EN
From the moment the Belarusian territories became part of the Second Polish Republic, cooperatives which were an integral part of the Belarusian national movement turned into one of the forms of the struggle for the rights of the Belarusian people. The burst of the cooperatives’ activity took place during the period of the Republic of Central Lithuania, in later years however their activity was gradually decreasing. The decline of the cooperatives’ activity was reversed by the emerging Belarusian Peasants’ and Workers’ Union; its activists tried to control all the Belarusian organizations including the economic ones. These cooperatives were very few institutions of the Belarusian minority that survived the collapse of the Belarusian movement at the end of the 1930s.