I have read all posts on this and find the discussion to be very interesting. Not so because it contains any revelations about Stalin. Stalin is dead as is his era. What is interesting to me here is the number of posts that seem to defend him. I have read extensively about him and his era. My opinion is that there is little to admire about him. Any so-called good he might have done was accomplished at a terrible cost to Russian people. It would not have been 'easy' for another leader to, for example, industrialize Russia, but another could have accomplished same thing somewhat easier.
There are some matters to which a philosophically balanced attitude is too meek. Stalin is one of them.
Another thing I would like to state. The Russian historians who have tried, in recent years, to paint a somewhat rehabilitative gloss upon the wreckage of Stalin, and who use what they have called 'truthful documents' have probably, in reality, worked with documents that are very much censored. For what reason should the rulers of Russia have for real statistics to be revealed? Besides, many of these historians are working toward a pre-conceived thesis. They wish to 'reform' Stalin, and then go on to find 'facts' to support their already formed opinions. Even so, it remains very difficult to draw Stalin as a hero. I would repeat what others have here said, he was a murderer, a very vile man.
One of the best portraits of Stalin was in a book made from notes by Nikita Khrushchev, called "Khrushchev Remembers". I have it, but it may well be out of print now.