dekulakize
/dɪˈkulæˌkaɪz/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
28
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
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.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "[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."
- "[page 122] Ivan ‘dekulakises’ a peasant’s pig, and delivers it to the police. […] [page 124] [A]ll this [rotting] meat had originated with pigs ‘dekulakised’ from the peasants, and slaughtered by the Activists. About a month after this fragrant event, half of the local Activists were themselves slaughtered by the peasants and the remainder fled."
- "Or admit the kulak who dekulakizes himself. But can we now entertain the illusion that kulaks on any considerable scale will go in for self-dekulakization?"
- "[T]he Belorussian novelist Vasil’ Bykov, following the award of the Lenin prize for his novel Znak bedy, explained that in Belorussia ‘we did not have any kulaks generally, but they required us to dekulakise’."
- "Later, [Mikhail] Gorbachev asked me: "What do you think he is, exactly?" / "A farmer," I [Shevardnadze] said. "A good manager. But if you like, we can de-kulakize him. Then there won't be any farm, milk, or livestock.""
- "Local officials may have had no other resort but to dekulakize illegally or tax as kulaks the households of otkhodniki in order to raise the collectivization rates or increase the landholding of the collective farms."
Etymology
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /dɪˈkulæˌkaɪz/
- British English: /dɪˈkuːlækaɪz/