machine-tractor station

Soviet institution
Also known as: MTS, mashinno-traktornaya stantsiya
Russian:
mashinno-traktornaya stantsiya (MTS)

machine-tractor station, in the Soviet Union, state-owned institution that rented heavy agricultural machinery (e.g., tractors and combines) to a group of neighbouring kolkhozy (collective farms) and supplied skilled personnel to operate and repair the equipment. The stations, which became widespread and prominent during the collectivization drive in the early 1930s, were instrumental in the mechanization of Soviet agriculture.

The MTS were paid in kind for their services by the kolkhozy and thereby also functioned as major agencies for grain procurement for the state. In addition, they were the chief instrument used by the Communist Party to control the countryside. The MTS’ political departments were given absolute control of the farms and continued to have great local political influence until they were abolished in 1953. But in exercising their influence they frequently caused confusion by rivaling the authority of the district party organizations, and they often conflicted with the kolkhoz management, which controlled the labour.

In 1958, as part of a major agricultural reform, the MTS were abolished and their equipment was sold to the kolkhozy. Some of the stations were transformed into Repair and Technical Service Stations (Remontno-tekhnicheskie stantsii; RTS), which repaired the machinery, supplied spare parts, and continued to rent machines for special purposes—e.g., road building. In 1961 the RTS were replaced by the All-Union Farm Machinery Association (Soyuzselkhoztekhnika).

kolkhoz

Soviet agriculture
External Websites
Also known as: collective farm, kolkhos, kolkhozy, kolkoz, kollektivnoye khozyaynstvo
Also spelled:
kolkoz, or kolkhos
Plural:
kolkhozy, or kolkhozes
Abbreviation for:
Russian kollektivnoye khozyaynstvo
English:
collective farm

kolkhoz, in the former Soviet Union, a cooperative agricultural enterprise operated on state-owned land by peasants from a number of households who belonged to the collective and who were paid as salaried employees on the basis of quality and quantity of labour contributed. Conceived as a voluntary union of peasants, the kolkhoz became the dominant form of agricultural enterprise as the result of a state program of expropriation of private holdings embarked on in 1929. Operational control was maintained by state authorities through the appointment of kolkhoz chairmen (nominally elected) and (until 1958) through political units in the machine-tractor stations (MTSs), which provided heavy equipment to kolkhozy in return for payments in kind of agricultural produce. Individual households were retained in the kolkhozy, and in 1935 they were allowed garden plots.

An amalgamation drive beginning in 1949 increased the pre-World War II average of about 75 households per kolkhoz to about 340 households by 1960. In 1958 the MTSs were abolished, and the kolkhozy became responsible for investing in their own heavy equipment. By 1961 their production quotas were established by contracts negotiated with the State Procurement Committee, in accordance with centrally planned goals for each region; the kolkhozy sold their products to state agencies at determined prices. Produce in surplus of quotas and from garden plots was sold on the kolkhoz market, where prices were determined according to supply and demand. With the collapse of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1990–91, the kolkhozy began to be privatized. See also collectivization.