It would have made a huge difference. Stalin was the 'intellectual heir' of Marxism-Leninism which is the lodestone of liberals everywhere. The NYT was one of the principal cheerleaders for that murderous thug, btw. Actually I heard from Chaim Ben Pesach that the NYT supported Hitler too. The guy who wrote the articles praising Hitler and Stalin won a Pulitzer prize for each article. Ironically the guy was a Jew
I know his website is banned on FR but I'm going to write about the NYT on my blog about this tomorrow I think.