Before the First World War the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was the largest party

in Germany and the world's most successful socialist party. Although still
officially claiming to be a Marxist party, by 1914 it had become in practice a
reformist party. In 1914 the SPD members of the Reichstag voted in favour of the
war. Left-wing members of the party, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg,
strongly opposed the war, and the SPD soon suffered a split, with the leftists
forming the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and the more
radical Spartacist League. In November 1918, revolution broke out across Germany.
The leftists, led by Rosa Luxemburg and the Spartacist League, formed the KPD at a
founding congress held in Berlin on 30 December 1918 � 1 January 1919 in the
reception hall of the City Council.[10] Apart from the Spartacists, another dissent
group of Socialists called the International Communists of Germany, also dissenting
members of the Social Democratic party, but mainly located in Hamburg, Bremen and
Northern Germany, joined the young party.[11] The Revolutionary Shop Stewards, a
network of dissenting socialist trade unionists centered in Berlin were also
invited to the Congress, but eventually did not join the party because they deemed
the founding congress leaning into a syndicalist direction.

There were seven main reports given at the founding congress:

Economical Struggles � by Paul Lange

Greeting speech � by Karl Radek
International Conferences � by Hermann Duncker
Our Organization � by Hugo Eberlein
Our Program � by Rosa Luxemburg
The crisis of the USPD � by Karl Liebknecht
The National Assembly � by Paul Levi