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35–6. 2 They were also in office locally3 for much longer than that, particularly in Prussia. Their ability to pursue their own distinctive policies, however, was restricted for most of the time by the presence of non-socialist coalition partners. Nevertheless, in the first two years after the November Revolution of 1918 they 1 In other words, at the level of the German Reich as a whole. One of the features of the compromise that founded the Weimar Republic was the retention of the word ‘Reich’ to describe the whole country, although the ‘Second Reich’ ceased to exist with the establishment of the Republic.

A dull feeling of tension dominates the giant city, which awaits the coming events like a patient sacrificial victim. Even at this moment we should like to avoid giving up the hope that tomorrow the population will heave a liberating sigh of relief, and that the tranquillity, the composure, which have always distinguished the proletariat of Berlin will be maintained today as well. It is senseless to employ violence, because it cannot change anything in the existing relations of power. A counter-revolutionary putsch and a Spartacist coup are equally senseless, because they can only lead to a fresh loss of human life without attaining their goal.

On welfare, see Crew 1998 and Young-Sun Hong 1998 and on education, see Lamberti 2002. Whether housing should be added to this list is doubtful. It has been suggested that the many new dwellings built by SPD-run municipalities in the 1920s were simply too expensive for the ordinary working-class person (Silverman 1970, pp. 112–39). ��63/9789004271081_��3 14 chapter 1 had greater room for manoeuvre because defeat in the First World War and the collapse of the old ruling system led to a temporary loss of confidence on the part of their ‘bourgeois’4 colleagues and opponents.