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I think they were both pretty equal in evil. The reason that Stalin gets a pass is that it makes an absolute mess of the moral certainty that the postwar order created. We were allies with Russia, and im not sure that the Allies would have won without Stalin and his war machine. If the war had remained a one front war, it’s possible that some form of Nazi German Empire would have survived. It was only because Russia was involved that we won, and thus talking about Holodomor and Gulag systems (which were absolutely as evil as any of the German labor camps) becomes a bit of a hagiographic problem. Stalin being known to be equally as ruthless would turn the story sideways. Which is a problem because the postwar mythological narrative of Liberal Western Globalist order is “we defeated the worst thing that had ever existed. Thus we have the moral right to rule over everything.” And furthermore it gives the new order a moral certainty— evil looks like Hitler, evil looks like straight armed salutes, arm bands, and speeches in big stadiums and big red flags.
Now they were obviously both evil and killed millions and committed genocide of people into the millions of people. But I don’t think the way the mythology works in th3 modern world works for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it turned things that used to be considered okay into evil simply because they’d been used to evil ends. Nationalism and patriotism are usually good things, they hold people together to build a country. It works in China. They think being Chinese is good and favor things that benefit China.
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