Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/45

 by the socialist outlook, and thus are in the hands of proletarians conscious of their part in the class struggle.

In this sense the consumers' co-operative societies may become of special importance in countries where industry is as yet undeveloped, but where a class-conscious proletariat already exists. In such places the co-operative societies may take in the peasantry, which has not yet become consciously antagonistic to the proletariat, as in Western Europe, and make its purchasing power of service in building up the co-operative industry which will arise in competition with the capitalist industry, and tends to restrict and moderate the influence of the latter over workers and consumers. In such a country as Russia the co-operative societies may assume unsuspected importance for the proletarian class-struggle, and the establishment of Socialism. This also holds good for Georgia. Its co-operative organisations were first formed in the Czarist period, but only since the revolution have they been able to develop freely, and they have expanded rapidly.

Already in May 1916 the consumers' societies of Transcaucasia (Georgia, Aserbaijan, and Armenia), to the number of 126, united to form a wholesate buying agency. 565 societies were attached to this union in 1917, and in 1919, in Georgia alone, there were 989 societies, with about 300,000 members.

The Union of Co-operative Societies began to produce on its own account in 1919. A silk factory is established, a sausage factory, engineering works, which turn out agricultural implements; then vegetable and fruit preserving factories, and finally a printing-press. None of these undertakings works at a loss, and most of them yield a surplus.

It is all to the good that the co-operative societies have proceeded slowly and cautiously in laying the foundations of their productive activities. The stormy movement, which corresponds to the revolutionary temperament and is in place when hostile positions are