Quote Originally Posted by SergeMak View Post
No, you wrong, the exact number of the victims of Stalin repressions is very precisely counted. Strangely enough but the bolsheviks were good accountants. There is a dossier for every disappeared victim. There is a small problem - this number is not big enough to satisfy modern West anti-soviet (read "anti-Russia") propaganda.
You can read about it here: Легенда о количестве жертв сталинских репрессий (Владимир Иванов 57) / Проза.ру - национальный сервер современной прозы
So what IS the figure, and is it contested? I honestly have NO idea.

The article was a bit hard to follow, I thought.

Another aspect to this, is that the USSR really strongly rejected Stalin's personality cult and his brutal tactics almost immediately after he died.

It's clear that a lot of higher up people were scared of his regime, and as soon as he was off the scene, they rejected him, and discouraged personality cults in other communist countries.