Viewed in the light of later events, there can now remain no doubt of that the overthrow of the Russian czar was as much a reaction against war as it was a revolution against autocracy. In July, 1917, Premier Kerensky, representing the radical intellectuals, rather than the people as a mass, had attempted to stimulate the enthusiasm of the armies for another general offensive against the Austro-German forces. The effort had failed disastrously, not through any tactical mistakes or through any great lack of equipment or material support, but because the stiffness had gone out of the backbone of the Russian soldier. The propaganda of the Bolsheviki had created this situation, it was said, but propaganda can only crystallize a sentiment: it can never create it. The rank and file of the Russian armies accepted the Bolshevist agitators and their doctrines only because their state of mind was in sympathy. Ivan was willing to face any alternative to further fighting. This fact Kerensky evidently realized better than anyone after the collapse of the midsummer offensive. Either one of two things an army must possess to fight effectively: iron discipline or enthusiasm. The latter Kerensky had tried to awaken. He had failed. Hastily he tried to establish the other: a rule of "blood and iron," as he termed it. But Kerensky was not of the stuff of which dictators are made. Like Madero of Mexico, he possessed too abundantly the quality of mercy to play the rôle of the Prussian. Kerensky, undoubtedly, knew of the growing antiwar sentiment in the rank and file of the army. This sentiment prevailed to a much less extent behind the lines, especially among the intellectuals of all shades of opinion, and among the commercial classes. Or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say that these elements saw the necessity of continuing the war more clearly than did the soldiers at the front and therefore feared the results of a premature, or separate, peace. To give the prowar elements an opportunity to express themselves, to transmit their enthusiasm to the army, perhaps, Kerensky and his associates of the Provisional Government had called a national conference, to be held in Moscow in the latter part of August, 1917. All kinds of organizations and social bodies were invited to send delegates; the zemstvos, the cooperative societies, the Red Cross, the labor unions, the professional leagues and the army itself, through the councils and several of the commanding officers. It was, in fact, a sort of a provisional general assembly whose authority, Kerensky hoped, would be strong enough to impress the army.