Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/194

168 was made. It is true that at the present moment permits are granted more readily. Recently, seventeen permits were granted en bloc, but there are even now over seventy applications pending.

As was pointed out at both Cooperative Congresses, the absolutist system of establishing cooperative societies and unions hampers the great work of organizing the economic forces of the country. A new law concerning the formation of cooperative societies is imperatively demanded by the existing conditions. Such a bill has already been worked out, and it was introduced in the Douma during the last session (August 1 - September 16, 1915). The bill was endorsed by a large majority of the Douma, the Left, the Constitutional-Democrats and the Center being heartily in favor of such a reform.

There is no doubt that this bill will soon become law, and then new perspectives will open before the Russian cooperative movement. Yet, even in the present stage of this movmentmovement [sic], we are dealing with an extraordinary economic organization.

It is customary to think of Russia as a land rich in opportunities which she does not turn to account. This opinion is correct if we take it cum grano sails. And yet, when we take it as a generalization it must be considered as unjustified.

In the "Board of Trade Labour Gazette," for September 1915, we find interesting data concerning the cooperative movement in Great Britain. It appears that, by the end of 1914, there were, in the United Kingdom, 1,524 cooperative organizations of all kinds, with a total membership of 3,096,314. From these figures it would seem that economic self-government is better developed in politically backward Russia, than in Great Britain, the home of political self-government. As we have already shown, Russia had, by the end of 1915, 35,000 cooperative organizations, with a membership of 12,000,000. And this, as we have also already seen, means that the influence of the cooperative movement extends over almost 60,000,000 persons, or one-third of Russia's total population.

What is most important is that this is the most prosperous third of the population. An examination of the social and economic status of the membership of the Russian cooperative societies shows that the poorer peasants and workingmen do not participate in them. Thus, the Siberian dairy cooperatives consist mostly of fairly well-to-do peasants, each family possessing, on the average, six or seven cows. An investigation, conducted in the government of Oufa, showed that the average