But what now concerned the leaders of the Reichstag majority was the prospect that a dogged rearguard action by the German right wing would stall any further reform and provoke a radicalization on their exposed left flank. In the autumn of 1917 support for the breakaway anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) was clearly surging. There could no longer be any doubt that the most vocal section of the German working class, perhaps a majority, were demanding a negotiated peace, an end to martial law, democratization in Prussia and an immediate improvement in food rations.
