Page:Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922).djvu/72

 ducted by the political parties and the Red Trade Unions: for the defence of the interests of the working class. Co-operatives should participate in combating the increases of taxation—especially of indirect taxes affecting the consumers—exorbitant taxes on co-operatives or on their business operations, and the rise in prices. The co-operatives should demand the transfer of distribution of commodities of prime necessity to the hands of the workers' consumers' co-operatives. They should participate in the struggle against militarism which is the cause of the growth of state expenditure, and consequently of the increase of taxation, against the mad financial policy of the imperialist governments, which causes the depreciation of the currency. The co-operatives should fight against the Versailles Treaty and against Fascism, which is raising its head everywhere and subjecting the co-operatives to cruel repressions. The co-operatives must combat the menace of a new war, and intervention, and demand the establishment of relations with Soviet Russia, etc. The Communist co-operators should endeavour to draw their organisations into this struggle alongside with the Communist Parties and Red Trade Unions, thus creating a united proletarian front. The Communist co-operators should demand that their organisations extend aid to the victims of capitalist terror, to the workers on strike or lockout, etc. The Communist co-operators should insist that the co-operatives develop revolutionary cultural and educational work on an extensive scale, and take this work into their own hands.

(3) Apart from energetically participating in the political and economic struggle of the revolutionary proletariat, the Communist co-operators should also carry on purely co-operative work in order to imbue the co-operatives with those principles which the new conditions and tasks of the proletariat demand. The amalgamation of the small consumers' societies into large organisations, the repudiation of the old principle of dividends and the employment of all profits made for strengthening the power of the co-operatives, the establishment of a special strikers' aid fund out of profits, the defence of the interests of co-operative employees to oppose such forms of bank credits as may jeopardise the co-operatives: such are the tasks which the Communist co-operators should perform. In the event of it being necessary to raise the price of shares in the co-operatives, the Communists should demand that such increases do not lead to the expulsion from the co-operatives of those workers unable to pay the increase, and that certain exemptions be made for such category of workers.

The Communist nuclei in the co-operative should also connect their work most closely with the work of the women trade union organisations and with the Communist Young People's League, in order to facilitate, by common effort, the work of co-operative propaganda among the working women and the youth, It is also necessary to initiate an energetic struggle