When, at 5:00 P.M., the combined workmen's and soldiers' councils of Greater Berlin met in the Circus Busch, Ebert was able to announce that the differences between the two Socialist parties had been adjusted. The announcement was greeted with hearty applause. The meeting had a somewhat stormy character, but was more orderly than might have been expected. A considerable number of front-soldiers were present, and the meeting was dominated throughout by them. They demonstrated at the outset that they had no sympathy with fanatic and ultraradical agitators and measures, and Liebknecht, who delivered a characteristic passionate harangue, demanding the exclusion of the Majority Socialists from any participation in the government, had great difficulty in getting a hearing. The choice of the six "people's commissioners" was ratified by the meeting. It is a striking thing, explainable probably only by mass-psychology, that although the meeting was openly hostile to Liebknecht and his followers, it nevertheless voted by an overwhelming majority, to "send the Russian Workmen's and Soldiers' government our fraternal greetings," and decided that the new German government should "immediately resume relations with the Russian government, whose representative in Berlin it awaits." The meeting adopted a proclamation declaring that the first task for the new government should be the conclusion of an armistice. "An immediate peace," said this proclamation, "is the revolution's parole. However this peace may be, it will be better than a continuation of the unprecedented slaughter."[45] The proclamation declared that the socialization of capitalistic means of production was feasible and necessary, and that the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council was "convinced that an upheaval along the same lines is being prepared throughout the whole world. It expects confidently that the proletariat of other countries will devote its entire might to prevent injustice being done to the German people at the end of the war."[46] Following the adoption of this proclamation, the meeting elected a _Vollzugsrat_ or executive council from the membership of the workmen's and soldiers' councils present. It was made up of twenty-eight men, fourteen workmen and fourteen soldiers, and the Majority and Independent Socialists were represented on each branch of the council with seven members. The twenty-eight men chosen were Emil Barth, Captain von Beerfelde, Bergmann, Felix Bernhagen, Otto Braun, Franz Buchel, Max Cohen (Reuss), Erich Daeumig, Heinrich Denecke, Paul Eckert, Christian Finzel, Gelberg, Gustav Gerhardt, Gierth, Gustav Heller, Ernst Juelich, Georg Ledebour, Maynitz, Brutus Molkenbuhr, Richard Mueller, Paul Neuendorf, Hans Paasche, Walter Portner, Colin Ross, Otto Strobel, Waltz and P. Wegmann. Captain von Beerfelde was made chairman of the soldiers' branch and Mueller of the workmen's representatives on this council. Mueller, a