CHAPTER IV
co-operation, trade and business
In a striking appeal to the Russian people for loyalty and effort on behalf of the nation, Lenin said : “ All Soviet Russia will become a United All Russian Co-operative Society of Workers.” This is the keynote and explanation of the Soviet Government's attitude towards the old Russian Co-operative Movement. Socialism, Communism, Bolshevism, mean cooperation, and co-operation means all three. It has taken months of weary arguing and much effort to overcome the open and avowed hostility of co-operators towards the proposal to absorb them as part of the organisation of the State. I am not sure it is yet overcome.
No one should be surprised at this. The Cooperative Movement everywhere has prided itself on the voluntary character of its work. In England, Co-operators and Socialists are only just commencing to understand how much their theories of life are akin to each other.
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