The Ministry had to give to the political pressure. Already before the strike it indicated concessions as to industrial socialisation and constitutional sanction of the Councils, and these were elaborated and established by negotiations at Weimar with missions sent from the Central and Executive Councils. These concessions were in principle very considerable, and much more than could ever have been imposed in practical application on the Centrum supporters of the Government. The result of this crisis was therefore to prepare the way for a reconstruction of the Government on a moderate Socialist basis, between a Centrum-Conservative opposition to the Right and a Communist to the Left. This would have represented the true balance of political power at the time; and the fact that it would not have had a majority at Weimar would have been only a formal difficulty. But this, the natural, solution was made impossible by the extraordinary severity with which the armed resistance to the Government was punished. For this severity made it impossible for even the most moderate Independents to join the Government. And this fighting was not a development of the strike, but of the campaign carried on by the Government with volunteer flying columns against the revolutionary corps throughout Germany. Of these corps, of which there were many in Berlin, the most important were the Republican Guard and the Marine Division. The former had from the first supported the Government, while the Marine Division of Kiel sailors had already been in collision with it in December. The other corps were all more or less in opposition, and some were mere camouflage for bad characters. Until these corps were dispersed the constitutional Government had no complete control of Berlin apart from their "Council" rival, the Executive Committee. A first step was made towards their suppression by the arrest of sixty ringleaders; whereupon the Marine Division and the other corps prepared for resistance, with the assistance of the Spartacist irregulars and a rabble of roughs and rascals. These were joined later by about half the Republican Guard, which had come into collision with the Frei-Corps--the Government volunteer contingents. The strikers, however, took no part in the fighting.