Tractors are the “leading force” of agricultural mechanization, and all countries with developed agriculture have a strong tractor manufacturing industry. If China wants to realize agricultural modernization, achieving prosperity of the tractor manufacturing industry is the first step. However, China’s tractor manufacturing industry still has external dependence of core technology. Taking the YTO Group Corporation as an example, and based on an internal survey data, this paper studies the formation of the technical capabilities of China’s tractor manufacturing industry from the perspective of technology introduction, analyzes the introduction and impact of Soviet tractor technology, explores the innovation of China’s tractor manufacturing industry and its technical sources, and provides a basis for China’s tractor manufacturing industry to seek a catch-up path for technical capabilities by historical and documentary research methods. Results show that, in the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China established the YTO Group Corporation with the help of the Soviet Union, introduced tractor manufacturing technology, human capital, and enterprise management system, and realized the research and development of new products, improved the process and tooling, and materials and equipment. The introduction of Soviet technology laid the foundation for China’s tractor manufacturing technology, promoted the development and growth of the industry, and promoted China’s tractor manufacturing industry to “go global”. However, the overall introduction of technology in this period also created negative problems such as restricting the autonomy of enterprises in the development of tractor manufacturing. China’s tractor manufacturing industry to achieve technological leapfrogging, catching up with the advanced, not only to introduce appropriate technology but also to have the ability of independent innovation. Therefore, from the government level, it is necessary to formulate reasonable industrial policies to promote industrial development; from the enterprise level, it is necessary to actively introduce world advanced technologies, build a complete absorption mechanism, and attach importance to independent innovation.