The photograph from the museum collection shows the members of the board of the Arzamas Unified Consumer Society (UCS): Chairman Pyotr Isidorovich Golikov, Alexey Ivanovich Tikhonov, and Malamud Wolf Abramovich.
On March 20, 1919, the Council of People’s Commissars decided that all citizens of the RSFSR were to unite into consumer societies. All residents were included in a unified consumer society. Each person was assigned to one of the distribution points of these societies.
Until demobilization on June 13, 1922, when the transition to peacetime occurred, Pyotr Golikov served as commissar of the headquarters of the 35th Siberian Rifle Division.
After returning to Arzamas, on July 19, 1922, at the direction of the district committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), he was elected a member of the board of the Arzamas UCS.
The year 1923 was unprofitable for the Arzamas Unified Consumer Society. On January 9, there was a major robbery of the cooperative. On March 13 of the same year, Pyotr Golikov, a communist who had started his working life as a teacher, was elected chairman of the board of the Arzamas UCS. The board members were tanner Wolf Abramovich Malamud and teacher Alexey Ivanovich Tikhonov.
In September 1923, a sales crisis occurred. Under the leadership of Pyotr Isidorovich, the UCS was able to overcome this difficult period, attracting many new members. Arzamas UCS became one of the best in Nizhny Novgorod province.
In 1924, in place of the Arzamas Office of the Provincial Union, the Arzamas Regional Union of Consumer Societies was organized. Pyotr Golikov was elected a member of the regional union.
In connection with the transition to voluntary membership, the Arzamas UCS was reorganized on March 2, 1924 into the Arzamas City Consumer Society, or “gorpo”. Pyotr Isidorovich was unanimously elected chairman, and Wolf Malamud and Alexey Tikhonov re-joined the board.
In December 1924, Pyotr Golikov, upon the recommendation of the district committee, was elected chairman of the board of the Arzamas Regional Union. Under his leadership, the organization expanded its membership: by October 1, 1925, it included one urban and over 100 rural consumer societies. By early 1927, the Arzamas Regional Consumer Union had become a large cooperative organization with substantial capital, holding shares and deposits in various banks totaling over 30,000 rubles.
Pyotr Isidorovich continued to serve as chairman of
the board of the Arzamas Regional Union until his death on April 23, 1927.
