10 October 2015

kulak

[koo-lahk, -lak; koo-lahk, -lak]

noun, (in Russia)

1. a comparatively wealthy peasant who employed hired labor or possessed farm machinery and who was viewed and treated by the Communists during the drive to collectivize agriculture in the 1920s and 1930s as an oppressor and class enemy.
2. (before the revolution of 1917) a prosperous, ruthless, and stingy merchant or village usurer.

Origin of kulak

1875-1880; < Russian kulák literally, fist

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for kulak

Historical Examples

Not I, seeing that I have had two and a half roubles per soul squeezed out of me by a brute of a kulak !
Dead Souls
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

The growth of the kulak far outstripped the general growth of agriculture. The policy of the government under the slogan “face to the country” was actually a turning of its face to the kulak … Bukharin, the theoretician of the ruling faction at that time, tossed to the peasantry his famous slogan, “Get rich!” In the language of theory that was supposed to mean a gradual growing of the kulaks into socialism. In practice it meant the enrichment of the minority at the
expense of the overwhelming majority.

The Revolution Betrayed
Leon Trotsky, 1936

Today’s quote

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.

– Og Mandino

On this day

10 October – World Day Against the Death Penalty.

10 October 1963 – death of Roy Cazaly, Australian Rules football legend, known for his high marks and ruck-work. Immortalised in the song, ‘Up there Cazaly‘, by The Two Man Band (Mike Brady & Peter Sullivan). Born 13 January 1893.

10 October 1963 – death of Édith Piaf, French singer. Born Édith Giovanna Gassion, born 19 December 1915.

10 October 1965 – the ‘Vinland Map’, is presented by Yale University, which claims it was the first known map of America, drawn in 1440 and based on Norseman Leif Eriksson’s discovery of the Americas 500 years before Columbus.