Now, while the Opposition was moving to the Left in attempts to realise the revolution, the Government was moving to the Right, and rapidly restoring the old Police-State behind a façade of parliamentary institutions. The consequence was a growing dissatisfaction with the Government, which, for want of proper expression through the Council organisation, broke out in periodic strikes and street fights. These were exploited by the Government as excuses for repressive and reactionary measures, which all contributed to reinforcing the Council movement. It was the vicious circle that we in England have come perilously near more than once. The defection of the Central Council also resulted in depriving the whole Council movement of any stability and solidarity, and drove it into local offensives or "_putsches_," which were beaten in detail. First Bremen and the coast ports, then Dusseldorf and the coal area, next Saxony and the industrial districts, and finally, in the first week of March, Berlin itself, all declared general strikes in which recognition of the Council system was the principal demand. And the Berlin strike, following close on that of Saxony, did frighten the Government into what might have been a considerable concession. As late as the end of February the Government had declared semi-officially that no member of the Government had the slightest intention of having the Council system incorporated in the Constitution either legislatively or administratively; but two days after the outbreak of the Berlin strike, early in March, the Government announced, not only the socialisation of mines but the sanction of the Council system in the Constitution. The first Government scheme for organising the Councils was of much the same character as the socialisation that it promised at the same time--an elaborate organisation of Factory Councils, Industrial Councils and Labour Chambers with "economic functions"; which all boiled down to little more than the "Whitley Council" principle previously proposed and rejected by the workmen. Since then the Government has had to concede more, and Art. 165 of the Constitution as signed in August, recognises the Workmen's Councils without representation of the employers, though they have to associate themselves with employers' representatives in order to discharge their constitutional functions. Thus associated they can intervene in social and economic legislation through a Central Economic Council. But it was clear that neither this nor any other concession likely to be made by the Assembly would satisfy the workmen. A bi-cameral system might have done so, but this the Coalition Government could never have imposed on its Centrum and middle-class supporters. The best chance of arriving at a compromise between Parliamentary and Council government was through the Congress of Councils which at last met in Berlin in May.