Dekulakize
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Usually with reference to the Soviet Union and communist Eastern Europe: to dispossess a kulak (that is, a prosperous peasant) of his or her property and/or rights. historical, transitive
"[W]hen, in their eagerness to achieve a higher percentage of collectivisation, they began to employ force against the middle peasants, to deprive them of the right to vote, by "dekulakising" and expropriating them, the united front with the middle peasants began to be undermined and the kulak obtained the opportunity, as is quite clear, to make fresh attempts to recover his position."
Example
More examples"[W]hen, in their eagerness to achieve a higher percentage of collectivisation, they began to employ force against the middle peasants, to deprive them of the right to vote, by "dekulakising" and expropriating them, the united front with the middle peasants began to be undermined and the kulak obtained the opportunity, as is quite clear, to make fresh attempts to recover his position."
Etymology
From de- + kulak + -ize, a calque of Russian раскула́чить (raskuláčitʹ), from рас- (ras-) (a variant of раз- (raz-, “prefix meaning ‘removing, undoing’”)) + кула́к (kulák, “wealthy peasant”, literally “fist”) + -и (-i) + -ть (-tʹ, “suffix indicating infinitives of verbs”).
Related phrases
More for "dekulakize"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.