The First Tractor

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The First Tractor is the name of several Socialist realist paintings and illustrations that portray the beginning of collectivisation in the USSR. The subject of the painting is typically a Fordson tractor, the first agricultural tractor imported and then manufactured in the Soviet Union. The depicted tractor acted as a symbol of the advantages of agricultural mechanisation and collectivisation. Because tractorisation was state policy in the Soviet Union, the paintings had a propaganda function.

Several works of other types of arts of the time also bear the title, The First Tractor.

• Vladimir Krikhatsky (Владимир Гаврилович Крихатский (Крыхацкий)), painting
• Ivan Mikhailin (Иван Алексеевич Михайлин), painting
• Vladimir Yelchaninov (Владимир Васильевич Ельчанинов), painting
• Boris Goller (Борис Голлер), play
• Lyudmila Kostina (Людмила Николаевна Костина), painting
• Victor Tsigal (Виктор Ефимович Цигаль), painting
• Valentin Chekmasov (Валентин Чекмасов), painting
• Maksim Pavlov (Максим Максимович Павлов), bone carving
• Tamara Abakeliya (Тамара Григорьевна Абакелия), painting

Related to The First Tractor depictions was the fashion of inventing new names for newborns by means of abbreviations, such as "Vladlen" for Vladimir Lenin, "Vilor" for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin — Organizer of Revolution. In this way, the following name was created (whether seriously or not): "Dazdrapertrak", Даздрапертрак (Да здравствует первый трактор!, Long live the First Tractor!).