Changes in the organization of Czechoslovak consumer cooperatives in the years Changes in the Organization of Czechoslovak Consumer Cooperatives in the Years 1953-1956 - Causes, Targets and Results
Abstract
The presented paper analyses the development of Czechoslovak consumer cooperatives in the years 1953-1956. In that time, a copycat system of the Soviet model (which was at that time rather obsolete even in the USSR) was introduced despite the opposition of the cooperative organs which was based on separation of the state and cooperative trade (state trade in the cities, cooperative trade in the countryside) and dismantling of the contemporary organizational structure into a system of small country consumer cooperatives (so-called SELP).
Economic results of these small cooperatives were so poor that in 1956 the original systém of district cooperatives had to be reinstalled. Following the economic results, the political target of supporting the unified agricultural cooperatives and promotion of the cooperative system in the countryside was left unfulfilled.
The author considers the true reasons for the introduction of the SELP system in 1953, concluding that it was a reflection of the peaking sovietisation (and Stalinization) of the Czechoslovak economy and society as well as a tool used for disciplining of the remnants of the autonomous Czechoslovak (or Czech) cooperative system. The paper offers an insight into the development of one part of the trade and cooperative movement in the CSR in the given period and can also serve as a demonstration of procedures during sovietisation of Czechoslovak domestic trade.