 In August 1917, while Lenin was in Finland, General Lavr Kornilov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, sent troops to Petrograd in what appeared to be a military coup attempt against the Provisional Government.Premier Alexander Kerensky turned to the Petrograd Soviet—including its Bolshevik members—for help, allowing the revolutionaries to organise workers as Red Guards to defend the city.The coup petered out before it reached Petrograd, but the events had allowed the Bolsheviks to return to the open political arena.