Kulak, in Russian, means a "fist." When used for rich peasants, it alludes to their alleged fist-like hold on their poorer brethren. Vladimir Lenin saw the kulak as a "village bourgeoisie" that would be crushed by a socialist revolution. This was achieved during Joseph Stalin's "revolution from the top" that mandated collectivization and dekulakization.

When the Bolsheviks assumed power, peasants made up 85 percent of Russia's population. Peasants were tied to village communes that practiced the joint ownership of land with periodical redistribution for individual exploitation. The 1906 Stolypin reforms encouraged peasants to establish separate farms, but eleven years later communes were still the norm in Russia. Only in Ukraine and other non-Russian regions did individual farming prevail. Most peasants remained poor, but many made a decent living and some even became wealthy. The kulaks were rich enough to hire farm...