSPD) and the Independent Social Democrats (USPD), with Friedrich Ebert as de facto chairman, it concluded the armistice, introduced universal suffrage for men and women, proportional representation and the eight-hour day, and chose to settle the new state's form through elections to a National Assembly rather than through the workers' and soldiers' councils. After the USPD members resigned on 29 December it was an MSPD-only government, and it handed over to the Scheidemann cabinet formed by the Weimar National Assembly.
In depth
A "six-headed chancellor" born of the revolution
On 9 November 1918 Max von Baden announced the Kaiser's abdication on his own authority and handed the chancellorship to Friedrich Ebert, chairman of the MSPD. Since the workers' and soldiers' councils that had made the revolution demanded unity of the two workers' parties, the MSPD had to form a coalition with the USPD. On the afternoon of 10 November the two parties formed a provisional revolutionary government of three members each. The USPD had wanted to call it a "Council of People's Commissars" on the Russian model; it was Germanised as "Council of the People's Deputies".
The first members were Ebert, Philipp Scheidemann and Otto Landsberg of the MSPD and Hugo Haase, Wilhelm Dittmann and Emil Barth of the USPD, with Ebert and Haase as co-chairmen. Scheidemann called the council a "six-headed chancellor", but Ebert, who had received office from the last imperial chancellor, enjoyed the confidence of the civil service and the army and acted as de facto chairman. That evening some 3,000 delegates of workers' and soldiers' councils assembled in the Circus Busch in Berlin endorsed the government and set up an Executive Council to supervise it.
The appeal, reforms and the old state apparatus
The council concluded the armistice on 11 November. Its appeal "To the German People" of 12 November put into immediate effect the lifting of the state of siege, freedom of association and assembly and the abolition of censorship, declared equal, secret, direct and universal suffrage with proportional representation for all men and women aged 20 and over in all elections, and promised the eight-hour day from 1 January 1919. Yet most imperial state secretaries and officials stayed in office, and the council attempted hardly any reform of the army. Ebert had promised this to Wilhelm Groener of the Supreme Army Command even before the council was formed, and in return the army undertook to support the new government (the Ebert–Groener pact). Whether the council should have acted more boldly is still debated.
Councils or National Assembly
The two parties disagreed on whether the government should begin socialist transformation itself or leave it to a constituent National Assembly. The Reich Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils of 16–21 December backed the MSPD by setting elections to the National Assembly for 19 January 1919. In protest at the government troops' attack on the People's Navy Division at the Berlin Palace in the Christmas fighting of 24 December, the three USPD members resigned on 29 December and were replaced by the MSPD's Gustav Noske and Rudolf Wissell. From then on the council called itself the Reich government.
Government troops and Freikorps under Noske crushed the Berlin rising of January 1919. The Weimar National Assembly elected on 19 January chose Ebert as President on 11 February, and on 13 February the Scheidemann cabinet of the MSPD, the Centre Party and the German Democratic Party took the place of the Council of the People's Deputies.