The New Soviet Cooperatives: Advances and Limitations

Abstract

A new Soviet law on cooperatives was drafted in March 1988, and approved in May of that year. This paper discusses changing Soviet attitudes to cooperatives, whose 'immense potential' is now acknowledged, and analyses changes in both draft and law. Considerable progress has been made in opening up new sectors of activity, reducing bureaucratic obstacles, liberalizing prices and incomes and introducing members' 'shares'. However, access to resources is still either administratively controlled or particularly expensive; members' claims to capital gains are restricted; cost-based prices conflict with market-clearing. The continuous alternation of privileged and punitive treatment is destroying the potential contribution of cooperatives to perestroika.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aganbegyan, Abel (1988) The Challenge: Economics of Perestroika (introduced by Alec Nove). London: Hutchinson.

Andrusz, Gregory (1988) 'The Cooperative Movement in the Soviet Union', mimeo, May.

BBC-SWB Transcript (1988) 'Draft Law on the Cooperative System in the USSR'. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Third Series, no. 0104. Special Supplement: C/1-12, 19 March. English translation from Pravda, 5 March 1988 (2nd edition).

BBC-SWB Transcript (1988) 'Principles of Taxing Co-operatives'. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Third Series, no. 0211, 19 March. Special Supplement: C71-9, 23 July 1988.

Dellenbrant, Jan Ake (1988) 'The Changing Role of Cooperatives in Socialist Countries A Theoretical Study'. Conference Paper. Stockholm, July.

Furobotn, E. G. (1980) 'The Socialist Labor-managed Firm and Bank-financed Investment: Some Theoretical Issues'. Journal of Comparative Economics, 4: 184-191.

Gorbachev, Mikhail S. (1987) Perestroika New Thinkingfor Our Country and the World. London: Collins.

Hanson, Philip (1988) 'The Draft Law on Cooperatives: an Assessment'. Radio Liberty research, RL 111/88. Munich.

Lenin, V. I. (1964) Questions of the Social Organization of the Economy -Articles and Speeches. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

10.

Marx, Karl (1966) The Civil War in France. Peking: Foreign Languages Press.

11.

Mastny, V. (ed.) (1988) Soviet-East European Survey 1986-1987. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

12.

Nuti, D. M. (1988) 'On Traditional Cooperatives and James Meade's Labour-Capital Discriminating Partnerships', EUI Working Paper, Florence.

13.

Teague, Elizabeth (1988) 'Expansion of the Cooperative Sector' in V. Mastny (ed.), Soviet-East European Survey 1986-1987. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

14.

Uvalic, M. (1987) 'Shareholding in Yugoslav Theory and Practice'. Paper presented at an EUI-World Bank Conference on Monetary and Financial Reform in Socialist Economies, Florence, October. EUI Working Paper, Florence.