Moneylenders, merchants, and anyone considered to be acquisitive. The term became specifically applied to wealthy peasants who, as a result of the agrarian reforms of Stolypin (1906), acquired relatively large farms and were financially able to employ labour. As a new element in rural Russia they were intended to create a stable middle class and a conservative political force. During the period of Lenin’s New Economic Policy (1921) they increasingly appeared to be a potential threat to a communist state, and Stalin’s collectivization policy (1928) inevitably aroused their opposition. Between 1929 and 1934 the great majority of farms were collectivized and the kulaks annihilated.