The
Spartacist uprising , also known as the
January uprising (
Januaraufstand), was a
general strike (and the armed battles accompanying it) in
Germany from 4 to 15 January 1919. Germany was in the middle of a
post-war revolution, and the two paths forward were social democracy or a council/soviet republic similar to the one which had been established by the
Bolshevik Party in
Russia. The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the moderate
Social Democratic Party of Germany led by
Friedrich Ebert, and the more radical communists of the
Communist Party of Germany, led by
Karl Liebknecht and
Rosa Luxemburg, who had previously founded and led the
Spartacist League (
Spartakusbund). This power struggle was the result of the abdication of
Kaiser Wilhelm II and the resignation of Chancellor
Max von Baden, who had passed power onto Ebert as the leader of the largest party in the German parliament. Similar uprisings occurred and were suppressed in Bremen, the Ruhr, Rhineland, Saxony, Hamburg, Thuringia and Bavaria, and another round of even bloodier street battles occurred in Berlin in March, which led to popular disillusionment with the
Weimar Government.