Either way, Stalin was a butcher. It has been said that he killed more of his own people than any other leader in history. The famine is Exhibit "A" in that argument.

that was given to him about Hitler preparing to invade. He thought he had made a deal with Hitler, and that Hitler was going to keep his word. I read that the German's got within a few miles from Moscow. Stalin was a butcher just as you said. What an awful person.

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The September 30, 1939, invasion of Poland by those two countries was beyond horrific. My father would tell me that he was jubilant when Hitler turned on the USSR in June 1941. As you say, Hitler's army made a powerful push. However, the broad expanse of the terrain and the steadfastness of the Soviet soldiers wore down the German army.

Read it a few months ago and learned about Holodomor - had never heard of it

was the Russian Famine of 1921-22. The photograph images of the time are shocking, beware.

The famine came at the end of six and a half years of unrest and violence (first World War I, then the two Russian revolutions of 1917, then the Russian Civil War). Many different political and military factions were involved in those events, and most of them have been accused by their enemies of having contributed to, or even bearing sole responsibility for, the famine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1921%E2%80%9322

List of Famines, Worldwide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines

I had a Ukrainian exchange student living with me. She made sure I knew about that.