Germany’s new leaders faced the nightmare of both external and internal collapse. Even before the war ended, revolution triggered by a naval mutiny in Kiel had spread rapidly across the country, bringing in its wake strikes, desertions and civil war. Pitted against each other were, on the one hand, the Spartacists (their name derived from the rebel gladiator, Spartacus), who soon formed themselves into the German Communist Party, and, on the other hand, the Freikorps, right-wing militias intent on destroying Bolshevism. The Spartacists (led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht) stood little
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