In most of these strikes the hand of Spartacus and the Independent Socialists could be discerned. The working people, hungry and miserable, waiting vainly week after week for the food which they believed had been promised them, were tinder for the Bolshevist spark. The government's unwise method of handling the problem of the unemployed further greatly aggravated the situation. The support granted the unemployed often or perhaps generally was greater than their pay in their usual callings. A man with a wife and four children in Greater Berlin received more than fourteen marks daily. The average wage for unskilled labor was from ten to twelve marks, and the result was that none but the most conscientious endeavored to secure employment, and thousands deliberately left their work and lived on their unemployment-allowances. Two hundred thousand residents of Greater Berlin were receiving daily support from the city by the middle of February, and this proportion was generally maintained throughout the country. This vast army of unemployed further crippled industry, imposed serious financial burdens upon an already bankrupt state, and--inevitable result of idleness--made the task of Bolshevist agitators easier.
The Spartacans, who since their defeat in Berlin in January had been more carefully watched, began to assemble their forces elsewhere. Essen became their chief stronghold, and the whole Ruhr district, including Düsseldorf, was virtually in their hands. Other Spartacan centers were Leipsic, Halle, Merseburg, Munich, Nuremberg, Mannheim and Augsburg. All this time, however, they were also feverishly active in Berlin. A general strike, called by the Spartacans and Independent Socialists for the middle of February, collapsed. A secret sitting of the leaders of the Red Soldiers' League on February 15th was surprised by the authorities, who arrested all men present and thus nipped in the bud for a time further preparations for a new revolt. The Independents made common cause with the Spartacans in demanding the liberation of all "political prisoners," chief among whom were Ledebour, who helped organize the revolt of January 5th, and Radek, "this international criminal," as Deputy Heinrich Heine termed him in a speech before the Prussian Diet.