Kulak

__ Kulaks __ 
 * Kulak means "fist" in Russian.
 * Kulalks originally applied to moneylanders, merchants, and anyone who was acquistive. it eventually became a derogatory term used by the soviets to identify "capital peasents."
 * These peasents owned larger farms and were financially able to enploy labor as a result of [|Stolypin] agrarian reforms.
 * In 1918 During the War Communism period, the Soviet government organized groups of poor peasants to administer villages under the kulak.
 * But in 1921 the New Economic Policy favoured the kulaks.
 * In 1927 the Soviet government increased kulaks' taxes and restricted their rights to lease land.
 * In 1929 a drive for rapid collectivization of agriculture began. The Soviet government tried to forced the peasants to give up their small privately owned farms to join the large cooperative agricultural establishments. A dekulakization campaign was then launched by the government. It was a campaign to liquidate the kulaks as a class.
 * 75% of the farms by 1935 were collectivized by the Soviet Union. The peasants were then deported to remote regions or arrested and their land and property was confiscated.

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Parrallel to the Novel - The Chickens/Hens
 * Kulaks represent all the animals that Napoleon has slaughtered for their revolt:
 * The sheep confessed to urinating in the drinking pool; slaughtered.
 * Two other sheeps confessed to murder; slaughtered.
 * The three hens that attempted the rebellion; slaughtered.
 * The four pigs that protested against Napoleon for stopping the Sunday Meetings; slaughtered.

All the animals that are slaughtered in chapter 7 are parrallel to the Kulaks that were murdered in Russia. The Kulaks were sent away or murdered because they were blamed for the famine, so Lenin said "Merciless war against the Kulaks! Death to them." The death of the Kulaks only made the food shortage more severe.

[|Murder of Mulaks]



Work Cited "**kulak**." __Encyclopædia Britannica__. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 17 Nov. 2009 <[|**http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/324575/kulak**]>.