kulak
noun
ku·lak ˈkü-ˌlak 
-ˌläk;
kü-ˈlak,
-ˈläk
1
: a prosperous or wealthy peasant farmer in 19th century Russia
2
: a farmer characterized by Communists as having excessive wealth
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web Stepan was given land and became village chief and a kulak, or rich peasant farmer. 
Washington Post, 9 May 2021 Relatively affluent farmers, known as kulaks, were among the groups targeted. NBC News, 6 Nov. 2019 According to the Party’s official account, Gemav’e had refused to pay taxes on his herd, making him a kulak. Bathsheba Demuth, The New Yorker, 15 Aug. 2019 There could be no future until shamans and kulaks, with their un-collectivized reindeer, were liquidated and their souls transformed. Bathsheba Demuth, The New Yorker, 15 Aug. 2019 Grossman could embrace any number of contradictions: loyal Soviet citizen and dissident, kulak and commissar, Stalin worshipper and Stalin hater, in-group and out. Aaron Lake Smith, Harper's magazine, 24 June 2019 Both were homicidal paranoiacs, determined to deport, enslave and exterminate entire categories of human beings: in Stalin’s case, the kulaks during the collectivization campaign; in Hitler’s, not just Jews but Slavs, Romani and numerous others. Strobe Talbott, New York Times, 18 Oct. 2017 Aiming to feed a growing urban work force and increase exports, Stalin’s henchmen forced peasants onto collective farms and eliminated relatively well-off peasants known as kulaks. Mark Atwood Lawrence, New York Times, 19 Oct. 2017 Her father, Apollon, an artist, was the son of a church official, and her mother, Anna, was the daughter of a kulak, or well-to-do peasant. William Grimes, New York Times, 23 Aug. 2016 See More
Washington Post, 9 May 2021 Relatively affluent farmers, known as kulaks, were among the groups targeted. NBC News, 6 Nov. 2019 According to the Party’s official account, Gemav’e had refused to pay taxes on his herd, making him a kulak. Bathsheba Demuth, The New Yorker, 15 Aug. 2019 There could be no future until shamans and kulaks, with their un-collectivized reindeer, were liquidated and their souls transformed. Bathsheba Demuth, The New Yorker, 15 Aug. 2019 Grossman could embrace any number of contradictions: loyal Soviet citizen and dissident, kulak and commissar, Stalin worshipper and Stalin hater, in-group and out. Aaron Lake Smith, Harper's magazine, 24 June 2019 Both were homicidal paranoiacs, determined to deport, enslave and exterminate entire categories of human beings: in Stalin’s case, the kulaks during the collectivization campaign; in Hitler’s, not just Jews but Slavs, Romani and numerous others. Strobe Talbott, New York Times, 18 Oct. 2017 Aiming to feed a growing urban work force and increase exports, Stalin’s henchmen forced peasants onto collective farms and eliminated relatively well-off peasants known as kulaks. Mark Atwood Lawrence, New York Times, 19 Oct. 2017 Her father, Apollon, an artist, was the son of a church official, and her mother, Anna, was the daughter of a kulak, or well-to-do peasant. William Grimes, New York Times, 23 Aug. 2016 See More Word History
Etymology
Russian, literally, fist
First Known Use
1877, in the meaning defined at sense 1