The Machine and Tractor Station of East Germany in 1952-1960 : Agricultural Mechanization and the Making of New Rural Cadres

摘要

The role of the MTS (Maschinen-Traktoren Stationen), instituted in 1952 from MAS (Maschinen- Ausleihen Station), was not confined to giving the farm machinery service. It gained the political functions for advancing the rural socialism. The purpose of this paper is to explain their historical significance by analyzing 1)the formation of new rural cadres through the MTS, 2)the conflict between the MTS and farmers on the use of the maschinery, 3)the function of MTS-"instructors" for the collectivization. The site of our study is Kreis Bad Doberan in Bezirk Rostock. This county was divided into 4 MTS-districts: MTS Jennewitz, MTS Radegast, MTS Rerik, and MTS Ravensberg. 　1) The MTS was a important apparatus for the formation of new rural communist cadres. We would focus upon three groups in the MTS; the political cadre, the agricultural technocrat, and the tractor driver. Firstly the conflict on political power within the MTS arose mainly between the MTS-director and the leader of political sections. Secondly we could find 2 paths of young agronomists for moving up the social ladder. Some became from agronomist assistants into influential "instructors". Others, mainly educated and provided by the new agricultural school system in GDR, became often the directors of new cooperatives founded in 1957 - 1961. They were different from other cadres in that they showed, even if partially, the independence as a technocrat. In contrast, few tractor drivers made a career path for the political cadre. They consisted of rural young men and showed the higher mobility than others, in which we could find the difference from industrial workers in the social behavior. However, they did not always identified themselves with the farmers, as was recognized in their consciousness against the shift drivers. 　2) Analyzing the utilization of the MTS-machinery, we could find the difference in working process of seed cultivation, harvest and threshing, and digging the potato. While in cultivation both farmers and cooperatives did without MTS-tractors any more, we could find the village farmers taking the leadership to avail sheaf-binders harvester and thresh machines within the villages. It was most difficult to mobilize the machines and workers for potatoes and beets, which cause to damage especially cooperatives. Concerning potatoes, strong-new-farmers did not depend upon the MTS-machinery. They confined it to the grain. 　The establishment of the MTS brigade satellite center covering the 3 - 4 villages was a measure to arrange the relation between the MTS and farmers. The dissolution of MTSs and the absorption of their machinery into large cooperative type III would finally solved these problems. We could not deny that it damaged individual farmers depending upon MTS-tractors. However, tractor drivers opposed against joining the cooperatives. While some drivers left their MTS, others could take the preferential treatment in the cooperatives, which means that the conflict between the MTS and farmers became included in the new large cooperatives. 　3)"Instructors" of a political section, a remarkable characteristic of the MTS, had the task not only to control the discipline of MTS-organ. They had a strong influence on the village politics to advance SED political power. It is worthy to notice that many "instructors" came from rural population, although firstly engaged as a employee in the MTS. Therefore we could not regard them as a strange activist. In addition, some influential "instructors" of the MTS political section employed about 1952/53 were engaged in the activities as "district instructors" in 1958-1960.These "district instructors" had played the critical role of the collectivization after the end of 1957. They made and implemented the well-laid agitation plan for collectivization, mobilizing many kinds of rural cadres from both inside and outside of village. We could regard it as the sophisticated violence, that was one reason why the forced collectivization of GDR didn't caused the physical violence.