Decision of the Politbureau of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) in Connection with the Entente's Attempt to Start Trade Relations with Russia through the Russian Co-Operatives

Written January 17 or 18, 1920 · First published in 1963 in the Fifth Russian Edition, of the Collected Works, Vol. 40. Printed from the typewritten copy of the minutes. · page 159 · Translated by Bernard Isaacs

In view of the Entente’s intention to effect an exchange of commodities through the co-operatives with the patent design of using the co-operatives as an instrument for restoring capitalism, the C.C. instructs the Chairman of Centrosoyuz, the People’s Commissariat for Food, the Chairman of the S.E.C. and the People’s Commissariat for Trade to consider the question of the cooperatives very carefully from this angle and immediately work out measures ensuring full control on our part of the co-operative machinery primarily at all the points where such trade may be arranged (the Ukraine, the Soviet Far East).