The article considers the preparation of the 1958 Reform on the reorganization of the machine and tractor service stations - the most radical agrarian project in the USSR during the post-war period, as well as the development of its main directions. The novelty of the research is in involving of the unpublished documents of the Central Committee of the CPSU stored in the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History in the scientific circulation, in stating the question of the expediency of the destruction of the production system "MTSS - collective farms". Production system "MTSS - collective farms" one of the basic structures of the Soviet economy. Мachine and tractor service stations was a mechanism of state management of the collective farm of the village and its inclusion in the uniied planning system. MTSS played a major role in the introduction of industrial methods in the agricultural sector of economy; they automated the most time-consuming ieldwork. The state redistributed a signiicant part of the produced farm products through MTSS. The need of reforming relations between the state and collective farms in the postwar period intensiied. However, the country's leadership takes a decision on reorganization of MTSS and the virtual elimination of the production system "MTSS - collective farms". It was the government's attempt to distract the population from the failures of the agrarian policy. In the end, unsuccessful reform of the food problem in the Soviet Union reached such a scale that the country could not do without purchases of grain abroad. The relevance of the article is determined by the tasks of modernizing the agrarian sector of economy and the need of taking into account the historical experience when solving the problem of food security in modern Russia.