[cmdkeen]

The USSR becoming the world's first space faring nation is to a large extent the result of the Second World War and the knowledge gained from German scientists - because Stalin purged the nascent Soviet programme during the Red Terror.

Was the breaking of the kulaks - causing the Holodomor which killed an estimated 2.5m-7m Ukranians let alone deaths across the rest of the USSR - a necessary step in the industrialisation of Russia?

Capitalism industrialised - and indeed created industrialisation, with some pretty nasty consequences which led to unionisation and the growth of the middle classes. However none of those nasty consequences were anything close to what Communist regimes have brought us - that isn't bias, historical propaganda, it is just fact on whatever measure you choose to adopt.