I will say this, I get frustrated by most any anti-Stalin slander

Stalin was very ugly and wasn’t hot.

But, seriously, thanks for the response! I do agree about the bias in seeing reports on negative events rather than on positive events. I know many people did relatively well in Soviet Union. My girlfriend’s family, for example, was deported/moved under Stalin, I think twice, so she and her family aren’t very sympathetic towards him and I figure that other families that remember those events will still harbor some grudge, understandably. But, that being said, their family did relatively well and she’s still a Communist.

Anyway, I’m just trying to navigate this because I don’t want to just blatantly dismiss the guy but I also know he wasn’t perfect and there is inevitably some truth to the claims but it’s difficult to parse what that is exactly. It’s also really helpful to learn that most purges didn’t involve executions and people made it out of gulags, and so on. Thanks!