[Cronos]

Russia see's things differently, collectively. Muscowy is not part of the West, it is a continuation of both the Mongol Empire and the Byzantine Empire.

The millions of their own killed are coincidental to the act of their great power.

Stalin was a monster, but he made them great, so goes their thinking

This is why they could never understand the Poles - both are Slavs but their mentality is so utterly different even at an individual level: you get 2 Poles together and you will have 3 political parties. poles love to debate, argue, disagree. But Ruskies don't - they get hot and bothered and will stick to the "party line"

Stalinism was a natural fit - Stalin was the Red Tsar.

Even under the Tsars, the Russian peasants were treated horribly - worse than Poles or other conquered peoples were, yet the Russians didn't revolt against the Tsar

It's what Stalin said "Communism in Poland is like putting a saddle on a bull"

[dfwgator]

True that Russians don’t see Stalin as a Communist. They don’t lump him in with Lenin, Brezhnev, etc. He is beyond ideology, they see him as a modern-day “Ivan the Terrible”, who also just happened to be Stalin’s role model. To him, the Bolsheviks were just a means to gain power.