Stalin has always been under-rated in the United States. Truth was, he was a hero who helped to defeat the Nazis and Imperial Japan. But saying that undermines those who want Churchill and FDR to take all the credit.
That anyone in the 21st century would ever attribute heroism to a man who murdered 20 million people (that's a low estimate btw) is beyond comprehensible.
Was Stalin the "lesser of two evils" in the fight with ole Adolf? Perhaps. But anyone who holds Stalin in anything but contempt is either utterly ignorant of a huge swath of 20th century history or has a profoundly twisted sense of morality.
I suggest you take a brief spin on Uncle Joe's wikipedia page or read Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin to get a feel for just what sort of hero Stalin was.
EDIT: I misread. It's about double, 3 million. Unreliable figure in any case.
But you're right that 1.5 million is too small. I read again and there's about 3 million officially recorded victims. I cannot trust or distrust the higher figures, as these were reported either by western media or political dissidents, both of whom have very good reasons to demonise the USSR.
Just as the USSR spread a lot of lies about the Western world, I don't trust the Western media about these controversial subjects.
The artifical famine of 1932-1933 was not a natural famine. It was a calculated effort by Stalin to undermine the Ukrainian peasant farmers, a class he viewed as a threat, and force them into collectivization. It was perpetrated by the Communist party through the steady increase in grain quotas. It is a matter that of historic fact that Ukrainians starved to death while trains shipped away mountains of grain that they themselves had grown.
Feel free to distrust "Western media", but there are primary sources that support this narrative. For instance, Soviet defector Victor Kravchenko's account, or the narrative of American (and up to that point Soviet sympathizer) William H. Chamberlin (although perhaps you might not trust his account since he's a Westerner).
"... during the period of 1928–53, about 14 million prisoners passed through the system of GULAG labour camps and 4-5 passed through the labour colonies."
Original source: Robert Conquest in 'Victims of Stalinism: A Comment.' Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 49, No. 7 (Nov., 1997), pp. 1317-1319 states: "We are all inclined to accept the Zemskov totals (even if not as complete) with their 14 million intake to Gulag 'camps' alone, to which must be added 4-5 million going to Gulag 'colonies', to say nothing of the 3.5 million already in, or sent to, 'labor settlements'."
Subtracting the ~1.5M foreign prisoners of war, the 12M estimate seemed like a reasonable minimum number of Russians sent to the Gulag.
One evil does not cancel out another. Of course it was still preferable that the US won, and there is no denying that they made a very important contribution to end WWII. But there is no need for hero worship. Just because the Allies fought an opponent that was worse, does not absolve them from criticism for their behavior.
I think there is a lot of post rationalization about the attrocities commited by the Allies. If one admitted that a lot of the killing of civilians was unessesary and barbaric, then the story would not be such a nice good guys vs bad guys story.
Stalin wasn't a hero. The Nazis were defeated by USSR (millions of peoples oppressed by the Stalin's regime, yet the alternative was even worse). USA helped defeat the Nazis.
USA defeated Japan. USSR helped defeat the Japan. USSR had no viable ambitions and wasn't in any shape to have them beyond the 38th parallel.
But I don't normally see "Stalin" and "hero" used on purpose in the same sentence either...
Ask any Jewish person what they think of Stalin.
In another context, ask any Palestinian what he thinks of the foreigners who invaded his home in the 1940s, and massacred his kin and are continuing to increase the bloody settlement of his land...
The fact that the Soviets freed concentration camp victims as they came across the camps afterwards is admirable, but that wasn't why the Soviets were fighting, just as the U.S. wasn't fighting just to save the Jews.
Why should we applaud Stalin for the sacrifices of his men?