EUROPEAN SPARTACIDES AND COMMUNISTS
In Berlin, shortly after the Revolution against the Imperial Government, Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and their group of Socialists of the extreme Left were raising a merry riot almost every day in the hope of overcoming the ultra-conservative Socialist government and introducing the radical Bolshevist program. The constant disorder occasioned by these Spartacans or Spartacides of the Left provoked the opposition parties very much, annoying them to such an extent that many Germans wished to remove the capital of the country from Berlin to some more orderly city.
The name "Spartacides" or "Spartacans" came from the fact that early in the World War Karl Liebknecht, their leader, issued a number of anti-war pamphlets bearing the pseudonym, "Spartacus."
The Spartacides are the reddest of the Reds, the real Socialists of Germany. They differ very much from the Ebert-Scheidemann group, for the Spartacans want the principles of Socialism applied immediately, whereas Ebert and other members of his government warned their followers that though they held Socialist theories, the application of Socialism must be postponed to the distant future. The Ebert-Scheidemann Majority Socialists are regarded by the others as Socialists only in name, being really social reformers, or, at the most, weak-kneed Socialists who sought power, but fully realized that the application of the Marxian principles would be doomed to absolute failure. The Spartacans, however, still have confidence in Socialism; they agree heart and soul with the Russian Bolsheviki; they are the rowdies and ruffians of Germany, always looking for trouble. Strikes, riots and civil discord are