The establishment of the party influence on the handicraft industry cooperation in the Volga region during the New Economic Policy period

In this paper on the example of the Volga region the author examines the process of conquest by the Bolshevik Party of the system of the handicraft industry cooperation in the period of the New Economic Policy. The author underlines that the process of penetration of communists into that system was met aggressively by cooperation leaders as well as its rank-and-file members, which could be explained by a low professional and moral level of communists sent in to the cooperation system. By the end of 1920s the consumer's cooperation was fully under the communist control, but the social composition of the handicraft industry cooperatives was characterized by a low percentage of party members in their ranks.