kulak

Definition

A prosperous peasant in the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, who owned land and could hire workers.

Etymology

1877. From Russian кула́к (kulák, “wealthy peasant; fist; tight-fisted person”), plural кулаки́ (kulakí). Compare also Russian раскула́чивание (raskuláčivanije, “dekulakization”), подкула́чник (podkuláčnik, “subkulak”).

Example Sentences

• "The “internal organs,” as the CHEKA and the GPU and the KGB used to style themselves, were asked to police the mind for heresy as much as to torture kulaks to relinquish the food they withheld from the cities."
• "We are the “upper middle class”, the new kulaks whose antisocial self-interest and lack of submission to the aims of the revolutionary vanguard must be extinguished."