Kulak

Kulaks (Russian:кула́к, tr.kulak;IPA: [kʊˈlak], Polish:kułak) "fist", by extension "tight-fisted"; kurkuls in Ukraine, also used in Russian texts (in Ukrainian contexts) were a category of affluent landlords in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and the early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow. During 1929–1933, Stalin's leadership of the total campaign to collectivize the peasantry meant that "peasants with a couple of cows or five or six acres more than their neighbors" were being labeled "kulaks".