1. a wealthy peasant farmer in pre-revolutionary Russia
Usage: historical
2. a peasant in the Soviet Union who resisted collectivization of agriculture
Usage: historical

Examples

• The kulaks owned larger farms than typical peasants in tsarist Russia.
• Stalin’s government targeted kulaks during the collectivization campaign.
• Many kulaks were deported to remote regions of the Soviet Union.
• The term kulak became associated with resistance to communist agricultural policies.
• Historians debate the exact definition of who qualified as a kulak.
• The kulak class was effectively eliminated by the mid-1930s.