kulakn.

1877 D. M. Wallace Russia (ed. 2) I. vii. 159 Not a few industrial villages have thus fallen under the power of the Kulaki—literally Fists—as these monopolists are called.

1886 Encycl. Brit. XXI. 84/1 The enrichment of a few ‘kulaks’.

1921 Contemp. Rev. Jan. 26 ‘Kulaks’..a nick~name for the close-fisted village traders, usurers, and rich peasants.

1925 P. Gibbs Unchanging Quest xiv. 109 These peasants think the Duma will..kill all the Koulaks, or Jewish moneylenders.

1929 Times 25 May 11/7 As a result of their expulsion from a local collective farm, some kulaks (well-to-do-peasants)..raided its premises.

1931 M. Hindus Red Bread iv. 66 Legally, a koolack is a man who indulges in some form of exploitation, employs hired help or derives an income from rent or interest or the operation of an agricultural or industrial machine. Actually, however, a koolack is a successful farmer as success is measured in Russia.

1934 G. B. Shaw On the Rocks (new ed.) Pref., in Too True to be Good 164 They [sc. the Soviet government] also proscribed the kulak, the able, hardheaded, hardfisted farmer who was richer than his neighbors.

1951 G. Mikes Down with Everybody 48 He was a kulak, a spy and an enemy agent, but now he had realised his mistake—namely that it was a mistake to be a kulak, a spy and an enemy agent.

1952 R. Campbell Lorca 7 Lorca was by birth a landowning ‘kulak’.

1957 Observer 10 Nov. 5/8 The peasants [in China] have been ‘voluntarily’ collectivised..but there has been no Russian-style campaign for the ‘elimination of the kulak as a class’.

1970 New Scientist 1 Jan. 15/1 The improved grain husbandry..may favour the rise of ‘kulaks’ or ‘improving landlord’ groups.

1930 Aberdeen Press & Jrnl. 3 Apr. 7/3 The blunders made in the process of collectivism by over-zealous village Soviets, thus necessitating the present pause in the interests of the crop but not of kulakism.

1928 Illustr. Hist. Russ. Rev. I. 63 The bourgeoisie from their very nature were bound to oppose the abolition of ‘Kulakisation’.