The history of the German revolution can be shortly described and sharply defined. After the first explosion on November 9 came a month of equilibrium between revolution and reaction. Then a month of which the first fortnight was a swing slowly to the right until the breach with the Independents on December 24, and a swing swiftly the second fortnight until the fighting with the Spartacists in January. Thereafter a month of rapid return to the point where it was before the explosion, a point reached with the formation of the Coalition Government by the National Assembly on February 13. Indeed the Government of Scheidemann only differed from that of Max von Baden in being one degree more to the left, a development which was due in any case apart from the revolution. The German revolution is peculiar in having reached its highest point at once and in having then relapsed to where it started from without any positive reaction. This in itself suggests that it was due in its origin to external forces--propaganda from Russia on the one side and pressure from us on the other. Our military and naval pressure broke first the prestige then the power of Kaiserism and Militarism, while the Russian precedent gave the forces of rebellion and revolution a practical example how to express themselves in co-ordinated councils of workmen and soldiers--the Soviet system. We knocked German Kaiserism out of the saddle, and Russia gave German Socialism a leg up. And that's why it went so far so fast. That's also why it never got anywhere. For it came to power before it developed its own personalities and policies, and it had, therefore, to put its trust in pre-revolutionary politicians. The Council system had no time to produce leaders--men with enough confidence in their own position and enough character to impose themselves on the permanent officials. The Central Council--the true revolutionary Executive--and the Congress of Councils--the true revolutionary Legislature--never got any power. It was all monopolised by the People's Commissioners, who were not really a revolutionary institution at all, but an ordinary Provisional Government of parliamentarians. And though they nominally held their mandate from the Congress of Councils a majority of them considered themselves as trustees for a Constituent Assembly. Such parliamentarians could work well enough with the permanent officials, and, indeed, welcomed their assistance. Whereas the councils, of course, came into violent collision with them.