

Because associated independent preindustrial farms can’t face invasion from industrialized nations. Leaving the farmers in the past would have been the death of them. Remember: the USA, France, Poland, Japan, Greece, Estonia, Romania, Serbia and Italy invaded the RSFSR during the Russian Civil War for the sin of being communist. Stalin famously predicted the Nazi invasion 10 years in advance:
We are 50–100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they crush us.
-Stalin, 1931, talking about the industrialization of the Soviet Union.
From your link:
That is absolutely not a territorial claim, it’s a statement about Russian history. He specifically mentioned the horrors of the tsarist empire, which you will never hear Putin do