Background
The decision to convene a Democratic Conference, as opposed to the Moscow State Conference, was taken at a joint meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and the executive committee of the All-Russian Council of Peasant Deputies on September 3, 1917. The immediate impetus was the Rebellion of Lavr Kornilov and the collapse of the next government coalition, provoked by him; in a telegram inviting representatives of parties and public organizations to take part in the meeting, signed by the chairmen of the Central Executive Committees Nikolay Chkheidze and Nikolai Avksentiev, it was said about "convening in Petrograd a congress of the entire organized Democracy of Russia to create a strong revolutionary power capable of uniting all revolutionary Russia to repulse external enemies and to suppress all attempts at conquered freedom". The opening of the meeting was scheduled for September 25, 1917. The purpose of the meeting, one of its initiators, Fedor Dan, a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, explained as follows: Indeed, not everyone understood the purpose of the Conference as Dan did: his party comrade, Irakli Tsereteli, at the Conference itself, argued that a "homogeneous democratic government" would not be viable. He also formulated another task for this forum: to create a representative body to which the Provisional Government would report until the Constituent Assembly. The Tsereteli initiative was viewed by the right and the left very differently. The leader of the Party of Constitutional Democrats