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Cooperative Movement in Russia

  

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The Cooperative Movement in Russia

Editor: Dr. Anne Pries, University of Leiden


The history of the cooperative movement
The following historical review is a translation of the introduction as it appeared in the exhibition catalogue. 'The history of the cooperative movement can be said to have begun in the middle of the last century'. These are the words of A.V. Chaianov, a man who made an extraordinarily large contribution to Russian economic thought and who ultimately shared its dramatic fate. In a work entitled Short course on cooperatives, the brevity of which belies its great significance, he introduces us to the unique world of the cooperative movement.

Cooperative-type societies
We know that cooperative-type societies came into being in the period from 1769 to 1777. At that time there were consumers' and production workers' associations as well as fellowships of weavers, of tailors and of the farmers of England and Scotland. By the middle of the 19th century there were more than 1,000 such organizations, half of which were consumers' cooperatives. The real beginning of the cooperative movement, however, was marked by two developments. The first of these was the rise of the famous cooperative organisations, founded by Socialist-Utopians and their successors. The second was the foundation of the workers' consumers' cooperative, the Society of Rochdale True Pioneers (1844). If we take this as our reference date then it can be seen that Russia was not far behind. There, the origins of the cooperative movement can be traced to the Petrovski factory cooperative in Zabaikal'e (1864), to a cooperative of the employees and workers of the Stroganov factory, in the province of Perm (1864), to the consumers' cooperative in Riga (1865) and to the Rural Credit cooperative in the village Rozhdestvenskii, in the province of Kostroma (1865-1866). Various forms of cooperative-type societies obviously existed even before this, in Russia as in other countries, within the milieu of workers and peasants.

History of the cooperative in Russia
In Russia, the history of the cooperative has always included an element of tragedy. From the very beginning it had to contend with the opposition of the ruling classes, as they attempted to defend the privileges of their corporations and their monopoly of power. Finding that it was unable to exert influence over the cooperative movement, however, the establishment accordingly made several attempts to bring it under government control. Although history offers us some interesting parallels, of even greater interest is the fact that the cooperative movement in Russia achieved such great importance towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Part of the fascination is that this new type of management structure was able to achieve such status despite a complete lack of acceptance, and in the face of intense opposition. Suffice it to say that, in the period from 1915 to 1916, there was a department at Shaniavskii university, in Moscow, which appears to have been the intellectual centre of the cooperative movement. Here cooperative education was given at a very high level. Courses were offered by such highly-qualified specialists as M.I. Tugan-Baranovskii, A.E. Kulyzhnyi, S.N. Prokopovich and A.V. Chaianov, whose works are to be found in the catalogue. The All-Russian Central Cooperative Committee, founded in 1915, later became the All-Russian Soviet of Cooperative Conventions, the highest organ of the cooperative movement. The members of cooperatives aspired to become the 'third' force, a transcendent class of an independent political persuasion. In 1908 they held the first All-Russian Conference in Moscow. They founded the Moscow People's (Cooperative) Bank and special journals were published throughout Russia (about 200 of which are mentioned in the catalogue). A noteworthy feature is the broad spectrum of interest and of regional variety reflected in specific movements, not only by individual areas, but also at provincial level.

Structure of the movement
Such powerful bodies as the Central Flax Growers' Fellowship, founded by Chaianov, S.L. Maslov and others, gained a foothold on both national and world markets with astonishing rapidity. By 1917 there were more than 63,000 primary cooperatives in Russia, with a total of 24 million members. The structure of the movement is particularly interesting: 35,000 of these primary cooperatives were consumers' cooperatives, 16,300 were credit cooperatives, 11,000 were agricultural cooperatives and 1,200 were industrial and production cooperatives.
The practical success of the Russian cooperatives was evident. It depended upon well-trained specialists, upon the limits of scientific research and upon the systematic approach.

Theoretical Works
In the catalogue, reference is made to the highly theoretical works of such outstanding authors as N.D. Kondrat'ev, N.P. Makarov, A.N. Chelintsev, A.F. Fortunatov and A.G. Doiarenko. In addition there is guidance to participants in the movement, assorted educational literature, various aids, and information on contemporary achievements. Also included are the notebooks of the members and leaders, which contain everything that a member of the cooperative needed to know. For example, the laws which regulated his productive activity, which system of calculation could best be used, how to convert roubles into pounds and dollars, the distance in kilometres between Vologda and St. Petersburg, as well as details of market prices. This information was not just restricted to the members of cooperatives, however. Members of the public outside the cooperative movement were also given the opportunity to satisfy themselves concerning both the value of this system and the ways in which it might benefit the general population. They were also made aware of the movement's humanist tendency and of the fact that they were free to join the system, or to resign from it. The flowering of the Russian Cooperative movement ended in 1928-1929, at which time it had in excess of 28 million members (considerably in excess of the 1913 membership level). It subsequently switched to one of its component forms, the production movement, in which the kolkhozes occupied an exclusive position. This virtually became a model of an anti-cooperative movement, with essentially non-economic compulsory collective work and distribution. This form bore no relationship either to the progressive, humanist ideas of the members of the Russian cooperatives or to the views of V.I. Lenin. Nevertheless, an echo of the trials of the cooperative-scholars lingers on, even today, in the collective consciousness of the Russian people, who associate cooperatives with 'a shady business'. At the same time, the incomplete and consciously misleading nature of the law compels modern members of the movement to behave in a way that is diametrically opposed to the spirit of the cooperatives. As with other facets of human science such as philosophy, biology and cybernetics, the principle of making this knowledge available and of transferring it to the people, as well as of encouraging broad layers of the population to engage in an active business life, has been neglected for many years.

Not only does everything have to be rediscovered for present day enthusiasts of the movement, it also has to be presented at a new level. Meanwhile, the theoretical and practical pearls of the Russian cooperative movement's historical achievements gather dust on library shelves.


T.S. Kovaleva
Kand. economic sciences
Translation from the Russian: by Dr. Anne Pries