Participation of cooperatives in the development of local movement system in the North Caucasus in the mid 1920's

The article highlights the main forms of cooperatives’s participation in the activities of local self-government system during the culmination period of the New Economic Policy in the mid 1920-s. At that time cooperatives were the largest public organizations uniting a significant part of the population in the North Caucasus. The article identifies the main causes of the activation of the cooperative movement, which are associated with the implementation the Bolshevik Party’s local policies of "Facing Villages". The article considers separately the improvement of relations between Communists and Cossacks, whose representatives began to participate actively in the cooperation. The article shows the role of cooperatives in revitalizing the public activity of peasants and Cossacks, enhancing the effectiveness of economic, cultural and educational work in the countryside. It also draws attention to the strengthening of cultural and educational work in daily activities of rural cooperative communities. The studies make the conclusion that cooperatives made a great influence on the development of initiatives of the population in the economic and cultural life of the North Caucasian villages. At the same time, negative assessment is given to the increased administration by the government and communist party authorities that did not allow cooperatives to implement further their potential as self-dependent social organizations.