The American Tractor Comes to Soviet Agriculture: The Transfer of a Technology

Abstract

SELDOM HAS A MAJOR agricultural technology been adopted so quickly and on such a vast scale as was the tractor in Soviet Russia. In the course of ten years the tractor changed from a curiosity to a standard unit of power; in 1924 there were only about 1,000 tractors in operation, by 1934 the number had increased to over 200,000. This growth was all the more remarkable because it took place in a rural economy which had, from a technological point of view, changed little from the Middle Ages. The increase in tractor numbers paralleled an even more striking change in social and economic structure-the collectivization of agriculture. It appears that the introduction of the tractor hastened the collectivization process; in fact, it became intertwined with profound changes in Soviet governmental organization. This technology, however, did not spring from the Russian soil; it came almost entirely from the United States. Through the mid-thirties, most of the tractors in the Soviet Union were of American manufac-