Lesson in Democracy

In the huge red-and-gold concert hall of Paris' Palais de Chaillot last week, the International Cooperative Alliance, central body of the world's cooperative societies, opened its 19th congress. No sooner did the meeting get under way than lean, dark-haired Andrei Timofeev, leader of the 30-member Soviet delegation, jumped to his feet and put in motion a Russian plan aimed at seizing control of the world cooperative organization.

It was well worth seizing. The 59-year-old I.C.A. has 117 million members, more than 12 million in North and South America. Some of its greatest growth took place in postwar periods of inflation and food shortages, when new cooperative societies sprang up all over Europe. The societies have brought in large numbers of farmers and cooperative-minded consumers, just the people the Communists would like to use in their propaganda efforts.

Timofeev's method was simple. He tried to shoehorn the cooperative societies in Poland, Hungary, Albania and East Germany into the international alliance. The votes of regional cooperatives and Communist collectives (each would get one to ten votes, according to membership) in the satellite countries would be a decisive step toward eventual control of the I.C.A. But leaders of the cooperatives in the West were ready for the assault. To be admitted to I.C.A. membership, a cooperative must follow certain principles laid down by the world organization. One of these is that a cooperative society must determine its own policy rather than have policies dictated by the state--an impossible condition for any Communist organization.

Up spoke Robert Southern, general secretary of the British Cooperative Union. Said he: "What is at stake is the future control of I.C.A., and whether I.C.A. will continue the functions for which it was founded." Then Jerry Voorhis, onetime California Congressman and head of the 35 U.S. delegates at the meeting, pinpointed the issue. Said Voorhis: "The societies applying for membership have shown that they were incapable of opposing the governments of the countries concerned." When the vote was taken, the Russian proposal lost by 671 votes to 366. With Russia put in its place, the congress got down to other business. It voted to concentrate on setting up cooperatives in five regions--the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa below the Sahara, the Caribbean and parts of South America--and to set up an international fund to finance the work.

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