The Democratic Council which arose out of the Democratic Conference inherited all the impotence of the latter. The old Soviet parties, the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, had secured for themselves an artificial majority on the Council, apparently for the purpose of exposing still more thoroughly their entire political prostration. Behind the scenes Tsereteli was carrying on intricate negotiations with Kerensky and the representatives of the ‘propertied elements,’ as they began terming them in the Council in order to avoid the ‘insulting’ term ‘bourgeoisie.’ Tsereteli’s report on the progress and results of these negotiations sounded very much like a funeral oration over the grave of a whole revolutionary period. It turned out that neither Kerensky nor the propertied elements would agree to the principle of ministerial responsibility to the new semi-representative body. On the other hand, it was impossible to find ‘business-like’ public men outside the Party. The organisers of the business had to give in on both points, which capitulation was so much the more delightful as the Democratic Conference had been called together especially for the purpose of putting an end to the irresponsible regime, the Conference, moreover, explicitly rejecting all coalition with the Cadets. At the last few meetings of the Democratic Council before the new Revolution there was a general atmosphere of great tension and practical impotence. The Council reflected not the progress of the Revolution, but the dissolution of parties whom the Revolution had left far behind.
Already during the session of the Democratic Conference I had raised the question in our party of making a demonstrative exit from the Conference and of boycotting the Democratic Council. It was necessary to demonstrate to the masses by our action that the coalitionists had brought the Revolution into an impasse. The struggle for the formation of a Soviet Government could only be carried on by revolutionary methods. It was imperative to wrest the authority from the hands of those who had proved themselves incapable for good and who were fast losing all capability even for active harm. It was necessary to oppose our political method through the mobilisation of all forces around the Soviets, through the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets, through a rising, to their method of action through an artificially selected ‘Provisional Parliament’ and a problematic Constituent Assembly. This could only be accomplished by an open and public break with the body created by Tsereteli and his friends, and by concentrating all the attention and strength of the working class on the Soviet organisations. It was for these reasons that I proposed a demonstrative exit from the Democratic Conference and a revolutionary agitation in the factories and among the troops against the attempt to adulterate the will of the Revolution and again to direct its further course into the groove of co-operation with the bourgeoisie. Lenin expressed himself in the same sense in a letter which we received a few days later. But among the leaders of the party there was still considerable hesitation. The July Days had left a very deep impression on the party. The masses of workers and soldiers had shaken off the impression made by the July reprisals much more rapidly than many of our leading comrades who feared the break-up of the Revolution by another premature attempt on the part of the masses. In our group at the Democratic Conference I obtained fifty votes for my proposal against seventy cast in favour of participating in the Democratic Council. But our experience on that Council very soon strengthened the Left Wing of the party. It became only too evident that the method of compromises bordering on mere swindles, which had for its aim to secure the leadership of the Revolution for the propertied classes assisted by the coalitionists who had lost all footing amongst the wide masses, was not the way out of the impasse into which the flabby middle-class democrats had brought the Revolution. By the time when the Democratic Council, supplemented by representatives of the propertied classes, became transformed into a ‘Provisional Parliament,’ the psychological readiness of our party to break away from this body was already ripe.