Interaction of cooperation and authorities in solving the food problem in the cities of Siberia (1914 – February 1917)

In the article studied the activities of the consumer cooperation retail market during the First world war. In the conditions of the speculative growth of prices cooperatives supplied the population staple foods at lower prices compared to private trade, developed own production of the most important goods of mass consumption. For the strengthening of food ruin the activities of cooperatives came nearer to the activities of the power structures. Purchase and realization of the most important goods of mass demand cooperation conducted with the help of government subsidies and incentives. In close contact with urban food authorities cooperatives carried out the distribution of scarce products on the card system, implementing municipal procurement. The absence in the market of wholesale purchases of many goods contributed to strengthening of the distribution functions of cooperatives. This made it difficult to implement in practice the classical principles of the cooperative movement and its participation in the formation of institutional elements of civil society that marked the beginning of a «watershed» between free amateur cooperation and its deformation in the period of «military communism».