No argument that Stalin was one of the most cruel and fundamentally evil leaders in recorded history. He came in a close second to Hitler for the number of Russians and Ukrainians he killed or starved. Also the aid the US rendered to Russia was critically important in many ways. However if it were not for the stubborn , resolute willingness of the Russian people to fight where others simply capitulated, the best of the German army would not have been destroyed and the United States would have suffered immense casualties trying to liberate Europe.Hence many of us now living may not have come to exist.
The Germans basically gave them no choice but to resist.
I think had the Germans tried to win over the local populations, they would have won the war easily. Many welcomed the Germans originally as liberators.
Hitler could have given Ukraine, the same treatment as Slovakia. Yes, it would have been a German puppet state, but for the most part the Ukrainian people would be left alone. How many would have taken that over Stalin in a heartbeat?
Actually Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler did.
The peasants fought because they had no choice, millions had already been murdered by the most murdering white man in history, so when he ordered them into battle and to die by the millions because they were used carelessly and indifferently, they did, or died by not doing it.
We and the rest of the world that hadn’t been conquered and absorbed by that dictator then had to endure the loss of many millions in wars around the world during the decades following his conquest of much of Europe.