Dekulakization

Holodomor topics
Historical background
Famines in Russia and USSR · Soviet famine of 1932–1933
Soviet government
Institutions: All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) ·Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine ·Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ·Government of the Soviet Union · Secret police
Policies: First Five-Year Plan · Collectivization in the Ukrainian SSR ·Dekulakization · Law of Spikelets  ·Reversal of Ukrainization policies  ·Propaganda in the Soviet Union
Responsible parties
Soviet Union: Joseph Stalin · Vyacheslav Molotov ·Lazar Kaganovich · Pavel Postyshev · Stanislav Kosior ·Vlas Chubar · Communist Party · NKVD ·
Investigation and comprehension
1984 International Commission  · 1985 USA Commission  ·Causes of the Holodomor  · Denial  · Genocide question  ·Holodomor in modern politics
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Dekulakization (Russian:раскулачивание, raskulachivanie,Ukrainian: розкуркулення,rozkurkulennia) was the Sovietcampaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, and executions of millions of the better-off peasants and their families in 1929–1932. The richer peasants were labeled kulaks and considered class enemies. More than 1.8 million peasants were deported in 1930–1931. The stated purpose of the campaign was to fight the counter-revolutionand build socialism in the countryside. This policy was accomplished simultaneously withcollectivization in the USSR and effectively brought all agriculture and peasants in Soviet Russia under state control.

Away with private peasants!

The "liquidation of the kulaks as aclass" was announced by Joseph Stalin on 27 December 1929. Stalin had said that "Now we have the 

opportunity to carry out a resolute offensive against the kulaks, break their resistance, eliminate them as a class and replace their production with the production ofkolkhozes and sovkhozes." The decision was formalized in a resolution "On measures for the elimination of kulak households in districts of comprehensive collectivization" on 30 January 1930. All kulaks were divided into three categories: (I) to be shot or imprisoned as decided by the local secret political police; (II) to be sent to Siberia, North, the Urals orKazakhstan, after confiscation of their property; and (III) to be evicted from their houses and used in labour colonies within their own districts. OGPU secret police chief Efim Georgievich Evdokimov (1891–1939) organized and supervised the roundup of peasants and the mass executions.

A combination of dekulakization, collectivization, and other repressive policies led to mass starvation in many parts of the Soviet Union and the death of at least 14.5 million peasants in 1930–1937, including five million who died in Ukraine during the Holodomor. The results were soon known outside the Soviet Union. In 1941, the American journalist H. R. Knickerbocker wrote "It is a conservative estimate to say that some 5,000,000 [kulaks] ... died at once, or within a few years."