In 1932 and 1933, the label "kulak" was extended to include anyone who offered passive or active resistance to grain procurements (" kulak sabotage") in addition to landowners and those employing hired labor, as well as the so-called "hard‐deliverers" (peasants subject to fixed grain‐delivery quotas) and "experts" (those recruited to ...
kulak, (Russian: “fist”), in Russian and Soviet history, a wealthy or prosperous peasant, generally characterized as one who owned a relatively large farm and several head of cattle and horses and who was financially capable of employing hired labour and leasing land.
The Politburo resolved to liquidate kulak landownership in those parts of the USSR where collectivization was being imposed on all peasant households. The 30 January Resolution set out “dekulakization quotas” for three categories in each of the USSR ’s many regions and republics.
"Kulak" thus became a catch-word for all those whom Stalin's regime considered alien and hostile to the new socialist order: It came to include village priests, village intelligentsia, former members of the Russian White Army, and the anti-Russian national armies.
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.
On 21 May 1929 the USSR government defined a kulak farm as one that (1) had a minimum annual income of 300 rubles per person and 1,500 per family and (2) used hired labor, or owned a motorized farm machine (mill, churn, fruit dryer), or rented out its farm inventory or buildings, or engaged in trade, or had income not derived from work (as was ...