Talk:Kulak

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Kulaks before the October Revolution
One thing I find disappointing in this article is the lack of information about how the word kulak was used before the Bolsheviks adopted it. This posting on rootsweb suggests that it was understood to be a perjorative term, meaning "village usurer". If so, I would not expect anyone to have used the term to describe himself, and Stolypin wouldn't have used it in promoting his policies. The article suggests otherwise, though.

Is there a source which mentions how the term was used before it denoted a class enemy? Aoeuidhtns (talk) 04:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree, this article should include Kulak's prior to Bolsheviks, and give more comparison of the economic status of the 3 peasant classes, before the Dekulakization. Although, it might seem bias for those would sympthaize with the Kulak's it also give a better understanding of why bednyak and serednyak were so willing to outcast their fellow countrymen.Carr63 (talk) 22:14, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Capitalistic article on kulaks
There's no neutral point of view here.

I understand that people formed under capitalism are unable to realize their bias, so they should give themselves at least a little of marxist formation (at the minimum, read Das Kapital) to gain some capacity to analize the things beyond the little box of capitalism, exploitation, market logic, etc.

I don't have time right now to explain this on detail, so I'll point out just a couple of examples:

There's no indication about how the kulaks made their property.

The same about how they made their incomes, under which conditions they exploit the working force of poor peasants.

There's no frame to understand (or will to explain) which were the goals of the revolution, the socialization of the land and production means.

There's no recount about the level of poberty of the peasant masses, and the general economic condition (it's obvious that 4 horses, or 2 cows and a piece of land, when everybody is dying of hunger, is a lot of capital, and implies a lot of exploitation).

There's a lot of this things like this in the article, but I supose this should be enough to make someone start to think outside capitalist box...

190.30.166.161 (talk) 05:36, 10 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Specifically, the issue with the article in its current state is that Robert Conquest is frequently cited as a source of factual or definitional passages, with no mention that the definitions and assertions represented in those passages are in fact contested by other historians, and the article also fails to mention any perspectives besides strongly anti-Stalin/anti-Soviet ones. This doesn't mean that we should make this into a propaganda piece in the other direction, or even that the opposing viewpoints need to be given equal weight (at least, not if they aren't of similar levels of notability and number), but simply that in the interest of presenting all points of view neutrally, mention needs to be made of other historical views supported by notable sources. goose121 (talk) 16:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Never forget who owns Wikipedia, comrades. Articles on communism are where the mask comes off. 2607:FEA8:BFA0:BD0:45E5:AD52:8FC8:C630 (talk) 05:28, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Great Read
I thought that all of the talking points were thorough and well written. I was able to get a more in depth view of the specific sub-sections that the Kulaks embodied. What I find most interesting about this article is the short section that has been dedicated to those executed as a result of bucking the system, or fighting back. Though many people simply, "disappeared"; the number of death was estimated anywhere from 700,000 persons, to 6 million people. Those numbers, though high, are significantly different. It would be great to find a more exact and finite estimate to the number of people that were killed as a result of forced collectivization. LoAnsons18 (talk) 02:20, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Reverted edit by Wikiamoo (talk)
I reverted this edit because "liquidated" has a specific meaning in both this particular context as well as in Marxism. "Liquidated" is not a synonym for "killed", as most direct references to this phrase by Marxist writers and leaders is followed by "as a class". While violence is often a means for "liquidation", it may also refer to changing relations of production by means of re-appropriation of land ownership.


 * If anyone has an issue with my edit, please take a look at the Liquidation (disambiguation) page. déhanchements (talk) 00:43, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

"Liquidate"
Why is this word used here? It is the euphemism of Stalin’s preference, the term used should be more direct, e.g. “killed”, “murdered”, etc. déhanchements (talk) 18:59, 24 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The answer to this borderline rhetorical question has been answered several times in several place. First in another section of this talk page, then in the wildly inappropriate choice of my user talk page. Furthermore, Wikipedia articles themselves are not appropriate sources as per WP:RSPRIMARY and WP:TERTIARY. Therefore, simply referring to the disambiguation page for "liquidation" is not enough, although by doing so, you have pointed out two important points: first, that that page has issues, and second that there in fact exists a specific usage of the term "liquidation" used in Marxist theory that is not synonymous with "murder" (although again, relying only on this fact is another WP:TERTIARY issue; this page is, in turn, also lacking).


 * That said, I can concede that your rephrasing of the sentence
 * Stalin ordered that kulaks were "to be liquidated as a class" and this destruction of the Kulak class was considered by many historians to have resulted in the Soviet famine of 1932–1933.
 * is in fact in place. This is because the sentence is now referring explicitly to the position of a specific historian.


 * I therefore suggest that the sentence read:
 * Stalin ordered that kulaks were "to be liquidated as a class" and some historians claim that this was the cause of the Soviet famine of 1932–1933.
 * Alternatively:
 * Stalin ordered that kulaks were "to be liquidated as a class" and some historians claim that this liquidation order was the cause of the Soviet famine of 1932–1933.
 * See also the page on the Holodomor genocide question. While I obviously don't endorse using this as a source, the page includes several citations that may be of use in assessing the bias of this article. Given the diversity of claims and positions on the matter, it's certainly necessary to specify that the synonymous usage of "liquidation" and "genocide" is highly contested among historians. AndersLeo (talk) 10:17, 1 December 2019 (UTC)


 * According to the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, writing in 1909, liquidationism "consists ideologically in negation of the revolutionary class struggle of the socialist proletariat in general, and denial of the hegemony of the proletariat". What does this have to do with the act of "liquidating" a class? This article seems to be describing an entirely different concept. And liquidating as it is used in this article (Kulak) would be the liquidation of liquidation. déhanchements (talk) 20:47, 1 December 2019 (UTC)


 * This is precisely what I mean when I say that the page is lacking; the definition is non-exhaustive. Liquidation as the term is used by Lenin in the context of the article on Liquidationism refers specifically to Left and Right Liquidationism, in which the proletariat is the class being liquidated. The general definition can easily be seen from the quote you've provided, i.e. the negation of class ideology and the denial of class hegemony. From a purely objective standpoint, the entire point of dekulakization was to ideologically negate the feudal class relations that existed in rural Russia before the revolution and to deny the pre-existing class hegemony that persisted to some degree in some regions. This is explicitly what was stated at the onset of the order. There is no other obvious motive. That is not to say that other possibilities do not exist; they must, however, be backed by actual sources. Suffice to say that to my knowledge, the only "evidence" to the contrary originates in literal Nazi propaganda, but you are welcome and encouraged to contribute to Wikipedia in a constructive manner if you happen to have any legitimate sources to corroborate this. In general and in principle and most importantly, in practice, this liquidation accomplished in many ways, including but not limited to violent revolutionary struggle. Whether you believe that people overthrowing feudal lords--by any means--is moral, ethical, or whatever is completely irrelevant to the discussion and does not belong on Wikipedia.


 * What is, however, a matter of contention, is the degree to which violent means were primary, or if liquidation in fact constitutes a genocide. While many have argued that it is, the internationally recognized consensus is that it does not, since international law maintains that "genocide" is limited to the deliberate killing of an ethnic group or nation, and kulaks, a class, and not Ukrainians, a national/ethnic group, were subject to this order. Luckily not every Wikipedia article need contain the regurgitation of Nazi-inspired propaganda from fringe anti-communist academics as it is neatly contained in the appropriate article that exists for this express purpose.


 * Beyond this, I'm not sure what else you feel is lacking. AndersLeo (talk) 15:01, 2 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I just thought my word choice was more concrete and direct, as well as accurate. It may not be genocide, but to a great degree violent methods were employed. I wasn't making a moral argument. déhanchements (talk) 02:15, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Peasants
The article contradictorily refers to kulaks as "peasants" several times but then explains that they were "former peasants" who became wealthy. The word "peasant" links to the wiki page for peasant which says peasants are defined by "limited land ownership" or feudalism. The Kulaks were closer feudal lords rather than peasants. Kulaks were by definition landed and wealthy and thus not peasants. Zobdos (talk) 12:07, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

value of confiscated goods in 1930 vs modern day
Under heading Definitions, subhead 1930s, this sentence is found.

>The average value of goods confiscated from kulaks during the policy of "dekulakization" (раскулачивание) at the beginning of the 1930s was only 170–400 rubles (US $90–$210) per household.

Is the currency conversion contemporary or modern? If modern then use of the word only may be appropriate, but adjusted for inflation the range of US$90-$210 becomes US$1,400-3,270. In the context of relatively poor peasants just barely above or at subsistence level, this seems like an inaccurate editorialization. Understanding that finding appropriate conversion values for the ruble between 1917 and 1961 is difficult, how was this value reached? The level of bias in the cited source is a matter of some debate, but I do not own a copy and cannot check for myself. Summary:

a) dispute editorialization in quoted sentence

b) question accuracy of quoted conversion

c) suggest more relevant contemporary point of comparison found (e.g. "food budget for family of 4 per month" or "price of [x] loaves of bread") though it is also understood that the relative volatility of the era may make this difficult as well

C arc (talk) 16:22, 25 October 2020 (UTC)CA/JSK 25/10/2020

The $1,400-$3,270 estimate is likely correct, seeing as kulaks were not "peasants just barely above or at subsistence level" but rather the relatively wealthy landowning class at a time when 90% of peasants did not own land of their own but rather worked on kulak land. Most of the peasantry of the day couldn't even afford a single cow. It's one of those (fairly common) instances where Robert Conquest (the cited source for the seized assets claim) unintentionally defeats his own claims (this time his claim of Soviet authorities pillaging the homes of the poorest peasants en masse). Conquest appeared to be seeing $90 to $210 USD like an American in the 1980s would rather than accounting for inflation and the destitution of Eastern Europe peasantry in the early 20th century, as such unintentionally confirming the reality that kulaks were overwhelmingly fairly well off. Another of his errors is paraphrased only a few sentences later in this article, where he suggests a peasant selling their excess production at a market constituted involvement in 'trade, money-lending, commercial brokerage, or other sources of non-labor income' as he interprets trade to mean "buying or selling" in general and not, as the Soviets used the term, merchantry. As such this articles reliance on Conquest as a source is questionable at best, especially seeing as he's an inherently unreliable source compared to the post-collapse scholarship that had access to the actual Soviet archives and far more direct ability to investigate historical events. 2604:2D80:581B:6200:89CE:A43E:9621:D3CF (talk) 08:29, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

First known mention, XVII century
Sociologist Grigory Tsidenkov states that the first known use of the term "kulatchik" (derivative of "kulak") is found in the XVII century letters of Tsar Alexis of Russia devoted to measures to combat hunger.

Moonshine was used as a way of "grain value concentration" in order to sell it to the city dwellers. In hungry years grain could be extremly expensive.

Dal's Explanatory Dictionary, 1819-1863/66
During the 19th century term kulak had passed through a certain evolution, following socio-economical changes and the evolution of the denoted social group. So, Dal's Explanatory Dictionary, first published in 1863-66 has following list of the word usage:

(Academician Vladimir Dal was one of the most prominent russian language lexicographers and folklore collectors of the 19th century. He started his work on the explanatory dictionary back in 1819.)

A.N. Engelhardt, 1872-1887
Russian military officer, agricultural scientist and publicist of narodnik orientation A.N. Engelhardt had such description of a kulak-usurer in his letters written in 1872-1887:

A.S. Yermolov, 1892
Alexey Sergeyevich Yermolov, who served as the head of the Indirect taxation department of the Ministry for Economics in 1883-1892, and in 1893 became Minister of Agriculture and State Properties of the Russian Empire, wrote in 1892 in his book "Crop failure and national disaster", devoted to the Russian famine of 1891–92:

R.E. Zimmerman, 1899
Economist and writer R.E. Zimmerman, whose pseudonym was R. Gvozdev, wrote in his book in 1899:

In his work Gvozdev-Zimmerman states that narodnik representatives were wrong when considered kulaks as some kind of a "wart" on the body of "people's economy", but not as one of the forms of undeveloped capitalism, closely linked with the entire system of the Russian social economy. He concludes that a few prosperous peasants, being among the mass of "low-power" peasants that live a half-starved existence on their paltry plots, inevitably turn into exploiters of the worst kind, bondaging the poor by distributing money and grain in debt, by winter hiring, etc. Obsolete, sometimes even medieval, institutions, delayed the growth of capitalism both in agriculture and industry, thereby narrowing the demand for the labour force, and not protecting the rapidly growing peasant population from the most limitless exploitation and even from starvation. Approximate calculations of the sums paid by the poor peasantry to kulaks and other usurers, made by Gvozdev, clearly show that a big mass of peasantry was placed in a position much worse than that of the rural workers in the West. He also writes about the proximity of the concepts of a good and efficient owner and a kulak-usurer.

P.A. Stolypin, 1905
In 1905 Pyotr Stolypin, who headed the Saratov Governorate that time, wrote in his report for the past year, contrasting the kulak-usurer and the independent prosperous settler:

Due to the lack of social mobility, active peasants often had no other ways of self-realization than usury. When, in 1906, Stolypin became Prime Minister of Russia, he tried to perform his agrarian reform, one of the goals of which was to turn kulak-usurers into honest farmers by giving them and other active peasants substantial allotments of own land. Reform was perceived as contradictory and was not finished due to Stolypin's assassination. His agrarian reform was criticised not only by ultra-right conservators or left socialists and radical revolutionaries. One of the most notable critics was Leo Tolstoy, who was an old friend of Stolypin family, but didn't welcome "fighting violence with violence" and doubted that replacing rural communities with small-scale land ownership would calm the agitated population.

Long XIX century summary
With time passing, the meaning of some words can change. In the middle of the 19th century, during late serfdom (the material for the dictionary was collected before 1861), Vladimir Dal had described kulak as a penniless grain broker of a peasant origin, or a huckster with small money. But at the end of the century, following the development of capitalism, this figure became much more formidable, uniting both concepts of an usurer and of an efficient farmer. Kulaks ("fists") were still associated mostly with money and grain loans (which implies the ability to knock out the debts), but mastered other activities as well, sometimes creating corrupt ties with the bureaucracy and lawers, sometimes focusing on farming and business. Aristocracy treated them negatively, not only for their greed and overexploitation of other peasants, but also seeing kulaks as growing applicants for the power in the countryside.

The majority of kulaks never self-identified with such term - it was more of a moral judgment, given by other social groups. A notable Russian economist and statistician of the late XIX - early XX centuries V. E. Postnikov quite clearly divided the moral terminology of the "kulaks" and the economical terminology of the prosperous peasantry, declaring in his works that although a rich peasant "uses hired workers to a large extent" and in his activities there is a number of "elements of exploitation", "there are no kulak features in him." Later, his works were highly regarded by Vladimir Lenin.

XX century
In the 1920s, the proportion of rural residents in the country still exceeded 80% of the total population, what made the problems of the peasantry the most significant. Agrarian overpopulation was one of the biggest reasons for the Russian revolution and its success. The land of noble landowners was divided, but before collectivization, there still remained a big difference in the sizes of allotments between different categories of peasants, as well as some activity that was perceived as unacceptable.

Soviet officials had many definitions of the matter, sometimes focusing only on the size of the property and income, or on the presence of hired workers, sometimes focusing on more subtle features of kulaks. The precision of descriptions varied greatly whether they were voiced by hereditary city dwellers, or by the ones who came from the village.

Thus, A.I. Rykov, at the XIII Congress of the CPSU (b) in May 1924, declared the following description of kulaks: "“An undoubted sign is that he lives not only by own work, but also by work of others, from the exploitation of hired labour, from trade, from renting, etc. ""

People's Commissar of Agriculture of the RSFSR A.P. Smirnov wrote in 1925 in Pravda - the main mouthpiece of the soviet authorities: "“We must clearly distinguish two types of farming in the well-to-do part of the village. The first type of prosperous farm is purely usurious, engaged in the exploitation of low-power farms not only in the production process (farming), but mainly through all kinds of bondage peonage deals, through village petty trade and intermediation, all types of "friendly" credits with a "godly" interest. The second type of a prosperous farm is a strong labor farm striving to strengthen itself as much as possible in terms of production.""

Mikhail Kalinin, in his article in the newspaper "Izvestia" dated March 22, 1925, regards kulaks not as a special class or social stratum, the existence of which at this stage he denied, but, on the contrary, as some individuals, "dying out units of pre-revolutionary Russia": "“It is now possible to speak of a kulak as a social stratum only if we consider that every agricultural entrepreneur is a kulak, if, by the inertia of war communism, every serviceable peasant is considered a kulak. A kulak is a type of pre-revolutionary Russia. Kulak is a bogey, it is the ghost of the old world. In any case, this is not a social stratum, not even a group, not even a handful. These are already dying out units."."

In 1925, even the issue of denationalization of land was discussed - this idea, close to the projects of Stolypin, was promoted by Joseph Stalin, who at that time assumed the support of personal individual farms and the transfer of ownership of land plots "even for 40 years", stating that "there are people who think that the individual economy has exhausted itself, that it should not be supported ... These people have nothing to do with the line of our party."

Similar statements were made by A.I.Rykov at the XIV conference, the head of the government, later named "the hidden agent of Leon Trotsky" and "the advocate-intercessor of the kulaks": "“The development of individual farms of the peasantry is the most important task of the party ... When conditions are provided for free accumulation in the kulak farms, the rate of accumulation in the entire economy increases, the national income increases faster, the material possibilities of real economic support of poor farms increase, the possibilities for reducing the ... population in the countryside that cannot find work ... We are not in danger of developing bourgeois relations in the countryside, we will be able to use the funds deposited in the growing layer of the new bourgeoisie. ""



In 1933, JV Stalin, in his speech "On the work in the countryside", talked about "a new type of kulaks": "“They are looking for a class enemy outside the collective farms, looking for him in the form of people with a brutal physiognomy, with huge teeth, with a thick neck, with a sawn-off shotgun in their hands. Looking for the kulak as we know him from the posters. But for a long time there are no such kulaks on the surface. Current kulaks and podkulachniks, current anti-Soviet elements in the countryside are mostly “quiet”, “sweet”, almost “saint” people. They do not need to be looked for far from the collective farm, they sit in the collective farm itself and occupy there the positions of storekeepers, bookkeepers, secretaries, etc. They will never say “enough with the collective farms”. They are “for” the collective farms. But they are doing such sabotage and pest work in the collective farms that the collective farms would be ruined.""

In the late 20th and 30th of the XX century, when the concepts of kulaks and wealthy farmers were often mixed (not least thanks to the partially completed Stolypin's reform, as well as to the confusion of the moral and economical categories), many wealthy peasants could be accused of being kulaks (which, accurately speaking, is not the same). Quite often false denunciations were made by "corrupt kulaks" - in order to shift responsibility and compromise the fight against them. But even without that, the ways of "kulak-usury question solution" were brutal, with big excesses, driven by the hatred of low-income peasants and armed resistance of some kulaks (assassinations of activists and collective farm leaders were not so rare), what caused serious numbers of innocent victims... Still, the soviet term "dekulakisation" meant for many ordinary rural people of the time something like "demiserisation" or "decurmudgeonisation". Not all of "honest prosperous peasants" suffered that, but such mistake turned the original term, used to define rural usurers, into a word often used to define any wealthy peasants.

As soviet officials (many of whom were of peasant origin, especially in the post-war USSR) withhold and classified dark pages of the past, following an old rural custom not to wash dirty linen in public, gossips increased the numbers of victims by an order of magnitude. What was voiced by such authors as Solzhenicin, who also finally turned all kulaks into respectable farmers, thus fulfilling the Stolypin's dream.

Reasons for the changes in agricultural policy
Historian A.V.Shubin connects the radical shift in the rural policy at the end of 1920th with the start of the Great Depression in 1929, that brought down the prices on the world markets and thus - the export earnings of the USSR, that were vital for the already started rapid industrialization - payments for the equipment import and salaries for the foreign specialists. He states that there are no documents found that would show the existence of any plans of rapid and continuous collectivization before the autumn of 1929. Some researchers state that USSR, having a rapidly growing population, 80% of which was rural, was still in a deep Malthusian trap, to get out of which urgent industrialisation and urbanisation were needed. Others insist on the role of the then increased danger of a big war, which required a developed industry for defence.

All that resulted in an increased pressure over the village, in favour of rapidly growing cities and factories, that were consuming a lot, but not producing any food, and repressive pressure over any manifestations of the state destabilization.

In 1930-31, grain export was increased to the level of 1914 (although own cities were already bigger) in order to gain the needed amount of hard currency. That depleted part of the reserves, including the kulak's ones. In 1932-33 - export was decreased several times, but - a bad harvest of 1932 and cases of mass plundering were superimposed on the depleted reserves, what caused a famous famine in the countryside. According to the publicist Elena Prudnikova, the famine was mosaic - in the affected regions, prosperous and starving collective farms were located intermixed, which was caused by the difference in the actions of collective farm administrations.

XXI century
Nowdays, some Russian leftist and pro-Stalinist publicists and historians (such as Dmitry Puchkov, Klim Zhukov, Elena Prudnikova) call Tsapkovskaya rural gang, headed by a large landowner (see Kushchyovskaya massacre), a modern example of real kulaks, while many others consider kulaks to be honest peasants and innocent victims.