only Haase and 13 others refused to support the loans. Bowing to party discipline, Haase then voted for the loans in the Reichstag and, as chairman, had to defend the SPD vote in the session of 4 August. It was Haase who read out the party's statement that "we won't abandon the Fatherland in the hour of danger", in response to which the imperial government created its so-called Burgfrieden policy. After the collapse of German war plans at the end of 1914, Haase became more and more vocal against the policies of the SPD faction. He was forced to resign as faction leader in 1915. That June, he signed the manifesto Gebot der Stunde which openly opposed the war aims of the government. In March 1916, Haase and 18 other SPD delegates voted against the government's emergency budget. He was forced to resign as party chairman of the SPD. He then founded and led the Sozialdemokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft. In April 1917, Haase became chairman of the newly founded Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which split from the so-called "Majority Social Democrats" group and advocated immediate peace negotiations. German revolution, Council of the People's Deputies and 1919 In the course of the German Revolution in November 1918, along with the majority Social Democrats' leader Ebert, Haase became joint chairman of the provisional government, the Council of the People's Deputies. Haase thus distanced himself from those in the USPD who were seeking to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat through powerful soldiers' and workers' councils. After the Council led by Ebert ordered the bloody suppression of the revolutionary Volksmarinedivision during Christmas 1918, Haase and the two other USPD representatives Wilhelm Dittman and Emil Barth left the government on 29 December in protest. Even then, Haase supported continued cooperation with the SPD and was in favour of elections to the Weimar National Assembly—both views not universally popular in his party where many preferred a council-based republic. After the founding of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD) in late 1918/early 1919, Haase argued in favour of a reunification between USPD and majority SPD. Notwithstanding this position, many in the majority SPD loathed him. This was mainly due to the fact that the USPD's very existence provided a political alternative to the left of the SPD, which was particularly attractive to many workers. In order to retain the support of the revolutionary masses, the SPD