Labour Cooperative Agricultural Farm

Labour Cooperative Agricultural Farm known in its Bulgarian acronym TKZS is an agricultural cooperative in the People's Republic of Bulgaria on the Soviet model. The TKZS were initially and by design voluntarily created, but the mass collectivization of land often led to violent measures to socialize the property of a large part of the rural owners - especially the richest. The cooperation of farmers in various profiles of agricultural production and sales of production until 1944 developed according to principles and structure corresponding to those in other countries in Europe. Until then, Bulgaria was in second place in the world in terms of development of the cooperative movement after Denmark[1] with consumer, credit and savings and agricultural cooperatives created mainly after the First World War. Agricultural producers become members and unite in cooperatives by industry, participating with share capital or membership fees to achieve the goals of these voluntary associations - mutual assistance, a uniform pricing policy, innovations and a commercial structure for the sale of the produced product. The governing bodies are elected and are accountable for their activities to all members of the cooperative.

History

The first state legislative act that regulates the issues of the name and status of labour cooperative agricultural farms was the Ordinance-Law on Labour Cooperative Agricultural Farms promulgated in the State Gazette, issue 95 of 25.04.1945.[2] The promulgated text was amended in 1947 and 1948. The law establishes two principles for the establishment of such cooperative associations - as a cooperative as an independent legal entity and as a department of existing local consumer and credit cooperatives.[3]

The ordinance-law largely repeats the provisions of the Model Statute of Agricultural Production Cooperatives, developed by the Bulgarian Agricultural and Cooperative Bank in 1940. Unlike the later structure of the TKZS, it provided for the preservation of the private property of the members and the payment of rent in the amount of 40% of the farm's income. At the same time, the new TKZS were exempt from taxes for three years and could receive state and municipal properties free of charge.

In the spring of 1945, the first voluntary associations for collective land cultivation were formed as departments of the existing structures of the all-round cooperative in the villages. Encouraged by the ideas of Aleksandar Stamboliyski for the creation of the so-called agricultural mutual aid cooperative association, the "All-round" was a tested structure of the cooperative. With share contributions from its members, it supported them on the principle of a mutual aid fund and developed credit and commercial activities for the purchase of agricultural production and the sale of goods to the population. By the beginning of the 1950s, the credit activities of the rural all-round cooperatives were closed and they remained to operate as consumer cooperatives.

See also

• Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft
• State Agricultural Farm