Kulak

A kulak ( KOO-lak; Russian: кула́к) was a peasant who owned over 3 ha (8 acres) of land in the times near the end of the Russian Empire. In the early Soviet Union, particularly in Soviet Russia and Azerbaijan, kulak referred to property ownership among peasants who were considered hesitant allies of the Bolshevik Revolution. In Ukraine during 1930–1931, there also existed a term of podkulachnik (almost wealthy peasant); these were considered "sub-kulaks".

Kulaks referred to former peasants in the Russian Empire who became landowners and credit-loaners after the abolition of serfdom in 1861 and during the Stolypin reform of 1906 to 1914, which aimed to reduce radicalism amongst the peasantry and produce profit-minded, politically conservative farmers. During the Russian Revolution, kulak was used to chastise peasants who withheld grain from the Bolsheviks. According to Marxist–Leninist political theories of the early 20th century, the kulaks were considered class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Lenin described them as "bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten themselves during famines", declaring revolution against them.

During the first five-year plan, Joseph Stalin's all-out campaign to take land ownership and organisation away from the kulaks meant that, according to historian Robert Conquest, "peasants with a couple of cows or five or six acres [2 or 2.5 ha] more than their neighbors" were labeled kulaks. In 1929, Soviet officials officially classified kulaks according to criteria such as the use of hired labour. Under dekulakization, government officials seized farms and executed many kulaks, forcibly transferred others to labor camps, and drove many others to migrate to the cities following the loss of their property to the collectives.