1. wealthy peasant farmers in pre-revolutionary Russia and the early Soviet period who owned land and employed laborers
Usage: historical; plural form

Examples

• The kulaks were targeted during Stalin’s collectivization policies.
• Many kulaks lost their property when the Soviet government seized private farms.
• The term kulaks referred to the most prosperous rural landowners in tsarist Russia.
• Soviet propaganda portrayed kulaks as enemies of the working class.
• Thousands of kulaks were deported to remote regions during dekulakization.
• The kulaks often hired poorer peasants to work their larger farms.