Kulaks+and+Collectivization

**The Kulaks and Collectivization**

** What is a Kulak? **
 * kulak-"a wealthy or prosperous peasant, generally characterized as one who owned a relatively large farm and several head of cattle and horses and who was financially capable of employing hired labour and leasing land" (1).
 * "(In Russia after 1906) a member of the class of peasants who became proprietors of their own farms" (5).

** What is collectivization? Why did it occur? **
 * " collectivization: the __[|process]__ of forming collectives or collective communities where property and resources are owned by the community and not individuals" (4).


 * "Stalin focused particular hostility on the wealthier peasants, or kulaks" (3).
 * "In 1928–29 these grain shortages prompted Joseph Stalin, by then the country’s paramount leader, to forcibly eliminate the private ownership of farmland and to collect agriculture under the state’s control, thus ensuring the procurement of adequate food supplies for the cities in the future. This abrupt __policy__ change, which was accompanied by the destruction of several million of the country’s most prosperous private farmers" (2).
 * "About one million kulak households (some five million people) were deported and never heard from again. Forced collectivization of the remaining peasants, which was often fiercely resisted, resulted in a disastrous disruption of agricultural productivity and a catastrophic famine in 1932-33.
 * Although the First Five-Year Plan called for the collectivization of only twenty percent of peasant households, by 1940 approximately ninety-seven percent of all peasant households had been collectivized and private ownership of property almost entirely eliminated" (3).

**Kulaks in Animal Farm**
 * Chickens/Hens || Kulaks  ||
 * Withheld their eggs from Neapolean and were starved until they gave in to his demand ||  Withheld grain from others when they were in need and were hung or exiled as a result ||

CITATIONS
 * 1) kulak. (2012). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from []
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">New Economic Policy (NEP). (2012). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from []
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Hoesel, F. V. (n.d.). //Soviet archives exhibit//. Retrieved from []
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Collectivization. (2012). Free Dictionary. Retrieved from []