Who were the kulaks?

The kulaks were Russian paesant landowners particularly famous (unfortunatelly) for being the targets of many murderous purges during Stalin's regime.

Kulaks were particularly persecuted by Stalin as responsibles for undermining, with their protests and opposition, the agricultural plans for the agricolture of the central Soviet government. The kulaks were perfect targets for the regime also because they owned small plots of land and were employing other poorer paesant under them (making them similar to the old tzarist's greedy and cruel landowners). Kulaks were purged and murdered in great number (in Ukraine, for example) by deportation and starvation.