Co-operatives in the USSR

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I was fortunate enough to recently gain access to my great-grandfather's diary. He was a young TUC delegate to Russia in the aftermath of 1926 and wrote a lengthly diary on his trip. Admittedly, he was a very enthusiastic pro-Soviet, so his diary is pretty much a recording of what he was told on his tours, meetings with Kalinin and Trotsky and visits to factories, museums and so on.

Something of interest I found was that on a trip to some factory, he was given a tour and the figures for the division of the economy.

For the year 1926-27, it was split something along the lines of: state 50%, co-operative 30%, private 20%, with a note in the diary that the co-operative sector was expected to grow the following year to 34% IIRC.

Could anybody provide me information on whether there was a thriving co-operative sector in the USSR, or was this (being 1927) just a cover for NEPite economic relations?

Also, does anybody have any future figures for how the division of control of the economy went between state, co-op and private sectors? I mean, for the period 30-90?

[Ismail]

The Webbs in their book Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? provide information on cooperatives in the USSR as of 1935 and earlier.

You can view it here: http://library.du.ac.in/dspace/html/1/4394/Title.htm

Go to chapter 3. Chapter 2, PDF pages 59-73 also discusses the "self-governing workshops."

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Ah.

Reading their account, it seems as though the co-operatives were rather controlled by elected (or, 'elected') members of the Bolsheviks.

When was the Webb piece written? They say that during the war communism period, it was necessary for people to join due to rationing and, even though the Soviet co-ops didn't have any of the usual dividends and ROCE payments to members, it was still beneficial to join because of the scarcity of supply of goods at the time. What happened during the NEP and during the collectivisation & industrialisation period?

It seems to me as though the co-operative movement in the USSR was more of a 'necessary perks' membership thing, than the sort of organic communal-style organisation you might associate with a co-operative.

[Susurrus]

"Everything belongs to kolkhoz, everything belongs to me."

[Ismail]

when was the webb piece written?1935.