Living conditions in post-war Germany were getting much worse approaching 1918.

Food levels were running so low that many German adults were surviving on 1000 calories a day, or starvation level.

Also, bird flu swept across Germany, leaving tens of thousands dead in its wake.

On the battle fronts Germany lost two Allies who decided to stop fighting and was forced to retreat.

Faced with this terrible crisis, Germany was forced to ask the Allies for peace.

The Allies agreed but on certain conditions. First of all Germany had to be made a democratic country, meaning that the Kaiser would have to share his power.

Kaiser Wilhelm agreed and on October 2 1918 he allowed the main political parties in the Reichstag to create a new government. This new government progressively took power away from the Kaiser and gave it to the Reichstag.

However, even this change did not satisfy many people, and public opinion turned to the Kaiser, blaming him for their worsening living conditions and said that he should abdicate.

On the 28^th of October 1918 a revolution broke out when Germany’s naval chiefs made an unpopular decision. They ordered warships in the port of Kiel to put to sea in an aim to fight the British navy for control of the sea between Europe and Britain.

Sailors on the ships were stupefied by these orders as they knew peace talks had begun and the war would soon be over. They knew it would be suicide to fight the mighty British disobeyed the order.

After the arrest of a thousand sailors for mutiny soldiers and sailors in Kiel held huge meetings to protest against the arrest. They were afraid that their comrades would be shot for mutiny.

Workers then joined their protests and led by socialists they set up a workers and soldiers council, known as a ‘soviet’ to run the town. Even the troops that came to stop the rebellion joined the rebels.

This mutiny quickly led to a revolution which spread from Kiel and over the next few weeks soldiers and sailors replicated the Kiel example in their own towns.

Police and army all over the nation gave up and surrendered.

Finally, on November 8^th the Army High Command told the Kaiser that the army would no longer support him. Without this support he had no method of halting the revolution and he had no choice but to abdicate.

Friedrich Ebert, leader of the Social Democratic Party took control of the government.

With the Kaiser gone, socialists who had helped to start the revolution disagreed over the question of how the German government should be run.

The new Social government under Friedrich Ebert ordered improvements in people’s living conditions. He also ended censorship and allowed free speech.

He ordered a maximum of eight-hour working day, help for the unemployed and increased national food supplies.

All this won him the support of many workers who might have support the Spartacus League.

The Spartacists opposed everything that Ebert did. For them he did not go far enough.

In November 1918, Socialist politicians ratified the treaty of Versailles.

On the 31^st of December they renamed themselves the German Communist Party and made plans to seize power.

The middle and upper class of Germany were afraid that this new party would replicate what the Bolsheviks had done in Russia to their similar classes.