Kulak
The term "kulak," which translates to "fist" in Russian, originally referred to wealthy peasant farmers in rural communities who accumulated wealth through land ownership and labor. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, kulaks became synonymous with the most affluent members of the peasant class, often opposing the collectivization efforts initiated by the Soviet leadership under Joseph Stalin in the 1920s. Stalin viewed kulaks as a threat to the Communist ideal of shared property and equitable wealth distribution, leading to the implementation of a policy known as dekulakization in 1929, which aimed to eliminate this class.
The kulaks were categorized into three groups based on their perceived opposition to the government, with many facing execution, forced labor in gulags, or deportation to remote areas such as Siberia. Estimates suggest that millions of kulaks were affected, with significant mortality rates among those who were resettled. The campaign against kulaks marked a severe chapter in Soviet history, reflecting the broader struggle between capitalist and communist ideologies. It wasn't until after Stalin's death in 1953 that former kulaks were allowed to return to their lands, and in 1992, the Russian government began to offer compensation to those who had suffered under these policies.
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Kulak
During the early days of the Soviet Union, a kulak was a wealthy peasant farmer who opposed collectivized agriculture. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin believed that if the farms in each village joined to form one collective farm, they would be more productive. To push the farms toward collectivization, he announced a plan to eliminate kulaks in 1929. Between 1930 and 1932, thousands of kulaks were executed, and millions more were removed from their homes and forced to resettle in remote areas of Siberia or northern Russia.
Overview
In Russian, the term kulak means "fist." In the late nineteenth century, peasants used the word to describe villagers who gained wealth at the expense of their peers. After the Russian Revolution (1917), the term came to represent a class composed of the wealthiest peasants in a village. These peasants often owned their own land and equipment and sometimes could afford to hire laborers to work for them. As a result, they were able to produce more and earn more wealth. For this reason, the kulaks opposed the collectivized farms that the Soviet Union's Communist leaders promoted in the 1920s.
Soviet Communists opposed capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system in which some succeed and others fail as they compete in a free market. Soviet leaders supported communism. Communism is an economic system based on shared ownership of property and an equal distribution of goods and wealth. Because the kulaks' private farms and individual success were akin to capitalism, Communist leaders viewed the kulaks as a threat.
In 1922, Joseph Stalin took control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party planned to merge the small farms in each village into a large collective farm called a kolkhoz. Many peasants, but especially the kulaks, were reluctant to join the cooperative farms, so these mergers proceeded slowly. In 1927, Stalin declared the kulaks enemies who opposed the government. Many kulaks feared this designation. They sold off their livestock and machines and gave up their land to avoid being labeled a kulak.
To further speed the process of collectivization, Stalin decided to eliminate the kulak class altogether. On December 27, 1929, he announced an official plan of dekulakization, or the elimination of the kulak class. The kulaks were divided into three categories. The first group included kulaks who were especially outspoken against the government. Heads of families in this group were executed or sent to gulags (prison camps). Their families were then deported to remote regions of northern Russia or Siberia. The second group included the wealthiest kulaks. The heads of these families were deported with their families. The rest of the kulaks belonged to the third group. They were resettled within their own region on less desirable land and were prohibited from joining collective farms.
Between 1930 and 1939, hundreds of thousands of kulaks were executed. Estimates of the number of kulaks sent to gulags or resettlement areas range from 1.8 million to 5 million. Nearly a quarter of deportees died either during their deportation or within the first year of resettling.
In the years following Stalin's death in 1953, kulaks finally were permitted to return to their original homelands. In 1992, the government began to compensate families of former kulaks who had suffered or died under Stalin's policies.
Bibliography
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