I think it is both. As you noted elsewhere, Russian society changed very little over the past 150 years, and the kulak mentality is deeply ingrained. Ditto for Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine & Co.
Part of my ex's family were Eastern Poland/Ukrainian kulaks who expatriated to formerly German territories in western Poland. And as they say, one can take a person out of Eastern Europe one cannot take Eastern Europe out of a person. Once a kulak, always a kulak. These folks did relatively well as farmers and spent a big deal of their money on status symbols and tacky wealth displays they did not need - conspicuously worn expensive but tacky jewelry, fur coats, expensive furniture covered with plastic (since they never used it) and so on. They were laughing stock to their more urbane relatives but they were held in high esteem by the locals. I saw plenty characters like them in my travels through EE.
The fact that Russia has probably one of the best public transit systems in the world, and yet places like Moscow or Leningrad (or whatever it is called nowadays) are jammed with cars is, imho, yet another expression of kulak mentality. They buy and drive the damn things not to move around, for they could that more cheaply and effectively using the metro, but to show off.
Wojtek