Avenir P. Korelin
The Rise of Cooperative System: Ascents and Descents (1860s - the midst of 1890s),
in: Ekonomicheskaja istorija. Ezhegodnik (Economic Hystory. Yearbook). 2002, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2003, p.421-454.

Summary

The rise of cooperative system in Russia was caused by the difficulties of market transformation, which undermined the economic position of lower income social groups, especially the peasantry. The cooperatives developed at the initiative of Nobel activists as a constructive way of overcoming the crisis. As a result, from the 1860s to the 1890s, with the support of the government and the zemstvo, cooperative activists organized various types of credit, consumers, producers and other cooperatives.

However the rapid upsurge in the 1870s and in the first part of the 1880s changed into recession that lasted until the beginning of the 20th century, and was caused by insufficient market development, poor economic positions and educational standards of most of the population, traditionalist and patriarchal government policy, etc.

Nevertheless it was a period of accumulation of the experience, elimination of prejudices, popularization of cooperative ideas and projects. These processes paved the way for a broad cooperative development at the beginning of the 20th century.

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