The growth was staggering because they stole grain and farmland from their citizens, exported it to buy machinery because the USSR couldn't manufacture themselves, which was also wasted since they didn't have the ability to keep the machines maintained properly.
So yeah, turns out you can do things if you starve your people to death. (See North Korea)
They industrialized fast enough to defeat the Nazis who otherwise would probably have exterminated them. The urgency and the threat they faced if they didnt industrialize quickly enough was real and existential.
And yes, in order to do so they caused millions of Ukrainians to starve by exporting all of the food they grew.
Exactly like Britain did to my ancestors in Ireland for profit.
The cost of that though. My grandmother and her sister were two survivors out of five children. The rest of the kids died of hunger and sickness during random migrations between villages in 1930s. Her father lost everything he had because soviets decided itβs theirs now, so the whole family had to move someplace else to find a new home. Not everyone had made it.
