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Commodity Exchange in the First Months of Soviet Power 
with Participation of Consumer Cooperation (January – April, 1918)

The food crisis in Russia arose during the years of the First World War. The tsarist government and the Provisional Government tried to solve this problem, but to no avail. The food crisis, as it was by inheritance, passed to the Soviet regime. All authorities had to solve the food problem in the conditions of constant 
military and revolutionary upheavals, and this problem, from the socio-economic, passed into the political sphere. Famine predetermined revolutionary upheaval in the country. 
The article covers the period from January to April, 1918. At this time the Austro-German army advances in southern Russia. The military, political, and socio-economic situation of the new government was extremely difficult. The Soviet government had to support the grain monopoly introduced by the tsarist and 
confirmed by the Provisional Governments, although it was not officially confirmed and even introduced by the new government. To strengthen its position, the Soviet government took a number of measures to resolve the food problem. The most important, even the main one was the exchange of goods between the 
city and the village. It was necessary to save the urban population from hunger, to supply the army with food. It should be noted that the initial measures including in the exchange policy of the Soviet government were not of a violent nature. The country had industrial reserves for commodity exchange in the country: manu- 
factory, high-grade iron, etc. remaining from tsarism. Everything was sent to the village. There is an opinion that the Soviet government gave industrial products to the peasantry for nothing and that was true. But commodity exchange made it possible to alleviate the food crisis in the cities, feed the army, and politically 
strengthen the Soviet power. For the exchange of goods, it was necessary to attract various regulatory bodies of the country that were engaged in the procurement and distribution of bread. 
This article highlights the role of consumer cooperation, which was underexplored in the historical literature, in the commodity exchange. Specific examples, facts and figures are given for the bread producing provinces in southern Russia.