decisions affecting the great mass of agrarian rank and file. It
consists of all members and alternates of the Executive Council, members
of various commissions, and all the chairmen of district committees.

There are twenty-eight district committees; 1,027 village committees;
and 3,848 local branches of the BZS below the national level.
Jurisdictionally, they all follow an orderly system of organization
whereby lower organs fall under the supervision and control of higher
organs, and all fall under the final jurisdiction of the BKP agencies
above them.

The preamble of the 1971 Constitution recognizes the existence of the
BZS as united in "purpose and action" with the BKP in the establishment
and development of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. In keeping with
this pledge, the BZS leadership and prominent members are elected to,
and in some cases appointed to, important bodies of state administration
through all levels of the government. There was an increase in the
number of BZS members elected to public office in the general elections
that followed the BKP congress in 1971. It appeared that the Communists
had decided during their congress to broaden the base of representation
by including more BZS members in the government as well as more members
from various mass organizations and the Turkish minority. Regardless of
affiliation, all candidates for office are carefully screened by the
BKP, and after election all officials are under the control of the BKP.

Of the national officials in January 1973, Georgi Traykov, leader of the
BZS, was one of two first deputy chairmen of the Fatherland Front.
Earlier, he had been released as chairman of the National Assembly,
which approved his nomination to the State Council, a move that was
politically expedient in the view of Zhivkov to establish a "closer
relationship ... between the State Council and the National Council of
the Fatherland Front."

During the Thirty-Second Congress of the BZS, held in Sofia in October
1971, the presence of high-ranking BKP Politburo members as well as
foreign delegates was very much evident. Boris Velchev, Politburo member
and secretary of the Central Committee, delivered a speech praising the
work of the BZS in its partnership with BKP in all aspects of Bulgaria's
socialist development. Domestically, BZS was lauded for its efforts in
the technological progress in agriculture resulting in the production of
large quantities of cheap produce.