Marx, Lenin and the Cooperative Movement

Abstract Drawing upon the writings of Marx and Lenin, this article refutes the widely shared but incorrect assumption that Marx and Lenin rejected cooperation even as a mode of production for the transitional period. It reviews Marx's belief that cooperatives would gradually supplant capitalistic firms, and that the generalised growth of cooperation would give rise to a new mode of production; the article also analyses Lenin's 1923 article on cooperation in which not only is cooperation described as a major step in the transition to socialism, but even equated with socialism at large. The hypotheses of this article are supported through a close reading of these works and also shed light on numerous implications arising from this reading.