Dekulakization

The kulaks were a group of affluent peasants who owned land and had workers working for them. They posed a danger to Stalin's collectivization efforts, which sought to end private land ownership and centralize agricultural production under state supervision. In order to do this, Stalin took a number of harsh actions against the kulaks. Many of them were imprisoned, deported, and forced to work in prison camps. Others perished in executions or while traveling to the camps. Millions of kulaks and their families are thought to have been affected by these measures.

In November 1917, at a meeting of delegates of the committees of poor peasants, Vladimir Lenin announced a new policy to eliminate what were believed to be wealthy Soviet peasants, known as kulaks: "If the kulaks remain untouched, if we don't defeat the freeloaders, the czar and the capitalist will inevitably return."[6]

In July 1918, Committees of the Poor were created to represent poor peasants who often worked under Kulaks after taking out loans of grain.[7] These committee played an important role in the actions against the kulaks, and led the process of redistribution of confiscated lands and inventory, food surpluses from the kulaks. This launched the beginning of a great crusade against grain speculators and kulaks.[8] Before being dismissed in December 1918, the Committees of the Poor had confiscated 50 million hectares of kulak land.[9] Vladimir Lenin's Hanging Order, dated 11 August 1918, commanded hangings in response to a kulak revolt in the Penza region. Lenin sent several other telegrams to Penza demanding harsher measures in order to fight the kulaks, kulak-supporting peasants and Left SR insurrectionists.

The Soviet Union was founded by Lenin; although he held a poor opinion of the kulaks, he did not resent them to the same extreme as Stalin. Lenin, like Stalin, considered the kulaks as a danger to the socialist collectivization of agriculture. Lenin believed that in order to create a more equal and equitable society, the kulaks' riches and influence needed to be diminished because they were abusing the less wealthy peasants.

Lenin did not advocate for the widespread suppression of the kulaks, in contrast to Stalin. Instead, he favored a more progressive approach to collectivization that put an emphasis on persuasion and willing participation. He also understood the significance of the peasantry in the development of socialism and thought that the kulaks might contribute to the collective farm system if they were ready to do so. Although Lenin's plan was less severe than Stalin's and he saw the value of cooperating with the peasantry to achieve socialist aims, his unfavourable assessment of the kulaks was primarily based on their class position as landowners and their potential resistance to socialist change.

Joseph Stalin announced the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" on 27 December 1929.[3] Stalin had said: "Now we have the opportunity to carry out a resolute offensive against the kulaks, break their resistance, eliminate them as a class and replace their production with the production of kolkhozes and sovkhozes."[10] The Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) formalized the decision in a resolution titled "On measures for the elimination of kulak households in districts of comprehensive collectivization" on 30 January 1930. All kulaks were assigned to one of three categories:[3]

1. Those to be shot or imprisoned as decided by the local secret political police.
2. Those to be sent to Siberia, the North, the Urals, or Kazakhstan, after confiscation of their property.
3. Those to be evicted from their houses and used in labour colonies within their own districts.

Those kulaks that were sent to Siberia and other unpopulated areas performed hard labor working in camps that would produce lumber, gold, coal and many other resources that the Soviet Union needed for its rapid industrialization plans.[11] In fact, a high-ranking member of the OGPU (the secret police) shared his vision for a new penal system that would establish villages in the northern Soviet Union that could specialize in extracting natural resources and help Stalin's industrialization.[12]

An OGPU secret-police functionary, Yefim Yevdokimov (1891–1939), played a major role in organizing and supervising the round-up of kulaks and their mass executions.[13][14][15]

Stalin had a number of issues with the kulaks. First, he considered the kulaks to be a danger to his collectivization principles. Collectivization aimed to end private land ownership and put agricultural production under government and peasant control. Stalin wanted to collectivize society, but the kulaks were seen as a hurdle because they held substantial amounts of land and employed laborers, making them resistant to collectivization.

Second, the kulaks were viewed as a representation of the previous, pre-revolutionary order by Stalin and other Soviet officials. The Bolsheviks considered the kulaks as a barrier to the socialist revolution while simultaneously seeing the peasants as a potentially revolutionary force. In order to create his socialist society, Stalin needed to get rid of the Kulaks because they were similar to capitalists.

The kulaks were seen by Stalin as potential enemies of the USSR. He thought they were trying to bring down the Soviet regime. Based on accounts of kulak opposition to collectivization, this suspicion was formed.

Stalin despised the kulaks because he perceived them as a threat to his political objectives, a representation of the previous order, and a possible Soviet enemy. Millions of people were arrested, deported, and put to death as a result of his severe and merciless tactics regarding the kulaks.

Stalin's classification of kulaks was based on a number of directives that the Soviet government had issued in the early 1930s. These decrees classified kulaks into three groups based on their financial status and support for collectivism:

1. "Active" kulaks – Kulaks who actively opposed collectivization or participated in acts of sabotage against the government were classified as "active" kulaks. They were targeted for arrest, expulsion, and killing because they were seen as the most dangerous people.
2. "Middle" kulaks – These people fell into this group if they were not as wealthy as the "active" kulaks but still held a lot of land and other assets. They were punished with forced labor, banishment, or other measures because they were viewed as potential opponents of collectivization.
3. "Passive" kulaks – The least rich kulaks who did not aggressively oppose collectivization were classified as "passive" kulaks in this category. They were permitted to stay on their property, but underwent harsh economic hardship in the form of high taxes.

Local government representatives and party leaders had wide latitude in deciding whose kulaks belonged in which category. This frequently resulted in the arbitrary and unfair treatment of peasants, with many of them being labeled as kulaks due to their income or social standing. The actions taken against the kulaks were a part of a larger effort to end private land ownership and centralize agricultural output under state control, which had significant repercussions for Soviet society and the peasantry.

Children of kulaks in Northern krai, 1930

Children were among the millions of people who were impacted by the Soviet Union's 1930s dekulakization initiatives. Families in their entirety, including kids of all ages, were frequently deported to distant parts of the nation or sent to camps for forced labor.

Children were "put into homes or orphanages and separated from their families as part of the dekulakization policies in the Soviet Union during the 1930s," according to historian Lynne Viola. These measures aimed to reduce kulak family resistance and enhance agricultural production under state supervision. Millions of individuals, including kids of all ages, were consequently subjected to forced labor, deportation, and other types of punishment.

Children from kulak families were seen by the Soviet authorities as a potential threat to the collectivization process, and they believed that separating children from their parents would weaken the kulaks' resistance. When children were committed to orphanages or other institutions, they were frequently taken away from their family, subjected to harsh living conditions, and frequently neglected or abused.

Kulak women in a forest cutting 1930

The Soviet Union's 1930s dekulakization efforts had an impact on millions of individuals, including women. If they were married to or related to kulaks, women were seen as potential enemies of the state since they were assumed to be complicit with their husbands or male relatives. Because of this, they were frequently singled out by the government for arrest, deportation, and jail.

Women were targeted by the campaign, according to historian Lynne Viola, who notes that they were "kulaks'" spouses, mothers, and sisters. Women were frequently treated harshly, including being arrested and deported, because they were seen as possible kulak conspirators. During the dekulakization effort, they had to deal with a variety of difficulties, such as losing their belongings and being separated from their families, as well as the danger of violence and forced labor.

Women encountered several difficulties during the dekulakization drive, including the loss of their homes and possessions, being cut off from their family, and the danger of physical and sexual violence. Many of them experienced starvation, sickness, and tiredness as a result of the frequent forced hard labor they were required to undertake in the factories or the fields.

The secret police were crucial in enforcing Soviet government objectives during the dekulakization program in the Soviet Union. Kulaks and their families were subject to arrest, deportation, and execution by the secret police known as the NKVD.

The NKVD was granted the authority to track down and assassinate kulaks, and they were allowed to use force and brutality to do so. Mass deportations and arrests of kulaks and their families were carried out by the secret police, frequently without cause or due process.

The Gulag, a system of forced labor camps founded by the NKVD, was where many kulaks were transported to work in perilous circumstances. Numerous captives suffered from starvation, illness, and torture in the notoriously cruel camps.

The secret police's contribution to the dekulakization effort had a considerable impact on the Soviet government's policies and procedures. Millions of lives were lost as a result of the NKVD's use of violence and repression, which had a significant effect on Soviet society. In Russia and other former Soviet governments, these policies and practices have left a lasting legacy.

Classicide

1930s Soviet propaganda poster stating: "Oust kulaks from kolkhozes!"

Another 1930s Soviet propaganda poster stating: "Kick kulaks from kolkhozes".

In February 1928, the Pravda newspaper published for the first time materials that claimed to expose the kulaks; they described widespread domination by the rich peasantry in the countryside and invasion by kulaks of Communist party cells.[16] Expropriation of grain stocks from kulaks and middle-class peasants was called a "temporary emergency measure"; temporary emergency measures turned into a policy of "eliminating the kulaks as a class" by the 1930s.[16] Sociologist Michael Mann described the Soviet attempt to collectivize and liquidate perceived class enemies as fitting his proposed category of classicide.[17]

The party's appeal to the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class had been formulated by Stalin, who stated: "In order to oust the kulaks as a class, the resistance of this class must be smashed in open battle and it must be deprived of the productive sources of its existence and development (free use of land, instruments of production, land-renting, right to hire labour, etc.). That is a turn towards the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class. Without it, talk about ousting the kulaks as a class is empty prattle, acceptable and profitable only to the Right deviators."[18]

In 1928, the Right Opposition of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was still trying to support the prosperous peasantry and soften the struggle against the kulaks. In particular, Alexei Rykov, criticizing the policy of dekulakization and "methods of war communism", declared that an attack on the kulaks should be carried out but not by methods of so-called dekulakization. He argued against taking action against individual farming in the village, the productivity of which was two times lower than in European countries. He believed that the most important task of the party was the development of the individual farming of peasants with the help of the government.[19]

The requisition of grains from wealthy peasants during the forced collectivization in Timashyovsky District, Kuban, Soviet Union, 1933

The government increasingly noticed an open and resolute protest among the poor against the well-to-do middle peasants.[20] The growing discontent of the poor peasants was reinforced by the famine in the countryside. The Bolsheviks preferred to blame the "rural counterrevolution" of the kulaks, intending to aggravate the attitude of the people towards the party: "We must repulse the kulak ideology coming in the letters from the village. The main advantage of the kulak is bread embarrassments." Red Army peasants sent letters supporting anti-kulak ideology: "The kulaks are the furious enemies of socialism. We must destroy them, don't take them to the kolkhoz, you must take away their property, their inventory." The letter of the Red Army soldier of the 28th Artillery Regiment became widely known: "The last bread is taken away, the Red Army family is not considered. Although you are my dad, I do not believe you. I'm glad that you had a good lesson. Sell bread, carry surplus – this is my last word."[21][22]

The official goal of kulak liquidation came without precise instructions, and encouraged local leaders to take radical action, which resulted in physical elimination. The campaign to liquidate the kulaks as a class constituted the main part of Stalin's social engineering policies in the early 1930s.[23]

Dekulakization had a significant impact on the Soviet Union, both in the short and long term. Some of the main effects were:

1. Collectivization: One of the main goals of dekulakization was to forcibly collectivize agriculture, which led to the creation of large, state-run collective farms. This transformed the way food was produced in the Soviet Union and had a profound impact on the country's rural economy.
2. Economic disruption: The process of dekulakization caused significant economic disruption in rural areas of the Soviet Union. Many of the most productive farmers were forcibly removed from their land, which led to a decline in agricultural output and disrupted local markets.
3. Human cost: Dekulakization was a brutal campaign that led to the deportation and death of millions of people. Estimates of the number of deaths vary, but it is believed that at least 5 million people died as a result of the policy. This had a profound impact on families and communities across the Soviet Union.
4. Political impact: The implementation of dekulakization was closely tied to the consolidation of power by the Communist Party. The elimination of the kulaks was seen as a way to remove a perceived threat to the socialist state and to strengthen the position of the Party.
5. Long-term consequences: The forced collectivization of agriculture and the elimination of the kulaks had a long-term impact on the Soviet Union. Many historians argue that it contributed to the famine that occurred in the early 1930s, and that it weakened the agricultural sector for years to come. The impact of dekulakization on the Soviet economy and society is still a subject of debate among historians and economists today.

The "liquidation of kulaks as a class" was the name of a Soviet policy enforced in 1930–1931 for forced, uncompensated alienation of property (expropriation) from portions of the peasantry and isolation of victims from such actions by way of their forceful deportation from their place of residence. The official goal of kulak liquidation came without precise instructions, and encouraged local leaders to take radical action, which resulted in physical elimination. The campaign to liquidate the kulaks as a class constituted the main part of Stalin's social engineering policies in the early 1930s.

Liquidation was a term used to describe a Soviet government policy of eradicating political adversaries, intellectuals, and rich persons. The Cheka, the secret police of the Soviet Union, carried out this program through arrests, executions, and other types of repression. Early in the 1920s, a liquidation effort was launched, and it lasted the entire decade.

In the Soviet Union, the term "liquidation" referred to a strategy of removing the Soviet government's adversaries, such as political rivals, intellectuals, and affluent people. The New Economic Policy (NEP), which was implemented by the Soviet secret police known as the Cheka, gave rise to the phrase "liquidation" in the early 1920s.

The liquidation campaign was directed at those who were thought to pose a threat to the Soviet government's attempt to consolidate its control, such as former Tsarist regime members, bourgeois intellectuals, and other deemed adversaries of the state. The liquidation campaign, which included arrests, executions, and other acts of repression, was part of a larger initiative to quell dissent and solidify the Soviet Communist Party's power.

The liquidation campaign was largely focused on the political opponents of the Bolshevik government in the early years of the Soviet Union. The campaign's objectives, however, changed in the late 1920s to include perceived adversaries of the Soviet economy, such as the so-called "kulaks" or prosperous peasant farmers. The drive to eliminate the kulaks was a component of a larger collectivization strategy that attempted to centralize agricultural output under state control.

The liquidation campaign, which lasted through the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, was a crucial component of the Soviet Union's endeavor to achieve complete control over all facets of society. Although it is difficult to assess the scope of the campaign and the number of casualties, historians estimate that tens of thousands of individuals were put to death or imprisoned during this time.

The Soviet government targeted the so-called "kulaks" or wealthy peasant farmers, who were viewed as a threat to the collectivization of agriculture, during the most intense era of liquidation, which took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Millions of kulaks and their families were deported to remote regions of the Soviet Union as a result of the liquidation campaign against the kulaks, which also drove the collectivization of agriculture. An estimated 5 million people died as a result of this strategy, either through starvation, disease, or violence.

The Soviet authorities targeted a number of additional groups during the liquidation campaign in addition to the kulaks, including former Tsarist regime members, bourgeois intellectuals, and other organizations seen as state adversaries. Depending on the objective and the time period, the campaign's scope and the number of victims varied, but it is obvious that the liquidation campaign was a harsh and repressive measure that resulted in considerable suffering and death.

The program of removing opponents of the Soviet leadership, such as political rivals, intellectuals, and affluent people, was referred to as "liquidation" by the Soviet authorities. The word is an English translation of the Russian verb likvidirovat, which meaning "to liquidate" or "to eliminate." The phrase was not specifically applied to Soviet politics in its earlier usage; rather, it referred to the act of removing barriers or resolving issues. However, the phrase came to be linked with the oppressive and murderous practices of the Soviet secret police, known as the Cheka, in the setting of the Soviet Union.

• Collectivization in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
• Committees of Poor Peasants
• Decossackization
• Population transfer in the Soviet Union
• Holodomor
• Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union
• Land reform in North Vietnam
• Land Reform Movement (China)
• Podkulachnik
• Red Terror
• Stalinist repressions in Azerbaijan

(wrote in corresponding number to match the reference/citation)

Works Cited

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3. Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. Oxford University Press, 1986. https://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Sorrow-Soviet-Collectivization-Terror-Famine/dp/0195051807
4. Cohen, Stephen F. Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888–1938. Oxford University Press, 1979. https://www.amazon.com/Bukharin-Bolshevik-Revolution-Political-1888-1938/dp/0195026976
5. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Soviet Rural Crisis in the 1920s. Cambridge University Press, 1982. https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Rural-Crisis-1920s/dp/0521288725
6. ---. The Russian Revolution. Oxford University Press, 1992. https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Revolution-Oxford-Histories/dp/0192802046
7. ---. Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s. Oxford University Press, 1994. https://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Stalinism-Ordinary-Extraordinary-Soviet/dp/0195050010
8. ---. On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics. Princeton University Press, 2019.
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10. Getty, Arch, and Roberta Manning, editors. Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives. Cambridge University Press, 1993. https://www.amazon.com/Stalinist-Terror-Perspectives-Cambridge-Histories/dp/0521457822
11. Getty, J. Arch, and Oleg V. Naumov. The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939. Yale University Press, 1999. https://www.amazon.com/Road-Terror-Self-Destruction-Bolsheviks-1932-1939/dp/0300077717
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14. ---. Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator. Yale University Press, 2015.
15. ---. The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror. Yale University Press, 2015.
16. Kenez, Peter. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End. Cambridge University Press, 1999. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-the-soviet-union-from-the-beginning-to-the-end/8527EEEBE5F5C7AFD92F8E3547E9CC70
17. ---. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End. Cambridge University Press, 2019.
18. Kollontai, Alexandra. Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai. Allison & Busby, 1977.
19. Kollontai, Pauline. "The Child Deportations in 1930s USSR: Why and How." The Journal of Historical Review, vol. 6, no. 1, 2014, pp. 41–51.
20. Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928. Penguin, 2015.
21. Kucherenko, Olga. "The Collectivization of Soviet Agriculture and the Mass Deportation of the Rural Population, 1929-1933." Stalin's Empire of Memory: Russian-Ukrainian Relations in the Soviet Historical Imagination, edited by Serhy Yekelchyk and Roman Szporluk, University of Toronto Press, 2018, pp. 23–51.
22. McDermott, Kevin. "Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33: A Reply to Ellman." Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 53, no. 6, 2001, pp. 965–973.
23. Pipes, Richard. The Russian Revolution. Knopf, 1990
24. Tucker, R. C. (2009). Stalinism: Essays in historical interpretation. Routledge.
25. Viola, Lynne. The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements. Oxford University Press, 2007.

• Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror–Famine (1987)
• Figes, Orlando. The whisperers: private life in Stalin's Russia (Macmillan, 2007). detailed histories of actual Kulak families.
• Hildermeier, Manfred. Die Sowjetunion 1917–1991. (Oldenbourg Grundriss der Geschichte, Bd. 31), Oldenbourg, 2. Aufl., München 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58327-4.
• Kaznelson, Michael. "Remembering the Soviet State: Kulak children and dekulakisation". Europe-Asia Studies 59.7 (2007): 1163–1177.
• Lewin, Moshe. "Who was the Soviet kulak?". Europe‐Asia Studies 18.2 (1966): 189–212.
• Viola, Lynne. "The Campaign to Eliminate the Kulak as a Class, Winter 1929–1930: A Reevaluation of the Legislation". Slavic Review 45.3 (1986): 503–524.
• Viola, Lynne. "The Peasants' Kulak: Social Identities and Moral Economy in the Soviet Countryside in the 1920s". Canadian Slavonic Papers 42.4 (2000): 431–460.