I largely agree that Stalin's economic policies were detrimental to the USSR. This argument will be made on the basis of scale. Collectivisation caused 17 million peasants to join the farms. While this did increase the manpower of the farms, the total number of people exterminated due to the violent opposition from the farmers was 7 million people, and the total number of people who died from famine was around 12 million. Since more people died than became farmers for the countries economy, Stalin's economic policies actually did more harm than good to the society.