The Kulaks and Stalinist Redistribution

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Joseph Stalin initiated a campaign against the so-called kulaks—peasants accused of being wealthier than their neighbors. The label itself was fluid; it could encompass anyone who owned a few more cows or harvested a little more grain than the village average. The state cast these modestly prosperous farmers as class enemies. Their land, tools, and homes were seized in the name of “social justice,” and millions were deported, starved, or executed in the process.

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