The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the supporters of the provisional government led by Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which favored a social democracy, and those who backed the position of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by the Bolsheviks in Russia.

The uprising began with mass demonstrations and strikes called by the parties of the radical left to protest the dismissal of Berlin's chief of police.

Taken by surprise at the size of the turnout and the protestors' spontaneous occupation of newspaper buildings and printing companies, the leaders of the left were unable to agree on how to proceed.

The government responded with military force, including several paramilitary Freikorps units, retook the buildings that had been occupied and violently suppressed the uprising.

[4][5] The party's involvement hampered its position throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, although quashing the uprising allowed elections for the National Assembly to take place as scheduled on 19 January 1919.

Some historians, such as Heinrich August Winkler and Sebastian Haffner, consider the name to be misleading because the Spartacists (KPD) had not wanted, planned or led the revolt.

[9] The MSPD leadership sought a rapid return to "orderly conditions" by means of elections to a national constituent assembly which would democratically determine Germany's future form of government.

[11] On 23 December, a dispute arose over back pay owed to the People's Marine Division (Volksmarinedivision), which had been assigned to protect the provisional government in Berlin.

The following day, when the three MSPD members of the Council of the People's Deputies ordered Berlin's police chief, Emil Eichhorn (USPD), to use the security forces under his command to free Wels, he refused.

Liebknecht had been "whipped into a state of revolutionary euphoria" by the size of the demonstration and the false report that all regiments in and around Berlin were on their side,[19] whereas Luxemburg continued to oppose these actions.

While both in principle supported a second revolution against the Council of People's Deputies, they considered the timing premature and tactically unwise; they voted only for a general strike.

The following day, the Revolutionary Committee called on the workers of Berlin to stage a general strike on 7 January and overthrow Ebert's government.

Some of their placards and banners bore the same slogans as at the beginning of the November Revolution: "Peace and Unity",[16] but there were also fliers such as the one issued by the "revolutionary workforce of Greater Berlin":[23]Workers!

[19] On the same day, Ebert gave Gustav Noske (MSPD) command of the troops in and around Berlin, and calls went out for the formation of more Freikorps units.

The hour of reckoning is approaching!On 9 January the central executive committee of the Berlin USPD and the KPD issued a joint appeal demanding a fight against "the Judases in the government.

The Anti-Bolshevist League printed posters and appeals to the population of Berlin calling for the Bolshevik ringleaders to be found and handed over to the military.

Fritz Henck, Philipp Scheidemann's son-in-law, publicly assured the residents of Berlin on 14 January that the leaders of the uprising "would not get off scot-free".

[33] On the evening of 15 January, Luxemburg and Liebknecht were found in the apartment of a friend, Dr. Markussohn, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf by the Wilmersdorf Citizens' Militia, arrested and taken to the Eden Hotel.

KPD leader Wilhelm Pieck, who was also arrested when he visited the apartment that evening, witnessed the abuse as well as a number of telephone calls.

In an article in the party's Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag) newspaper on 12 February 1919, he revealed the names of some of those his own research led him to suspect of being involved.

On 16 February 1919, KPD members began demanding an independent investigation by a non-military special court because they feared suppression of evidence.

... A short time after that, a maid came up, fell into the arms of a colleague, and exclaimed, 'I'll never be free of the image of that poor woman being knocked down and dragged around.'"

[48] Runge, recognized and beaten by workers in 1925 and 1931 after his release from prison, was tracked down by members of the KPD in Berlin in May 1945 and handed over to the Soviet commandant's office on the instructions of senior prosecutor Max Berger.

[52] In 1970 a letter was found in Pabst's estate in which he wrote: "It is clear that I could not have carried out the action without Noske's approval – with Ebert in the background – and that I also had to protect my officers.

Otto Kranzbühler, who later became the lawyer for Hermann Souchon, the man who shot Luxemburg, stated that Pabst had confirmed to him the telephone conversation with Noske.

[citation needed] The uprising did not have a mass base and was, according to historian Heinrich August Winkler, only an "attempted coup by a radical minority".

In the subsequent elections during the life of the Weimar Republic, the SPD never again achieved more than 30 percent of the vote and thus remained dependent on coalitions with the middle-class parties of the center in order to participate in government, even after its reunification with most of the USPD in 1922.

Every year on the second weekend of January, the Liebknecht-Luxemburg demonstration takes place in Berlin to commemorate Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

[60] Hans-Ulrich Wehler was of the opinion that the KPD, against Luxemburg's advice, "gave in to a putschist current that sought to unleash a German civil war by means of the Berlin January uprising".

[61] Irish historian Mark Jones makes a similar judgment, characterizing the uprising as an "improvised coup attempt with very little real chance of success".