Sure, they took out all the aristocracy (my great-grandparents were among them), confiscated all land and houses (my great-grandmother's mansion became a kindergarten), and raided all the wealthy merchants and businesses. And then they didn't know much what to do with it, other than grow food. Yay for basic agricultural economy.
And no, the transformation started before Stalin. Lenin was possibly even more evil and ruthless than Stalin, but we just didn't get a chance to see how much more. Stalin was just carrying forward Lenin's ideas.

Yes, Soviet Russia was marketless. We had three guys in our neighborhood, who owned a bakery, manage to get a higher allowance of flour, which, instead of using to make basic pasta like the their bakery was required to, they used to make extremely good pierogis using their own cooking skills and recipes. There was still pasta, but we all loved their pierogies, and paid them extra for it. When the government found out they were trying to make a profit selling their own stuff, all three were disappeared into a labor camp, and we never heard of them again.
I know my history, because my family and I live it. And I don't go to free-market web sites, or know of any. I just read a lot about global business and economics in various countries.