Communist
Communist
The Communist Party
The purges of Polish and Ukrainian kulaks were primarily orchestrated by the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin during the late 1920s and 1930s. The policies aimed to consolidate agricultural production through collectivization, which targeted wealthier peasants (kulaks) as class enemies. The actions included widespread arrests, deportations, and executions, significantly impacting the rural populations in both regions. Local Communist Party officials often carried out these directives, fueled by ideological fervor and pressure from the central government.
Stalin was a very cruel man and he singled out the kulaks. He put them in camps were the were starved, the food was taken away from them and many people died. The women were beat and raped, if the risisted the were murdered.
Stalin forced peasant farmers to work on "collectives." These were large farms in which many peasants had no individual ownership interest but were forced to work together to raise crops for the state rather than for themselves. Some peasants who were a little more well off than other peasants were called kulaks. Stalin sent as many kulaks as he could to concentration and work camps.
Generally speaking both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin were dictatorships that permitted no free speech or other political parties to exist. In Germany only the Nazi Party was legal and under Stalin only the Communist Party under the rule of Stalin was allowed.
Generally speaking both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin were dictatorships that permitted no free speech or other political parties to exist. In Germany only the Nazi Party was legal and under Stalin only the Communist Party under the rule of Stalin was allowed.
The Russian Kulaks were mostly peasant class farm owners. They faced a regime under Lenin & Stalin that at first were radical Bolshevik communists. They saw the Kulaks as a problem because they supported the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime. Later, they refused to sell their crops at the price set by Lenin and his regime. The Kulaks were against abolishing private property. To avert an economic crisis, Lenin began the NEP, or New Economic Policy. For a short time this gave some ground to the Kulaks, but not for long. The NEP was abolished and the collectivization of the Soviet farm system began. Kulaks that resisted were killed. Later with Stalin in sole power of the USSR, he created a program to wipe out the peasant farmer class completely. He hated the Kulaks so much many millions of them were executed.
No doubt. It is a common opinion that anyone under a Communist system is oppressed, especially under Stalin.
Under Vladimier Lenin, Russia began collectivization. This process continued, and did accelerate under Josef Stalin, who followed Lenin. But, Stalin did not cause the acceleration, the communist philosophy that Russia followed called for collectivization.
It is possible that Stalin could have continued it and industrialized under it, but it was too hard already under his current Communist regime. The NEP and its underlying capitalist values just could not let Stalin's power remain as effective.