I did not claim it was secret, and you provide no explanation. The example you provide is 1985 Soviet economy, no coop names (for other readers).

I wanted to ask instead of assuming before making the following argument to the previous claims:

> You might be surprised to learn that companies still existed/exist under communism, with not a single investor around ;)

> Those were not actual companies that existed. They were just another part of the government with a different name.

> no, there were worker owned coops.

As I suspected, these "worker owned" cooperatives are completely dependent on the party (unlike current cooperatives). That is not my idea of "owning", since party members that are "workers" of the cooperative only in name would be deciding a lot of things in how the cooperative is run.

> Many cooperatives were vulnerable to exorbitant taxation by local officials, high interest rates on loans, and protection rackets run by criminals, the cost of which inevitably were passed onto consumers in the form of mark-ups. “Kooperativshchiki” (cooperative owners) thus became a term of abuse in ordinary Soviet speech.

So I agree with user nradov here: "Those were not actual companies that existed. They were just another part of the government with a different name. "

I must concede, at some point the lines can become blurred.