Rat der Volksbeauftragten
An entirely Socialist provisional government based on workers' councils was about to take power under Ebert's leadership. It was called the Council of the People's Deputies ("Rat der Volksbeauftragten"). Ebert found himself in a quandary. He had succeeded in bringing the SPD to power, and he was now in a position to put into law social reforms and improve the lot of the working class. Yet as a result of the revolution, he and his party were forced to share power with those on the left whom he despised: the Spartacists and the Independents. In the afternoon of 9 November, he grudgingly asked the USPD to nominate three ministers for the future government. Yet that evening a group of several hundred followers of the Revolutionary Stewards occupied the Reichstag building and were holding an impromptu debate. They called for the election of soldiers' and workers' councils the next day with an eye to name a provisional government: the Council of the People's Deputies. In order to keep control of events and against his own anti-revolutionary convictions, Ebert decided that he needed to co-opt the workers' councils and thus become the leader of the revolution while at the same time serving as the formal head of the German government.