ABSTRACT
Kerensky felt that power was slipping from his control. On the 12 August he convoked a State Conference. The Bolsheviks were not invited to the Conference. Stalin went to Moscow, to organize a strike of protest. He failed. The Conference ended with the success of the Provisional Government. But its success was merely academic. Kerensky was incapable of action. The soldiers, too, were becoming indifferent; they would prefer to remain neutral in the event of a decisive battle between Kerensky and the Bolsheviks. Stalin thought that Lenin's tactics would lead to a conflict in which the Bolshevik Party would risk its very existence. The mobilization against the generals had placed at the disposal of the Bolsheviks tens of thousands of demobilized soldiers, who drifted into the capital, fearing only one thing: the restoration of order. On the 24 October the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party proclaimed the state of insurrection.
