 The ULCCS, as you know, began as part of the anti-caste movement nine decades ago and has against all odds not only survived but actually thrived. Its very existence is an act of heroic assertion of what is possible. Documenting the saga of ULCCS which is what Comrade Thomas Isaac and Michelle Williams have done is a remarkable job, essential. I would like to congratulate them and I also like to congratulate Leftward Books for actually bringing out this volume. This book, however, is not only a discussion of the story of ULCCS but it also raises very deep theoretical issues. In fact, its very title is suggestive of the theoretical issues it raises. That is, is it a possible alternative? Can cooperatives be a possible alternative to capitalist enterprises? As a matter of fact, in the preface which is titled possible communism, that actually is it the case that within the cooperative movement we actually have the embryo of a communist society? Can cooperatives, for instance, if they get generalised across society as a whole, give rise to a society which we call a communist society? It is a wonderful quotation from Marx on this question in the preface itself. One obvious answer which would be given to this and commonly given is that no, it is not possible because within the cooperative itself over a period of time you would have the development of internal contradictions because of which there would be schisms developing within the cooperative entity, cooperative enterprise, cooperative movement itself. As a result, it would tend to reproduce within itself the kind of contradictions that we find within a capitalist society. Now this book is a resounding proof of the fact that that is not necessarily true. As a matter of fact, one of the main conclusions of the book is that this view that the cooperative movement necessarily develops contradictions within itself that tend to polarise it is a view that does not hold for ULCCS and there is no reason why this view should hold generally. There is, however, a second point which needs to be made here that suppose that capitalism is not only private ownership of the means of production. Suppose we actually had a society in which all entities were cooperatively owned or all entities were actually owned by the state on behalf of society but managed by cooperatives that still would not make it a socialist society that would still reproduce a number of features of capitalism as indeed Yugoslavia did. Capitalism is not only the private ownership of the means of production but capitalism is also commodity production. Commodity production necessarily fragments people, necessarily fragments the working class. I'd like to recall an incident here in the late 1970s after the emergency when George Fernandez as you know he was a leading figure in the anti-emergency struggle. He was a leading trade unionist of the time, General Secretary of the All India Railway Men's Federation who took a played a major role in the historic railway strike, became the industry minister in the Janata government. Being the new industry minister he thought he should do something as far as the working class is concerned. So he proposed workers participation in management of enterprises to be generalised as a rule to be kind of applied across the country. And then this idea was presented to the various trade unions and to Fernandez is a great surprise. Somdred B.T. Ranadevi was the president of the CITU, rejected it outright. He said nothing to it. Because he said that workers participation in management in a capitalist setting where necessarily enterprises are fragmented and where commodity production prevails actually forecloses the possibility of class unity of the working class. As a result he completely kind of vetoed it and of course Fernandez was very surprised. So there is a problem about looking into the cooperative movement as such in the context of an otherwise developing socialist state. In the context of a socialist state that's coming into being, looking at the cooperative movement itself within a world of commodity production as in some sense transcending capitalism is actually an incorrect idea. But then does it mean that there is nothing about cooperatives? It is certainly true that the cooperatives can actually have a democratic structure within themselves but to the extent that they relate to one another in a world of commodity production they actually tend to fragment the working class and as a result they do not necessarily capture the essence of socialism. It's at best a syndicalist move not a socialist move. But then does this mean that actually cooperatives do not represent a forward march? Certainly not. They do represent a forward march in a way which is brought out very well in the book. They represent a forward march if I can put it in terms of language which I would like to use in the sense that they represent a bulwark against primitive accumulation of capital. What we witness today in societies like ours is capitalist production, supplanting petty production, assaulting petty production, squeezing petty production, displacing petty producers be they peasants, be they fishermen, be they craftsmen and so on. Now of course if they are to remain viable in the short run the state must come to their rescue but if they are going to remain viable over a longer period of time then they must be able to obtain the economies of scale they must be able to obtain the introduce the kind of technological changes which are necessary for them to be viable and this is possible within the context of a cooperative framework. If you for instance have harvester combines being introduced in the context of capitalist farming then they displace laborers but if you have harvester combined being introduced with laborers cooperatives owning those combines then what the laborers lose by way of wage income they make up by way of profit income and what is more while their incomes don't suffer they actually have greater leisure. So the cooperative movement has an enormous role to play as a bulwark against the process of primitive accumulation of capital and this is something which can even take the form where cooperatives can even be involved in the process of investment in which case the kind of displacement of peasants and so on that we see all across the world including in China and certainly in India its effects could be minimized, negated, obviated if you have for instance peasants cooperatives themselves setting up industrial projects. This is why the fact that cooperatives can represent in the context of a development of socialism they can represent a transition from petty production to higher forms like a socialist society is something which actually makes capitalism quite strongly opposed to cooperatives. There are at least two very obvious reasons for it, one is that cooperatives are a way in which petty production can survive can prevent primitive accumulation of capital. This animosity was very clear for instance in the wake of demonetization, demonetization not only dealt a heavy blow against the petty production sector but demonetization as Comrade Isaac wrote at that time was actually a big blow against the cooperative movement in Kerala which is the state with a very developed cooperative movement. In fact one of the major differences between Bengal and Kerala and this has implications for the divergent fortunes of the left movement in the two states is that in Bengal the cooperative movement is virtually non-existent while in Kerala the cooperative movement is extremely powerful. There's a second reason namely that you know that it is important for capitalism to prove that you cannot do without capitalist property. If you can have a society in which property can be organized along different lines then that is something that represents an existential threat in a conceptual sense to capitalism and therefore they are always opposed to the public sector for instance, vilifying the public sector day in and day out and likewise they are also opposed to other forms of property, other forms of organization like cooperatives. Now issues like these are raised in this book. The quality of an outstanding book is when it makes you think about deep issues and this is certainly one such book. I'd like to congratulate the authors and the leftward books for bringing out this volume. Thank you very much.