The cooperative movement was booming in the early 1920s. Here a theses on the role of Communists presented to the Fourth Congress of the Comintern for discussion.

‘Theses on Communism and Cooperatives’ by Comrade Hintchuk from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 2 No. 90. October 20, 1922.

Theses.

1. The most important task confronting Communists working in the cooperative movement is to make an economic and political valuation of cooperation by employing the Marxist analysis of social relations, ruthlessly to criticize and expose the policy of the old cooperative movement, which strives to subject cooperation to the capitalists, and to draw the laboring masses organized in the Cooperatives into the struggle against the capitalist offensive which is being waged against the whole of the working class.

2. Cooperation is a form of the movement of the broad masses of the proletariat, of clerks and office workers, artisans and small peasant proprietors, who combine for raising their standard of living under the capitalist system, by dispensing with the services of the trader and middleman; in the transition period the cooperative societies serve as a weapon in the hands of the proletariat in its fight to secure the realization of Socialism.

3. The cooperative societies pursue aims which vary with the class composition of their membership. These aims: a) the protection of the interests of the members as consumers, and b) the protection of the interests of the members as producers. As a consequence of this the cooperative movement in all countries is divided into two branches: consumers’ cooperatives and producers’ cooperatives, the latter being in close connection with credit cooperatives.

Sometimes these two branches are in a state of rivalry, as in Germany and Hungary, and others manage to work conjointly as in Russia and Italy.

In the period of the transition of power to the proletariat, the best form of cooperation is that of integral and mixed societies of all forms in which the consumers’ societies, comprising as they do the overwhelming majority of urban and purely proletarian elements, should, from the point of view of the interests of the working class, be the object of special attention and play the predominant role.

4. Consumers’ societies combining millions of proletarians creating a broad network of trading enterprises and establishing their own production, are important in themselves as means of improving the material condition of the masses, of developing a communal spirit among the masses, of teaching them the methods of economic management perfected by capitalism, and finally, may be employed by the proletariat for the organized distribution of products on a national scale at the moment when it assumes power. But parallel with these tasks, peculiar to the cooperative movement as such, the cooperative societies also have to pursue the interests of the working class as a whole. These are the economic, and consequently the political emancipation of the working class from the yoke of capitalism.

5. Although consumers’ cooperation, in view of its heterogeneous composition, reflects the lack of development of the class consciousness of the proletariat, in many countries of Western Europe and America, to a greater extent even than the political and trade union organizations, nevertheless the position taken up by the old cooperators, preaching the independence of the cooperative movement from the rest of the labor movement, is totally wrong. On the contrary, the closest possible contact should exist between all forms of the labor movement in the struggle for the achievement of the common aim of emancipating labor from all exploitation.

6. In the same way as the reformists lead the workers on the political field to agreements with the bourgeoisie, and the Amsterdamers, by means of their trade unions, strive to imbue the masses of the workers with a pure economic spirit and the abandonment of the struggle against the capitalists, the old cooperators on the one hand are, while verbally supporting the principle of neutrality, actually subjecting the cooperative movement to the influence of the bourgeois and reformist parties; on the other hand, in preaching that the aim of cooperation is self-help only, they destroy the Socialist character of cooperation and reduce its role to that of an agency of the bourgeois system.

7. If the cooperative movement hitherto could not be separated from the rest of the labor movement, this is particularly true for the present moment, which is marked by the acuteness of class antagonism and the growth of the revolutionary consciousness of the proletarian masses, and when every economic struggle of the proletariat is immediately transformed into a political struggle.

Under these conditions the proletarian movement in the cooperative societies must form a part of the general labor movement in its struggle against the capitalist system.

8. Producer’s and credit cooperatives which combine almost exclusively small proprietors in the environment of the capitalist system will share the fate of the latter as a class. These organizations have no economic future, for they are incapable of fighting against capitalism and they will either collapse or be transformed into joint stock companies, the typical form of capitalist enterprises.

9. Only with the passing of power to the proletariat can these Cooperatives, with the support of the State, complete their development and find an outlet for their useful functions, such as the organization of individual, isolated enterprises into large enterprises in which scientific technical methods could be employed, tending towards Socialist methods of economic management and the development of a collective psychology. Furthermore, they can serve as links between isolated peasant and artisan enterprises and the central economic organs of the Proletarian State.

10. As a consequence of the fact that the leading organs of the cooperative movement in almost all countries are in the hands of purely bourgeois and reformist elements, the cooperative movement does not fulfil the tasks that confront it and causes harm to the labor movement by obscuring the class-consciousness of the proletariat as it did during the war, by weakening the revolutionary zeal of the workers in their struggle against capitalism, and in the case of the cooperative societies organizing small proprietors, by creating the illusion of the stability of their enterprises and their capability of competing with large capital. Finally, the consumers’ societies in all European countries almost without exception are sources from which the reformist parties draw material support.

11. All the foregoing therefore, compels Communists to increase their activity in the cooperative movement. It should be recognized as absolutely essential for all Communists to enter the cooperative movement, to take an active part in it, and strive to convert it into an important instrument of the proletariat, both in its struggle against capitalism, and the organization of the new Socialist society.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1922/v02n090-oct-20-1922-Inprecor.pdf