The article you mentioned has no explanation of where he got those figures, as far as I know there is no official data on this and estimates range from 3Mln to 60Mln [1], which as you can see is quite bizarre estimate. According to official documents there were 799,455 people executed in a period from 1921 to 1953 [2] and keep in mind that&#x27;s a total number of execution, not only those that were executed for political reasons, and that&#x27;s over a span of 30+ years, so thats around 72 person a day across a whole soviet union territory (around 160+Mln people)<p>&gt; on top of the estimated 20 million Soviet troops and civilians who perished in the Second World War<p>What does it have to do with Stalin? It was a war and people perish during a War.<p>&gt; estimated that the death toll directly attributable to Stalin’s rule amounted to some 20 million lives<p>Just think about it, Stalin was in power for 30 years, so he had to &quot;directly attribute&quot; to a death of 2000 people every single day? Sounds quite bizarre to me. No official data of the 20Mln of &quot;dead by Stalin&#x27;s attributing&quot;, if you want to down vote me - at least show me official data.<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Joseph_Stalin#Calculating_the_number_of_victims" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Joseph_Stalin#Calculating_the_...</a><p>[2] - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;education&#x2F;2002&#x2F;sep&#x2F;12&#x2F;highereducation.historyandhistoryofart" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;education&#x2F;2002&#x2F;sep&#x2F;12&#x2F;highereduca...</a>