Valuable today because they succinctly present positions and orientations, the Comintern would issue ‘agitprop theses’ for important events or issues. Below is the theses for activists in co-operatives for International Co-operative Day on July 3, 1926.

‘Theses of the Agitprop of the E.C.C.I. for International Co-operative Day’ from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 6 No. 49. June 24, 1926.

(July 3rd, 1926). Material for Speakers.

I. THE GENERAL AND CO-OPERATIVE POSITION.

1. The origin of International Co-operative Day.

International Co-operative Day was introduced in 1922 on the basis of a resolution of the International Co-operative Alliance. It was fixed for the first Saturday in July, and the idea of the majority of the Alliance was to make it a counterpart of the May celebrations of the trade unions. On this day the petty bourgeois and Reformist “co-operative ideal”, of the power of the co-operative movement to reconcile the classes, of a peaceful victory over capitalism, of evolution into socialism should be propagated as extensively as possible.

International Co-operative Day which has already been celebrated three times was, as far as the entertainments organised by the official co-operative authorities in capitalist countries goes, nothing but a series of popular fêtes, processions etc. with business advertisements of the co-operative stores and propaganda for the above mentioned illusions without any deeper proletarian value.

2. The proletarian significance of Co-operative Day.

The class-conscious proletarian has long recognised that peaceful evolution into socialism is only an empty phrase and a harmful illusion and that he can only gain his freedom by an organised class fight for political and economic power and by overthrowing the bourgeoisie by force of arms.

The proletariat which represents the overwhelming majority of the co-operative members has a different conception of the aims and tasks of an international Labour Day. Days such as the 1st of May, International Women’s Day, International Young People’s Day and now also International Co-operative Day, have always been for the working masses an occasion for re-examining the momentary phase of the class fight and the share taken in it by the various organisations; each of them is a day for manifestations and demonstrations for the demands of the day and for the ultimate aims of the organised fight of the exploited masses, a day of challenge to the bourgeoisie both of their own country and of the world, a day of assembly and review of their own ranks and of proclamations of solidarity, on the one hand with the exploited and oppressed in all capitalist countries and on the other hand with the victorious workers and peasants of the Soviet Republics. To-day we must examine into our relation to the co-operative movement from this point of view.

3. The economic and political situation.

In all capitalist countries, the events of the past year have shown up more clearly than ever the contradictions between labour and capital which cannot be bridged over. The bourgeoisie has endeavoured further to consolidate its rule which was shaken by the results of the war and has collected and organised its forces. With directness of purpose it is continuing its concentrated attack on the standard of living of the workers. Its method of doing this are more and more systematic, more and more cunning. In the name of rationalisation, millions are being thrust into the misery of unemployment and part-time work. The “process of stabilisation” of capitalist economy is taking the form of further monopoly of large industry and commerce in the hands of a few financial concerns, of the growth of trusts, cartels, food-rings and the department stores connected with them etc.

This monopoly of production and of trade gives the hyenas of capital the possibility of dictating usurious prices to the buyers. In addition to this we see more and more shameless and wide-spread plundering of the national treasuries by so-called measures of support for capitalist undertakings and the bleeding of the masses by taxes and customs duties. This is the path of the “stabilisation” of capitalist economics. The dream of stabilising the conditions of living of the broad masses has long ago vanished. What remains is the sober reality of the stabilisation of misery and want.

The bourgeoisie knows that it can only carry through its programme of stabilisation if it consistently and energetically carries on its attack against the political positions and rights of the working class, if it disintegrates and splits up all other organisations of the proletariat or sets them together by the ears. The methods of Fascism in Italy and the tendencies in the “democratic” States in Europe and America, which are becoming clearer and clearer, are examples of how the bourgeoisie understands how to profit by the lack of directness of purpose and resolution of the proletarian mass organisations.

4. The anti-Labour policy of the Reformist leaders.

In this situation it cannot be a matter of indifference to the class-conscious proletariat what part the co-operative mass organisations assume.

In most countries the co-operative count hundreds of thousands or millions of members. From the international point of view they have, for the past 31 years, been united in the International Co-operative Alliance, an organisation embracing 50 millions of members. If the gigantic power of organisation which lies concealed in the co-operatives were to join wholeheartedly in the fight against capitalism, the defence of the vital interests of the working masses would be considerably easier. In all capitalist countries, however, these forces are lying fallow.

In the co-operatives, cliques of leaders, alienated from their class, who deliberately keep the co-operatives aloof from these tasks, carry out their own sweet will with even less restriction than in the trade unions. Some of them deny altogether that the co-operatives are class organisations of the working class and talk at random of their being “non-political” and of it being necessary to have consideration for all classes of capitalist society. (Germany, Switzerland, Sweden etc.). In other countries (Austria, Belgium, to a certain extent England and France etc.), the official co-operative leaders admit, it is true, in word that the co-operatives are labour organisations, but in deed they lead them along Reformist and social democratic side-paths of collaboration and friendship with capital, or they isolate themselves from the other class organisations of the workers, carry on their own policy and are only concerned with their own commercial interests without bothering about the common interests of their members.

5. The “stabilisation” of the co-operatives.”

The so-called “process of stabilisation” of capitalism is reflected also in the domain of the co-operative movement, in the first place in the urban co-operatives. Apart from France, Belgium and Poland, i.e. the countries with a falling currency, the turnover of the wholesale buying departments of the co-operative stores has fallen in other countries by 35%, in Sweden by 12%, Finland by 15%, Czechoslovakia (German section) by 41%, England by 7%, Norway by 1,1% (wholesale prices having fallen by 27% during the year), in Switzerland by 1,5%. Figures of the turnover of the co-operative stores for the past year are not available except in Germany, Finland and partly in Czechoslovakia, but in these also the tendency is to increase. Reformist and petty bourgeois leaders of the co-operative movement will try, on the strength of these figures to appease the masses of their members and to convince them once more of the “aimlessness” and harmfulness of the class war and of the necessity and importance of the principle of neutrality.

The commercial success of the co-operatives however offer very slight advantages to their proletarian customers at the present stage of capitalist economics. The essential question is whether the co-operatives fulfil their part as proletarian mass organisations, whether they personify the organised will to fight of the masses of consumers or are merely agents of the capitalist industrial concerns and the banks.

Even in the co-operatives, rationalisation is only too often carried out at the cost of the workers, of the co-operative organisation and undertakings (increasing number of conflicts with the workers in Germany, Switzerland, France, Great Britain and Sweden). In spite of the arbitrary rights of the masses of members and against their will, the Reformist leaders bluntly refuse to give direct help to the fighting proletariat (general strike in Great Britain). In order to be able to distribute dividends at the end of the year, the bureaucracy carries on a policy of high prices and bad wages. By election manoeuvres and tricks with the statutes, the poorer proletarian members are deprived of the right to express their opinion with regard to the management of the co-operatives. Some of the better-situated workers are egged on against their class brothers, the fate of the co-operative as a business is placed above the fate of the co-operative as a mass movement and a mass organisation.

6. The lessons of the strike in Great Britain.

The strike of the English workers which is instructive from every point of view for the fight of the international labour movement, is a warning and enlightening example for the whole proletarian co-operative movement. This strike has shown the proletarians the great necessity for solidarity and mutual support among all labour organisations, it has also shown the working class what risks it runs if it entrusts the management of its affairs to the Reformists.

For months the class-conscious workers in England had demanded that the trade unions and the co-operatives should previously conclude a mutual agreement and that the provision of food to the workers on strike should be undertaken by the numerous distributing centres of the co-operatives and by their large and experienced personnel. They had demanded that the co-operatives should prepare for and ensure the granting of credit to the strikers on generous lines. The slogan issued by the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Minority Movement in the trade unions that the co-operative stores must be the commissariat of the fighting proletariat met with warm approval on the part of the broad strata of the members. Under the pressure of the masses, the leading bureaucracy of both movements carried on negotiations with regard to this question, but the treachery of the Trade Union Council which did not believe in the fight and the attitude of the supreme leaders of the co-operatives which was commercial and not proletarian, prevented their coming to an agreement.

Thus it came about that the English workers, in one of the greatest fights of their history, were left without the help of their own co-operatives whilst on the other hand, the Workers’ Co-operative Unions appealed in many cases to the police and the strikebreakers’ organisations in order to keep their “business” going. The general picture is not much modified by the few local exceptions in which there was collaboration between the local co-operative stores and the strike committees.

II. THE NECESSITY OF A PROLETARIAN CO-OPERATIVE POLICY.

1. The question of prices and the class war.

What is the proletarian conception of the role, the tasks and the possibilities of the co-operative movement?

The co-operative stores of the working class were first started with the object of combating the exploitation by commercial capital. They were intended to supplement the fight of the proletariat for higher wages by an organised struggle for cheaper prices. In earlier days, when the only opponents of the co-operatives in the field of trade were the unorganised retail dealers, they could grant a number of advantages to their members merely by improved technical commercial methods of organisation, by concentrated wholesale purchase, by getting hold of a large number of regular customers, even by simply doing away with the gross imposition with regard to quality, measure and weight.

Nowadays, under the rule of financial capital, of the all- mighty banks, trusts and cartels, in the epoch of department stores, of chains of middlemen, provisioning concerns however, the co-operative stores can only offer their members very slight advantages through mere commercial methods. The co-operatives must of course establish the best methods of business and organisation but they can only really fulfil their tasks if they carry on the fight for cheaper prices and for raising the standard of living of the workers as an organised proletarian class war in common with the trade unions and other proletarian class organisations, as a fight against the increase of prices and against the price politics of the capitalist governments, thus ultimately as a political fight against the whole capitalist regime,

2. Against trusts and cartels.

The fight of the proletariat against the dictating of prices by the large capitalist concerns, trusts and cartels can and must be furthered and supported by well-managed organisations of consumers. Various sections of the working population which cannot be included in the trade union organisations, such as home-workers, proletarian housewives etc. can be mobilised for the fight against the monopolist control of the market by bank and financial capital, through the co-operative stores, in connection with the prices of the most important articles of food and of necessity.

3. Against Taxes and Customs Duties.

The customs and taxation policy of capitalist governments everywhere aims at shifting the burdens of the public expenditure, of armaments and wars on to the shoulders of the working masses and letting a large part of the scanty wages of the workers flow back into the pockets of the financial magnates, bankers, large industrialists and large landowners. This capitalist customs and taxation policy makes itself most keenly and painfully felt where the worker or, as is usually the case, his wife who keeps house, has to purchase with the pennies he has earned, articles of necessity which he requires to restore the energy he has used up in his work. It is therefore an absolute and fundamental duty of the co-operative stores to take a share, nay, to take the initiative in organising the mass fight against the customs and taxation piracy of the ruling capitalist class.

4. Help for the Unemployed.

The co-operative organisations can and should take their place in the foremost ranks in the fight against unemployment. It is not enough that they themselves should undertake measures of relief for the unemployed such as selling food on credit or at reduced prices, organising child welfare, public feeding etc., they should also demand special State and municipal credits so as to organise emergency work for the unemployed through the co-operatives. Instead of using public means for the support of the capitalist industrial magnates, they should be advanced for the construction of co-operative works, in the first place slaughter-houses, mills and bakeries, in order to provide work for the unemployed and at the same time to strengthen the position of the proletarian consumers in the fight against food profiteering.

5. Cheapening of the cost of living.

Pressure can and should be exercised for the purpose of supplying the workers’ co-operative stores direct with cheaper industrial products so as to reduce the cost of transport of articles of general necessity which help to cheapen the cost of living of the working class members of the co-operatives, thus increasing their actual wages and raising their standard of living; this can be done through closer connection between the co-operative stores’ movement and the organisation of the workers in the factories and in transport, the trade unions and the factory councils.

6. Proletarian Agitation and Education.

We must demand that the co-operative managing bodies carry on their extensive press activities and publications, their work of training and education, with a view to educating the working masses on class lines. In this respect also, all dissipation of proletarian forces and means must be avoided.

The co-operatives and the revolutionary and political class organisations of the workers must join forces, to resist the fiery breath of the dragon of the capitalist Press and schools.

7. Trade Unions and Co-operatives.

Among the most elementary duties of the proletarian co-operative organisations are: the support of the economic fights of the proletariat, the granting of material support to strikers and locked-out workers, supplying food on credit in the days of struggle, welfare work for the families of the fighting workers.

With this object in view, binding agreements with the trade unions must be prepared. Even in times of industrial “peace”, the trade unions and the co-operatives must cultivate a close brotherhood in arms, so as to be able in times of actual fighting, to oppose aggressive capital in a united front, with determination and without misunderstandings. For this reason, the trade unions on their part, must do everything in their power to support and promote the co-operatives. They must see to it that the masses of their members join the co-operatives and participate in active work for them. They ought to invest their trade union funds to a certain extent at any rate in the proletarian co-operatives, in order to consolidate and increase their economic power of resistance.

8. Help for Proletarian Housewives.

For many women the co-operatives are the only proletarian mass organisation with which they come into direct touch. “The woman with the shopping bag” must be trained into a class-conscious proletarian fighter through the co-operative stores. The co-operatives must endeavour as far as possible to relieve the proletarian housewives from the heavy burden of the household by establishing feeding centres, dress-making departments, laundries, children’s homes etc., thus turning her into a faithful member of the co-operative union and a fellow-fighter in the class war.

9. Alliance with the Peasants.

An alliance with the working peasantry which is of decisive significance in the fight for power of the proletariat, can and must be promoted and cultivated through the co-operatives. By direct connection and exchange of goods between the co-operative stores of the workers and the agricultural co-operatives of the working peasants, it will be possible to do away with the usurious profits of the middlemen, to bring the peasantry more under the influence of the working class, gradually to wrest them from their adherence to the large landowners and clergy and to win them over as fellow-combatants in building up a worker and peasant government.

10. A Glimpse at the Soviet Union.

After the overthrow of the capitalist regime, in the period of the proletarian dictatorship and the construction of socialist economy, the co-operatives are destined to play a decisive part. In the Soviet Union, the co-operative movement has begun to flourish. In that country, 10 million families of workers and peasants belong to co-operative stores, 5 million farms are organised in the various agricultural co-operatives. In the Soviet Union, the co-operatives, are the chief and predominant means by which, with the active participation of the masses themselves, the products of socialist State industry reaches the consumer most cheaply and rapidly and by which, on the other hand, the products of small industry and of peasant agriculture are brought on the market through good organisation. 30,000 co-operative societies with 50,000 shops in town and country, control the fixing of prices of all articles of necessity and successfully keep private trade within bounds.

A vast network of co-operative educational and training centres, libraries, village reading rooms, children’s homes, convalescent homes, feeding centres etc. exists for the benefit of the working masses of all the Republics and nations of the great Socialist Soviet Union. Favoured and promoted by the Soviet Government, supported by the most powerful trade union organisations, maintained by the activity and initiative of the broad masses of their members, the Soviet co-operatives form a chief factor in the economic life, a powerful tool in the hands of the workers and peasants for building up socialism.

III. THE CO-OPERATIVE INTERNATIONAL.

The International Co-operative Alliance might play a very important part if it were taken out of the hands of the reactionary leaders. This united, undivided organisation of 50 millions of the proletarian co-operators in 32 countries might, by its initiative, contribute a great deal to the establishment of the international trade union unity demanded by the revolutionary proletariat. What could not the Alliance do, were it to join in a united front with Trade Union Internationals for the international fighting demands of the proletariat!

A Co-operative International, really carried on in the interests of these masses by real representatives of the working masses of consumers, could, with the sheer weight of its millions of members, engage in a fight for an international programme of action, economics and peace and reveal to the masses in its true light the hypocritical tissue of lies, pregnant with war, of the economic and “disarmament” conferences of the socalled League of Nations at Geneva. How great would be the value of a mobilisation of the co-operators of all countries in a fight against Fascism, which is recognised, even by the present leaders of the Alliance, as the fiercest enemy and destroyer of the co-operatives!

Every suggestion of the co-operatives of the Soviet Union which also belongs to the I.C.A. proposing that the Alliance should adopt a policy of proletarian action and solidarity, has fallen on the deaf ears of the reactionary majority of the leaders; these latter barricade themselves behind the characterless paragraph of “political neutrality” and will hear nothing of an active, international co-operative policy. The most recent and shameful treachery of these “leaders” was their rejection of the proposal made by the representative of the co-operatives of the Soviet Union on the day of the outbreak of the general strike in Great Britain, that international co-operative relief work should be organised for the British proletariat. The proletarian co-operators of Great Britain and Germany should make particular note of the fact that it was “their” representatives who prevented this relief work being carried out.

IV. THE PROLETARIAN CO-OPERATIVE SLOGANS.

Thus we see that the co-operative mass organisations of the working class are, in common with the trade union organisations, and, in a local, national and international respect, important and necessary implements of war in the fight for the existence and the emancipation of the exploited, It is only where the lead is in the hands of bureaucrats estranged from their own class, who regard the co-operatives as business concerns and do not care a straw for the vital interests of the members, that this position of power of the proletariat does not carry the weight that it might. If the co-operative stores are to fulfil their truly great task, deliberate and active intervention of the masses of proletarian consumers is the first essential. International Co-operative Day 1926 must therefore be celebrated under the following slogans:

Join the co-operatives!

Get at the masses of co-operators!

Every Communist, every class-conscious proletarian an active co-operator! Every co-operator a proletarian class fighter!

No hunting for dividends, but cheap prices in the co-operatives!

Fraternal united fight of the co-operatives and trade unions! Away with political neutrality and isolation of the co-operatives!

Unity and solidarity of all workers’ organisations!

Away with the petty bourgeois and Reformist leaders of the co-operatives and trade unions, take the lead into your own hands!

Think of the lessons of the general strike in Great Britain! Practical solidarity with the British miners!

Fight for the demands of your unemployed class brothers!

Fight against the predatory customs and taxation raids of the capitalist governments!

The Red Front against Fascism!

Red aid for the victims of the proletarian class war! Learn from the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union! Send delegations to the Soviet Union!

Demand that the International Co-operative Alliance adopt an active proletarian policy!

Down with the Geneva League of Nations with its lust for war!

Create an alliance of workers and peasants, fight for a worker and peasant government!

Long live the United Socialist States of Europe!

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/1926/v06n49-jun-24-1926-inprecor.pdf