But not only the workers and poor peasants have acknowl edged the necessity of organizing consumption in the interest oJ all ; even the state was forced to it through the need of the houi As the food stuffs became ever scarcer as a result of the war, th< state, which led the nation into war, could no longer tolerate thai the necessary food stuffs remained objects of speculation. The result of this would have been a still greater famine than the: already had without it, and this would have had a bad influenc< on the defense. From these causes sprang national husbandry b\ force.^ The governments of all capitalist states, who were in sue! a position, used this means. Even the Russian Soviet governmenl saw itself compelled to resort to such steps. But as they, in ordei to consistently carry out husbandry by force, would have beei compelled to have a large apparatus, which It was not able stamp out of the ground so quickly, they used for this purpose the already existing consumers' societies. The consumers' societies were nationalized.
In Russia, conditions are on many points entirely different from what they are in western Europe. Thus, for example, the consumers' union movement reached a stronger and higher development than the trade union movement. This is caused by Ihe fact that the consumers' unions in the first line were organizations of the consumers. The peasants had no need for organizations of production, but they had need of organizations of consumption. And as over 80% of the population of Russia are peasants, so were also, in perfect coincidence herewith, 80% of the members of the consumers' societies peasants.
No party and no union in Russia was before the war so powerful as the Co-operative movement. The Siberian butter producers united, in o>rder to sell their butter in common to Russia or even to foreign countries. There we had already a large consumers' union of the peasants, which later, as it grew larger, also occupied itself with other products. This was a uniting of all the above mentioned artels. — These Siberian unions had in the year of 1907 a turn-over of 957,000 pud butter, of a value of 160,000,- 000 rubles. (1 pud equal to 34 Ibs.)
All these consumers' unions or distributing artels or "cooperatives" were united into a central body which is known under the name of Centrosoyuz. To the Centrosoyuz belonged in 1914 13,500 affiliated distributing artels with a membership of 1,500,- 000 and a turn-over of 300,000,000 rubles.
When the war broke out the consumer's unions of Russia developed as in no other country. There are principally two circumstances back of the mighty growth of the Centrosoyuz that attract our attention. First, the czar's government did not worry itself very much about supplying food stuffs to the population, so that the workers and peasants had to help themselves — and since that time the workers in the industries also have joined this movement, while it formerly comprised mostly peasants; second, the prices of food stuffs began to rise in such a manner that the working population of the cities in mass joined these societies, in order to procure more cheaply the necessary means of life. So the number of single consumers' societies rose in the year 1917 to 20,000 ; to 25,000 in 1918; to 50,000 in the year 1919. At the same time the membership^ rose to 7,000,000 in 1917, to 10,000,000 in 1918, and 15,000,000 in 1919. In the year of 1919 the turn-over was not less than 15 billion rubles (15,000,000,000).
Politically, these unions were of a more or less neutral character. But as they grew ever more powerful, their influence also, naturally, became noticeable in politics. After the growth of the movement there was a division into two parts. One agricultural society, consisting of peasants, and one distribution society, consisting of the working population of the cities. After the outbreak of the revolution some leaders of both kinds of societies entered the provisional government. But in doing so they had given up their political neutrality. As economic life influences political life, so these co-operatives had, through their economic power, become an important factor politically, with which the government was compelled to count.