--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> But didn't Stalin do in the hated kulaks, which made
> the peasantry very happy?
>
> Doug
Well yeah, but the definition of "kulak" was quite expansive (i.e. you are a kulak if you own a cow) and a lot of people got denounced because their neighbors didn't like them. Eventually everybody got collectivized, forcibly or otherwise, or moved to the cities. The peasantry dissappeared as a class under Stalin -- when people talk about peasants in the fSU today what they really mean is collective-farm workers.
The greatgrandfather of my roommate, whom I just mentioned, was a kulak. He wasn't physically repressed though -- he had his farm taken away and then moved to the city.
I really suspect there may have been something unconsciously self-destructive about the Stalin Cult.
===== Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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