<< Actually, even if you counted the Jews, it's probable that proportionately the number of Soviet citizens killed by Stalin was higher than the number of Germans killed directly by Hitler (as opposed to casualties during the war). Stalin is usually estimated at around 20 million >>
I don't want to get into a numbers game, but the figure quoted for Stalin cannot be supported by any actual research. Demographers, historians, and other researchers have been trying for more than 30 years to come up with estimates for how many Soviets and others died in the collectivization, the Gulag, etc., and they can't come up with anything even remotely close to 20 million. The figures that can be supported by research are not even a fifth of that. This is NOT a whitewash of Stalin, by the way! However many people died is too many. It's just that, for some people, insisting on going with a figure that can be documented somehow becomes letting Stalin off the hook (like the murder victim's relative who complained, when the killer's sentence was commuted from capital punishment to life in prison without the chance for parole, that the killer got off "scot-free"). If you want to blame Stalin for his part in starting World War II, in which uncounted millions perished, then yes, you can increase his death count as much as you like. Including Soviets who died during the Nazi invasion and occupation because of Stalin's pusillanimity and incompetence. But that's not the same thing. I don't like it when people quote things that aren't true (such as the legend of the King of Denmark wearing a Star of David, or the vastly inflated number of Stalin's victims) and have been established as not being true or accurate. It doesn't really matter who killed more, Hitler or Stalin. They were and are both among the greatest criminals in the history of a very wicked world. As a Jew, I am naturally going to argue that Hitler was worse; but then, Stalin was no philo-semite either... Tom Beck "I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I didn't realize I'd also see the last." - Jerry Pournelle
