The function of such a consumers' union are known to every organized west-European worker. In Russia they were similar to what they are in the rest of Europe. The small consumers' unions gathered money for the purchase of goods. When they did not collect enough money, they received the necessary means as a loan from a bigger union affiliated with the Centrosoyuz. The goods purchased they divided among their members. In the peasant cooperatives production is mostly individual, as we have already indicated in the chapter about the Land. The co-operative societies of the peasants embrace only consumption, not production. The peasants must deliver to the government everything that they do not need for themselves. The government organ for this purpose is the Food Stuffs Commissariat and the consumers' unions. Thus, while the government has two ways of obtaining goods, the peasants have only one, namely through their co-operative societies.
The purpose of the government in nationalizing the consumers' unions or co-operative societies was twofold : First, it ivas desired to disestablish the unions as being <{ capitalistic undertakings'^ which had their own private banks. This was done by confiscating ^ the larger productive undertakings of the societies; second, it ivas desired to discontinue private trade. The supplying of the people should be done exclusively through the organs of the state. The most important question for us is : Has nationalization proven a success, have the co-operative societies had the capacity of their service increased through nationalization, and can an imitation of these tactics be recommended?
The Sucherevka market in Moscow, the fish market in Charkov, and similar markets in all the cities of Russia give the firstanswer to this question, namely, that the government has not succeeded in regulating the provisioning of the population through its measures. But even when there is only a small market in a city, such as in Petrograd, it only means that the population is procuring the necessary provisions in some other more underground manner. Today the co-operative societies no longer have the service capacity which they had 'before nationalization. Why? The societies no longer are unions of peasants' artels, in which the peasants leave their products to be sold, but the government has rather taken over the task of handling the agricultural products. How this takes place we have already seen. The peasants are compelled to part with their grain for 100 rubles per pud. Whether the organs through which the government handles this work are called departments of the Food Stuffs Commissariat or departments of the Centrosoyuz, it all comes to the same thing, for if the peasants refuse to deliver at those prices, they are forced to it through the military. In each case the soldiers requisition the grain. The societies also receive their products through the government and cannot distribute any more than they receive from the government. But as this, for reasons mentioned, is not sufficient, the societies are far less serviceable than before the nationalization. The societies are to-day no longer free institutions, but, according to the words of the vicarious chairman, the population are forced to become members. And it is clear that a compulsory organization cannot work as well as a free one. The societies are to-day less capable of supplying the population witl the necessary provisions, and for that reason everybody tries t< supply through private channels what is missing.