In mid-August, when Bryant returned from France, Reed met her at the dock and told her to prepare to go to Petrograd four days later to cover the Russian Revolution. Eastman of "The Masses" had raised funds to pay Reed's travel expenses, and the Bell Syndicate assigned Bryant to report on the war "from a woman's point of view". Leaving New York on August 17, they arrived in Petrograd, which was then the capital of Russia, about six months after the forced abdication of the last Russian czar, Nicholas II. Headed by Alexander Kerensky, the provisional government that had succeeded the czar had already survived an attempted putsch by Major General Lavr Kornilov. Bryant and Reed entered the city after the Kornilov Affair and before the Bolsheviks overthrew the Kerensky government in the October Revolution.