The intention of ?the rest? of societies to enlarge their evolutionary capacity through the process of modernization should be considered quite natural. In fact, most of the societies in Southeastern Europe have been facing the task of modernization for the third time during the last two hundred years. They faced it firstly after the liberation from the Turkish rule in the nineteenth century. The second attempt was made by the new political (communist) elites after the World War II. Finally, the breakup of the socialist systems did not put the necessity of modernization into the archive of history: on the contrary, the same question, this time as in the form of ?transition?, was raised once again.

            Since Serbia and Romania have always been (and still are, to the great extent) ?the countries of peasants?, one could expect to find a developed cooperative movement in both of them, which would be an indicator of the ongoing process of modernization. However, this is not the case in Serbia, and it is even less true for Romania.

            Peasants? cooperatives in contemporary Serbia do exist, but not to the extent that would be desirable in the present economical and social circumstances. The first type of agricultural cooperatives in Serbia is, actually, represented by the cooperatives inherited from the former (socialist) system. These cooperatives, which had somehow survived all hardships they were exposed to during the previous four decades (forced collectivization and its failure, a period of ?general cooperatives? and a period of ?self management?), have been engaged in various activities, like primary production, food processing, input supply and output marketing, etc. A great part of their assets, which had been taken from them by the state since 1953 and transformed into so-called ?social property?, has not been restored as cooperative property yet, though the Law (adopted five years ago) says it should be done. Their internal structure and social relations still have a lot of hallmarks of the socialist system.

            The new legislation - the laws on cooperatives and agricultural cooperatives adopted in the Republican (1989) and Federal (1996) parliament - was mostly adjusted to the European standards and it enabled the appearance of totally new, spontaneously formed agricultural cooperatives (engaged mainly ? but not only - in input supply and output marketing) that had been absolutely impossible before 1989. We consider them to be the cooperatives of the second type, which in itself can be divided into two separate subtypes. Namely, some of the new peasants? cooperatives can be called the ?real peasant cooperatives? because they have really been formed by peasants for peasants, as they have also been led and controlled by peasants. However, in the second subtype we put those agricultural cooperatives that have been established by entrepreneurs who had been searching for a way to do some trade in agriculture and a way to avoid, at the same time, the taxes that have been imposed on corporations by the state. There is no doubt that the Serbian peasants have got the point when they call these cooperatives ?private cooperatives?.