False, Russia was attempting to rapidly industrialize and needed to purchase foreign technology and needed foreign currency to do so.

So he sold the grain that would feed his people in exchange for USD, Deutschmarks, Pound Sterling that he could use to buy industrial equipment.

I mean, it's not exactly out of place for Stalin to sacrifice his people's lives to realize his goals for Mother Russia. Plus the added benefit that the people dying were troublemakers anyways (Ukrainian nationalists).

Do note that when the famine did strike, those same foreign countries offered famine relief that Stalin promptly turned down.