The first cooperative organizations appeared in the Gomel region as early as the late 19th century. By the autumn of 1917, cooperatives were operating in trade, agriculture, craft production, and the credit sector. However, as a result of the policy of “war communism,” by 1921 the cooperative movement had been almost completely nationalized. Only with the transition to the NEP were favorable conditions created for its development. The 1920s can confidently be called the era of flourishing of the country’s cooperative movement.
In the 1920s, the Gomel Central Workers’ Cooperative (TsRK) was a very large public organization. Its members were workers of state-owned enterprises and craft artels of the city.
Consumer cooperatives, as economic organizations relatively independent of the state, existed in cities until 1930. Then, in connection with the maximum centralization of all resources under conditions of forced industrialization and the introduction of the ration-card system, so-called closed workers’ cooperatives (ZRK) and closed distribution outlets (ZR) were created at every large enterprise. The former handled the fulfillment of workers’ ration cards, the latter—those of managers and higher-level employees.