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Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.<br/><br/>

According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin described them as 'bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine'. Marxism–Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat. In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivisation of farms and land to allow industrialisation or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resisters; others were deported to labor camps.
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Russian SFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).<br/><br/>

The Tsar was forced to abdicate and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time).<br/><br/>

In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Russian SFSR.<br/><br/>

The Tsar was forced to abdicate and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time).<br/><br/>

In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Russian SFSR.<br/><br/>

The Tsar was forced to abdicate and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time).<br/><br/>

In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Russian SFSR.<br/><br/>

The Tsar was forced to abdicate and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time).<br/><br/>

In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
The Russian famine of 1921, also known as Povolzhye famine, which began in the early spring of that year and lasted through 1922, was a severe famine that occurred in Bolshevik Russia. The famine, which killed an estimated 6 million people, affected mostly the Volga and Ural River region.<br/><br/>

The famine resulted from the combined effect of economic disturbance, which had already started during World War I, and continued through the disturbances of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War with its policy of War Communism, especially prodrazvyorstka, aided furthermore by rail systems that could not move food around efficiently.<br/><br/>

One of Russia's intermittent droughts that occurred in 1921 aggravated the situation to the level of the national catastrophe. Hunger was so severe that it was doubtful that seed-grain would be sown rather than eaten. At one point, relief agencies had to give grain to the railroad staff to get their supplies moved. The famine was the justification offered for the Bolsheviks' 1922 confiscation of Russian Orthodox Church property in Russia.