The Co-operative Movement

From Rainer Langstedt’s book “Finnish-Americans in War and Peace.

St Magnus Press Helsinki 2015.

By 1917, Finns had organized 65 co-operative stores (co-ops) in Michigan. Settlers moving from Michigan to Spencer, N.Y. apparently brought the co-op philosophy with them.⁴² In 1920, a group of Finnish farmers from Spencer formed a buying circle. They bought animal feed by the railroad carload, saving them $6–$8 per ton.⁴³ Initially, the Spencer Co-op sold groceries, grain, and fertilizer. A feed mill was added in the early 1930’s.

The communist paper Työmies-Eteenpäin described founding of the Spencer Co-op and the battle between the socialists and the communists for control:

The Spencer, NY Co-op, which was built by Finns, deserves a mention. This Co-Op was founded in 1927. The supporters of the worker’s movement had even earlier had thoughts of founding a Co-op, but there was not sufficient support for it. Then the Eteenpäin newspaper started with agitation. The agitation created excitement in favor of the Co-op. Even in this issue we had Raivaaja swimming against the flow of water.* This even when their support was small in the community, and they had no hope of getting control of the Co-op. Just when the Co-op people were starting up, Oskari Tokoi,^43-1 a representative of Raivaaja shows up. He made a speech and was warning people ‘from going in the trap set by the communists.’ This counter agitation did not work, because even from Tokoi’s small group of supporters, most joined the Co-Op. After a long period of difficult organization and agitation, people became so excited that $740 in capital was collected, just enough to buy a scale. ⁴⁴

*(Raivaaja was a socialist newspaper from Fitchburg, Massachusetts.)

It’s noteworthy that the Finnish communist newspaper Työmies-Eteenpäin considered the Spencer Co-op as a communist entity as late as 1953. ⁴⁵

Co-op’s Funding of Communist Activities

The Finnish co-operative businesses were sources for funding communist activities. Such funding involved some “creative accountancy.”⁴⁶ With decreasing income coming from the co-ops themselves, the communist party sent a letter to the central wholesaler, the Co-operative Central Exchange, demanding 1% of gross sales.⁴⁷ The suggested “creative accountancy” involved the wholesaler listing the demanded 1% as legal services while actually sending the money to the communist party. Matti Tenhunen was the top manager in the Co-operative Central Exchange. After spending time in Moscow, he was trusted by the Soviet communists and was in full support of the communist’s skimming of money from his employer. The scheme was leaked to co-op members resulting in a fight between those who supported their money being used for this purposes and those who did not. The reaction to the leak signaled to Tenhunen that a majority of the 20,000 branch store members were more interested in their own well being than that of the communist party.

As a result, a split occurred in 1930 between the Finnish co-operative societies. The minority of Finnish co-ops that supported the financing of the communists established their own wholesaler: “The Workers and Farmers Cooperative Unity Alliance.” Spencer’s Co-Operative Society joined this newly formed group, which included about 30 of the original 85 Finnish co-operatives. The Unity Alliance continued to function until 1939.⁴⁸

After his tenure at the Co-operative Central Exchange, Tenhunen started to look for greener pastures and realized that he could profit from coordinating the shipping of Finnish-Americans to the Soviet Union. He became the director of Karelian Technical Aid. As will be discussed at length later, this brought on the phenomenon dubbed as the “Karelian Fever.”

The “Red Star” brand with it sickle and hammer emblem was used on merchandise that the co-op sold including flour and coffee.

Instead of pin-up girls, the Spencer Co-op pictured Klim Voroshilov, commander of the Soviet Red Army on their 1934 calendar. A peer of Voroshilov and future Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was not quite as adoring of Voroshilov as the communists in the Spencer Co-op. Khrushchev once referred to him as “The biggest bag of shit in the army” ⁴⁹ In November of 1961 Voroshilov thought that he was still part of the Soviet leadership when he showed up for the annual parade on top of the Lenin mausoleum. No one had told him that he was now non-person and was therefore refused access to the podium by the KG B bodyguards. ⁵¹

The members of the Spencer Co-op adopted communist practices, such as calling each other “Comrades.” Continuing to conduct their meetings in Finnish through the 1940s, what follows is a translation by Bill Palomaki from two Education Committee meetings in 1936 and 1937.

September 21, 1936. “Comrade Rissanen of the Co-Op board asked why so many committee members were absent from the Education Committee meeting. All except Lehtos, had valid excuses to be absent from the meeting. Comrade Maatta gave a receipt for $12.26, which was sent to assist the Spanish Comrades. Above sum was collected at the semi-annual Co-Op meeting for Spanish relief . . .”

Spain was at the time in the middle of a civil war between the nationalists and left-wing “Republicanos” coalition dominated by communists and socialists. Both sides received foreign assistance, and foreign volunteer troops supporting the “Republicanos” were placed under Soviet control. As will be discussed later, three local men participated in the Spanish Civil War.

Minutes of the October 11, 1937, meeting read as follows:

Decided to send $18 worth of wool socks and $30 money to Spain on behalf of Co-op. Alon Riihinen and John Niemi’s expenses to the Co-op school in Superior Wis. was approved and Comrade Maatta moved to send a rep. to 4^th anti-war meeting in Pittsburgh, PA on March 6,7, & 8. J Maatta was chosen.

Without detecting the hypocrisy of their actions, the co-op donated to the Spanish communist war efforts while sending one of their members to an anti-war meeting.

Despite presumed cultural assimilation, the communist ideology of the Spencer Co-operative members remained strong. Aaro Mackie, deliverymen for a bakery in Ithaca, New York supplied the Spencer Co-op with bread in 1942. He got into a heated argument with the co-op’s grocery manager about the evils of communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular. When the deliveryman returned for the next delivery, he found his company’s bread and bread shelves thrown into the parking lot.⁵²

As the first and second generation Finns passed away, communism lost its popularity in the communities of Spencer and Van Etten. The STY Hall was sold to the Van Etten Fire Department and later was converted into a hardware store. The building was torn down in 2010.

The Spencer Cooperative Society gravitated away from the organization’s communist roots as well. English was adopted for co-op meeting, and the nature of the organization became non-political, with republicans and democrats joining. The Spencer Co-op became a very successful marketer of eggs, even exporting some to Europe. Sales exceeding $1.2 million were accomplished for several years. The decline in egg distribution began in 1954 when egg prices fell 36% in one year.⁵³ The Spencer Co-op remained in operation for over 70 years. Acting as a hardware store and lumber supplier in its latter years, the Spencer Cooperative Society closed its doors for the last time in 1994.⁵⁴

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