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The Demise of the Machine Tractor Station

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

Roy D. Laird
Roy D. Laird*
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
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Extract

Although recurring famine has been removed from the Russian scene by the Communist masters, the Soviet leadership has been sorely tried to keep agricultural production ahead of a rapidly expanding population—an estimated increase of "more than 3,000,000 people every year." Furthermore, not long before his death Stalin noted that the dragging feet of Soviet agriculture were beginning to have an adverse effect upon the expansion of industry. Premier Khrushchev has concentrated his greatest attention upon the serious problems of agriculture. His speech delivered at Minsk January 22, 1958, proposing the removal of the M. T. S. (Machine-Tractor Stations) as the mainstay of the collective farm system is but the latest in a growing list of changes and new programs he has introduced into Soviet agriculture.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 1958 , pp. 418 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1958

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References

1 Khrushchev speech published in Pravda, February 3, 1955, pp. 1-5.

2 Pravda, January 25, 1958, pp. 2, 3. Compare:

The … spread of the collective-farm movement and the development of collective-farm construction definitely convinced both the collective-farmers and the leading officials that concentration of the basic implements of agricultural production in the hands of the state, in the hands of the machine and tractor stations, was the only way of ensuring a high rate of expansion of collective farm production. Stalin, J., Economic Problems of Socialism In the U. S. S. R., Foreign Languages Publishing House (Moscow: 1952), p. 99 Google Scholar.

In agriculture the M. T. S. must be our stronghold. N. S. Khrushchev, speech published in Pravda, February 3, 1955, pp. 1-5.

3 Kommunist, March, 1956, pp. 1-3.

4 The Khrushchev proposal received the status of law with the issuance of a decree by the Supreme Soviet on March 31, 1958. Set'shoe khozyaistoo, April 1, 1958, p. 1. The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. X, No. 9, April 9, 1958, carries the full translation of both the Party's resolution on the matter and Mr. Khrushchev's full statement of his “theses.“

5 P. Kuchumov, Socialisticheskoe zemladelye, December 27, 1952, p. 1.

6 History of the CPSU (b) Foreign Languages Publishing House (Moscow, 1945), p. 317 Google Scholar.

7 Cited from the original Decree by Jasny, Naum, The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR, Stanford University Press, 1949, p. 280.

8 Ibid.

9 Today the average collective farm encompasses more than 5,000 acres and counts more than 1,000 members.

10 Published in translation as Measures for the Further Development of Agriculture in the USSR, Foreign Languages Publishing House (Moscow, 1954).

11 For a more complete appraisal of the 1953 reorganization and subsequent political moves in agriculture see this author's paper in the July-August, 1957 issue of Problems of Communism, “Decontrols or New Controls: The ‘Reform’ of Soviet Agricultural Administration.“

12 Khrushchev speech published in Pravda, February 2, 1955, pp. 1-4.

13 Op. cit.

14 Rozhin, Izvestia, November 20, 1957, p. 2. Translated in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. IX, No. 48, pp. 26-27.

15 Ibid.

16 Foreign Languages Publishing House (Moscow, 1952), pp. 100-101.

17 Khrushchev speech published in Pravda, February 15, 1956, pp. 1-11.

18 A. Buyanova, “Kolkhoz i M. T. S. pod edinim rukovodstvom,” Sel'skoe khozyaistvo, November 30, 1957, p. 2 and N. Liskin and Yu. Skinevskii, M. T. S. i kolkhoz pod odnim rukovodstvom,” Sel'skoe khozyaistvo, December 27, 1957, p. 2.

19 Buyanova, Ibid.

20 The New York Times, January 30, 1958, p. 22.

21 This large percentage of the land farmed by the sovkhozy is to a large part a reflection of the fact that most of the new farms in the Virgin Lands areas have been state farms. See, Khrushchev's Anniversary of the Party Speech, published in Pravda, November 7, 1957, pp. 2-6.

22 “Za dallnejshee razvitie sovkhoznovo proizvodstva,” Kommunist, No. 18 (December, 1956), pp. 68-81. In his Minsk speech Khrushchev picks up the earlier argument made by Benediktov and also uses 1956 figures rather than 1957 as the basis of his comparisons. Indeed according to Mr. Khrushchev's own statistics grain (in 1956) is the only clear standout as possibly being less expensive when purchased from the sovkhozy rather than the kolkhozy.

23 See “Decontrols or New Controls… . “ Op. cit.