In economic terms, the results of Stalin's collectivisation were disastrous; Stalin achieved little in the way of economic stability through the policy, destroying any alliance between town and countryside.

Rural population starved in order to release food for export to gain much-needed foreign exchange. Removal of supplies from the countryside resulted not only in starvation, but the limitation of freedom and eventual serfdom for the peasants. If anything, in this case, any specific agricultural management change seems to have been for the worse, and Stalin often found reverting to the old capitalist system of farming.

Despite the fact that few industries reached the targets of the Five Year Plans, there is no doubt that their economic achievements were substantial, and that Russia saw a great modernisation in industry. Rapid growth in the engineering industry and fuel production. The 1930s saw a fourfold increase in steel and six fold...