# Was the smear campaign against the Kulaks in any way deserved? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 2, 2023, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-smear-campaign-against-the-kulaks-in-any-way-deserved/989496 "2023-09-02T10:33:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-smear-campaign-against-the-kulaks-in-any-way-deserved/989496/1 "2023-09-02T10:33:13Z")
Were there any aspects of the Bolshevik smear campaign against the Kulaks that were deserved? Did they mistreat the peasants ? Did they engage in usury ? Was this all just Bolshevik propaganda ? ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-smear-campaign-against-the-kulaks-in-any-way-deserved/989496/2 "2023-09-02T12:14:35Z")
Almost certainly not. Unless you classed anyone who didn’t wholeheartedly sign-up to the Bolshevik plan as a kulak. The designation was pretty arbitrary - most peasants didn’t have much, and kulaks didn’t have much more than nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2023, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-smear-campaign-against-the-kulaks-in-any-way-deserved/989496/3 "2023-09-04T01:01:51Z")
The term Kulak was a tool to enforce the Bolshevik agenda. It was elastically applied, to whatever level of wealth was necessary to remove anyone who wasn’t sufficiently supportive of the Bolsheviks. Even those who had _nothing_ could be branded as ideological Kulaks.