Difference between revisions of "Kulak"
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As a continuing effect of this, in the 1980s the Soviet Union had to buy much grain from the United States, and Russian agriculture remains weak to this day. | As a continuing effect of this, in the 1980s the Soviet Union had to buy much grain from the United States, and Russian agriculture remains weak to this day. | ||
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Revision as of 20:44, July 17, 2007
The kulaks were prosperous Russian peasants who usually owned a large farm and several horses or cattle, and could hire labor and even lease land. The kulaks were leading figures in the peasant villages prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917.
During Vladimir Lenin's NEP, kulaks in the Ukraine remained wealthy. But when Joseph Stalin rose to power, they resisted some of his measures. Stalin responded with a brutality of horrific proportions. Stalin either executed or shipped to labor camps nearly 2 million kulaks in the 1930s as "enemies of the people" and there was mass starvation in the Ukraine of perhaps 20 million people.
As a continuing effect of this, in the 1980s the Soviet Union had to buy much grain from the United States, and Russian agriculture remains weak to this day.
