Yeah, before I got to the end it kinda looked like tankie apologism.

No, they were robbing and killing everyone who even slightly reminded "the bourgeoisie", "to build an equal society of workers". They also sold whatever they could abroad (they sold a fucking Alaska!), and villagers who stopped being serfs less than a century before, became modern slaves who couldn't leave their kolhoz (farming cooperative).
Edit: the big sale also involved grain, which led to starvation