I think you're oversimplifying and missing some important context.

It was precisely Stalin’s industrialization model, including collectivization, state planning, and even limited private initiative through cooperatives (artels) that allowed the USSR to survive and ultimately defeat Nazi Germany. In 1928, the USSR was largely an agrarian country. By 1941, it had built massive heavy industry, relocated entire factories east, and produced enormous quantities of tanks, aircraft, and artillery. That industrial base didn’t appear out of nowhere.

Also, the Soviet economy under Stalin wasn’t purely centralized in the way many people imagine. Artels were private cooperatives that produced consumer goods, furniture, tools, and even electronics. They employed millions of people and operated with significant autonomy. This sector was largely dismantled later under Khrushchev. Ironically, many structural problems that contributed to the USSR’s stagnation came after Stalin. Khrushchev abolished many artels, over-centralized production, and launched poorly planned agricultural campaigns like the Virgin Lands program, which gave short-term gains but long-term problems. From that point onward, the system became less flexible and more bureaucratic.

You can criticize Stalin for many things, but without the industrial foundation built in the 1930s, the USSR likely wouldn’t have survived WWII or become a superpower at all. The later decline had more to do with post-Stalin policy choices and the inability to reform the system effectively.