Quote Originally Posted by emka71aln
I've read so many history books that all give different estimates of how many people he killed in his purges - estimates between 2 and 7 million.
Strange books you read. It's MUCH more! Only in the artificially created Ukrainian famine millions died!

Some people say that it was excusable because the industry he developed by urbanizing Russia and forcing work in the Gulags allowed the Soviet army to be prepared enough to fight off Hitler, and provide a framework for a strong economy. His constitution also set the same basic rights as we had in America at that time, and sometimes even more (expecially for women).

(Just a little tidbit to see if anyone will take a pro-Stalinist side)
Well, about industrialization: you've got a point there. The USSR did reap great benefits of this in their war with Hitler. However, this came at huge costs in human lives and a lesser pace also would have been possible. Besides, Stalin made so many mistakes in the years before the war (purging large numbers of Soviet officers, placing the Soviet forces in the wrong place, destroying fortifications) that the positive benefits of the industrialization program were nullified to some extend.

Also, let's not forget that Stalin was in a way responsible for Hitler becoming Fuehrer of Germany. He forbid the German Communists to form an alliance with the Social Democrats against Nazism. Instead, he gave them orders to fight the Soc Dems and let Hitler be; he would only be a temporary phenomenon. This way he weakened the anti-Hitler forces in Germany and the rest, as they say, is history.

And about the constitution: that's a joke. According to that constitution Soviet citizens lived in a virtual paradise. Everyone knows that the reality was not *exactly* like that.