Viktor Nikolaevich Tomilin,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Lipetsk State Pedagogical University named after P.P. Semenova-Tian-Shansky, Lipetsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Repair and Technical Stations and Collective Farms
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2021-4-9
The article examines the results of the reform of N.S. Khrushchev’s 1958 reform, that resulted in the machine and tractor stations (MTS) reorganization into repair and technical stations (RTS), and agricultural machinery was sold to collective farms. The author shows that during this transformation, the repair base of the country’s agriculture was undermined due to the transfer of 577 repair enterprises to the local councils of the national economy and the sale of 512 MTS workshops to other organizations. As a result, RTS and their departments were able to carry out about half of tractor repairs potentially reguired. An erroneous assessment of the direct consequences of the reform by the government led to the reduction in the production of agricultural machinery at the turn of the 1950s–1960s, and to the deterioration of the material and technical supply of collective farms. The reform of 1958 turned out to be extremely painful for the specialists and machine operators of the MTS, many of them did not want to go to collective farms and left the village. The shortage of engineers and technicians and machine operators in the collective farms was aggravated by the weakness of their infrastructure and the deplorable financial situation. The study reflects the unequal nature of interaction between RTS and collective farms. As a result of the government’s pricing policy and the cost of purchasing MTS equipment, most of the collective farms turned out to be financially insolvent, they did not have the opportunity for dynamic development and higher wages. An attempt to improve the situation in the collective farms was their consolidation and transformation into state farms. The article shows the failure of reformers in finding a mechanism for effective interaction between RTS and collective farms, which led to the next reorganization and liquidation of RTS.
Publishing: 28/08/2021
The article has been received by the editor on 01.04.2021
How to cite: Tomilin V.N. Repair and Technical Stations and Collective Farms // Historical Courier, 2021, No. 4 (18), pp. 98–108. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2021/ISTKURIER-2021-4-09.pdf
Links: Issue 4 2021
Keywords: agricultural policy of the Soviet state; collective farms; MTS; repair and technical stations; N.S. Khrushchev