s views.
The speeches did perhaps help the Coalition Government to sense the
situation with which it had to deal, though the Conference showed that
the Coalition Government was unstable, and that the extreme ideas of
the Bolsheviki had penetrated deeply in the broader masses. Again
the Bolsheviki attacked the principle of coalition, and demanded that
revolutionary democracy take over all authority.

Then came the Kornilov affair, which in its conception was an effort on
the part of the constructive groups, including the moderate socialists,
to discredit the extremists, and establish a stronger government, free
from party ties and party programs, representing a national movement
to organize "all the vital forces of the country," to use again the
phraseology of the revolution. But there was a misunderstanding, and
also perhaps it was premature--"revolutionary democracy" was not yet
sufficiently sobered to accept a program of common constructive effort.
The movement had the opposite effect; it split the country into two
openly hostile camps, and brought revolutionary democracy still more
under the influence of the extremists. The Coalition Government fell to
pieces, and a Directorate of Five, with almost dictatorial powers, still
headed by Kerensky, assumed authority.

The Bolsheviki now demanded the absolute and final renunciation of
the principle of coalition, and the formation of a purely socialistic
government. Kerensky and the constructive socialists refused to
participate in such a government, and opened negotiations with the
non-socialist leaders, to attempt once more the coalition form of
government. The extremists then sent out a call to "revolutionary
democracy" to meet in another conference, which they called a Democratic
Conference, as opposed to the State Conference of Moscow. They declared
that no bourgeois, counter-revolutionary group would be admitted to
the conference. Kerensky allowed the conference to meet. It passed
contradictory resolutions, first voting against the principle of a
coalition form of government, but later seeming to advocate and support
this principle. The moderate socialists fought hard for the coalition
idea, and Kerensky and his followers seemed at last to have won out. In
any case, at the beginning of October, Kerensky formed a third coalition
government, and convened a preliminary parliament in which all parties
were represented. This time a definitely outlined program, as the basi