The Russians view their position as liberating Eastern Europe because it liberated the Slavic people from a race war waging Nazi regime that sought to liquidate and carry out genocide against the Slavic peoples to turn what survived into a race of "slaves" for Germans.
Don't know if I'd go that far...
Stalin was not very smart.. i.e. he was a communist..
Or rather he used communism to achieve power..
Doubt he thought that far ahead.. He was just a power hungry crazy person.. Just because your crazy don't mean your stupid.. Once you've got power keeping it a task all by itself.. I think Stalin just got power where ever he could and simply murdered all that threatened it..
Basically a rapist that went political.. and boy was he good at rape.. Whatever Stalin did, the rape came first.. then the obligatory beating.. or murder..
A socio-path with power.. like Hillary Clinton..
-AND- (put in your own names)
I guess that's why the Reds collaborated with the Nazis to make the Molotov - Ribbentropp pact. I guess they wanted to protect the Slavs by dividing Poland. I guess nations on the border of the Soviet Union were too ignorant to comprehend what refugees from that country told them.
It appears to me that you're trying to make some relativistic differentiation between Nazis and Commies, i.e. some marginal distinction without a real difference. Nazis initially went after Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and then Slavs, according to their priorities, but they still looked at anyone else who was not an Aryan as an inferior, to be dealt with later, while the Reds were equal opportunity killers if you did not tow the party line.
As for the numbers killed by Nazis versus Russian Commies, Nazi killing fields were accessible. Stalin's killing fields were not. It also ignores the aid and comfort that the Soviet Union gave to Chinese Communists, Korean Communists, Vietnamese Communists, Cuban Communists, etc. It also ignores the repression they practiced in their own country and behind the Iron Curtain, especially during the uprisings in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslavakia in 1968. This doesn't count the cost of their adventurism in South America, Africa and other parts of Asia.
Give me a break. My in-laws fled North Vietnam in 1954. Commie or Russian apologia get no sympathy from me. To me, both Nazis and Commies are equally vile. How Nazis were placed on the right side of the political spectrum still escapes me. They espoused nothing that was conservative or libertarian, only racist.
The horse and the man both had an enemy, the wolf. One day the man came to the horse and told him , if you will let me ride on your back we can kill the wolf and both benefit.
The horse thought it over and agreed. So the man saddled and bridled the horse and they went off and killed the wolf.
Afterward the horse said, " thank you for your help in getting rid of our enemy, now if you would be so kind as to remove yourself from my back." To which the man replied, "THE HELL YOU SAY DOBBIN, GIDDE UP!"
Getting rid of the wolf didn't give Russians the right to 50 years of domination over Eastern Europe.