Russia did industrialize, very successfully. There was in fact concern that perhaps the communists had been right all along, and there's was really the superior economic system. By 1970, the Soviet Union was the 2nd largest industrial power in the world and produced more steel, oil, iron, cement and tractors than anyone else on Earth.

The issue I believe you're talking about is why didn't Russia develop a post industrial economy, like the Western capitalists. The answer there is multi-faceted, but really comes down to personal and politico-philosophical failures within the USSR. Breznhev (General Secretary from 1964-1982) simply continued pursuing the same policies that had worked previously, without really considering that the world was a very different place than it was in the 1930s. In 1979 being the country that produced the most tractors was a relatively meaningless accomplishment compared to - for example - being the country that developed the Intel 8088 microchip. Politico-philosophically, this inability to adapt to changing economic conditions was one of the primary issues with heavily centrally planned economies. The flexibility and responsiveness we take for granted in capitalist nations simply was not in existence.

It's worth pointing out America did play a non-trivial part in preventing the Soviet economy from advancing, but usually this was simply provoking them militarily into making their own situation worse. As an example: The 1982 Bekaa Valley Air Battle, the largest since the Korean war, saw Israel-manned and American-built aircraft inflict crippling losses on Syrian-manned and Soviet-built aircraft and air defense systems. The battle was remarkably one-sided (no Israelis were shot down, while 80 Syrian jets and 30 state of the art SAM sites were destroyed), and caused Moscow to start funneling the money desperately needed for modernization into their archaic military-industrial system in the futile attempt to regain military parity.

Source: Communism in Crisis 1976-89, Allan Todd

For explanation of the post-Soviet history of Russia, I'm afraid I don't have the expertise to comfortably explore. I've not read any serious scholarship on the subject, so would simply be spouting pop culture ideas.