Zveno (Soviet Collective Farming) - Evolution During The 1930s

Evolution During The 1930s

From the earliest times, brigades had been subdivided into groups for carrying out some or all of their tasks. These subgroups were originally known by a variety of names, but by 1933 the label zveno had become standard in field-work brigades. Like the early brigades themselves, the zvenya could be temporary, specializing in one particular job (ploughing, harrowing, sowing, harvesting etc.), or fixed for some period of time. The latter would embrace a number of related tasks, and probably have land plots fixed for the period of their work. They could also specialize in a single crop or handle a number of cultures.

The mass methods of work favoured at the beginning of collectivization were rapidly found to be inefficient. A huge column of ploughs simultaneously tilling a field might appear a glamorous example of large-scale socialist agriculture. But if just one plough broke down, the work-pattern of the whole column was disrupted. Also, in large brigades, accounting was complicated and supervision difficult. The favoured size of the primary working unit progressively shrank. As early as March 1930 columns of 15-20 ploughs were acknowledged to be more efficient than those with 70. By the beginning of 1933 even this scale of work was a rarity. By this time "mass work" came in the shape of zvenya of 3-5 horse-drawn "machines". In the 1932 harvest, in large collective farms the typical zveno was composed of just one reaping machine, with 6-8 people binding the grain behind it.

During 1933-4 the authorities began to come down in favour of the more stable kinds of zveno. This was to ensure the responsibility and accountability of the zveno's members for their work. At the beginning of 1933 the agricultural writer Samarina considered that, in the drier steppe areas, task-combined zvenya would ensure that all related jobs in spring work (ploughing, harrowing, sowing) would be carried out in quick succession before the soil dried out. (Task-specialized were still regarded as useful in non-black earth areas.) A year later another writer, Kayurova, extended the idea of fixity to the whole season of "early work".

The zveno was headed by a zveno leader or zvene'voi (feminine zvene'vaya). The zvene'voi usually held the key job in the zveno, e.g. the sowing or reaping machine operator. Zvenya had varying sizes, though they were generally fairly small, and they could have a substructure. Samarina's recommended zveno was composed of two subunits consisting of a harrow and two ploughs each, and a sowing machine. Kayurova suggested a ploughing-harrowing zveno corresponding to just one of these subunits. Samarina's zveno would have had eight personnel, including two for the sowing machine. Samarina's had basically three workers; an additional worker was needed when the zveno switched to work involving sowing. The zveno needed to be of this size to preserve its stability in switching from one "complex" of tasks to another.

At the end of 1933 a USSR-wide conference of collective farms decided that stability was best served by preserving a nucleus of workers who had achieved work-harmony. Thus the zveno would have stability as opposed to an inflexible fixing of all personnel. The conference also recognized the fundamental importance of the zveno, calling it "the executive cell of the brigade".

A task-combined zveno, wrote Kayurova, had or should have plots of land fixed to it for the whole period of its work cycle. Task-specialized zvenya (e.g. of harrowers or sowers) bore no fixed responsibility for particular plots, but worked in all their brigade's plots. It was consequently very difficult to pin down responsibility for bad work. A fixed plot ensured "timely and high-quality execution" of work.