The German revolution, however, alone among the great revolutions of the world, was, as has already been pointed out, both in its origins and execution, proletarian and Socialistic. The _bourgeoisie_ had no part in it and no participation in the revolutionary government. Any attempt to develop the revolution further by overthrowing or opposing the first revolutionary government could therefore serve only factional and not class interests. Factional clashes were, of course, inevitable. The members of the Paris Commune split into four distinct factions, Jacobins, Blanquists, Proudhonists and a small group of Marxist Internationalists. But these, bitterly as they attacked each other's methods and views, nevertheless presented at all times a united front against the _bourgeoisie_, whereas the German Independent Socialists, from whom better things might have been expected, almost from the beginning played into the hands of the Spartacans, from whom nothing good could have been expected, and thus seriously weakened the government and eventually made a violent second phase of the revolution unavoidable. If it be admitted that Socialist government was the proper form of government for Germany at this time, it is clear that the Independent Socialists had a very real mission. This was well expressed in the first month of the revolution in a pamphlet by Kautsky, in which he wrote: "The extremes (Majority Socialists and Spartacans) can best be described thus: the one side (Majority) has not yet completely freed itself from _bourgeois_ habits of thought and still has much confidence in the _bourgeois_ world, whose inner strength it overestimates. The other side (Spartacans) totally lacks all comprehension of the _bourgeois_ world and regards it as a collection of scoundrels. It despises the mental and economic accomplishments of the _bourgeoisie_ and believes that the proletarians, without any special knowledge or any kind of training, are able to take over immediately all political and economic functions formerly exercised by the _bourgeois_ authorities. "Between these two extremes we find those (the Independents) who have studied the _bourgeois_ world and comprehend it, who regard it objectively and critically, but who know how properly to value its accomplishments and realize the difficulties of replacing it with a better system. This Marxist center must, on the one hand, spur the timorous on and awaken the blindly confiding, and on the other, put a check upon the blind impetuosity of the ignorant and thoughtless. It has the double task of driving and applying the brakes. "These are the three tendencies that contend with each other within the ranks of the proletariat."