When the Revolution first broke out, the Soviet Government recognized the importance to their economic policy of the co-operative movement. They nursed it in every possible way, and treated it as a pet child. But the co-operators, who were Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, could not or would not grasp the great conception of economic change. They were also political enemies of the Government. For two and a half years it has had the passive and sometimes active opposition of some of the co-operative leaders. Earlier still, in the first year of war, many co-operative Societies became a bunch of spectators and profiteers just like the capitalists.
The "speculators and profiteers" then subject to the firing squad are now to be known as "free traders."
It is illuminating to examine the new decree on co-operatives which is advertised by pro-Soviet propagandists abroad (though not in Russia!) as one of the most solid proofs of Lenin's "abandonment of communism." Here is a good press summary:
The decree makes all citizens of Russia automatically members of the co-operative system. It prescribes that there can be only one co-operative in each town, village, or factory. Freedom of trading for individuals is embodied in the provision permitting members to buy commodities through the co-operatives, paying in money or products, and to exchange among themselves goods received through their co-operatives. To the societies within Russia is granted the right to buy surplus agricultural products or products of national industries and to sell them to their members; to conclude contracts under Soviet law with peasants' and workers' organizations, and to arrange for furnishing agricultural machinery, threshing grain, and storing and delivering products.
