Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), The Aims and Tasks of the Political Departments of Machine-and -Tractor Stations and State Farms. January 11, 1933
Original Source: Kollektivizatsia sel’skogo khoziaistva: vazhneishie postanovienia kommunisticheskoi partii i sovetskogo pravitel’stva, 1927-35 (Moscow, 1957), p. 432 (extracts).
At the time of collectivization the Soviet peasants’ experience of motor-driven agricultural machinery was limited to a few hundred privately owned tractors, and, from the mid-‘twenties onwards, to rare ‘tractor columns’. The establishment of the nationwide MTS system as a state-owned share company on 5 June 1929 reflected the official view that collectivization should go hand in hand with mechanization. By 1934 the MTS had taken over most of the machinery available in the collective farms: by 1940, they were servicing over 90 per cent of the kolkhoz plow land.
No less important was the political role of these organizations, as outlined in the law of 11 January 1933. The MTS formed the spearhead of the Party’s drive to increase its influence in the villages, where party organizations were few and far between. The sovkhozes, or state farms, which were mentioned in the same measure, were numerically far less significant and contained only a small proportion of the plow land.
The resolution of the combined plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 11 January 1933
1. The weakness of political work in the village and the necessity for creating political departments in MTS and state farms.
… The machine-and-tractor stations and state farms, as large factories of socialist agriculture, are an extremely important lever for reconstructing agriculture in a socialist manner and continually strengthening Soviet influence on the collective farmers.
The machine-and-tractor stations and state farms have won for themselves a firm place in socialist agriculture as organizers of the system of socialized production. However, despite the extremely important organizational and economic role of the MTS and their influence on the technical re-equipment and socialist reconstruction of agriculture, their political influence on the broad masses of the collective farmers is still quite inadequate. Often the MTS do not have a political complexion. Inside them, criminal and negligent attitudes towards party and government tasks, a criminal attitude towards state property, and the theft and plunder of collective-farm and state property, all flourish together. Hostile class elements not infrequently penetrate into the MTS themselves and work from within to increase their anti-Soviet influence on the collective farmers.
This to a significant extent also holds good for the state farms …
2. The tasks of the political departments of the MTS and state farms.
The political departments of the MTS and state farms must, by the promotion of mass political work in collective and state farms on the one hand, and the organizational and economic consolidation of them on the other, supplement the economic and technical work of the MTS and state farms in solving the tasks set for collective and state farms: these tasks are in the sphere of raising crop yields, improving livestock handling, the timely organization of the autumn and spring sowing, the timely organization of harvesting and milling, and the timely and complete fulfillment by collective farmers and state farms of all their obligations to the state.
The political departments of the MTS and state farms must ensure party watchfulness and control in all spheres of the work and life not only of the MTS and state farms, but also of the collective farms which the MTS serve. Providing good-quality seed for the sowing period, averting the theft of seed, supervising correct milling practices, conducting the struggle against thefts of milled grain, and the struggle against failure to appear at work, ensuring attentive care for collective- and state-farm livestock and property, driving all wrecking, anti-Soviet and anti-collective elements from collective and state farms, selecting our best, well-tried cadres for collective and state farms-all these and similar matters must be at the focus of attention of the political departments.
The political departments of the MTS and state farms must ensure political control and surveillance of the distribution and use of collective farmers and state-farm workers, bearing in mind that the preservation of public, collective-farm and state-farm property, not to mention the successes of collective and state farms, depend on who is working the sowing or harvesting machine, who is in the state-farm livestock section, and who is keeping tally of the gain and all collective- and state-farm property.
A primary task of the political departments of the MTS is to ensure the unconditional and timely fulfillment by the collective farms and collective farmers of their obligations to the state, and in particular to wage a decisive struggle against the theft of collective-farm property, a struggle against instances of sabotage of party and government measures in the sphere of state grain and meat procurements in the collective farms.
A primary task of the political departments of state farms is to ensure the unconditional and timely fulfillment by state farms of their obligations to the state, and in particular to wage a decisive struggle against attempts by certain directors and their assistants to set the narrow interests of the state farm against the general interests of the state, a struggle against the concealment of surpluses of production instead of giving them up to the state.
The political departments of the MTS and state farms must ensure the firm, correct and timely application of the laws of the Soviet government concerning administrative and penal measures against organizers of the plunder of public property and the sabotage of party and government measures in agriculture.
All these penal measures, including court decisions on the above-mentioned crimes, should be brought to the notice of the broad collective-farm masses and state-farm workers by the political departments, which should also promote widespread mass explanatory and educative work among collective farmers and state-farm workers around and on the basis of such facts …
Source: Mervyn Matthews, ed., Soviet Government: a selection of official documents on internal policies (New York: Taplinger, 1974), pp. 334-337.