Stalin, a Georgian by birth, is second only to Hitler on the list of individuals directly responsible for the most Russian deaths. Yet the Russian people have a heritage of accepting cruel leaders as their fate and necessary for their national survival. Although Stalin was a very flawed wartime leader,a great majority of the Russian people immediately after the war and even now credit him with throwing back the German onslaught and preserving the Russian nation.
It can also be said that the American people owe Stalin a great debt. If he had not been able to rally the Russian people, tenaciously and at great cost fight the Germans, depleting the German army of its best units, Americans would have suffered a much higher causality rate in a longer war. Many Americans who live today might not exist if their progenitors had been killed in Europe instead of returning home. All those dead Russians that Stalin sent into often hopeless battles ended up saving many American lives.
History is complex.
He arguably was responsible for more Russian deaths than Hitler, and ruled for twice as long. And I have a lot of problems with your interpretation of how WWII unfolded, but even beyond that. With regard to American deaths. What about the Korean War? Stalin hand-picked and installed Kim Il-Sung in North Korea himself!
And that’s just ONE, hot, “Cold” War related conflict of many.
Read the Gulag Archipelago to see what Stalin did to Russia.
History is complex but Stalin was a monster.
Also: not fully denouncing Stalin and Lenin means not fully denouncing communism...which continues to kill millions. It means not attributing responsibility to the USSR for the world order it shaped to the detriment of so many innocent people who either perish, suffered, or led wasted lives in repressive darkness.