"Well - maybe a person who didn't see the documentary on PBS America (in the UK on Freeview) would say that."
The feller who bothered to go out and find out for himself does
In order to do what you claim it would take nearly as many loyal lackeys standing by to carry out such a ridiculous claim -- an armed guard behind every disloyal citizen
Yours is the Russia of yesterday's black and white 1950s movies
It is a sad fact that Stalin was one of the most loved despots the twentieth century has known - "Uncle Joe" (even in the West) - "The Father of Russian people"
Wasn't it one of yours (I assume you are a H. S.) who said "You can't fool all of the people all of the time?"
Russia changed for the better radically after the revolution - their constitution even included the right of having a roof over your head
Stalin's crimes were largely aimed at slaughtering his rivals - Simon Sebag Montefiori's biography of him (no admirer of either Stalin or Communism)

Stalin started out as an ignorant, unstable Zealot dedicated to a cause whose ruthlessness and ignorance drove him mad
Even so, he was part of a Russia made up largely of peasants who hardly owned the wherewithal to work their land, to a modern, progressive contender on the world stage
The ruthlessness he used to build a new Russia was easily equal to that used by the Western Powers when they slaugheterd a generalisation in the mud of Flanders to settle a squabble between two royal families over who should own the larger slice of the world, or before that, the ten million Congolese rubber workers who were butchers so the Emperor of 'Gallant Little Belgium" could swell his bank balance
The West went on by polluting two major cities with radiation - killing off and deforming children decades later
That went on to pouring burning petrol on peasants for political domination, slaughtering for oil.... and all the other aspects of modern civilization that makes today such a comfortable and friendly time to be around
THe difference between what happened in Russia and our world is that theirs was a beautiful dream that went wrong, ours was never about anything other than giving those who already have too much, more
Jim Carroll