 After the murder of the first republican premier of Bavaria Kurt Eisner in February 1919 by Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley, a member of the right-wing "Thule Gesellschaft" (Thule Society), the Bavarian Soviet Republic (Bayerische Räterepublik or Münchner Räterepublik) was proclaimed.After Communists had taken power, Lenin, who had lived in Munich some years before, sent a congratulatory telegram, but the Soviet Republic was put down on May 3, 1919 by the Freikorps.On 3 May 1919, loyal elements of the German army (called the “White Guards of Capitalism” by the communists), with a force of 9,000, and Freikorps (such as the Freikorps Epp and the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt) with a force of about 30,000 men, entered Munich and defeated the communists after bitter street fighting in which over 1,000 supporters of the Munich "Soviet" government were killed.