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Dekulakization (; ) was the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, , or of millions of supposed and their families. Redistribution of farmland started in 1917 and lasted until 1933, but was most active in the 1929–1932 period of the first five-year plan. To facilitate the expropriations of farmland, the Soviet government announced the "liquidation of the kulaks as a Social class" on 27 December 1929, portraying kulaks as class enemies of the Soviet Union.
More than 1.8million peasants were deported in 1930–1931.Robert Conquest (1986) The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. Oxford University Press. .Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, Lynne Viola The Unknown Gulag. The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements Oxford University Press 2007, hardback, 320 pages The campaign had the stated purpose of fighting counter-revolution and of building socialism in the countryside. This policy, carried out simultaneously with collectivization in the Soviet Union, effectively brought all agriculture and all the labourers in Soviet Russia under state control.
The kulaks posed a danger to Soviet collectivization efforts, which sought to end private land ownership and centralize agricultural production under state supervision. The destruction of kulaks as a class began with Vladimir Lenin and peaked under Joseph Stalin. Many of them were imprisoned, deported, and forced to work in prison camps. Others perished in executions or while traveling to the camps. Millions of kulaks and their families are thought to have been affected by these measures.
In July 1918, Committees of the Poor were created to represent poor peasants, which played an important role in the actions against the kulaks, and led the process of redistribution of confiscated lands, inventory, and food surpluses from the kulaks. This launched the beginning of a great crusade against grain speculators and kulaks.Ленин В. И. Полн. собр. сочинений. Т. 36. С. 361–363; Т. 37. С. 144. Before being dismissed in December 1918, the Committees of the Poor had confiscated 50 million hectares of kulak land.Краткий курс истории ВКП(б) (1938 год) // Репринтное воспроизведение стабильного издания 30-40-х годов. Москва, изд. «Писатель», 1997 г. Vladimir Lenin's Hanging Order, dated 11 August 1918, commanded hangings in response to a kulak revolt in the Penza region. Lenin sent several other telegrams to Penza demanding harsher measures in order to fight the kulaks, kulak-supporting peasants and Left SR insurrectionists.. Committees of the Poor were formally liquidated on April 8, 1933.
This point of view has been repeated during a number of communist gatherings, including the one Yugoslavia in 1925: "It is absolutely true that the national question cannot be equated with the peasant question, for, apart from peasant issues, the national question also includes issues of national culture, national statehood, etc. But it is also undeniable that the basis of the national question, its inner essence, is still the peasant question. This explains why the peasantry represents the main army of the national movement, and why without the peasant army there cannot be and cannot be a powerful national movement."
An OGPU secret-police functionary, Yefim Yevdokimov, played a major role in organizing and supervising the round-up of kulaks and their mass executions. (1999). 9780300077728, Yale U.P.. ISBN 9780300077728
Stalin had a number of issues with the kulaks. First, he considered the kulaks to be a danger to his collectivization principles. Collectivization aimed to end private land ownership and put agricultural production under government and peasant control. Stalin wanted to collectivize society, but the kulaks were seen as a hurdle because they held substantial amounts of land and employed laborers, making them resistant to collectivization.
Second, the kulaks were viewed as a representation of the previous, pre-revolutionary order by Stalin and other Soviet officials. The Bolsheviks considered the kulaks as a barrier to the socialist revolution while simultaneously seeing the peasants as a potentially revolutionary force. In order to create his socialist society, Stalin needed to get rid of the Kulaks because they were similar to capitalists.
The kulaks were seen by Stalin as potential enemies of the USSR. He thought they were trying to bring down the Soviet regime. Based on accounts of kulak opposition to collectivization, this suspicion was formed.
Stalin despised the kulaks because he perceived them as a threat to his political objectives, a representation of the previous order, and a possible Soviet enemy. Millions of people were arrested, deported, and put to death as a result of his severe and merciless tactics regarding the kulaks.
His adversary, Leon Trotsky, condemned the "liquidation of the kulaks" in 1930 as a "monstrosity" and had urged the Politbureau during the intra-party struggle to raise taxation on wealthier farmers and encourage farm labourers along with poor peasants to form collective farms on a voluntary basis with state resources allocated to agricultural machinery, fertilizers, credit and agronomic assistance.
Local government representatives and party leaders had wide latitude in deciding whose kulaks belonged in which category. This frequently resulted in the arbitrary and unfair treatment of peasants, with many of them being labeled as kulaks due to their income or social standing. The actions taken against the kulaks were a part of a larger effort to end private land ownership and centralize agricultural output under state control, which had significant repercussions for Soviet society and the peasantry.
Children were "put into homes or orphanages and separated from their families as part of the dekulakization policies in the Soviet Union during the 1930s," according to historian Lynne Viola. These measures aimed to reduce kulak family resistance and enhance agricultural production under state supervision. Millions of individuals, including kids of all ages, were consequently subjected to forced labor, deportation, and other types of punishment.
Children from kulak families were seen by the Soviet authorities as a potential threat to the collectivization process, and they believed that separating children from their parents would weaken the kulaks' resistance. When children were committed to orphanages or other institutions, they were frequently taken away from their family, subjected to harsh living conditions, and frequently neglected or abused.
Women were targeted by the campaign, according to historian Lynne Viola, who notes that they were "kulaks spouses, mothers, and sisters. Women were frequently treated harshly, including being arrested and deported, because they were seen as possible kulak conspirators. During the dekulakization effort, they had to deal with a variety of difficulties, such as losing their homes and belongings, being separated from their families, as well as the danger of forced labor and violence, both physical and sexual. Many of them experienced starvation, sickness, and exhaustion as a result of the forced hard labor they were required to undertake in the factories or the fields.
The NKVD was granted the authority to track down and assassinate kulaks, and they were allowed to use force and brutality to do so. Mass deportations and arrests of kulaks and their families were carried out by the secret police, frequently without cause or due process.
The Gulag, a system of forced labor camps founded by the NKVD, was where many kulaks were transported to work in perilous circumstances. Numerous captives suffered from starvation, illness, and torture in the notoriously cruel camps.
The secret police's contribution to the dekulakization effort had a considerable impact on the Soviet government's policies and procedures. Millions of people died as a result of the NKVD's use of violence and repression, which had a significant effect on Soviet society. In Russia and other former Soviet governments, these policies and practices have left a lasting legacy.
The party's appeal to the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class had been formulated by Stalin, who stated: "In order to oust the kulaks as a class, the resistance of this class must be smashed in open battle and it must be deprived of the productive sources of its existence and development (free use of land, instruments of production, land-renting, right to hire labour, etc.). That is a turn towards the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class. Without it, talk about ousting the kulaks as a class is empty prattle, acceptable and profitable only to the Right deviators."И. В. Сталин «К вопросу о ликвидации кулачества как класса»
In 1928, the Right Opposition of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was still trying to support the prosperous peasantry and soften the struggle against the kulaks. In particular, Alexei Rykov, criticizing the policy of dekulakization and "methods of war communism", declared that an attack on the kulaks should be carried out but not by methods of so-called dekulakization. He argued against taking action against individual farming in the village, the productivity of which was two times lower than in European countries. He believed that the most important task of the party was the development of the individual farming of peasants with the help of the government. Н. В. Валентинов, Ю. Г. Фельштинский «Наследники Ленина»
The government increasingly noticed an open and resolute protest among the poor against the well-to-do middle peasants.РГВА, ф. 4, оп. 1, д. 107, л. 215. Цит. по: Чуркин В. Ф. Самоидентификация крестьянства на переломном этапе своей истории. // История государства и права, 2006, N 7 The growing discontent of the poor peasants was reinforced by the famine in the countryside. The Bolsheviks preferred to blame the "rural counterrevolution" of the kulaks, intending to aggravate the attitude of the people towards the party: "We must repulse the kulak ideology coming in the letters from the village. The main advantage of the kulak is bread embarrassments." Red Army peasants sent letters supporting anti-kulak ideology: "The kulaks are the furious enemies of socialism. We must destroy them, don't take them to the kolkhoz, you must take away their property, their inventory." The letter of the Red Army soldier of the 28th Artillery Regiment became widely known: "The last bread is taken away, the Red Army family is not considered. Although you are my dad, I do not believe you. I'm glad that you had a good lesson. Sell bread, carry surplus – this is my last word."В. Ф. Чуркин, кандидат исторических наук. «Самоидентификация крестьянства на переломном этапе своей истории» // «История государства и права», 2006, N 7)Красный воин (МВО). 1930. 13 февраля, 14 мая.
In the Soviet Union, the term "liquidation" referred to a strategy of removing the Soviet government's adversaries, such as political rivals, intellectuals, and affluent people. The New Economic Policy (NEP), which was implemented by the Soviet secret police known as the Cheka, gave rise to the phrase "liquidation" in the early 1920s.
The liquidation campaign was directed at those who were thought to pose a threat to the Soviet government's attempt to consolidate its control, such as former Tsarist regime members, bourgeois intellectuals, and other deemed adversaries of the state. The liquidation campaign, which included arrests, executions, and other acts of repression, was part of a larger initiative to quell dissent and solidify the Soviet Communist Party's power.
The liquidation campaign was largely focused on the political opponents of the Bolshevik government in the early years of the Soviet Union. The campaign's objectives, however, changed in the late 1920s to include perceived adversaries of the Soviet economy, such as the so-called "kulaks" or prosperous peasant farmers. The drive to eliminate the kulaks was a component of a larger collectivization strategy that attempted to centralize agricultural output under state control.
The liquidation campaign, which lasted through the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, was a crucial component of the Soviet Union's endeavor to achieve complete control over all facets of society. Although it is difficult to assess the scope of the campaign and the number of casualties, historians estimate that tens of thousands of individuals were put to death or imprisoned during this time.
The Soviet government targeted the so-called "kulaks" or wealthy peasant farmers, who were viewed as a threat to the collectivization of agriculture, during the most intense era of liquidation, which took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Millions of kulaks and their families were deported to remote regions of the Soviet Union as a result of the liquidation campaign against the kulaks, which also drove the collectivization of agriculture. An estimated 5million people died as a result of this strategy, either through starvation, disease, or violence.
The Soviet authorities targeted a number of additional groups during the liquidation campaign in addition to the kulaks, including former Tsarist regime members, bourgeois intellectuals, and other organizations seen as state adversaries. Depending on the objective and the time period, the campaign's scope and the number of victims varied, but it is obvious that the liquidation campaign was a harsh and repressive measure that resulted in considerable suffering and death.
The program of removing opponents of the Soviet leadership, such as political rivals, intellectuals, and affluent people, was referred to as "liquidation" by the Soviet authorities. The word is an English translation of the Russian verb , which meaning "to liquidate" or "to eliminate." The phrase was not specifically applied to Soviet politics in its earlier usage; rather, it referred to the act of removing barriers or resolving issues. However, the phrase came to be linked with the oppressive and murderous practices of the Soviet secret police, known as the Cheka, in the setting of the Soviet Union.
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