Politics in Cooperatives – Cooperatives in Politics. An Analysis of a Complicated Relationship in the Bohemian Lands (1918–1938)

The publication focuses on the development of the cooperative movement in the Bohemian lands in the interwar period. At that time, cooperatives were a commonplace, fully-fledged part of society's economic, social, cultural, and other life and were a ubiquitous phenomenon with millions of members. The book is the first domestic synthetic work to explore the intersection of cooperatives and politics using modern historiographical methods. It analyzes the contemporary social discourse on cooperatives, the programs and cooperative activities of the prominent Czech (Czechoslovak) and German political parties in the First Republic, the importance of the often politicized cooperative associations, etc.  On a representative basis of nearly two hundred selected cooperatives of various types and several dozen cooperative associations, the book illustrates the highly diverse form of cooperative life characterized by a high degree of flexibility and adaptability to the specific needs of members. The linkage of most cooperatives to political parties was a generally accepted reality that, while widely criticized, actually suited everyone. At the same time, however, the publication shows that the relationship between the political party and the cooperative was, with few exceptions, loose and used to be an interdependence rather than a one-sided dependence of the cooperative on the party. However, there are also rare but extremely important cooperatives that were set up and controlled by political parties for propaganda or even party financing.