The question posed that I started the discussion with was if he was a dictator.

Stalin did not individually cause or carry out purges, how could he have done so?

I mean it’s not like Hitler did the gassing himself. But rather as a leader ordering it. Doesn’t diminish the responsibility. And nobody claimed he personally killed these people.

Stalin’s role was not as some Great Man (not Great as in Good, but Great as in influential), but as a steward of the USSR like any other would have been.

I think that’s the thing we disagree about, how much control he had.