The _Vollzugsrat_ made a fairly clean sweep among the Prussian ministers, filling the majority of posts with _Genossen_. Many of the old ministers, however, were retained in the national government, including Dr. Solf as Foreign Minister and General Scheuch as Minister of War, but each of the _bourgeois_ ministers retained was placed under the supervision of two Socialists, one from each party, and he could issue no valid decrees without their counter-signature. The same plan was followed by the revolutionary governments of the various federal states. Some of the controllers selected were men of considerable ability, but even these were largely impractical theorists without any experience in administration. For the greater part, however, they were men who had no qualifications for their important posts except membership in one of the Socialist parties and a deep distrust of all _bourgeois_ officials. The Majority Socialist controllers, even when they inclined to agree with their _bourgeois_ department chiefs on matters of policy, rarely dared do so because of the shibboleth of solidarity still uniting to some degree both branches of the party. Later, when the responsibilities of power had sobered them and rendered them more conservative, and when they found themselves more bitterly attacked than the _bourgeoisie_ by their former _Genossen_, they shook off in some degree the thralldom of old ideas, but meanwhile great and perhaps irreparable damage had been done. The revolutionary government faced at the very outset a more difficult task than had ever confronted a similar government at any time in the world's history. The people, starving, their physical, mental and moral powers of resistance gone, were ready to follow the demagogue who made the most glowing promises. The ablest men of the Empire were sulking in their tents, or had been driven into an enforced seclusion, and the men in charge of the government were without any practical experience in governing or any knowledge of constructive statecraft. Every one knew that the war was practically ended, but thousands of men were nevertheless being slaughtered daily to no end.