Urban consumer cooperation in Tomsk Province in the early 20th century: the experience of civil self-government
On the basis of a wide range of sources, the process of formation of social activity in the city and working consumer cooperatives by the example of the largest Tomsk consumer society "Worker" is considered in the article. The cooperative movement was characterized by not only a significant contribution to the development of retail systems and cooperative production, but also by an important social-integrative function. A consumer cooperation was born in the Tomsk province in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1869-1874 in Barnaul, a consumer society, one of the first in the country, operated. Its rules were approved by a public authority, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Since 1912, a sustainable growth of urban and working societies began. They operated until the transformations of Soviet power. They emerged in Mariinsk, Novonikolaevsk, Tomsk, Barnaul, Narym, Taiga, Biysk, Kuznetsk, Kolyvan, Tatarsk, Bogotol, etc. The article discusses the social composition, commercial, industrial, unifying and cultural activities of the "Worker" cooperative, founded in 1913 in Tomsk. It was headed by cooperative workers V.I. Anuchin, D.I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, N.A. Rozhkov, well-known in Siberia. Most of the participants belonged to the poor part of the urban population: the bureaucracy, the intelligentsia, the workers, and owned one or two 5-ruble shares. By January 1, 1917, the society consisted of 1957 members, the share capital amounted to 9820 rubles, the turnover to 438 thousand rubles; it had seven shops and a bakery. Cooperative trade was widely spread among the inhabitants of the city; it regulated prices in the local market. During the food crisis of the First World War "Worker" sold products harvested by the city to the population; the scarcest products were distributed by special cards. In general, the attitude of the municipal government to the cooperative was characterized as unfriendly, the relationship between the authorities, business elites and the cooperative was periodically blocked by the moments of hostility and competition. The union-integrative activity of the cooperative helped to create the "Tomsk Cooperator" partnership in August 1916. For a significant part of the shareholders, "Worker" was the only source of experience in public work, leisure organization and self-education. The urban consumer cooperative strengthened social ties between large groups of citizens on the horizontal level, activated the capacity of the municipal government, public organizations and shareholders to combat food crisis, to realize self-sufficiency and control "from below". The social-integrative role of consumer cooperatives endowed them with functions of the local self-government. The connection in practice of the two most important forms of local life - the consumer cooperative and the local government - was an important factor in the formation of the civil society at the regional level.