Draft Decree on Cooperation
Проект декрета о кооперации
Date: 1918-03-25
Source: LS vol 36
Translated by: AI (Claude)

[March 22-25, 1918]

1) Cooperative organisations serve the entire population in each area of their activity, with non-members paying 5% more for the products they receive.

Note: The sum from the additional 5% levy goes entirely to the benefit of the state.

2) Persons receiving wages or otherwise having a monthly income below 150 rubles are exempt from the entrance and membership fees when joining a cooperative organisation.

Note: The Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies has the right to lower the stated norm depending on the actual size of the subsistence minimum.

3) Each cooperative of the first degree (or its branches) serves a definite district or locality. By virtue of this, a cooperative is prohibited from serving persons who do not live in the area assigned to the given cooperative.

4) Within the bounds of each locality or district, no more than one cooperative may operate.

5) The allocation of areas and the compulsory norms for the distribution of rationed products are determined by the state and municipal organs, to whose control cooperative organisations are also subordinated.

6) Representatives of the cooperatives are included in the central and district state organs of supply, with state management of private commercial enterprises belonging to these state organs of supply (up to and including their transfer to state management, etc.).

7) Persons who employ workers, employees, or servants, as well as well-to-do peasants who resort to hiring day labourers, may sit on the boards of cooperatives in a number not exceeding one-third of the total number of board members. In the interests of preserving the systematic work of the cooperative apparatus, in those boards where the representatives of the propertied classes exceed the stated norm, persons who do not fall under the above-mentioned categories are added in the corresponding number.

8) Those cooperative organisations which unite the entire population of their locality (district, territorial section) shall be granted tax advantages.

9) The implementation of these provisions is carried out by cooperative organisations by agreement with the state organs of supply (food).

10) As and after the cooperatives are assured of the supply of products, the issuing to the working population of wages in the form of certificates entitling them to receive from cooperatives specified articles of consumption must be begun.

11) The proceeds from products sold by the cooperatives must be deposited in their current account by cheques, on which they pay...