The Democratic Conference introduced one innovation.  It created a Preliminary Parliament, as the new body came to be known, though its first official title was the Provisional Council of the Republic.  This new body was to function as a parliament until the Constituent Assembly convened, when it would give place to whatever form of parliamentary body the Constituent Assembly might create.  This Preliminary Parliament and its functions were thus described: 

This Council, in which all classes of the population will be represented, and in which the delegates elected to the Democratic Conference will also participate, will be given the right of addressing questions to the government and of securing replies to them in a definite period of time, of working out legislative acts and discussing all those questions which will be presented for consideration by the Provisional Government, as well as those which will arise on its own initiative.  Resting on the co-operation of such a Council, the government, preserving, in accordance with its pledge, the unity of the governmental power created by the Revolution, will regard it its duty to consider the great public significance of such a Council in all its acts up to the time when the Constituent Assembly gives full and complete representation to all classes of the population of Russia.

This Preliminary Parliament was really another Duma—­that is, it was a very limited parliamentary body.  Its life was short and quite uneventful.  It assembled for the first time on October 8th and was dispersed by the Bolsheviki on November 7th.  When it assembled there were 555 members—­the number fixed by the decree of the Provisional Government.  Of these, 53 were Bolsheviki, but these withdrew almost at the opening with three others, thus reducing the actual membership of the body to less than five hundred.  Even with the Bolsheviki withdrawn, when Kerensky appeared before the Preliminary Parliament on November 6th and made his last appeal, a resolution expressing confidence in his government was carried only by a small majority.  Only about three hundred members were in attendance on this occasion, and of these 123 voted the expression of confidence, while 102 voted against it, and 26 declined to vote at all.

The Bolsheviki had forced the United Executive Committee to convene a new All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and the date of its meeting had been fixed at November 7th.  While the elections and arrangements for this Congress were proceeding, the Bolsheviki were actively and openly organizing an uprising.  In their papers and at their meetings they announced that on November 7th there would be an armed uprising against the government.  Their intentions were, therefore, thoroughly well known, and it was believed that the government had taken every necessary step to repress any attempt to carry those intentions into practice.  It was said that of the delegates to the All-Russian