of distribution created by capitalism, pressing these into the socialist service.
The Soviet Power adopted the latter course. While creating its own organs wherever necessary, especially in the opening period of the destruction of capitalist conditions, it concentrated its attention upon the cooperatives, aiming chiefly at the utilisation of the cooperative apparatus for the distribution of goods.
117. Cooperation in former Days.
In capitalist society, the main function of the cooperatives is to free the consumer from the tyranny of the middleman, from the grip of the speculative trader; to secure trading profits for the union of consumers; and to provide consumers with goods of satisfactory quality. The cooperatives achieve these results with a considerable measure of success, but they do this only for their own members, only, that is to say, for a certain part of society.
The early cooperators fancied that capitalism would be peacefully renovated through the instrumentality of cooperation. What has really happened, however, amounts to this. With all its successes, cooperation has been able merely to overthrow retail trade with more or less success; but it has done nothing to break the power of wholesale trade, to which it is itself subordinate. We refer, of course, to distributive cooperation. As far as productive cooperation is concerned, this plays an insignificant part in the whole system of capitalist production, and exercises practically no influence upon the course and the development of capitalist industry. Speaking generally we may say that the titanic organisation of capital does not regard cooperation as a serious competitor. Capitalism felt fully capable of strangling cooperation like a kitten whenever it should think fit, and it was therefore content to leave the dreamers of the cooperative movement free to indulge their visions of