The development of the cooperative sector in the period of perestroika and its role in the stabilization of the consumer market in the USSR

The paper deals with the process of emergence and development of cooperation during the perestroika period in the USSR. The main attention is paid to the analysis of impact by cooperative sector on the saturation of consumer markets and the satisfaction of solvent population demands. In the second half of the 1980s the Soviet government believed that the revival of the cooperative sector would help to overcome the growing disparity between the incomes and trademark coverage. However, this did not happen. For example, by the middle of 1989, less than half of cooperatives were engaged in the production of consumer goods and consumer services of the population. Many cooperatives, using their legal rights, chose to enter into mediation contracts with enterprises to the detriment of the saturation of the consumer market. Eventually, in early 1990s the situation at the consumer market deteriorated sharply; speculative demand for food and consumer durables increased. Moreover, the excess money in circulation had reached a critical size. Thus, cooperative activities, despite the fact that they had enabled many cooperators to accumulate capital and start a private business in the 1990s, by the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union failed to become a major sector of the national economy. The author used the archive materials that have not been involved in the research activity before.