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Kulaks[a], Kulaki, or the Kulachestvo were wealthy landowners in the Russian Empire and early Soviet Union. They exploited the poor peasants and forced them to work on their farms.[1]
History
The kulaks emerged in the 1860s after Tsar Alexander Nikolayevich abolished serfdom. By 1903, 500,000 kulak households controlled as much land as almost ten million peasant households.[1]
Collectivization
In 1929, the Soviet government banned renting land and private hiring of labor. It allowed peasants to expropriate kulaks and take their cattle, machines, and other farming equipment to use in collective farms. During collectivization, they burned crops and destroyed farm equipment.[2] They also killed millions of livestock; the number of horses decreased from 30 million to under 15 million, cattle decreased from 70 million and 31 million, goats and sheep decreased from 147 million to 50 million, and hogs decreased from 20 million to 12 million.[3] The Soviet rural economy did not recover from the kulaks' sabotage until after the Great Patriotic War. By 1936, the kulaks had been completely eliminated.[4]
Notes
- ↑ Russian: Кулак; Ukrainian: Куркуль; Azerbaijani: qolçomaq
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Joseph Stalin (1939). History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): 'The Struggle for the Creation of a Social-Democratic Labour Party in Russia'. [MIA]
- ↑ Walter Duranty (1949). Stalin & Co. New York City: W. Sloane Associates.
- ↑ Ludu Martens. Another View of Stalin (p. 108). [PDF] Stalin Society.
- ↑ Joseph Stalin (1939). History of the Communist Party of Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): 'The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Collectivization of Agriculture'. New York: International Publishers.