As pointed out (again, I must give credit to Conquest’s books on the matter) Stalin actually IMPEDED the work on progress towards modernization.
The ‘rightists’ of the Communist Party wanted them to take an incremental and gradual approach to collectivization. Stalin would have none of it and it led to the deliberate starvation of millions (and the more violent murders of same) of Ukrainians and other ‘kulaks.’ Stalin’s brutal industrialization was similarly counterproductive compared to the groundwork that Lenin had laid.
The ridiculous quotas that were set ended up promoting the black-market, statistic-distorting, inefficient and destructive (environmentally too) institutional practices that would soon become synonymous with the “great hope for humanity” that was the Soviet Union.