This is more or less the focus of Chapter 2 of Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed

Put simply, Stalin’s collectivization was extraordinarily rushed because Stalin had for so long opposed collectivization and promoted the growth of the kulak class. So when they became a problem, he felt forced to reverse course in a hasty, heavy-handed fashion as opposed to a more long-term, planned transition

First, in the aftermath of the civil war economic production cratered, which caused the enactment of the New Economic Policy. The idea of reestablishing the market was to connect the millions of far-flung isolated peasant enterprises with the industrial centers in the manner in which they were accustomed to treat with the outside world: through trade. And if industry provided necessary goods at adequate prices to the countryside, then the state would not need to engage in forced collection of produce

Economic growth was fast and large, but there was still a fundamental problem. Industrial products were too expensive. Even though the peasants profited massively from the land reform and doing away of the former noble landowners, they were paying all of it back for basic necessities. Industry couldn’t mass manufacture goods to be cheap enough because it relied on peasant grain to develop, but the price differential did not encourage more grain to be traded to the cities. The state could not forcibly collect too much or else the peasants would simply stop planting, not seeing any benefit. Collect too little and industry wouldn’t develop, leading to local home crafts replacements, breaking the important “connection”

In this situation Bukharin famously tells the peasants to “get rich!” The kulaks (wealthy peasants) begin to split from the rest of the peasant mass, getting richer and richer. Their growing influence led to the legalization of hiring hands for the farms and renting land, splitting the peasants into developing capitalists and their employees.

The state found itself unable to compete in this situation and was forced to trade with private enterprises for the raw materials needed for industry. In 1926 Stalin was preparing to denationalize the land while nearly 60% of sold grain was controlled by 6% of the peasants. The state’s lack of grain meant it could not trade for materials or machinery to develop industry

In 1927, only 8% of peasant families belonged to collectives. While the Left Opposition was able to stop direct attempts to denationalize land, they unsuccessfully lobbied for systematic state investment in organizing collectives. Something Molotov said was impossible

At this time, the peasants were beginning to reduce production because they weren’t receiving enough goods from the cities. The right wing under Rykov, Tomsky, and Bukharin advocated raising the price of grain, even at the expense of slower industrial development. Under that situation, industrial development would require trading surplus grain on the world market for machinery and materials, essentially leading to the reestablishment of capitalism. The left under Trotsky advocated for increased taxes on the kulaks to be used to invest in making more goods and keep prices low. Stalin did not like this idea

In 1928, the grain strike only continued to get worse and a famine began to loom. At first, the government tried to pretend it was simply hostility to the socialist state, and not a material profit motive driving peasant behavior.

Forced collection was now necessary to feed the cities, which left the wealthy peasants with no incentive to increase production and the hired hands with no more jobs. Thus, the intended temporary collections transmuted into a desire to liquidate the kulaks entirely under collectivization. Between 1928-1929 the policy of the government essentially was completely reversed.

In 1929 collective farms were went from 1.7% to 3.9% of the total, in 1930 to 23.6%, in 1931 to 52.7%, and in 1932 to 61.5%

Of course, large scale mass farming enterprises require much more sophisticated machinery than the Soviets had. Collectivization using the tools for small-scale farming was a risky bet

This mad rush to collectivize led to confusion and poor implementation. The government collectivized nearly everything that wasn’t nailed down, leading to peasants desperately selling their animals and implements, or just slaughtering them, before the state could take them.

At the stroke of a pen, the government sought to replace 25 million individual enterprises with just 2000 collectives that had neither the equipment, knowledge, nor peasant support to work effectively. Horse numbers fell by 55%, horned cattle by 40%, pigs by 55%, and sheep by 66%. Sugar production was halved. Grain production had a relatively smaller reduction, but its previous levels were not exactly keeping everyone fat, so it was no less disastrous.

Stalin tried to do in 2 years what Trotsky said should have taken at least 10-15. The economic disaster soon affected industry as well. Product quality and productivity declined as workers migrated or became careless and machines went without maintenance and broke down.

Had the rest of the world not been mired in the Great Depression, someone may have taken the chance to invade and end the Soviet Union.

The simple fact that Trotsky advocated for a more measured, slow, and planned collectivization would almost certainly have been better to some degree. But we can see that Stalin was not helped by his decisions leading up to collectivization and his allowing of the growth of the kulaks and their power.

Trotsky didn’t want forced collectivization, but rather for the state to invest in the collective farms until they could outcompete the individual farms and naturally grow to replace them. He wanted to finance that by taxing the kulaks, which also would have reduced their political influence and economic power, and by adopting a much more long-term and systematic approach rather than Stalin’s blind stumbling around.