The new ambassador had arrived with a staff of three hundred. His first official act was to hoist the hammer and sickle over the embassy; he refused to present his credentials personally to the Kaiser, and on the list of the guests invited to his first dinner party were the names of two left-wing German socialists serving prison terms for sedition and treason: Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. The Soviet Embassy soon became a headquarters for the Independent Socialists and other revolutionaries who later formed Germany’s first Communist Party.
Adolph Joffe
