RUSSIA’S NEW POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26350, 3 January 1947, Page 3

RUSSIA’S NEW POLICY

MORE GOODS AND SHOPS COMPETITION STIMULATED If the Soviet Government’s decree of November 9 is driven to its logical and successful conclusion the whole Russian urban scene is likely to change greatly within the next year through the appearance of numerous new shops, booths, and stalls where both food and consumer goods will be sold by co-operatives. What the decree amounts to (writes Alexander Werth from Moscow in the Manchester Guardian) is that the Government has been becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the conditions of internal trade in Russia. This is notably so in the urban areas, where Government shops have a monopoly of retail trade (apart from the peasant markets), and where they are overburdened. So the Government has called upon the co-operatives to help to revive and stimulate retail trade on the basis of “ healthy commercial competition between the State and the co-operatives.” One of the purposes of the reform is greatly to increase during the present difficult period the supply of consumer goods which will be made by producer co-operatives, and also the supply of food to the cities—one of the tasks for the consumer co-operatives. The stimulation and development of co-operatives as media for production of consumer goods and of distribution and of the flow of goods between town and village is an interesting post-war measure'. How seriously it is being taken can be judged from the immense publicity given to this new example of “the Government’s care for the working population ” and also from Pravda’s remark that “the Government calls upon all Soviet and party organisations radically to change their attitude to the whole question of trade and consumer -goods.” The Co-operatives Russian co-operatives have lately had a limited role. Though there are 18,000 consumer co-operatives in the Soviet Union and 11,000 co-operative workshops or small factories in Russia proper alone, both types have been in a somewhat stagnant and dormant state. The consumer co-operatives, whose activities are limited exclusively to rural areas, have been little more than distributing agencies for Government goods, while the producer cooperatives have been selling to the State at low State prices and selling through the agency of State shops. They are now being strongly reproached “for having lost direct contact with the consumer.”

It would be absurd to suggest that the new reform is in any way a repetition of N.E.P.—that New Economic Policy which Lenin introduced in 1922 when in some degree private trade was restored in Russia. / There will be more consumer goods in the villages and more food in the towns as a result of the reform. The decree specifies that co-operatives will be allowed to sell at market prices direct to the consumer and not at State prices to the Government. Therefore the incentive of gain and profit will be present in the- activities of the co-operatives. They will become important auxiliaries to the State in supplying the cities with additional quantities of food and consumer goods which, in turn, will encourage the peasants to sell more food to the cities. The small producer co-operatives are to be revived as a stimulus to light industry. There is another point, Villages have not had proper marketing facilities, and one of the tasks now given to the consumer co-operatives is to buy up food surpluses in the remoter villages which were not in the habit of sending food to market in towns owing to poor transport. The co-operatives are being given for this and other purposes 700 lorries as a start. Consumer co-operatives, in virtue of the decree, are now, allowed to open their own shops, booths, and stalls in urban areas, at railway stations, steamer piers, etc., and sell “at prices prevailing in free market but not above the prices of the Government’s commercial shops” almost every kind of food—bread, meat, fisii, fats, milk. eggs. etc. (a long list of other foodstuffs follows). It may be assumed that this will tend to lower prices in the peasant markets in towns. The great question is whether, in addition to lorries, the State will also allow the co-operatives the necessary facilities on the railways to bring surplus grain from long distances. Supply of Consumer Goods The producer co-operatives are not only allowed but are instructed to open a variety of shops and stalls in the cities, where they will sell consumer goods of their own making and they have been instructed to concentrate on the production of household utensils, crockery, furniture, shoes, clothes, hosiery, etc. Like the consumer co-operatives, the producer cooperatives will receive help from the Government. They will be given the necessary tools and equipment, and local authorities have been given strict injunctions to help co-operatives to finci the necessary technicians and skilled labour and also premises. It is expected that this “healthy competition with the State" will tend to relieve the pressure on the State shops and also to increase their efficiency, wihch often has not been helped by their monopolistic position in the towns, where “You can wait” and “ Take it or leave it ” has been often typicai of the attitude towards the customer. Soviet retail trading must be quite cultured, the press now says, The people will join in the co-opera-tives’ work. An important part is played in the producer co-operatives by war invalids, to whom the new decree will also come as a boon.

Whether the resurgence of the cooperatives is meant to meet an emergency situation or whether the cooperatives will retain a lasting place in the Soviet economy is hard to say at the present stage. Now apparently the revival of a capitalist mentality through the revival of the co-opera-tives is no longer considered a danger. In short, the decree aims at supplying more consumer goods to the population and at lower prices, also to lower food prices in the towns —all this in preparation for the return to a general price-level and the abolition of rationing next year, which Zhdanov promised in his recent speech. The bad harvest must be considered as partly responsible for the need the Government felt to stimulate by means of the co-operatives a greater flow of goods between town and village. The public has received the new decree well and is hoping for a great improvement in supplies to result from it.