ABSTRACT
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has taken a number of concrete steps to reestablish the cooperative as a legitimate component of the Soviet economic system, beginning with a Politburo statement in support of the cooperative movement in February, 1987. Since that date, cooperatives have become one of the most controversial parts of the Soviet program for economic restructuring. Regardless of the political and economic environment in which cooperatives emerge, they almost invariably have a number of features in common. These are worth calling attention to as background for the particularized discussion of Soviet cooperatives that follows. A decree on the development of new forms of cooperative enterprise adopted by the USSR Council of Ministers early in 1987 set some basic guidelines for the formation and operation of cooperatives. The decree was not effective in preventing local authorities from impeding the development of the cooperative movement.
