Comparing Hitler and Stalin

Randy Black says:The Victory Day celebrations in Russia were perhaps the biggest celebrations of all in the nations involved in World War II.  Putin has given several interviews lately that essentially called Stalin a tyrant, yet objected to Stalin’s being compared to Hitler. Perhaps other WAISers might offer their opinions as to why one leader was worse, or less worse, than the other. Below is a story regarding Putin’s opinions on this topic.
 
MOSCOW. May 6 (Interfax) - President Vladimir Putin has spoken against likening Stalin to Hitler in a joint interview granted with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to Bild newspaper.  "I cannot agree with equating Stalin, and Hitler. Yes, of course, Stalin was a tyrant and many people call him a criminal. But he was not a Nazi! And they were not Soviet troops that crossed the German border on June 22, 1941, it was the other way around. That should not be forgotten in the first place," Putin said.  Putin feels Stalin and his era were an inseparable part of the complex and often contradictory history of Russia that should be known and the lessons of which should be remembered.
 
"One of them is evident. Dictatorship, the suppression of liberties is a road nowhere to for a state, for a nation. The absence of controls, autocracy, inevitably give a free hand to crimes. There were plenty of them during the
Stalin era - political purges, the deportation of entire ethnic groups. That deserves a considered assessment," Putin said.